Chapter 16 Persuasive Speaking 475motivated and personally involved in the content of a message, they engage in
central processing—they think critically about the speaker’s message, question
it, and seriously consider the strengths of the arguments being presented. When
listeners lack motivation to listen critically or are unable to do so, they engage in
peripheral processing of information, giving little thought to the actual mes-
sage and focusing instead on superficial factors, such as the length of the speech
or the attractiveness of the speaker.
Whenever possible, you want your audience to engage in central process-
ing, as it produces deeper, more long-lasting changes in audience perspective
than peripheral processing does. Audience members who process peripherally
THINK
ABOUT
THIS❶ How many advertise-
ments do you think you
encounter in a day? How
persuasive do you think
they are?
❷ Do you think user-
generated content is more
persuasive to people in
their twenties than tradi-
tional advertisements? Do
you think it is more per-
suasive to people in other
age groups as well?
❸ When advertisements
appear on a Web page,
are you annoyed? What
kind of Web ad would
prompt you to click it?Interactive Advertising: Persuasion
for a Millennial Audience
If you were born between 1980 and 2000, advertisers want you, even if they
aren’t quite sure what to do with you. They call you the Millennials or the Bridg-
ers or by a variety of generational initials: Generation Y (because you follow
Generation X), Generation D (for Digital), and Generation M (for Multitaskers).
Your Generation X predecessors (born between 1964 and 1979) were challeng-
ing enough, with their tendency to videotape television programs and speed
through commercials. But you’re even trickier with your TV and video down-
loads and customized, commercial-free programming. This presents a chal-
lenge for advertisers, as well as a wealth of opportunities. They want to reach
you, they want to persuade you, and they’re just starting to figure out how.
One strategy they are employing is viral marketing—marketing that takes
advantage of preexisting social networks. While viral marketing exists offline
(where it is better known as a word-of-mouth campaign), it really blossoms
online. Advertisers can produce an advertisement and get it in front of mil-
lions of potential customers, provided that you find it funny or compelling
enough to forward a link to your friends (Elliott, 2010).
Marketers have also tapped into your generation’s unprecedented tech-
nological know-how to get you involved in the advertising process. User-
generated content is persuasive on several levels. Contests for user-generated
advertisements can boost interest in a product or service, and the ads
themselves can potentially go viral. They also lend an edgy, young image to
the product being advertised. Converse sneakers, for example, posted user-
generated videos on its Web site, which became an online hit, and MasterCard
solicits users to create copy for its ongoing “Priceless” campaign (Bosman,
2006). More recently, advertisers have started trolling through public feeds on
Facebook and Twitter, looking for posts related to their products or services.
A mobile team responds to such posts, delivering palettes of crunchy good-
ness to cracker-loving Tweeters (Elliott, 2010). Whether these new tricks of the
advertising trade will lure in your Millennial dollars is yet to be determined. But
until Generation Z comes along, they’ll keep trying.WIREDFORCOMMUNICATION