Term Project - The Persuasive Campaign

The term project for this course involves putting together all your knowledge and skills of persuasion in the form of a persuasive campaign design.  A campaign is a process that involves persuasion taking place over a period of time using multiple messages, often with multiple media and several different audiences, normally seeking to gain favorable behavior from the audience.  The key to an effective persuasive campaign is learning to plan strategically.   

For our class, the project will involve three separate assignments, each with its own specific requirements.

1. The first assignment requires you to analyze the target audience(s) for your campaign. 

2. The second assignment asks you to prepare a messages that you might create for your campaign - and present to the class the strategy behind that message.

3. The third assignment completes the process by having you describe the overall campaign plan and the strategy (informed by theory and research) that you will use to attain your goals.

There are a wide range of campaign ideas that would be suitable for this project and I am willing to entertain your specific ideas.  However, let me suggest that one useful approach to the assignment is to develop a campaign promoting the commercial sale/use of a legal product or service.  The product or service may be one you invent yourself or it may be a real product or service.  I suggest your campaign be directed at college students in general or Monmouth College students in particular, although you may use a different audience/target market with my permission.  Almost any product or service will work if it could be attractive to your chosen audience.  You could select a consumer product such as a soft drink, water, beer, music player, digital device, cell phone, snack food, CD or video, clothing, car or auto product -- and so on.   You could attempt to convince people to use a particular service such as hair stylist, music/video download, extended warrantee on some type of product, insurance, job placement service, tutoring, phone service, cable, pizza delivery. The list is endless.  If you chose a real world product or service be aware that you cannot use actual advertising concepts and materials for that product or service.  That would be plagiarism.  (As an alternative you may also use a political campaign for your term project but you must meet with me to discuss the nature of your candidate/topic and audience.)

In order to begin you need to define for yourself the three primary concerns of any persuasion effort.  What is the rationale for your campaign (thesis - exigence)?  Who exactly is your target audience?  What is the outcome you want from your audience (purpose --> attitude and/or behavior change)?

On the card provided, please describe for me, in a few sentences,

• what the subject or issue your campaign will address,

• who the target audience will be, and

• what outcome or goal you have for the campaign, if successful.

I would like you to turn in the card provided by Friday, February 29.  Please feel free to be creative but do consider how well the idea you develop will fit the requirements of this three-part project.  You are not restricted to doing only public service campaigns or only targeting college students, but you might want to check with me before going too far with a different idea so we can be sure your idea will fit the requirements of my assignments.