SUMMARIES COMPULSORY CHAPTERS
Chapter 3: How marketing communications work
Introduction: Often it is hard to predict how a consumer will respond to marketing communications or how someone will process a
communications message. Several factors have an impact on this: consumer goals, characteristics of the product type, the situation of the
consumer (hurried), involvement in the product category and social, psychological or cultural factors. This chapter gives an overview of the
different ways in which a consumer might process marketing communications.
Hierarchy-of-effects models
A hierarchy-of-effects model assumes that things have to happen in a certain order,
implying that the earlier effects from necessary conditions in order for the later effects to
occur. According to these models, consumers go through three different stages in
responding to marketing communications: (i) cognitive, (ii) affective and (iii) conative
stages or a think-feel-do sequence. During the cognitive stage consumers engage in mental (thinking) processes which lead to awareness and
knowledge of the brand communicated. In the affective stage emotional or evaluative responses occur and attitudes toward the brand are
formed. The conative or behavioural stage refers to undertaking actions, such as buying the brand. However, a lot of disagreement exists
regarding the sequence of the different stages, and several researchers have developed alternative models. The low-involvement hierarchy-
of-effects model according to which consumers, after frequent exposure to marketing messages, might buy the product, and decide
afterwards how they feel about it (cognitive-conative-affective). Another possibility is the experiential hierarchy-of-effects model in which
consumers’ affective responses towards a product lead them to buy it and, if necessary, they reflect on it later (affective-conative-cognitive).
Vaughn proposed an integration of the different sequence models and presented a
model known as the Foote-Cone-Belding (FCB) grid. Four different situations are
distinguished, based on two dimensions. First: the high-low involvement can be defined
as the importance people attach to a product or a buying decision, the extent to which
one has to think it over and the level of perceived risk associated with an inadequate
brand choice. Second: the think-feel dimension represents a continuum reflecting the extent to which a decision is made on a cognitive or an
affective basis. Here, Vaughn takes into account that certain product categories (sugar, soap, banks) cognitive elements are important, while
for other products (cakes, perfume) affective elements seem to have more impact on the buying decision process. Purchase decisions in the
first quadrant are characterised by high involvement and rational decision criteria (learn about product), here the classical hierarchy of
effects would hold. The second quadrant concerns product decisions of high involvement, but for which less information is needed (want to
be emotionally attracted by brand image). Under this category, jewellery, perfume and fashion may be examples. The third quadrant,
product decisions are located that require a minimum of cognitive effort and tend to become routinised because of habit formation. Finally,
the fourth quadrant reflects decision-making regarding products which can be termed ‘life’s little pleasures’, such as soft drinks, ice cream,
chocolate bars.
The Rossiter-Percy grid is an alternative of the FCB grid which classifies products and buying decisions in four categories, based on the
dimensions of high-low involvement and fulfilling a transformational or informational buying motive. Transformational buying motives (ice
cream, perfume) consists of positive motivations, such as sensory gratification, social approval or intellectual stimulation, while
informational buying motives (detergents, insurance) refer to reducing or reversing negative motivations such as solving or avoiding a
problem or depletion. It is important to realise that the quadrants in both the FCB-grid and Rossiter-Percy grid do not contain product
categories, but characteristics of consumers in a buying decision, in other words: the grids are a segmentation and positioning tool. The
quadrant a consumer is in may also change over time or across buying situations. The advantage of hierarchy-of-effects models is that they
provide a framework for communications objectives and campaign effectiveness measurement (Chapter 4 and 13). They also incorporate an
important contribution (recognition of the importance of brand awareness). These models consider brand awareness as a prerequisite for
brand attitude formation. They correctly assume that affective responses cannot be formed or that a purchase cannot take place without
having an awareness of the brand. Most companies strive to reach top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) in consumers. TOMA indicates which
brand is most salient within a product category. It reflects the first brand that comes to mind when thinking of a particular product category.
However, to base marketing communications on hierarchy-of-effects models may not be the most effective or relevant strategy, due to
lacking empirical support for the fact that consumers go through each stage.
,Attitude formation and change
An attitude is a person’s overall evaluation of an object, a product, an organisation, an ad etc. In this view, an attitude towards a particular
brand (Ab) can be considered as a measure of how much a person likes or dislikes the brand, or of the extent to which they hold a favourable
or unfavourable view of it. The belief that the more favourable brand attitudes are, the more likely a purchase of the brand becomes. So, the
ultimate challenge for marketing communications is to change attitudes in favour of the company’s brand.
Attitudes play an important role in hierarchy-of-effects models too, but in these
models, they are primarily defined as affective reactions. An attitude can be
assumed to consist of three components. The cognitive component, reflects
knowledge, beliefs and evaluations; the affective component represents the
feelings; and the behavioural component refers to action readiness of the
object. Consumers follow different processes, while a lot of communications
models have been developed for particular situations only. These different
communications models regarding attitude formation and attitude change can
be classified along two dimensions. The first refers to the way attitudes are
formed – primarily cognitive, affective or behavioural; the second is about the
level of elaboration of a message, or central-route vs. peripheral-route
processing. The think-feel dimension of the FCB grid is transformed into a
distinction between cognitive, affective and behavioural attitude formation. The involvement dimension of the FCB grid is extended to
motivation, ability and opportunity (MAO). By motivation, a willingness to engage in behaviour, decision making, processing information is
meant. Motivation is to a large extent influenced by consumer needs and goals. Consumer needs can be categorised as functional, symbolic
or hedonic. Functional needs can be compared with the informational motivation dimension of the Rossiter-Percy grid and pertain to solving
consumer problems. Symbolic needs relate to how we see ourselves and how we would like to be perceived by others. Hedonic needs reflect
consumers’ desires for sensory pleasure. Needs/goals can also be classified as approach or promotion goals, and avoidance or prevention
goals. So, in order to be persuasive, marketing communications should tap into consumers’ motivational concepts and marketers need to
understand what goals consumers are trying to accomplish by buying the product.
Although someone is motivated to do something, they may be unable to do it. Ability refers
to the resources needed to achieve a particular goal. Finally, opportunity deals with the
extent to which the situation enables a person to obtain a goal set. Also, when the ad
contains little or no information, it does not provide the opportunity to elaborate on it. The
effects of the MAO factors on attitude formation and marketing communications processing
are presented in the Elaboration Likelihood model (ELM). If motivation, ability, and opportunity are all high, the elaboration likelihood is
said to be high and consumers are expected to engage in central-route processing. This means that they are willing to elaborate on the
information, to evaluate the arguments and find out what the information really has to offer. On the other hand, if one or more of the MAO
factors is low, consumers are more likely to process the information peripherally. The result is no real information processing, but an
evaluation based on simple, peripheral cues, such as background music, humour, an attractive source, number of arguments used. At first
sight, it might suggest that central route pertains to cognitive attitude formation, while peripheral-route processing is more likely to give rise
to affective attitude formation. However, reality reveals a more complicated picture. The ELM, as well as other models such as Chaiken’s
Heuristic-Systematic model (HSM), and Forgas’s Affect Infusion model (AIM), assume that, under different MAO conditions, both rational
arguments and affect may give rise to peripheral and central processing. It is not so much the MAO factors, but consumers’ goals that might
determine whether consumers rely on the substance of the message, to form a judgment or on their affective responses. Research also
shows that when individuals focus on ideals (promotion goals), they consider affective information as more relevant, than the substance of
the message. On the other hand, when consumers’ ‘oughts’ (prevention goals) are their driving goal, the opposite result is found.
How exactly the message substance or affective responses are processed is likely to depend on consumers’ elaboration likelihood. Therefore,
we distinguish six types of marketing communications models based on two dimensions. The first dimension pertains to elaboration
likelihood which can be either high or low. The second dimensions is related to the attitude component on which attitude formation is
mainly build, i.e. cognition, affect or behavior.
, 1. High elaboration likelihood, cognitive attitude formation
When consumer’s motivation, ability and opportunity are high and when cognitive elements are important for attitude formation.
Multiple attribute models
The most famous multiple attribute model is the Expectancy-Value model, or Fishbein model.
In this model, brand attitudes are made up of three elements: relevant product attributes, the
extent to which one believes the brand possesses these attributes, and the evaluation of these attributes or how good/bad one thinks it is
for a brand to possess these attributes. Brand attitude is represented by the weighted sum of the products of brand beliefs and attribute
evaluations. Since not all product attributes are equally important for a consumer, product beliefs are weighted by the importance that the
consumer attaches to the different product attributes.
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TORA) is an extension of the
Expectancy-Value model. The model was developed to provide a link
between attitude and behavioural intention. The latter is determined not
only by attitudes, but also by the subjective norm. A subjective norm
comprises the belief one holds regarding what different reference groups
consider as socially desirable behaviour, weighted by the consumer’s
need or willingness to behave according to the norms of the particular reference group. The TORA has been further extended to the Theory
of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Fishbein and Ajzen felt this extension was necessary to be able to deal with behaviours over which people have
incomplete volitional control. Indeed, behavioural intention can result in actual behaviour only if the consumers themselves can decide to
perform or not perform the behaviour. Often behaviour depends on non-motivational factors, such as resources (time, money, skills,
infrastructure). For example: a consumer may be willing to go to work by public transport, but when they live in a remote place with hardly
any public transport facilities, this may be difficult to do. Behavioural control as perceived by the consumer is more predictive of behaviour
than actual behavioural control. Perceived behavioural control (PBC) can be defined as the ‘perceived ease or difficulty of performing the
behaviour and it is assumed to reflect past experience as well as anticipated impediments and obstacles’. Perceived behavioural control is
computed by multiplying control beliefs by perceived power of the particular control belief to pose the
behaviour, and the resulting products are summed across the salient control beliefs.
Based on the TPB model, marketing communicators can try to change consumers’ attitudes and
influence their behaviour in several ways. Firstly, they can try to change brand beliefs. A second
possibility is changing attribute evaluations. Finally, attitudes can be changed by adding attributes.
Besides trying to change attitudes, marketers can focus on changing the opinion of others.
Self-generated persuasion
Another form of central-route, cognitively based processing is self-generated persuasion. In this case, the consumer is not persuaded by
strong brand arguments, but by their own thoughts, arguments or imagined consequences. These thoughts go beyond the information
offered in the ad. The consumer combines the information in the message with previous experience and knowledge, and tries to imagine
them consuming the product and the consequences thereof. These self-generated thoughts and the cognitive and affective responses
evoked by the imagined brand experience give rise to fairly strong brand beliefs, and have a considerable impact on brand attitude.
2. Low elaboration likelihood, cognitive attitude formation
When one of the MAO factors is low, leading or forcing the consumer to concentrate on peripheral
cues. For example, when consumers do not have the time to compare all available brands on
relevant attributes, they may infer from a high price that the brand is a high-quality brand and
therefore form a positive attitude towards it. This process is called heuristic evaluation. When MAO
is low, central information processing is unlikely to occur and consumers will probably process the
communication peripherally. This means that they do not elaborate on the message, but try to
make inferences on the basis of ad characteristics. Peripheral cues in the ad are used as a heuristic
cue to evaluate the quality of the message and to form a general evaluation of the brand advertised. Heuristic evaluation has been referred
to as the satisficing choice process, since consumers’ MAO factors are not optimal, they are not looking for direct evidence of performance
superiority, but settle for a satisfactory or acceptable choice. Therefore, they seek for reassurance or credibility in heuristic cues such as
brand name reputation, experts endorsing the brand, price level.
3. High elaboration likelihood, affective attitude formation
