Marketing Communication lecture notes + book summary

Marketing Communication
Lecture 1:

Psychology of advertising – individual perspective:

Predicting the impact of specific advertising variables on specific,
individual consumer responses and explain the processes responsible for
any advertising impact.

What that means... specific ad variables

- Source variables
 Expertise/credibility/trustworthiness
 Attractiveness
 Number
 Fame
- Message variables
 Argument quality
 Argument quantity
 Information density

Specific and individual consumer

- Thinking about the ad/brand - cognitive responses
 Beliefs
 Evaluations
 Inferences
 Convictions
 Awareness
 Attitudes
 References
- Feelings about the ad/brand - affective responses
 Emotions and mood
 Transient and enduring
 Positively – negatively valanced
- Acting towards the ad/brand - behavioural responses
 Trial vs habit
 Buying
 Using
 Disposing




Advertising in context: Setting the stage

, - More than 1000 commercial stimuli a day
- Advertising: any form of paid communication by an identified
sponsor aimed to inform and/or persuade target audiences about an
organization, product, service or idea
- Advertising as pars pro toto for all promotion tools -and media- in
the marketing communication toolbox



Argument-based vs. Emotional appeals




Two key functions

- To inform and/or to persuade
- Key difference: type of consumer response
 Inform: change nonevaluative consumer responses
(information/factual)
 Persuade: change evaluative consumer responses (something
is missing)
 Both argument-based and emotional appeals can inform
and/or persuade



Two basic strategies

Alpha strategies:

- Promoting an approach motivation – making the offer more
attractive

Omega strategies:

- Reducing an avoidance motivation – reducing resistance

,Hurdle 1#: How consumers acquire and process information from
advertising

Four basic stages from low effort, unconscious and automatic to high
effort, conscious and deliberative

- Pre-attentive analysis
- Focal attention
- Comprehension
- Elaborative reasoning

Covaries with the most researched consumer variables ever:
involvement/engagement

Note: involvement is a feature of the consumer, not a product!! (e.g.,
expensive is not necessarily high involvement!!)



1. Pre-attentive analysis
- General, non-goal directed surveillance of the environment
- Incidental exposure to advertising
- Unconscious
- Why relevant? -> far from trivial for advertisers: especially suitable
for ad placement strategies



Hemispheric lateralization and ad effectiveness

Specialization in function brain hemispheres

- Left: text processing
- Right: picture processing

A pictorial ad benefits from being processed by right hemisphere (a place
it left)

, A textual ad benefits from being processed by left hemisphere (so place it
right)



2. Focal attention
- When involvement turns from low to moderate
- Focal attention: process by which information is brought into short
term, working memory where it becomes the object of conscious
attention
 So when we actively focus on things and start noticing them…
- Voluntary and involuntary attention



Factors promoting involuntary focal attention:

Salience

- Extent to which variable is noticeably different from its environment:
extent of experienced contrast

Vividness

- Extent to which information is emotionally interesting,
concrete/image provoking and proximate

Novelty

- Extent of ‘newness’ frequently a function of extent to which
information disconfirms preexisting consumer expectations

Salience: Vividness: Novelty:




3. Comprehension
- Comprehension: once we notice things, can we make sense of
them?