A Difficult Conversation Checklist:
Step 1: Perpare by Walking Through the Three Conversations
1. Sort out
What Happened
- Where does your story come from (information, past experiences, rules)? Theirs?
- What impact has this situation had on you? What might their intentions have been?
- What have you each contributed to the problem?
2. Understand
Emotions
- Explore your emotional footprint, and the bundle of emotions you experience
3. Ground your
Identity
- What's at stake for you
about you? What do you need to accept to be better grounded?
Step 2: Check Your Purposes and Decide Whether to Raise the Issue
-
Purposes: What do you hope to accomplish by having this conversation? Shift your stance to support learning, sharing, and problem solving.
-
Deciding: Is this the best way to address the issue and achieve your purposes? Is the issue really embedded in your Identity Conversation? Can you affect the problem by changing your contributions? If you don't raise it, what can you do to help yourself let go?
Step 3: Start from the Third Story
1. Describe the problem as the difference between your stories. Include both viewpoints as a legitimate part of the discussion.
2. Share your Purposes
3. Invite them to join you as a partner in sorting out the situation together.
Step 4: Explore Their Story and Yours
-
Listen to understand their perspective about what happened. Ask questions. Acknowledge the feelings behind the arguments and accusations. Paraphrase to see if you've got it. Try to unravel how the two of you got to this place.
-
Share your own viewpoint, your past experiences, intentions, and feelings
-
Reframe, reframe, reframe to keep on track. From truth to perceptions, blame to contribution, accusations to feelings, and so on.
Step 5: Problem-Solving
- Invent
options that meet each side's most important concerns and interests.
- Look at
standards for what
should happen. Keep in mind the standard of mutual caretaking; relationships that always go one way rarely last.
- Talk about how to keep
communication open as you go forward.
Notes on Tellis Reading:
Effective Advertising
Chapter 1:
Importance of Advertising in Modern Economics:
- Advertising is a major means of advertising among firms
- Advertising is the primary means by which firms inform consumers about new or improved products
- Advertising provides major support for the media in the US and other countries
- Advertising is a huge industry
- The public subsidizes advertising expenditures
Problems Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness
- Consumers may buy a product for a variety of reasons
- Advertising for a brand may occur in different media
- Advertising may have not only instantaneous effects but carryover effects (consumer will respond after a period of time has passed)
- The effectiveness of the ad may vary over the life of the campaign
- Successive ads may have overlapping effects and overlapping delays
- Advertising response varies by segments and individuals within a market
-
Chapter 2:
Myths About Advertising Effectiveness
- Advertising is a powerful force in contemporary markets
- Advertising creates consumer needs
- Advertising effects persists for decades
- Even if advertising does not work now, repetition will ensure ultimate success
- One to three exposures are enough for effective advertising
- Firms often use subliminal advertising
- Humor in advertising trivializes the message
- Sex sells
- The most effective ad appeal is clear information with strong arguments
- The best creatives arise from uniqueness (creative = composite of the content and artistic components of an ad)
- Advertising is very profitable
Truth About Advertising
- Weight alone is not enough
- Advertising is a subtle force
- The effects of advertising are fragile
- Firms often persist with ineffective ads
- Advertising may be unprofitable
Dynamic Effects of Advertising
- Advertising’s effects are not instantaneous
- Advertising carryover is generally short
- Advertising is effective either early or never
Effects of Ad Campaigns
- Success can be dramatic, although rare
- Wearin is very rapid, while wearout occurs early
- Hysterisis is very rare (Hysterisis = the effects of a campaign on sales hold after the campaign is suspended)
Effects of Advertising Creative
- Novelty is the key to effective advertising
- Emotion may be the most effective ad appeal
- Humor works
- Firms rarely if ever use subliminal advertising
- Templates can foster creativity
Contingent Effects of Advertising
- Advertising is more effective for new than mature products
- Advertising affects loyals and nonusers differently (Loyals respond to ads for their brand more quickly and immediately tat low levels of advertising than do nonusers)
Chapter 3:
Why Firms Advertise: Theory of Advertising Demand
- Supply Exceeds Demand
- Knowledge about the Supplier or Product is Low
- Confidence in the Supplier or Product is Low
- Demand Exceeds Supply
Why Big Successes are Rare: Theory of Advertising Effectiveness
- Inattention to Advertising – Most consumers are in a state of avoidance, not search, active processing, or passive processing
Resistance to Persuasion:
It is difficult to change consumer perceptions because of selectivity of consumer attention, perception, interpretation, and retention
Miscomprehension of Ad Messages – Many consumers don’t understand the message of ads
Imitation of Effective Techniques - Effective ads are imitated quickly
Why Firms Persist with Ineffective Ads: Theory of Advertising Supply
- Lack of Field Tests and Tracking
- Conflict of Interests with the Ad Agency – creative talent wants to be original; ad firms don’t evaluate the effectiveness of ads, only create them
- Competitive Pressure – Companies believe that they won’t lose ground to competitors if an ad exists
- Incentive System – Brand Managers are often evaluated not on profit generation but sales generation
- Budgeting System – competition for advertising dollars within firms
- Price Support – ads support wholesale prices, an ad’s existence ensures that retailers will stock the brand
- Trade Support – ads are created to impress Sales Staff and Retailers
Chapter 8:
Elaborative Likelihood Model
Its basic premise is that the route by which an ad persuades consumers depends on how much they think about the ad’s message.
Motivated to Process Information? Y – Able to Process? Y – Central Routes (Strong Arguments) N – Peripheral Routes (Endorsers, Cues)
Motivated to Process? N – Passive Processing (Mere exposure, Selling)
Priming – A phenomenon wherein exposure to a brand name during some entertaining or distracting event leads to better recall and preference for the name, even without recall of the exposure.
Soft-Sell – Subtle message that allows for different interpretations
Repetition in Persuasion – Findings:
- Repetition leads to higher persuasion, measured by recall, attitude, preference, behavioral intention, and behavior
- The positive effect of repetition on each of these variables declines in the order listed, strong to weak
- Response to repetition is nonlinear, first increasing, then leveling off.
Factors Influencing Repetition:
Brand Familiarity – may be most important factor – familiar brands need less repetition than new
Message Novelty – pulsing (fixed interval ads) or fighting (irregular intervals) is likely to be more effective than massing
Message Complexity – Repetition enhances the effectiveness of complex ads.
Theories Explaining Repetition:
Habituation-Tedium Theory – a continuum
Theory of Conditioning – Pavlov’s Dogs
Chapter 9: Argument In Advertising
Argument Strategy
Comparative Argument – Message compares the target brand to another, infrequent before 1970, now common – generally but not always more effective than non comparative in generating attention, message awareness, brand awareness, message processing, and purchasing intentions.
Two-Sided Appeals – presents pros and cons of target and other brand.
- More interesting and credible than one-sided
- Credibility gains are optimum for a moderate amount of negative information
- Negative should be presented early but not at beginning
- Work best when audience’s position is negative to target brand
Refutational Argument – First presents the counterargument against the advertised brand, then destroys the argument
Rhetorical Question – Asks a question rather than counterattack
Innoculative Argument – Protects a brands position with consumers by alerting them about then helping them defend against an impending attack.
Framing – Presents rival in a context that makes it less attractive
Supportive Argument – Presents positive attributes of a brand without any comparison to rivals.
Chapter 10: Emotion in Advertising
Modes of Persuasion
Implicit – Ad arouses emotion while embedding a message in characters involved in a plot
Explicit – Ad arouses emotion with stimuli to drive home a point of view
Associative – Ad arouses emotion with stimuli that are only tangentionlly related to the product
Advantages of Emotion
- Does not raise viewer’s natural defenses
- Requires less effort from viewers
- Stimuli are more interesting
- Pictures and Music are easier to recall than factual evidence
- May lead to behavior change more immediately than logic would
Disadvantages of Emotion
- Arousal of emotions requires more time than argument
- Central message may be missed
- Viewers may screen out message associated with negative emotion
- Viewers may feel exploited
When Do Emotions Work?
The Elaboration Likelihood Model suggests that emotional appeals should be used when an audience lacks the motivation or ability to process messages.
Feeling vs. Thinking Products:
Feeling – evaluated by personal preference, e.g. wine or paintings
Thinking – purchased on reason
Emotional appeals are preferable for Feeling products, but can be effective for Thinking products like cameras, insurance, airlines, computer products.
Mood – transitory, generalized emotional state not directed at any particular object or activity, can be individual or context based. Individual moods are unique to the individual based on experiences or personality, context based moods can be common to all individuals facing the environment
Methods of Arousing Emotions:
- Drama, Story, and Demonstration
- Humor
- Music
Roles of Specific Emotions
Irritation –
Warmth –
Fear –
Enobling Emotions – inspire audiences to difficult action with feelings like pride, courage, dedication.
Jerry Rice was kind enought to share his outline from last year with us.
Jerry Rice
“Viewing the Public” 4 minutes
Professor Irving J. Rein
1-24-2003
Attention Statement: If you are like me, the most difficult part of this speech- besides the delivery- was finding a public address to observe that worked well for both analyzing and spending 4 minutes talking about in front of your classmates. After quite a bit of searching, I ran across an on-campus public appearance by Mel Sembler, a 1952 graduate of the School of Communication and the United States Ambassador to Italy.
The ambassador’s speech was surprisingly good, capturing the attention and interest of the audience in a way I have not seen in a live public speech. To discuss why this speech was effective, I will focus on three key areas that the ambassador really scored points with the audience:
I. Building audience rapport
II. Informative speech with subtle persuasion
III. Brevity followed by Q & A
Body:
I. Sembler showed remarkable prowess at building audience rapport. He:
A. Used the obvious Northwestern connection
1. Sincere nostalgic feeling about return to campus (choked up)
2. Changes on campus
3. Talked about being on stage during Northwestern’s Centennial year.
II. Ambassador’s speech was mostly informative, but embedded with subtle persuasion
A. Initially informative tone
1. Discussed his life as a business man.
a. owns/operates over 200 shopping centers throughout country
b. founded drug treatment center- over 12,000 graduates of the rehab program
c. national finance chairman for Republican party
2. Discussed role as U.S. Ambassador to Italy
a. responsible for over 750 govt. employees on Italian soil
b. includes INS, IRS, customs, FBI, and more
c. advance trade opportunities with Italy
B. Embedded within the information were subtle persuasive remarks
1. Italy as U.S. ally
a. used strong language and examples when discussing U.S./Italy relationship
b. Described Italy as strong, dependable, reliable, close ally…seemed very sincere, paused as if searching for stronger words to enforce this thought
c. Related story about how Berlusconi traveled to U.S. on Memorial Day to honor the fallen soldiers of WWII with Pres. Bush even though he had 19 heads of state traveling to Italy for a conference the very next day.
2. NU as great educational opportunity
a. NU prepares you to be a leader
b. NU is respected throughout the world as a leading educational institution
c. Hopes that the audience will support Northwestern as he and his wife have throughout the years.
III. Brevity of prepared remarks allowed ample time for audience Q & A, leading to further rapport with audience
A. Billed as an hour-long speech, from 6-7 p.m.
1. Spoke for only 25 minutes, following a 5 minute introduction by President Bienen
2. Allowed 30 minutes for audience Q & A
3. Fielded questions in a manner that reinforced his persuasive points about the relationship between Italy and the U.S.
a. Q: Is now a good time for U.S. students to study abroad in Italy?
b. A: Absolutely. Italy and the U.S. have a fantastic relationship right now. They have given nothing but sympathy and support since September 11th
4. Q & A allowed audience to connect with the speaker and feel like a part of the program
Conclusion:
I. Outstanding job of building rapport with audience. Methods described in Hasling’s text- humorous anecdote and reference to the occasion.
II. He kept an informative feel to the speech with persuasive undertones.
III. Prepared remarks brief, allowing the audience to ask questions.
The ambassador was an outstanding speaker, and I would not hesitate an instant to go see him speak again
