Marketing Communication

Marketing Communication

External Flow

Target Audience

Customers - Past- Current- Potential

Channel Members- Whole Sales- Retailers

Companies- Competin

g- Non

Others- Govt.

agencies- Private

Internal Flow

Target Audience

Company Department

Employees

Stock Holders

When we are watching our fewow programme on television and a problem occurs in the signal transmission it interfaces with reception and lesser the impact of any commercial.

3 Factors may play a vital role in the perception and transmission of message received by the audience - Selective attention

- Selective distortion - Selective recall

According will be schnamar, the likelihood that the receiver will attend any message can be explained by an equation:- Likelihood of attention = Perceived Reward Strength - Punishment Strength

Perceived expenditure of effort

Different types of Communication Systems

Different communication systems vary in complexity, level of communicator and receiver contact, feedback time and adjusting to feedback

The communication types can be basically under two broad heads-interpersonal communication and impersonal communication. The impact and influence of each differs significantly.

Interpersonal Communication

Communication occurring at a personal level between two or more people is termed as interpersonal communication. This communication may be face to face between two people, on the telephone, or through mail.

“Informal communication” concerning products or services is more likely between two friends. Such “word-of-mouth” communication is likely to be highly persuasive because one friend apparently has nothing to gain from the other friend’s future reactions. In many situations of high-involvement purchases of before buying services, consumer often rely more on informal communication.

Characteristics of different types of communication systemsTypes of

CommunicationCharacteristics

Complexity Contact Feedback AdjustmentsMass communication High Low Long LowInterpersonal Low High Short HighOrganizational Moderate Moderate Moderate ModeratePublic communication

High Low Long Moderate

“Formal interpersonal communication” takes place between a sales person and a potential customer. The sales person is the sender of the message and the customer is the receiver. This communication, when face-to-face, tends to be more effective because the sales person can immediately notice the customer’s reaction, verbal or non-verbal, indicating whether the intended message is received.

Marketers are increasingly realising that non-verbal messages are sometimes more important than verbal messages particularly in personal selling and advertising.

“Feedback,” both verbal and non-verbal, in interpersonal communication enables the message initiator to have some indication concerning acceptance of message. Marketing communication are generally quite attentive to feedback and modify messages based on what they see or hear from the audience.

Impersonal Communication

Communication directed at a large and scattered audience is called impersonal communication. There is no direct contact between the sender and the receiver. Large organizations, both profit and non-profit, are usually the source of mass communication. They develop and transmit suitable message through specific departments or spokespersons. These messages are usually meant to reach the targeted audience or audiences to inform, influence, or persuade them. The objective of marketing communications is to induce purchase of a product, to create a positive attitude towards product, to impart the product a symbolic meaning, or to convince consumers that it can satisfy their needs or wants in a better way than the competitive products.

The typical mass media used are newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio, television and transit media, etc. Mass communication is used both by profit and non-profit organization.

Communication initiating organisatins must develop some reasonably reliable method to determine whether the sent messages are reaching the intended audience, are understood in a proper manner and successful in achieving the set objectives. Generally, such inferences are drawn based or indirect methods. How the audiences respond toward an advertised product or service is inferred from the results. If the results are positive, it is concluded that the message has been persuasive.

Marketing companies often try to measure the effectiveness of their messages by conducting audience research.

Consumers associate varying degree of credibility with different information sources. It is believed that the more credible the source, the more persuasive the endorser is likely to be in influencing the acceptance of ad message by the audience. Endorsers in ads are viewed as a “source” of information and influence audience’s acceptance of message content because of their credibility and attractiveness.

While companies are investing huge sums of money into the concept that sports people of today and yesterday ar good endorsers, they are also recongnising that choosing a celebrity endorser is no longer a matter of personal taste.

For a number of companies using sports people as endorsers, risk management has become a major consideration. Some companies are moving away from controversial sports personalities and are putting their money on those who would attract attention to enhance the product or company image.

Brand managers should know how the decisions about each independent variable could influence the stages of response hierarchy. There are examples of ads that used sex appeal, humour, or celebrities as endorsers to attract the consumers attention. These ads were quite successful in attracting audience attention but proved ineffective in brand name or brand message recall.

1. Receiver/Comprehension: Comprehension of ad message by the consumer is an important prerequisite in precipitating desired behaviour. The advertiser must know the important characteristics of the target market to develop a message that would be clear and under-standable. Less educated audience may experience difficulty in interpreting complicated message.

2. Medium/message presentation: Various media are available to communicate an ad message. Femina magazine reaches a large number of educated urban, upper class and fashion conscious women. India Today is a very respected popular magazine, while a different segment patronises times. Then, there are special interest magazines. There are more than 50 satellite TV channels, besides radio and other media. The marketer must know which the appropriate medium is to reach the target market to ensure that the message is presented to the right audience. A wrong choice my mean considerable loss of money and no message impact.

3. Message/feeling, conviction: The advertiser would like to choose the type of message that will create favourable attitudes and feelings most likely to precipitate the desired action message content can focus on a rational or emotional approach. Humorous messages attract consumer attention and put her/him in a pleasant mood. Music can add emotion and make the consumers more inclined towards the message

4. Source/attention: which source will be most effective in getting consumer attention? In the present advertising scenario, it is a formidable challenge for advertisers to break through this clutter. Advertiser use well-known personalities from sports, film and other fields to attract the target audience’s attention. If at all a product or service is to be presented to consumers, then there must be a message that catches the consumers attention. Without a message, there is no advertising, and without consumers attention no amount of advertising can succeed.

Source

The source here means the person involved directly or indirectly in communicating the advertising message. Companies take due care in selecting the source. They are quite aware of the fact that source characteristics effect on the advertising message and select individuals whose trains will maximize the ad message influence on the audience. The source may be perceived a knowledgeable, physically attractive, or just a typical consumer.

Source Credibility

Source credibility means the extent to which the audience perceive the source as having relevant knowledge, expertise, or experience and believe that the source will provide unbiased and objective information about the product the service. The element of credibility has two important dimensions-expertise and trustworthiness.

A person with more expertise in any field is considered more credible than the one with less expertise. For any reason if the audience thinks that a particular source, in spite of being knowledgeable, lacks honesty or may be biased, then the source would be less effective. The source’s knowledge, reputation and prestige are considered as the cognitive dimension of credibility and the attractiveness and popularity as the affective (feeling) aspect of trustworthiness. This means that the consumer’s approach to source credibility can be rational as well as emotional.

A source that is portrayed as being similar to the audience in terms of background, social status, lifestyle, opinions, activities and attitudes could be liked and identified with.

A source may be considered as high on one dimension of credibility, such as competence, but low on another. In today’s political scenario, many of the politicians are considered as experts of the game but biased in their viewpoints.

Expertise

Research findings show that expert and trustworthy endorsers are more persuasive than others who are considered less knowledgeable or trustworthy. A credible source’s message influences beliefs, opinions, attitudes and behaviour because the audience believes that the information coming from such a source is accurate and this becomes integrated in the belief system of individuals and may be maintained even a after the message source is forgotten.

Advertisers use a number of approaches to communicate source expertise.

Trustworthiness

Expertise is fine, but consumers must also be convinced about the expert’s trustworthiness. Finding endorsers with an image of being trustworthy is at times difficult. Such figures hesitate to endorse a brand because of the potential effect on their reputation and image. It often helps if trustworthy individuals say things that are not only favourable to the brand but also talk about some insignificant limitation of the product, as no product can be thought to be one hundred per cent perfect.

Another approach to enhancing credibility is to use the company chairman or chief executive officer as the spokesperson in the firm’s advertising.

Typical Satisfied Consumer

Advertisers use a typical satisfied consumer (Lalitaji in Surf ad), which often is the best choice when consumers strongly identify with the role involved. A typical satisfied consumer is considered as sincere and trustworthy. In case of some personal care products, the ad depicts two friends involved in a conversation about how a particular product or brand brought about the most desirable but unbelievable change. To add an element of maximum naturalness in the situation, it is useful to use a hidden camera and capture the natural reactions of the endorsers with which the audience can identify.

Limitations of Credible Sources

A number of research studies have shown that a high credibility source is not always an asset, and a low credibility source is not necessarily a liability. Both types of sources can be equally effective when they argue for a position opposed to their own best interest. A highly credible source is particularly influential when the audience is not in favour of the ad message.

Source Attractiveness

Attractiveness of a source refers to similarity, familiarity and likeability. Similarity is an assumed resemblance between the source and the members of the audience and familiarity means the knowledge of the source through exposure. Likeability is the affection developed for the message source as a result of physical appearance and behavioural aspects. The audience develops a need to search for some type of resemblance with the source.

Identification with source helps in developing similar beliefs, attitudes, preferences, or behaviour.

Advertisers use celebrities as endorsers to breakthrough the advertising clutter. They believe that celebrities have stopping power and draw attention to advertising messages.

Likeability

Advertisers often use physically attractive persons in their ads as a passive or decorative model to attract attention. Attractiveness generates positive influence and can lead to favourable evaluations of products as well as ads. The relevance and suitability of the model depends n the nature of the product.

Celebrity endorsements are less likely to influence knowledgeable consumers about a product or service or those holding strong attitudes compared to consumers with little knowledge or neural attitudes.

Image and Meaning of Celebrity

The image projected by a celebrity can be just as important as his/her ability to capture attention. It is very important for advertisers to match the personality of the celebrity with the product or company’s image, and the characteristics of the target market. The effectiveness of the celebrity endorser depends on culturally acquired meanings that a consumer brings to the endorsement process.

It is necessary for advertisers to first decide on the image or symbolic meanings that are important to the target consumers for a certain product, service, or company.

Overexposure

According to Valerie Folkes, consumers are often skeptical of endorsers because they known that endorsers are paid to appear in an ad. This problem is relatively more serious when the same endorser appears in ads by different companies, leading to overexposure. When a celebrity appears in many different ads, the credibility of the endorser goes down

Message

The message is often considered as the most vital component in the communication process. The “message is the thought, idea, attitude, image, or other information that the advertiser wishes to convey to the targeted audience”. How an advertising message is presented is critically important in determining its effectiveness.

Message Sidedness

A message can be either one-sided or two-sided message mentions only benefits or positive attributes of the product or service. If the audience is favourably predisposed, or if it is not likely to hear an opposing argument, then a one-sided message is most effective.

If the audience is critical, unfriendly or hostile, well educated, or if it is likely to hear opposing claims about the product or service, then a two-sided message is most likely to be more effective.

One –sided message tend to confirm what the audiences already believe about the brand and therefore consumers generate cognitive response in the form of support arguments, which reinforce their initial position.

Refutation

Refutational appeals in an advertising message are considered as a special type of two-sided message. The advertiser first presents both strong and weak points about the product or service and then refutes the views concerning the weaknesses.

This approach is particularly useful when the advertiser wishes to inculcate favourable consumer attitudes towards the product or the firm. The ad is aimed at building resistance in the consumers mind against competitor attacks or criticism.

Order of Presentation

Order of presentation of message arguments is an important consideration in the design of the advertising message. Important message arguments can be presented in the beginning of the message, in the middle, or at the end. Research shows that items presented in the beginning or the end of the message are remembered better and stand a much better chance of recall than those presented in the middle.

Climax versus Anticlimax Order

When the strongest message arguments are presented at the end of the message, it is called climax order. But when the most important message points are presented at the beginning of the message, it is referred to as anticlimax order.

The main message points when presented in the middle are called pyramidal order. Based on research findings, the following guidelines can help in deciding the message order.

When the audience is likely to have low-involvement in a product category, an anticlimax order tends to be most effective.

In case of audiences having high level of interest in the product category, a climax order tends to be most effective.

The least effective order of presentation is believed to be the pyramidal order.

In the first situation, where the consumer’s involvement is likely to be low, the stronger, more interesting points in a message have the greatest chance of attracting audiences attention.

Recency and Primacy Effects

When may competing advertising messages are involved, as is the case in print on TV ads, then in a two-sided message or ad placement “Primacy Effect” and “Recency Effect” are often considered by different advertisers. The primacy effect occurs when the message presented first creates greater opinion or attitude change. But if the message arguments presented last produce greater opinion or attitude change, it is recency effect.

Conclusion Drawing

It is an important issue for advertisers to decide whether the message should allow the audience to draw their own conclusions about the product or service or the message should draw a firm conclusion for the audience. Research shows that drawing a firm conclusion or leaving the conclusion drawing to the audience largely depends on the nature of the target audience, the type of product or service, and the nature of advertising situation.

Message Appeals

Marketing is all about satisfying consumer needs and wants at a profit and, at the same time, protecting the larger and long run interests of the society. One of the most critical decisions about creative strategy in advertising involves the choice of an appropriate appeal. Some ads are designed with the intent of appealing to the rational and logical aspect of the consumers decision making process, and others attempt to stimulate consumers feelings with the intent of evoking some desired emotional response.

Strong

Strength of

argumentWeak

Time Time Time

Strong Strong

Strength of

argument

Strength of

argumentWeak Weak

a. Climax order b. Anticilimax c. Pyramidal order

Advertising appeals are often classified as “rational appeals, emotional appeals, and moral appeals.” Rational appeals are those that focus on the audience’s self-interest and are directed at the thinking aspect of the decision-making process. Such appeals attempt to show that the product or service will produce the desired benefits. Emotional appeals are put under two categories: positive emotional appeals.

Moral appeals attempt to draw audience attention to what is “right.” Moral appeals are generally used to urge people to support social causes such as environmental concerns, population explosion, donating money to help victims of some natural calamity, or equal status for women etc.

Fear Appeals

Fear is an emotional response to some actual or perceived threat or danger. Advertisers use fear appeals in some situations to evoke the desired emotional response and motivate the audience to take steps to remove the threat. Humour Appeals

Humour generates feelings of amusement and pleasure and, for this reason, it has a potential for the feelings to become associated with the brand and affect consumer attitudes towards the brand and probably its image. Humour can also affect information processing by attracting attention, improving brand name recall, creating a pleasant mood, and reducing the chances of counter arguing.

Humour attracts attention Humour can help increase and message retention. Source credibility can be enhanced with humour. Audience attitude towards the ad can be enhanced with the use of humour. Humour may diminish the chances of counter arguments because it distracts

audience from making cognitive responses.

“Advertisements do more than inform or persuade. They eloquently translate feelings and opinions. Through advertising and the media we receive an enormous amount of silent information: bow to act in relation to people, property and ourselves. And that information is a barometer, attuned to social change.

Roland Burman, “Advertising and Social Change” Advertising Age, April 30, 1980, p.18

Understanding the response process that the consumers may go through in moving or eliciting certain behaviour, as a result of exposure to advertising, is perhaps the most important aspect in developing an effective advertising programme.

Exposure and Familiarity Model

Many ads are just repetitive and have very little information content but manage to be effective in changing consumer’s attitudes, more so with increased repetition.

RB Zajonc proposed that simple repeated exposure, with no associated cognitive activity could a preference in the audience. The results of research conducted to understand this effect imply that exposure effect occurs at some preconscious level. Some aspects of ads such as domination by pictures, text, or colour can create feelings of like or dislike among us at a preattentive level without any awareness of these effects. According to Ehrenberg, Tellis and others, advertising serves mostly to reinforce brand preference rather than create brand preference in case of most mature brands. When competitive advertising is intense, high levels of reminder advertising, with frequent repetitions, can perform the reinforcing function. This is often referred to as creating ‘top-of-mind awareness or recall’

Another view suggests that repeated exposure can lead to familiarity with the advertised brand and, subsequently, liking for it.

Amna Kirmani and Peter Wright suggest that consumers perceived amount of advertising, as judged by advertising frequency and the size of print ad, etc., is sometimes used by them as an indicator of the brand’s quality

Response Hierarchy Models

The AIDA Model: Developed in the 1920s (E.K. Strong), this model suggests that an effective sales presentation should attract attention, gain interest, stimulate desire and precipitate action (purchase). Ideally, an ad would prove to be really effective if it takes this route, however, in the real world of advertising, rarely ads the consumer all the way from awareness through purchase.

Hierarchy-of-effects Model: Hierarchy-of-effects Model, developed by Lavidge and Steiner, is the best known. This model helps in setting advertising objectives and provides a basis for measuring results. This model also suggests that advertising produces its effects by moving the consumer through a series of steps in a sequence from initial awareness to ultimate purchase of product or service.

Innovation-adoption Model: According to Everett M Rogers, this model evolved from work on diffusion of innovations. The model depicts various sequential steps and stages that a consumer moves through in adopting a new product or service. Marketers face the challenge of creating awareness and interest in the product or service among the target audience and evaluate it favourably. The best way to persuade consumers to evaluate a brand is by inducting product trial or, sometimes, product-in-use demonstration.

Information Processing Model: William McGuire developed this model which assumes that the advertising audience are information processors and problem solves. The first three stages in the model-Presentation, attention, and comprehension- are similar to awareness and knowledge, and yielding means the same liking. Up to this point there is a similarity with Lavidge and Steiner’s

model. The next stage, retention, is unique to this model and is not present in any other model. Retention refers to the ability of the consumer to accept and stone in memory the relevant information about the product or service. Retention of information is important because most advertising is designed to motivate and precipitate action not just immediately and the retained is used at a later time to make the purchase decision.

Implications for Managers

All the four models, presented depict that in each case the staring stage is cognitive, leading to affective stage and finally to conative or behavioural stage. This progression shows the following sequence

Learn Feel Do

(Cognitive) (Affective) (Conative)

These hierarchy-of-effects models are sometimes referred to as ‘standard learning models.’

Low-involvement Learning Model

Herbert E Krugman was advertising manager with General Electric. He observed that commercials on television cannot be slowed down or stopped as per the consumers convenience and hence consumers have little opportunity to think deeply about them. He hypothesized that TV is basically a low-involvement medium and the audience’s perceptual defences are low or even absent during commercials.

Michael L Ray and colleagues at Stanford University have conducted much work on low-involvement learning. They say that when the products concerned are of low-involvement category (low risk, inexpensive or low interest) for the summer, and ads are shown on TV, advertising does not lead to information based change in consumer’s attitude to induce product trial. Instead, the ads are successful in inducing trial because of top-of-mind recall the awareness. The low-involvement sequence of advertising effect is different from Lavidge and Steiner’s standard learning model.

Learn Do Feel

(Cognitive) (Conative) (Affective)

Instead of active learning, the customer engages in passive learning and random information catching under low-involvement situations.

Implications for Managers

Michael L Ray has proposed another response sequence where consumers first behave; the behaviour develops attitudes or feelings, and then the consumers learn and gains knowledge that supports the behaviour. The sequence in this situation is

Do Feel Learn

(Conative) (Affective) (Cognitive)

Typical situations of this nature are when the consumer faces a choice between

alternatives (high-involvement) that appear to be similar in quality but are complex and some attributes may not be visible. Consumers are likely to experience post-purchase anxiety. Ray has suggested that such situations require advertising that would reinforce the wisdom of choosing a product or service and help reduce the dissonance.

Foote, Cone and Belding (FCB) Model

Richard Vaughn of FCB advertising agency and his colleagues developed a useful advertising planning model. They built this model based on response hierarchy theories and degree of involvement. They also incorporated two important dimensions-thinking and feeling (split brain theory)- to both high and low-involvement levels. According to the split brain theory, the left side of the brain is more capable of rational and cognitive thinking and the right side of the brain is more emotional, intuitive, visual and involved in feeling or affective aspects. This model separates four basic advertising planning approaches: informative, affective, habit formation, and self-satisfaction.

The advertising should impress upon the psychological and emotional aspects, such as self-image, ego, status, etc. De Beers ad “A diamond is forever” is one such example.

HighInvolvement

Thinking1. Informative (thinker)

Car, house, furnishings, new products

Model: Learn-feel-do(rational)

Possible implications:

Test: Recall DiagnosticsMedia: Long copy format

Reflective vehiclesCreative: Specific infor –

mation Demonstration

Feeling2. Affective (feeler)

Jewellery, cosmetics, designer clothing, motorcycles

Model: Feel-learn-do (emotional)

Possible implications:

Test: Attitude change Emotional arousal

Media: Large space Image specials

Creative: Executional Impact

LowInvolvement

3. Habit formation (doer) Food, household items

Model: Do-learn-feel (responsive)

Possible implications:

Test: SalesMedia: Small space ads 10

sec. Spots Radio, POPCreative: Reminder

4. Self-satisfaction (reactor) Cigarettes, liquor, candy

Model: Do-feel-learn (social)

Possible implications:

Test: Sales Media: Billboards Newspapers

POPCreative: Attention

Cognitive Response Model

When ads change consumer attitudes in high-involvement situations, it is quite natural to assume that this occurs because the consumers learn from the advertising message and this change in attitude towards the brand is the result of learning. The response hierarchy models fail to explain what causes the resulting reactions. Such concerns led researchers to try to understand the nature of cognitive reactions to advertising messages.

Cognitive responses

Attitudes Purchase intention

The focus of this approach has been to determine the types of responses elicited by an advertising message and how these responses associate with attitudes towards the advertisement, the brand and purchase intention.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Psychologists Richard E Petty and John T Cacioppo developed the ELM model. According to them, the depth of information processing is a key factor in persuasion by influencing attitudes. The consumer may consciously and diligently consider the information content in an ad message in developing or changing the existing attitude towards the advertised brand. In this situation, the attitudes are formed or changed as a result of careful consideration, anlysis, scrutiny of the message arguments and integration of relevant information with regard to the advertised product or service.

The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion

Product/message thoughts

Source-oriented thoughts

Ad execution thoughts

Exposure to advertisement

Brand attitudes

Attitudes towards advertisement

Purchase intention

Exposure to advertisement

Implications for Managers

David W Stewart and his colleagues have established that the consumer must be able to recall the ad to comprehend the ad message. Message comprehension is a must for persuasion.

Central route to persuasion Peripheral route to persuasion

Higher involvement withproduct or message

Low-involvement withproduct or message

Attention focus on “central”product-related information

Attention focus on “peripheral”

product-related information

Comprehension- Deeper thoughts about

product attributes and consequences

- More elaboration

Comprehension- Shallow thoughts

about non-product information.

- Low elaboration.

Persuasion- Product beliefs- Brand attitude- Purchase intention

(Behavioural response)

Persuasion- Non-product beliefs- Attitude towards as- Purchase intention

(Behavioural response)

Persuasion also requires message content that distinguishes the brand as superior to competition. This is particularly true for high-involvement situations where favourable consumer reaction generates positive cognitive responses.

Elements of Ads that Attract Attention

An understanding of why people collect information can help advertisers in designing ads that will gain increased attention of the target audience. In general, there are four reasons for attending to different types of information.

Information that may be highly useful for a person, such as advertising messages about products or services that will help people make better purchase decisions.

Information that supports the audience’s opinion about some tangible or intangible thing. For example, consumers will tend to reduce cognitive dissonance by exposing themselves to favourable information about a product or service.

Information that is stimulating. For example, information about a new and exciting product.

Information that is interesting for the audience. No one would like to be exposed to dull and boring information.

People are quite agreeable to expose themselves to information that really has practical value for them, and product information is a practical need that advertisements attempt to fulfil.

When consumers acquire information to be stored in memory for future reference, this process is called “passive search”.

Consumers are selective about exposure for a number of reasons. They want to avoid any information that is contrary to their strong beliefs. They would deliberately seek information that is likely to support their position and reduce discomforting feelings.

David Ogilvy advised copywriters to inject news in their headlines. He said: the two most powerful worlds you can use in a headline are free and new. You can seldom use free but you can always use new-if you try hard enough”. With routine and familiarity, people get bored and look for variety in their normal everyday life.

Ad Characteristics that Attract Attention: Large, full-page ads with colour attract more attention than smaller black and white ads. This shows that size and intensity of ads often more helpful in attracting attention. If two ads are of the same size then the one using four colours will attract more attention than the one in black and white.

The ad copy phrased in concrete and specific terms attracts more attention than the one phrased in abstract terms.

Position of the ad is also important. Upper half of the left side page gets more attention because of audience’s reading habits. Ads placed on the back of magazines, front inside cover, and the inside of back cover, attract more reader attention.

Ads that are surprising or funny are more likely to be read. For instance, almost all the ads of Kachuwa Mosquito Repellent are noticed and read because of their funny content.

Creation of ads that grab audience attention is vitally important. It is equally important that the ad must also communicate the brand message to the audience. There is general agreement among most researchers that good comprehension of ad message by the audience is extremely important for persuasion to occur. Research reveals that target audience’s comprehension of the differentiating attributes of a brand is vital for the ad to be persuasive.

Figure and Ground

Grouping

Closure