Marketing Communication (EBM078A05)
Lecture notes 2024-2025
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
,Content
• Lecture 1 – Effective marketing communication: A game of hurdles
• Lecture 2 – Hurdle #2 (memory) and #3 (attitudes)
• Lecture 3 – Hurdles #4 and #5: Persuasion and Behavior
• Lecture 4 – Effective marketing communication: Taking the hurdles
• Lecture 5 – Wrap up, Recap and a Look Ahead
,Lecture 1 - Effective marketing communication: A game
of hurdles
It’s actually difficult for marketeers to persuade/influence customers to buy their products. The
main focus of this course are the hurdles that marketeers struggle with and how they can
overcome it.
This course
• 5 pre-recorded lectures (watch before zoom-in sessions)
• 5 zoom-in sessions -> on campus
o Dive into specific topics that are mentioned in the book.
o Don’t cover the whole book, but highlight some topics
• 2 tutorials -> on campus
• When, why, and how advertising and other forms of marketing communication influence
us, consumers, into saying yes (or no) to whatever marketers are trying to sell us.. often
without us being aware of this influence.
• Hidden persuasion is the red threat during this course
o We will discuss research on this
o Also ethical side is discussed
Today’s lecture
• Intro
• Research driven perspective on marketing communication effectiveness
o Guided by the book
• Taking the hurdles: Understanding the psychology of advertising
• Chpt. 1: Advertising in context: Setting the stage
• Chpt. 2: Hurdle #1: How consumers acquire and process information from advertising
How is the book structured and what is essential?
• Structure
Each chapter deals with a hurdle advertisers have to take to reach the ‘hearts and
minds’ of the consumer
• Essentials
o Check the summary and conclusions per chapter, these are the essentials per
chapter.
o Check the glossary at the end of the books, these are the essential constructs
and concepts discussed in the book as a whole.
• The chapters discuss the research underlying the glossary items and elaborate on the
items in the chapter summaries.
So: start with reading the summary and conclusions per chapter, those summarize the
essentials per chapter. It’s a sort of skeleton for the chapter that you are going to read.
, When terms are in bold, that means they are also in the glossary (so you can see how they are
defined in the glossary).
The 7 hurdles
1. How consumers acquire and process information from advertising (Chpt. 2)
2. How advertising affects consumer memory (Chpt. 3)
3. How to target attitudes, the ‘forgotten’ effectiveness indicator (Chpt. 4)
4. How consumers yield to advertising (Chpt. 5)
5. How to bridge the intention- behavior gap (Chpt. 6)
6. How to nudge consumer behavior change (Chpt. 7)
7. How to persuade the online consumer (Chpt. 8)
Grade: Individual exam & Group Assignment will both count for 50%.
A research driven perspective on communication effectiveness
● Advertising (and other forms of marketing communication) is not an art, it’s science.
○ It’s not a gut feeling or something, it’s based on science. The effect that it has on
consumers is science based.
● Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half’
(John Wanamaker – Marketing Pioneer)
○ So much money is going into marketing, but they still don’t know what
particularly the thing is that makes the consumer actually buy something.
○ We need to change this, because:
Advertising agencies also show a disturbing lack of systematic knowledge about what works,
when and why. And their clients (of the advertising agency, they tell the advertising agency for
example to make an advertisement about chocolate) as well. The clients also can’t blame the
advertising agency or the campaign, as they also don’t have the knowledge of what works and
what doesn’t.
○ Hence the blind leading the blind (and where a lot
of money is pumped around)
This situation is shown in this cartoon:
Where the person is the advertising agency.
This is something that needs to be changed and that’s why they
discuss the hurdles in this course.
Why is this course relevant for you?
● Because WE (you and me) need to change that!
● Soon you will be on the job market: knowledge from this course may make a big
difference between you and your job competitors
● ‘If the science is available, why use anything else?’ (Cialdini, 2010)
Lecture notes 2024-2025
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
,Content
• Lecture 1 – Effective marketing communication: A game of hurdles
• Lecture 2 – Hurdle #2 (memory) and #3 (attitudes)
• Lecture 3 – Hurdles #4 and #5: Persuasion and Behavior
• Lecture 4 – Effective marketing communication: Taking the hurdles
• Lecture 5 – Wrap up, Recap and a Look Ahead
,Lecture 1 - Effective marketing communication: A game
of hurdles
It’s actually difficult for marketeers to persuade/influence customers to buy their products. The
main focus of this course are the hurdles that marketeers struggle with and how they can
overcome it.
This course
• 5 pre-recorded lectures (watch before zoom-in sessions)
• 5 zoom-in sessions -> on campus
o Dive into specific topics that are mentioned in the book.
o Don’t cover the whole book, but highlight some topics
• 2 tutorials -> on campus
• When, why, and how advertising and other forms of marketing communication influence
us, consumers, into saying yes (or no) to whatever marketers are trying to sell us.. often
without us being aware of this influence.
• Hidden persuasion is the red threat during this course
o We will discuss research on this
o Also ethical side is discussed
Today’s lecture
• Intro
• Research driven perspective on marketing communication effectiveness
o Guided by the book
• Taking the hurdles: Understanding the psychology of advertising
• Chpt. 1: Advertising in context: Setting the stage
• Chpt. 2: Hurdle #1: How consumers acquire and process information from advertising
How is the book structured and what is essential?
• Structure
Each chapter deals with a hurdle advertisers have to take to reach the ‘hearts and
minds’ of the consumer
• Essentials
o Check the summary and conclusions per chapter, these are the essentials per
chapter.
o Check the glossary at the end of the books, these are the essential constructs
and concepts discussed in the book as a whole.
• The chapters discuss the research underlying the glossary items and elaborate on the
items in the chapter summaries.
So: start with reading the summary and conclusions per chapter, those summarize the
essentials per chapter. It’s a sort of skeleton for the chapter that you are going to read.
, When terms are in bold, that means they are also in the glossary (so you can see how they are
defined in the glossary).
The 7 hurdles
1. How consumers acquire and process information from advertising (Chpt. 2)
2. How advertising affects consumer memory (Chpt. 3)
3. How to target attitudes, the ‘forgotten’ effectiveness indicator (Chpt. 4)
4. How consumers yield to advertising (Chpt. 5)
5. How to bridge the intention- behavior gap (Chpt. 6)
6. How to nudge consumer behavior change (Chpt. 7)
7. How to persuade the online consumer (Chpt. 8)
Grade: Individual exam & Group Assignment will both count for 50%.
A research driven perspective on communication effectiveness
● Advertising (and other forms of marketing communication) is not an art, it’s science.
○ It’s not a gut feeling or something, it’s based on science. The effect that it has on
consumers is science based.
● Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half’
(John Wanamaker – Marketing Pioneer)
○ So much money is going into marketing, but they still don’t know what
particularly the thing is that makes the consumer actually buy something.
○ We need to change this, because:
Advertising agencies also show a disturbing lack of systematic knowledge about what works,
when and why. And their clients (of the advertising agency, they tell the advertising agency for
example to make an advertisement about chocolate) as well. The clients also can’t blame the
advertising agency or the campaign, as they also don’t have the knowledge of what works and
what doesn’t.
○ Hence the blind leading the blind (and where a lot
of money is pumped around)
This situation is shown in this cartoon:
Where the person is the advertising agency.
This is something that needs to be changed and that’s why they
discuss the hurdles in this course.
Why is this course relevant for you?
● Because WE (you and me) need to change that!
● Soon you will be on the job market: knowledge from this course may make a big
difference between you and your job competitors
● ‘If the science is available, why use anything else?’ (Cialdini, 2010)
