Introduction Advertising is an important element of marketing as it distributes messages to the target consumers or audiences of specific groups. The impact an advertising approach will have on its target audience depends on its characteristics. This paper analyzes a print ad used for the “Moms Demand Action” campaign launched to propagate the need for a gun ban. The print ad provokes the audience’s emotion by exposing the apparent irrationality in banning other items that are less harmful than guns. The analysis of this paper describes the application of different print ad characteristics for transmission of the ad message. The analysis concentrates on characteristics including the colors, portrayed message, ad relevance to the target audience, ad set, characters in the ad, and the way the ad provokes the emotions of the audience and drives them to respond to it. The paper concludes by summarizing the effect of the ad on the target audience. Advert Analysis In analyzing print media, it is first important to consider the ad aesthetic characteristics because the major element of an advert that attracts the target audience to the ad is the ad aesthetic elements (Clow and Baack, 2007). This theory was obviously considered in the “Moms Demand Action” print ad. This ad definitely highlights the importance of aesthetics for attracting the audience considering the image and textual arrangement. The aesthetic contribution of the print ad to its message is also obvious. The ad has a picture of two kids standing in a classroom. The girl is holding an assault rifle with a rather stern look on her face; beside her, we can see a harmless-looking boy of Asian descent with a Kinder Egg in his hand. The text on the ad requires the audience to identify the child holding an item that has been banned in the US. The text is written in fonts comparable to fonts used for sending military telegrams. These aesthetic characteristics do not only provoke the emotions of the audience but also direct their understanding of its violence-based context. The effectiveness of the ad depends on its ability to attract the actual target audience. There is a need to do the analysis of the ad to ensure that themes in the ad capture the target market that the ad is designed for (Glen, 1986). By looking at the picture with two little kids, we can see that this ad indicates strong conformity to this ad positioning theory. It has been designed for the government and the general public. The design intends to ensure that the ad provokes the emotions of the public, and creates a possible reaction from different arms of the US government. It successfully achieves this objective through its inclusion of children as the characters in the print. Children are naturally perceived as being frail and harmless. The fact that the child in the picture with the assault rifle has a stern and a rather unsympathetic expression is the possible effect of gun or rifle on children. Apart from their expressions, the selection of the characters is also influential in portraying the intended message. Even though the ad intends to promote the need for the government to place a ban on guns, the ad does not use any p