Applications of the Method to Specific Audiences

While the application presented here focuses on general cultural expectations, one could modify this rhetoric-prototype method to determine the marketing expectations for particular industries and products or to determine the expectations of particular professional or regional groups within a culture. It simply becomes a matter of using rhetorical theory to identify a more focused set of materials for analysis. If, for example, one wanted to enter the French auto sales market (specific product or service), he or she could use prototype analysis to create a Web site design checklist that met this objective. Instead of locating more general marketing sites at the start of the overall process, the researcher would use rhetorical principles to identify Web sites designed by French auto sellers (e.g., Renault) for French consumers. Again, rhetorical theory would be used to identify sites that are appropriate for learning specific audience expectations, and prototype theory would be used to develop an initial checklist that would be compared to other sites and be modified as necessary. Such a focus would allow one to determine the characteristics French consumers associated with 'good auto sales site.'

One could also use this more focused process to make a very specific checklist designed for a particular class or group of individuals within the same culture. For example, one might wish to focus on designing Web sites to market materials specifically to German physicians. In this case, the rhetorical selection process would focus on finding Web sites (or other marketing materials) targeted specifically at physicians in that culture (e.g., the Web site for the Vitatron company, which manufactures medical devices such as pacemakers). In the case of more regional audiences (e.g., consumers from Barcelona, Spain), one would use the rhetorical part of the methodology to locate advertising/ marketing materials designed specifically for consumers in that area. In this way, the later prototype analysis can be successfully applied to a wide range of Web sites and a wide range of purposes (e.g., sales, research, education, etc.).