Response to comments received

Thank you all for your comments.

We are now glad to answer you back and have a supplementary opportunity to defend our video and study some sources of improvement. Your comments are very valuable to us.

Indeed, we think that making a contrast between healthy happy dolphins and dolphins attacked by human activity is an efficient way to convince human beings that they have an impact on their survival. It has a direct effect on the Pathos aspect of our strategy of persuasion (fear for their possible extinction, pity, empathy, etc.).

About the proposal to use more Chinese White Dolphins to convince specifically the Hong Kong population, we think it could an improvement in some extent. In fact, we agree on the fact our video probably lacks a specifically Hong Kong perspective. It could for instance also work in Florida or Canary Islands. Consequently, the idea of using Chinese White Dolphins to target Hong Kong people might be good.

However, I think images are not enough because a very few people are able to distinguish a Chinese White Dolphin from another type of dolphins. Thus, insert text would be necessary we think to specify their type and the fact they are “Hong Kong dolphins”.

In the same perspective, we should also put some images of Hong Kong Ocean Park with a focus on the fact it happens in Hong Kong. Once gain to reach our target.

We also have new suggestions to make our video generally more convincing (not only for Hong Kong people).

After watching other groups’ video, we thought about including in our video a part concerning the consumption of dolphins’ meat. We could see plates or soups or whatever containing dolphins’ meat or fin. Besides, showing people directly how they contribute to this disaster by buying a piece of dolphin’s meat at the supermarket would be extremely efficient and could make them feel more responsible.

Sometimes showing how a small gesture can have a big impact is the best way to affect a large amount of people.

Finally, we think that using a larger range of conditions in which dolphins are badly treated could make our video better. Showing a dolphin dying in a boat’s propeller will certainly be significant for the audience.

Thank you for reading us !

The Art of Persuasion by... The Three Musketeers of Persuasion !!

We choosed to defend the dolphins' cause through this video promoting the Dolphin Safe & Dolphin Friendly's logo:




（some parts in our video are tailored from <THE COVE> and <ANIMAL WORLD>）

§  What is our eco label? What is its cause? What are the workings?

 

Our group has chosen the ecological label Dolphin Safe & Dolphin Friendly.

Although the International Dolphin harvesting Commission banned commercial dolphin harvesting in 1986, some countries still refuse to stop its activities of slaying the dolphins.

 

"Without doubt the biggest threat to dolphins comes from man." Let us illustrate the social causes behind it.

 

1-      Food source

 

Some dolphin species are harvested as a food source.

The dolphins are killed to be sold as meat in markets and restaurants. Whale and dolphin meat is big business in Japan despite the fact that dolphin meat is heavily contaminated with mercury, the dolphin meat, they hold the belief that eating that is an essential part of their food culture. There is even a time that the Japanese government provides free dolphin meat for the primary school students.

2-      Commercial harvest

Another major reason that dolphins are slayed is related to business use.

If 30 dolphins are hunt, only one of them can meet the standard of performing on the stage in Japanese, the country that carries out the largest hunt in the world. Then the other 29 dolphins, which have not been chosen, would get killed in the end.

3-      Science studies

Dolphins are also killed for the use of “science studies". Some people claimed that they have to kill the dolphins in order to have a better understanding of their age, gender, food, procreation situation, heredity and  the capacity of gastrostomy.

4-      Disadvantage of  modern fishing

The modern fishing fleet harvests the seas indiscriminately. It does not distinguish between fish and marine mammals, and it is quest for increased efficiency, slaughters thousands of dolphins each year drowned in nets. As the world's fish stocks become more depleted from over-fishing, there is a danger that human's pursuit of protein food will lead to a more determined capture of dolphins to satisfy their demand.

 

The impacts are:

1)      Dolphins’ extinction

Worldwide, dolphins face a variety of impacts that threaten their existence. These threats are mainly a result of human activities.

Every year, approximately 22,000 dolphins in Japan and small whales are cruelly slaughtered in the bays of numerous coastal towns. In recent history the Baiji, also known as the Yangtze river dolphin, was declared extinct. Other species like the Maui's dolphin are on the brink of extinction due to entanglement in fishing gear. The Maui's, a sub-species of the Hector's dolphin found in the waters of New Zealand, teeters on the brink with estimates suggesting less than 100 of these dolphins remain in existence.

 

2)      Harm the ocean ecosystem

Since the scale of dolphin harvesting is too large, it is difficult to estimate the harm to ocean ecosystem, which has become a global environmental issue now.

The workings of the ecological label are:

Nowadays,a growing number of people know the importance of protecting dolphins, but as the article “Telling Tales” written by Stephen Denning in 2004 (HBR) mentioned, “Analysis might excite the mind, but it hardly offers a route to the heart-and that's where we must go to motivate people”. It is time for the ecological label dolphin safe to take actions, to persuade, to motivate the public..

 

Actually, they will conduct the following three steps, in order to arouse people’s awareness and persuade them to protect the dolphins.

Ø  Step 1

The Commerce Dept. has released an official “dolphin safe” mark for tuna labels which threatens the current Dolphin Safe standards for tuna and promises to mislead consumers.

Ø  Step 2

In order for tuna to be considered “Dolphin Safe”, it must meet the following standards:

1. No intentional chasing, netting or encirclement of dolphins during an entire tuna fishing trip;

2. No use of drift gill nets to catch tuna;

3. No accidental killing or serious injury to any dolphins during net sets;

4. No mixing of dolphin-safe and dolphin-deadly tuna in individual boat wells (for accidental kill of dolphins), or in processing or storage facilities;

5. Each trip in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) by vessels 400 gross tons and above must have an independent observer on board attesting to the compliance with points 1~4 above.

Ø  Step 3

Earth Island urges consumers to avoid buying any tuna in the US that carries this logo.

 

 

Please feel free to visit these websites:

    http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ecolabel/dolphin-safe

    http://www.earthisland.org/dolphinSafeTuna/consumer/

§  Why is our video convincing?

Let’s use the three components (ethos, logos, pathos) of the art of persuasion to analyze it.

The Ethos apex of the triangle is reinforced by the presence of the logo ‘SAFE’ of our label and the expression of sincere gratitude to the “first line warriors” at the end of the video. It is an official label, recognized and well-known whose credibility is very high. The logo is synonym of respect of dolphins and their close environment. We thought it was important to clearly show the logo of the label in this video to get a credible and trustful video and so increase our persuasive power. Indeed, as we can read in “The necessary art of persuasion” by Jay A. Conger (HBR), in business many managers “overestimate their own credibility” and are consequently not persuasive. That’s the reason why we wanted to show the serious of our clip with the logo.

     The Logos aspect (consistency and logic) of our persuasion is assured by different elements.

First, the video is extremely simple to understand, there are no subtleties and there is no need to read between the lines. Why did we choose simplicity over humor, subtleties or second degree? Because we are looking for a large change in attitudes, behaviors and also a general awareness. 

In the article “Change through persuasion” by David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto (HBR), we are here in the first stage of a persuasion campaign: convincing the change is necessary.

 We used some other tools such as:

-          The repetition of the structure,

-          The contrast between images of free happy dolphins swimming and dolphins in a blood bath,

-          The contrast of nice music and dark music (corresponding to the images),

-          The use of buzzy words such as pestics, kill or heavy metals.

Plus, to increase the persuasion, we use real extracts from movies concerning the topic of dolphins: The Cove and Animal World.

     Finally, we put the accent on the Pathos component of course. This is a specifically important one in our case. Our target is broad and even if dolphins are generally loved and a general empathy for dolphins for their physical aspect and their supposed sweetness exists, people really ready to give money or act are not so numerous (at first only people really crazy about dolphins will concretely act and not just say “it’s sad”).

We are majorly facing a passive audience and so we need to capture their attention in order to engage their mind in a second time. Thus, playing with dark images and make them feel bad for the dolphins is a good way. We are playing on worry (about dolphins’ extinction), horror (blood) and sadness.

Our objective is to, for instance, convert dolphins’eaters to stop eating them or to activate some quite sensitive people to really take some actions to support our cause. Of course, the video is also useful to reinforce the behavior of dolphins’ lovers who are already involved in their protection.

     Our strategy of “kissing” could eventually have the consequence to over simplify our message but we think the delivery of the message is simple but the cause is not so simple. So it can work.

§  Why is this video effective in HK?

We truly think our video can affect Hong Kong people.

First because dolphins are part of Hong Kong sightseeing spots:

-          At Ocean Park Hong Kong,

-          Through excursions to see pink dolphins    http://www.hkdolphinwatch.com/ 

On the top of that, we can guess in Hong Kong, people are already sensitive to the beauty of dolphins and feel kindness for them. They regularly see advertisements with dolphins, etc. The closeness of dolphins for Hong Kong people will be a great good point for our cause and our video.

Secondly, Hong Kong people live close to areas where there is a consumption of dolphin meat, such as Japan. Thus, they concretely understand it is a real fact (more than European people for example for who consuming dolphin meat looks a bit unrealistic).

Also, it exists a real sensitivity for charity in Hong Kong as we can regularly see in the streets. WWF Hong Kong is very active.

Plus, as we can read in “Nature needs a voice in Hong Kong to protect Chinese white dolphins” by Michael Lau in South China Morning Post on the 18 May, 2013, the press informs citizens about this and about how much it is important to take it seriously, like many ecologists confirm.

 

 

 

References:

http://www.seethewild.org/2520/dolphin-threats.html

http://www.idw.org/html/dolphins_in_danger.html