Question

Imagine that you need to design an advertising campaign that promotes safe-sex practices among college students. Assume that your audience is not particularly motivated or interested in hearing about safe sex. According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which route should you take? Explain why this route is appropriate here. Then describe two specific strategies you can employ in your campaign according to this route in the ELM model.

A) Central Route; Because the audience is motivated to process the information deeply.
B) Peripheral Route; Because the audience is not motivated to process the information deeply.
C) Central Route; Because the audience is not motivated to process the information deeply.
D) Peripheral Route; Because the audience is motivated to process the information deeply.

Answer 1

For a campaign promoting safe-sex practices among college students, the Peripheral Route is recommended due to the low motivation of the audience to process information deeply. Strategies like celebrity endorsements and evoking positive emotions can be effective in creating a favorable attitude towards safe sex practices.

Step-by-step explanation:

The appropriate route to persuasion according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) when the audience is not particularly motivated or interested in hearing about safe sex is the Peripheral Route. This is because this route does not require the audience to be analytical or highly motivated to process deep, factual information. Instead, it focuses on surface-level cues that can create positive associations with the message.

Two specific strategies that could be employed using the peripheral route in an advertising campaign for safe-sex practices among college students are:

• Celebrity endorsement: Having a well-known and influential personality who the target audience admires, advocate for safe sex can create a positive association and increase the likelihood of the message being noticed and acted upon.
• Positive emotions: Campaign materials such as ads or posters that evoke emotions of happiness, love, and well-being while associating these emotions with safe sex practices can effectively influence behavior without requiring deep thought processing.