Ego Involvement and Influence

Ego Involvement and Influence

Online Business Description

My business will be an online toy store selling handmade wooden toys. The target audience will be the parents of children between 1 and 10 years. I intend to reach the target audience by advertising via social media channels and the business website.

Principles of Persuasion

I intend to leverage various principles of persuasion to convince the parents to purchase the toys and sustain customer loyalty. According to Kaptein & Van Halteren (2012), the main principles of persuasion in advertising are scarcity, reciprocity, authority, consensus, commitment, consistency, and liking. I will use scarcity and reciprocity. Wooden toys are scarce, thus more valuable. I will emphasize the unique nature of the handmade wooden toys to persuade customers that the toys are helpful, increasing the chances of purchase. I will convince customers using reciprocity by informing them of the time taken and skills applied to make the toys so that they can feel obligated to reward those involved in making the toys.

Ego Involvement

When advertising my wooden toys, I would consider customers with high ego involvement and those with low ego involvement. People with high ego involvement have strong views on an issue and are hard to persuade, while those with intense ego involvement are easily persuaded (Perloff, 2010). The main thing I would emphasize about the product to appeal to online customers with intense ego involvement is the unique nature of the toys. Individual effects are considered valuable because they are scarce. Therefore, low-involvement customers may view the handmade wooden tools as appealing because they can only be purchased from the online store. I would emphasize the durability of the toys to attract customers with high ego involvement. I would underline the fragility of plastic toys to encourage high ego involvement and change their preference to wooden toys because the durability aspect would convince them that they are getting value for their money. Durability would also demonstrate the uniqueness of the toys, a feature that can only be found in wooden toys.

Advertising Ethics

An important thing to consider when creating advertisement ads is ethics. According to Dow (2013), advertising ethics ensures that advertisements do not mislead customers. Transparency was the first specific advertising ethic I was most mindful of in creating my ad. Accordingly, I disclosed all necessary information about the product, such as the material used to make the item and the price. Revealing this information to customers enables them to decide based on whether they can afford the product and are comfortable with the material used. The second aspect of advertising ethics was maintaining respectful language and demonstrating professionalism. Customers develop a positive attitude towards products advertised professionally, increasing the chances of purchasing.

References

Dow, J. (2013). Advertising, ethics of. International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee321

Kaptein, M., & Van Halteren, A. (2012). Adaptive persuasive messaging to increase service retention: Using persuasion profiles to increase the effectiveness of email reminders. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 17(6), 1173-1185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0585-3

Perloff, R. M. (2010). The dynamics of persuasion: Communication and attitudes in the twenty-first century. Routledge.

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Last Week, you examined ethical practice as an external guide on persuasion. Another essential dimension of effectiveness 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 investment informs your meaning-making processes when you engage with print material in advertisements.

For this Discussion, you will consider ego involvement as a critical 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 most significant number of consumers to purchase your product.

To prepare:

Review Chapters 4 and 5 in the text and Kaptein and Halteren’s (2013) article. In particular, pay attention to the persuasion principles in the Kaptein & Halteren article.
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 best influence 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 consumers with low participation and high ego involvement.
Also, consider the ethics you 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, two 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 code (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 highlight to attract consumers with high ego involvement. In your response, demonstrate your understanding of ego involvement and what makes each group of consumers different.
Select the specific advertising ethics you were most mindful of in creating your ad, and explain your thinking.
Note: Be sure to support the responses within your initial Discussion post (and in your colleague’s reply) with information obtained from the assigned Learning Resources, including in-text citations and a reference list for sources used. For information regarding how your Discussion will be evaluated, please review the Rubric in the Course Information area of the course.

references
Perloff, R. M. (2021). The dynamics of persuasion: Communication and attitudes in the 21st century (7th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter 4, “”Attitudes: Definition and Structure””
Chapter 5, “The Power of Our Passions: Theory and Research on Strong Attitudes”
These chapters of your text cover critical themes for the Week. Complete the reading in Chapter 4 to prepare for the Assignment this Week and Chapter 5 to schedule your Discussion post.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00779-012-0585-3

https://instituteforadvertisingethics.org/s/IAEPrincipalsandPractices.pdf