Weighting: 150 points (two print ads, two printed supporting discussions, oral presentation)

General Assignment

Write two versions of a persuasive message that could be used by our client.  One version is to be most effective under a high involvement (and/or high knowledge) situation; the other is to be most effective under a low involvement (and/or low knowledge) situation. 

Our client this semester is Texas A&M University-Texarkana.  Until recently, we have been constrained as a two year upper division school - we could not accept students directly out of high school.  A recent change in state law now allows us to offer lower division courses as a full four year university.  We also have a new campus on Bringle Lake, allowing us to physically expand, with one building that is holding classes and more construction to be started soon. 

The first freshman class will start in the Fall 2010 semester.  Dormitories are in the planning stage, but we cannot count on any dormitory space to be completed for the 2010-11 school year.  At this point, then, we must focus our efforts for recruiting that very first full-time freshman class on prospective students who live within commuting distance.  While our current student body is entirely commuter, all of our students started college elsewhere.  An important difference in our target market for this project is that the average student age at TAMUT is currently 33.  Our enrollments have flattened out in recent years, suggesting that we might have tapped-out this market.  Growth required to make the new campus viable will have to come from a much younger, traditional, full-time college student. 

Write two versions of a persuasive message that could be used to promote our newly expanded school to prospective full-time students in that first 2010 freshman class.  Each message version must be written using theoretical ideas from the ELM: one version should be designed to be most effective under high involvement and/or knowledge conditions, and the other should be designed to be most effective under low involvement and/or knowledge conditions.  Conditions, situations, and personalities associated with different levels of involvement will be part of class discussions: you won't be successful in this assignment, you won't understand your resulting grade, and I will not provide individualized after-the-fact tutoring to explain what is wrong with your submission if you are not part of these class discussions.

Each message must be accompanied by a theoretical justification.  This justification is important for two reasons: First, our client has never heard of the concept of involvement and so you must explain how your message is expected to work in lay person terms.  Second, the involvement construct could be associated with quite a number of factors, so you need to describe your situational expectations or assumptions. 

Some Specifics

1. The assignment requires preparation of two PRINT persuasive messages; do not submit video/audio tapes, etc.  Attached to each message MUST be a one or two page explanation.

2. The message will be in the form of a printed message (e.g, advertisement or editorial) which can include non-text illustrations as part of the message if appropriate.  Illustrations may be simple hand-drawn mock-ups to suggest work that could be outsourced to an artist.  You are not required to use graphic illustrations (i.e., your proposed message could be entirely text), but you also are not necessarily required to use text (i.e., a persuasive message could consist entirely of a graphic image).

3. One message is to be most effective under high involvement (and/or high knowledge) conditions and the other is to be most effective under low involvement (and/or low knowledge) conditions.  Note that these must be broad and general conditions that maximize the use of the message; proposing a message that is only useful for recipients with limited English skills, for example, does not maximize the use of the message across a broad range of situations. 

4. This is a very specific assignment that requires the use of concepts and theories learned in this course: merely submitting two messages is not sufficient to receive a passing grade if theory and guidelines associated with recipient involvement and attitude change are not followed.

5. Each message is to be contained on a single, separate 8-1/2 x 11-inch page (a single sheet of typing paper).  Clearly mark which message is for high and which message is for low involvement conditions.  (Don't expect me to correctly guess which message is supposed to be associated with which condition - it is your fault if I guess wrong.)

6. Additionally, each message is to be accompanied by a one or two page discussion.  This discussion MUST:
   1. explain the sorts of situations in which the recipient would be expected to be under higher or lower levels of involvement (or knowledge) when exposed to the message,

   2. explain why each message is expected to be more persuasive under one condition of involvement than the other, and

   3. explain why each message is expected to result in a more stable and enduring attitude change under one condition than the other.

   Note that you might be using cues in the message itself to invoke higher or lower levels of recipient involvement: if so, explain what you did to manipulate these differing levels.  Your discussion must be based on concepts and theories that we have discussed with respect to motivation, involvement, attention, and attitude change.  "Shooting from the hip" without reference to concepts discussed in this course is not sufficient to receive a passing grade.  The above criteria are minimal requirements of your discussion, so be sure to check your discussion sheet against this list before you submit it. 

7. You will work in teams of one or two.  The team is of your own choosing.  Note, however, that both members of a team will receive the same score. 

8. Neatness is considered a minimal requirement in your grade - this must be a professional looking submission.  Neatness is defined here to include grammar, spelling, typos, correct use of paragraphs, smudging and smearing on illustrations, etc.  Problems with these would not be acceptable in "real" promotional or editorial copy and are therefore not acceptable in this assignment.  Note that neatness as defined here does not require that you have access to any special sort of equipment, software applications, or skills of a graphic artist; you are making a mock-up that an illustrator or publisher could use to create final copy, artwork, and layout. 

9. Please do not use any kind of report folders.  Just use plain white paper with a single staple in the top left corner to attach each persuasive message with the associated theoretical discussion. 

10. You are encouraged to visit the professor outside of class to discuss your ideas.