Ego Involvement and Influence

Discussion:
Ego Involvement and Influence
Last week, you examined
ethical practice as an external guide on the use of persuasion. Another
important dimension of persuasion is internal influence. That is measured by
how invested a person is in an idea, person, place, or object.
For example, think of a
cause that you care about. Researchers would say you are “ego involved” in that
case. Ego involvement also varies, from low involvement to high involvement.
Consider how easily someone could persuade you to give up this cause or change
your view of it. Your answer will give you an idea of how much ego involvement
you have invested.
Measuring allegiance to
causes is only one example of ego involvement at work. Another example is how
your personal investment informs your meaning-making processes when you engage
with print material in advertisements.
For this Discussion, you
will consider ego involvement as a key influence on decision making, with
advertising as the subject. You will imagine yourself as a small business owner
who needs to create an online ad for a specific product that you want to put on
your website. You will explore how to influence the largest number of consumers
to purchase your product.

To prepare:
Decide on your business,
the specific product you want to sell, and who is likely to be your target
customer.
Consider
which of Kaptein & Halteren’s persuasion principles might work best
for influencing your website visitors to purchase your product.
Within
the ELM framework, think about the importance of involvement. Consider how
you could create an ad with language that appeals to both consumers with
low involvement and consumers with high ego involvement.
Also
consider advertising ethics you would need to follow in creating your ad.
Note: You are not required to create and submit an ad as
part of your post.
By Day 3
Of Week, 2 post responses to the following:
Briefly
describe your business, your target audience, and the specific product you
are selling online.
Present
the principle(s) of persuasion you would use to sell this product, and
justify why the principle(s) you chose would be best for your ad and target
consumers.
Explain
what you would emphasize about the product to appeal to online consumers
with low ego involvement and what you would emphasize to attract consumers
with high ego involvement. In your response, be sure to demonstrate your
understanding of ego involvement and what makes each group of consumers
different.
Select
the specific advertising ethics that you were most mindful of in creating
your ad, and explain your thinking.

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