More About The Project

Several of you have asked for clarification on the major project which I've titled the "Influencing and Persuading" project.  In previous iterations of this class, students were asked to visit a local mall and analyze the shopping experience.  You are free to do that, but in this day and age so much of our shopping and exposure to brands occurs in settings other than malls and thus the analysis should follow where the brands lead.

I see the assignment rolling out as follows:

• Pick a company, brand, political campaign or issue.
• Analyze the basic underlying message.  A good way to structure your thinking is through a so-called audience analysis:
• Analyze: Who is the audience?
• Understand: What is the audience's knowledge of the subject?
• Demographics: What is their age, gender, income level, etc.?
• Interest- Why might they pay attention to the message?
• Environment- Where will this message be sent/viewed?
• Needs- What are the audience's needs associated with the message topic?
• Expectations- What action does the sender wish the audience to take?  Buying, obviously, but anything else?
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I hope this is helpful. We'll go through an analysis in class so you have an opportunity to work through an example.