Lecture 1: How marcoms work: Explicit attitudes
Boeken: Belch & Belch, De Pelsmacker
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) - Belch & Belch
The evolution of IMC: For many years: Advertising via mass media has been the dominant
form of marketing communication (marcom). 1980s: arrival of new disciplines like public
affairs, PR, direct marketing, sales promotion. Try to coordinate all promotional elements /
marketing activities that communicate with customers!
IMC: Strategic business process to plan, develop, execute and evaluate brand
communications programs. Big-picture on building strong brands.
Marcoms now is about building relationships - Belch & Belch
The old way - consumer era: sell more, interrupt and persuade people, what the brand
does, channels most conductive to influencing people, presents the brand positively, impact
on transactions.
The winning way - relationship era: build sustainable relationships (sell more and increase
trust), engage people, why the brand exists, channels most conductive to engaging people,
presents the brand authentically, impact on both transaction and trust.
IMC Audience Contact Tools / Touch Points - Belch & Belch
,Control versus impact - Belch & Belch
1. planned: company-created touchpoints
2. intrinsic touchpoints
3. customer initiated touchpoints
4. unexpected touchpoints
IMC Planning Model - Belch & Belch
How marcoms work 1: Explicit attitudes
Marketing communications (marcoms) aim at encouraging people to buy (or keep buying) a
particular brand. How do consumers process and respond to marcoms (e.g. advertising)?
,How marcoms work
How marcoms work 1 > Explicit brand attitudes > consumer behavior
How do consumers process and respond to marcoms?
Attitude formation and change:
- Attitude components
- Elaboration likelihood (extent of information processing)
Attitude formation and change
Attitude toward brand (Ab)
- How much person likes/dislikes brand
- Extent to which person holds favorable/unfavorable view of brand
3 components
- Good to think about getting a grip on how marcoms work!
Attitude components
1. Affective: Feelings associated with object
2. Cognitive: Knowledge, beliefs and evaluations of object
3. Behavioral: Action readiness wrt object
Example: You may love Timberland shoes (affective components) because you know they
are durable and convenient to wear (cognitive component) and that is why you want to buy
them the next time you go shopping (behavioral component).
Attitude formation and change
How do consumers process and respond to marcoms?
- Difficult to predict
- Influenced by many factors (goals, product type, involvement, situation)
- No single model
Classifying models/processes, 2 dimensions
1. Basis of attitude formation: Primary cognitive versus affective versus behavioral
2. Elaboration level of marcoms message: High versus low, Depends on MAO factors
, MAO factors
- Motivation: Willingness to engage in behavior, make decisions, may attention,
process information etc.
- Ability: Resources needed to achieve particular goal
- Opportunity: Extent to which situation enables person to obtain goal
Effects MAO on marcoms processing: ELM
All high > Central processing:
- neutral argument: no attitude change
- support argument: permanent positive attitude change
- counterargument: permanent negative attitude change
All low > Persuasive cue present?
- Yes > Peripheral processing: temporary, attitude, change
- No > No processing: retain, initial, attitude
Classifying models / processes
High elaboration likelihood, cognitive attitude formation
Example: Consumer who wants to buy a home cinema system and tries to compare
objectively different brands on several attributes (price, sound, quality etc.) before making a
decision.
- Relevant models: Self-generated persuasion (see chapter), multi-attribute models >
expectancy-value model, TPB
Theory of planned Behavior (TPB): brand attitudes
Three elements brand attitudes:
- Relevant product attitudes
- Evaluation of these attributes
- How much consumer believes the brand has these attributes