ADVERTISING & MEDIA CHANNELS
WEEK 1
LECTURE 1 + PRITCHARD (2021)
• Advertising is any paid, non-personal
communication through various media
by an identified brand or firm.
• Advertising is the need for a strategy, not
just tactical elements.
• The basics in marketing: STP
(segmenting, targeting, positioning).+
• Advertising is part of marketing
communications (synergy in the
marketing mix)
• Must be linked with objectives and KPI’s
(key performance indicators).
The possible benefits from digital ads:
• Creativity has expanded beyond the
constraints of the 30-second TV ad.
• Anything discoverable can now be found
instantly through search engines.
• Shopping for new products has never
been easier or more frictionless through e-commerce.
• We can connect with people and engage the consumers we serve in novel and entertaining ways we
never thought possible.
What is the problem? (Pritchard, 2021)
• Lack of viewability – the opportunity to see an ad.
o P&G found that the average view time for digital ads was approximately 1.7 seconds.
• Third party measurement of audience reach and ad frequency.
o Serving the same ad to the same person multiple times.
o Ad blocking
o Privacy concerns.
• Ad fraud – when ads are served to bots instead of consumers.
o Estimated to be as high of 20% of all digital media spending.
• Persistent lack of transparency throughout the media supply chain.
• Harmful online content that is not appropriate for brand advertising.
1
,What should managers do?
• Viewability - Every marketer should insist that every digital platform and publisher provide third-
party, MRC accredited viewability measurement.
• Audience reach & ad frequency - Marketers should establish clear reach and frequency targets for
digital media to avoid annoying excess frequency and wasted spending. Marketers should always
insist on third-party, MRC-accredited measurement of audience reach and frequency from digital
media providers.
• Ad fraud - Marketers should continue to call for third-party, MRC-accredited validation of anti-fraud
on all platforms and publishers, including the big digital platforms.
• Lack of transparency - Marketers should demand that validated pilots are implemented and ready to
scale across the industry within the next year.
• Harmful content - All marketers need to insist that digital platforms urgently apply content standards
properly so we can spend time together on creating value.
Customer journeys
• A touchpoint is any interaction (including encounters where there is no physical interaction) that
might alter the way that your customer feels about your product, brand, business, or service.
o There are different types:
▪ Owned media (website visits) / Paid media (ad impressions) / Earned media
(reviews).
▪ Firm initiated / Consumer-initiated.
• A channel is where an interaction takes place.
o There can be channels for: communication or distribution (purchase).
o We often talk broadly in terms of online vs. offline channels, which is useful when talking
about showrooming (the practice of visiting a shop or shops in order to examine a product
before buying it online at a lower price.) and webrooming (the consumer practice of
researching products online before buying them in a physical store).
Attribution and effectiveness
• Attribution is determining which consumer actions after an ad exposure led to conversion (purchase).
o Attribution is difficult in practice, because there can be multiple touchpoints that led to
purchase & brands advertise on a continuous basis, or advertise on different channels, so
there is never necessarily a period where you can say what happens with or without
advertising & there could be touchpoints missing, because we don’t often have the full
picture of what the consumer is doing (online-offline switching, ad-blocking, bots, etc.)
• Effectiveness: did the advertising meet the objectives? For instance, did it lead to an increase in
product sales? Brand awareness? Website visits?
LECTURE 2 + LI ET AL. (2020) + DANAHER ET AL. (2020)
Hedonic and utilitarian purchases
• Hedonic purchase
o More goal-ambiguous, emotional experience.
o Based on the experience of shopping, emotional attachment, fun, enjoyment, excitement,
and the need for surprise.
• Utilitarian purchase
o More goal-directed, cognitive process.
2
, o Pertains to the need to complete specific tasks efficiently and effectively.
What does the H/U perspective mean and why is this relevant?
The H/U perspective emphasizes the bidimensional consumer attitudes toward brands and consumption that
stem from affective and instrumental motives.
• It forces you to use different advertising strategies.
• We use different channels for hedonic and utilitarian products.
• Media channels that are more suited to provide us with the information for the goal we have, we
tend to visit more.
o Hedonic → social media (e.g., festival tickets).
o Utilitarian → Google, Bol.com, Media Markt (e.g., fridge).
The Hedonic-Utilitarian (H/U) perspective:
• Reflects purchase motives and information search behaviours.
• Is based on consumer perspective and perceptions.
• Has independent dimensions (not mutually exclusive).
• Displays differences at retailer-category level.
Search and experience products have a varying way of finding out the quality of the product. Search products
can rely on reviews of others, but experience goods are different for every person, so the quality of the product
depends on your personal experience. There is overlap between the H/U perspective and search/experience
goods. Search products tend to be more utilitarian and experience products tend to be more hedonic.
The H/U perspective affords at least three opportunities to enrich and enhance insights gained through the S/E
vantage point of purchases:
• The theoretical underpinnings for H/U draw from cognitive/social psychology. These affective-cognitive
trade-offs have the potential to complement the utility-centric information-seeking view adopted by
the S/E perspective. When processing information about the product, consumers process hedonic
products more holistically than utilitarian products.
• The H/U perspective enables customer-centric thinking by quantifying the H/U characteristics of
product categories or brands from the customers’ perspective.
• The hedonic and utilitarian dimensions are
independent. The bidimensional analysis allows
for granular assessment of the role of purchase in
the customer journey.
The same product category can have varying H/U
perceptions across different retailers. Also, the same
retailer can have different H/U characteristics for its
product categories.
Figure 3
• Consumers use different channels at different
intensities throughout their customer journeys.
• Social and search channels are used the most.
• This difference becomes less visible in the days
before the purchase.
3
, • We use channels more when we come close to purchasing.
• There is interdependence of channel usage.
Channel usage per goal
Utilitarian purchases are rational and goal-driven, with the objective of making the best purchasing decision.
• Search engines – efficiency-oriented, list-wise, clear, condensed.
• Third-party review sites – quantitative and qualitative information.
• Deal sites – search for best deals efficiently and conveniently.
• Multiple pages – consumers are more likely to browse product pages across multiple retailers to
optimize their time, place, and possession needs (cross-channel free-riding).
Hedonic consumers seek surprise, adventure, fun, and variety during their shopping process. Consumers are
likely to rely on simple cues and heuristics rather than deeper information processing to reach their purchase
decision. Consumers making hedonic purchases could spend less time on searching and comparing. However,
consumers buying hedonic products may engage in guilt-reducing justification behaviours by spending more
time in the search process.
• Social media – 70-80% reported that their purchases were affected by social media posts. Fun- and
entertainment-oriented social media are a suitable source of information for hedonic purchases.
• Third-party review sites – on the one hand, hedonic products are less conducive to comparisons. But
on the other hand, lack of concrete attributes also results in uncertainty for hedonic purchase, which
might drive greater usage of qualitative comments.
• Deal sites – have been found to be more effective for hedonic consumption, supporting the notion that
users favour guilt-alleviation mechanisms to justify hedonic consumption. Could also be less helpful
since consumers are less price-sensitive with hedonic purchases.
Table 5
• This table shows the channels utilized at different stages of the customer journey varying by product
characteristics and purchase conversion.
• There is difference in channel use because we use different channels for different goals.
• This table might help a manager, because it tells the manager where he/she should place ads, where
consumers are going to be in the different stages of the customer journey, and where people are most
likely to look for information in their purchase decision process.
• People may use the social media channel more when they have a relatively clear purchase intention.
o Given that social media is utilized by hedonic purchases for both converted and unconverted
sessions, social media marketing might be more effective to reach potential customers and
improve conversion.
4
WEEK 1
LECTURE 1 + PRITCHARD (2021)
• Advertising is any paid, non-personal
communication through various media
by an identified brand or firm.
• Advertising is the need for a strategy, not
just tactical elements.
• The basics in marketing: STP
(segmenting, targeting, positioning).+
• Advertising is part of marketing
communications (synergy in the
marketing mix)
• Must be linked with objectives and KPI’s
(key performance indicators).
The possible benefits from digital ads:
• Creativity has expanded beyond the
constraints of the 30-second TV ad.
• Anything discoverable can now be found
instantly through search engines.
• Shopping for new products has never
been easier or more frictionless through e-commerce.
• We can connect with people and engage the consumers we serve in novel and entertaining ways we
never thought possible.
What is the problem? (Pritchard, 2021)
• Lack of viewability – the opportunity to see an ad.
o P&G found that the average view time for digital ads was approximately 1.7 seconds.
• Third party measurement of audience reach and ad frequency.
o Serving the same ad to the same person multiple times.
o Ad blocking
o Privacy concerns.
• Ad fraud – when ads are served to bots instead of consumers.
o Estimated to be as high of 20% of all digital media spending.
• Persistent lack of transparency throughout the media supply chain.
• Harmful online content that is not appropriate for brand advertising.
1
,What should managers do?
• Viewability - Every marketer should insist that every digital platform and publisher provide third-
party, MRC accredited viewability measurement.
• Audience reach & ad frequency - Marketers should establish clear reach and frequency targets for
digital media to avoid annoying excess frequency and wasted spending. Marketers should always
insist on third-party, MRC-accredited measurement of audience reach and frequency from digital
media providers.
• Ad fraud - Marketers should continue to call for third-party, MRC-accredited validation of anti-fraud
on all platforms and publishers, including the big digital platforms.
• Lack of transparency - Marketers should demand that validated pilots are implemented and ready to
scale across the industry within the next year.
• Harmful content - All marketers need to insist that digital platforms urgently apply content standards
properly so we can spend time together on creating value.
Customer journeys
• A touchpoint is any interaction (including encounters where there is no physical interaction) that
might alter the way that your customer feels about your product, brand, business, or service.
o There are different types:
▪ Owned media (website visits) / Paid media (ad impressions) / Earned media
(reviews).
▪ Firm initiated / Consumer-initiated.
• A channel is where an interaction takes place.
o There can be channels for: communication or distribution (purchase).
o We often talk broadly in terms of online vs. offline channels, which is useful when talking
about showrooming (the practice of visiting a shop or shops in order to examine a product
before buying it online at a lower price.) and webrooming (the consumer practice of
researching products online before buying them in a physical store).
Attribution and effectiveness
• Attribution is determining which consumer actions after an ad exposure led to conversion (purchase).
o Attribution is difficult in practice, because there can be multiple touchpoints that led to
purchase & brands advertise on a continuous basis, or advertise on different channels, so
there is never necessarily a period where you can say what happens with or without
advertising & there could be touchpoints missing, because we don’t often have the full
picture of what the consumer is doing (online-offline switching, ad-blocking, bots, etc.)
• Effectiveness: did the advertising meet the objectives? For instance, did it lead to an increase in
product sales? Brand awareness? Website visits?
LECTURE 2 + LI ET AL. (2020) + DANAHER ET AL. (2020)
Hedonic and utilitarian purchases
• Hedonic purchase
o More goal-ambiguous, emotional experience.
o Based on the experience of shopping, emotional attachment, fun, enjoyment, excitement,
and the need for surprise.
• Utilitarian purchase
o More goal-directed, cognitive process.
2
, o Pertains to the need to complete specific tasks efficiently and effectively.
What does the H/U perspective mean and why is this relevant?
The H/U perspective emphasizes the bidimensional consumer attitudes toward brands and consumption that
stem from affective and instrumental motives.
• It forces you to use different advertising strategies.
• We use different channels for hedonic and utilitarian products.
• Media channels that are more suited to provide us with the information for the goal we have, we
tend to visit more.
o Hedonic → social media (e.g., festival tickets).
o Utilitarian → Google, Bol.com, Media Markt (e.g., fridge).
The Hedonic-Utilitarian (H/U) perspective:
• Reflects purchase motives and information search behaviours.
• Is based on consumer perspective and perceptions.
• Has independent dimensions (not mutually exclusive).
• Displays differences at retailer-category level.
Search and experience products have a varying way of finding out the quality of the product. Search products
can rely on reviews of others, but experience goods are different for every person, so the quality of the product
depends on your personal experience. There is overlap between the H/U perspective and search/experience
goods. Search products tend to be more utilitarian and experience products tend to be more hedonic.
The H/U perspective affords at least three opportunities to enrich and enhance insights gained through the S/E
vantage point of purchases:
• The theoretical underpinnings for H/U draw from cognitive/social psychology. These affective-cognitive
trade-offs have the potential to complement the utility-centric information-seeking view adopted by
the S/E perspective. When processing information about the product, consumers process hedonic
products more holistically than utilitarian products.
• The H/U perspective enables customer-centric thinking by quantifying the H/U characteristics of
product categories or brands from the customers’ perspective.
• The hedonic and utilitarian dimensions are
independent. The bidimensional analysis allows
for granular assessment of the role of purchase in
the customer journey.
The same product category can have varying H/U
perceptions across different retailers. Also, the same
retailer can have different H/U characteristics for its
product categories.
Figure 3
• Consumers use different channels at different
intensities throughout their customer journeys.
• Social and search channels are used the most.
• This difference becomes less visible in the days
before the purchase.
3
, • We use channels more when we come close to purchasing.
• There is interdependence of channel usage.
Channel usage per goal
Utilitarian purchases are rational and goal-driven, with the objective of making the best purchasing decision.
• Search engines – efficiency-oriented, list-wise, clear, condensed.
• Third-party review sites – quantitative and qualitative information.
• Deal sites – search for best deals efficiently and conveniently.
• Multiple pages – consumers are more likely to browse product pages across multiple retailers to
optimize their time, place, and possession needs (cross-channel free-riding).
Hedonic consumers seek surprise, adventure, fun, and variety during their shopping process. Consumers are
likely to rely on simple cues and heuristics rather than deeper information processing to reach their purchase
decision. Consumers making hedonic purchases could spend less time on searching and comparing. However,
consumers buying hedonic products may engage in guilt-reducing justification behaviours by spending more
time in the search process.
• Social media – 70-80% reported that their purchases were affected by social media posts. Fun- and
entertainment-oriented social media are a suitable source of information for hedonic purchases.
• Third-party review sites – on the one hand, hedonic products are less conducive to comparisons. But
on the other hand, lack of concrete attributes also results in uncertainty for hedonic purchase, which
might drive greater usage of qualitative comments.
• Deal sites – have been found to be more effective for hedonic consumption, supporting the notion that
users favour guilt-alleviation mechanisms to justify hedonic consumption. Could also be less helpful
since consumers are less price-sensitive with hedonic purchases.
Table 5
• This table shows the channels utilized at different stages of the customer journey varying by product
characteristics and purchase conversion.
• There is difference in channel use because we use different channels for different goals.
• This table might help a manager, because it tells the manager where he/she should place ads, where
consumers are going to be in the different stages of the customer journey, and where people are most
likely to look for information in their purchase decision process.
• People may use the social media channel more when they have a relatively clear purchase intention.
o Given that social media is utilized by hedonic purchases for both converted and unconverted
sessions, social media marketing might be more effective to reach potential customers and
improve conversion.
4
