Let Me Elaborate…
Media practitioners today are faced with huge challenges when it comes to advertising. Media is thrown at us more and more as technology increases our access to it. How can we persuade our audience to engage with our ad? How can we use our ads to expand our audience? The Elaboration Likelihood Model gives media professionals insight on how we should craft persuasive appeals. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) was developed from the message-processing part of the persuasive process.
ELM describes two routes a message might take when a viewer processes a message. The first route is the central route. On this route, viewers are actively processing the message with high elaboration. The central route is usually taken by viewers that are involved with the subject matter or can personally relate to the message. A central route might be taken when an individual is looking to buy a specific product. The audience processes our message with previous knowledge making it easier to process. Our audience might pay more attention to our media if the product is targeted toward them.
For example, when using social media marketing on Facebook, we can target an audience interested in similar products or experiences. This way our message directly targets an audience that processes with high elaboration on our subject. Another example could be using a celebrity or influencer to represent our brand. By using a celebrity or influencer that our target audience trusts, our credibility is boosted by association.
However, our media might not only reach the desired target audience. Our media can also reach new audiences with lower elaboration on our subject matter. To persuade this audience, we might have to cater our message perception to the peripheral route, the second route mentioned in the ELM. The peripheral route focuses more on the “distractions” that interfere with a message. Viewers who interpret media messages on the peripheral route, focus more on shallow or superficial characteristics of the media such as the attractiveness, associations, and overall entertainment of the media message. By paying attention to how our media represents our brand through this peripheral scope, we can also persuade new viewers to engage with our brand. Appealing to the peripheral route can influence new viewers, but these viewers tend to be temporary in our network whereas viewers on the central route tend to stick with our brand for the long haul.
Appealing to both the central and peripheral routes can maximize our media’s reach. This is especially true for social media. While our media should be able to persuade an audience with high elaboration, it should appeal to the audience with low elaboration as well. If our messages appeal to those who are processing the message on the peripheral route, it’s more likely that they might engage and change attitudes toward our brand.
