Lectures Marketing Communication
Lecture 1 – Introduction
We focus on the communication and assume that the price,
target group, distribution, etc., is already given.
The marketing communication course is a course that
provides a framework about how to persuade consumers via
various communication channels / platforms, including off-
and online tools
During the lectures, we will focus on the part of analyzing
the communication and persuasion process, which is part of
the Integrated Marketing Communication Plan.
Consumers are confronted with a stimulus (our communication
attempt) and this eventually may result in a certain behavior.
Consumers use their memory in this process. There are simple
but also more complex models.
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,Lecture 2 – Breaking through the advertising clutter
There are a lot of advertisements, which are all screaming for attention, but
attention is limited.
Attention is the reception of stimuli. Attention is
• Limited (as are the amount of mental resources)
• Selective
• Voluntary or involuntary (conscious vs unconscious response)
• A precondition for further processing, because more attention means
more “elaboration”: pre-attention → focal attention → comprehension →
elaboration
People have limited cognitive capacity to attend to and think about information. We can divide processing into four levels
(Greenwald and Heavitt, 1984):
• Pre-attention: little or no capacity required, automatic processing
• Focal-attention: little capacity required
• Comprehension: modest levels of capacity required
• Elaboration: substantial levels of capacity required
So, more attention means more capacity to comprehend and elaborate on information
But, there is a challenge: you should try to avoid advertising avoidance. Consumers actively decide NOT to attend to commercial
messages, for example by zipping and zapping, “do not call me” lists (tele-selling), or ad blockers. People learn to actively avoid
commercial messages, such as banners and sponsored results
Ad avoidance is a bigger problem for online compared to offline media, and has to do with two concepts:
→ Information overload, because consumers usually have specific goals when browsing, online ads perceived as more
intrusive. Pagendarm & Schaumburg (2001): consumers’ navigation style matters: Banner blindness is higher when people
are looking for information vs. when they are just browsing
→ Selective attention, people train themselves in recognizing commercial messages (such as banners and sponsored search
results), such that they can actively avoid
Cho and Cheon (2004) examined why
people avoid advertisements on the
internet, and found three main reasons:
• Perceived goal impediment:
advertisements hinders their
goals (why they are searching
something on the internet)
• Perceived ad clutter: the more
people think that the internet is
full of advertisements, the more
likely they are to avoid these
advertisements.
• Prior negative experiences: for
example, clicking on an ad that
leads to nothing.
How campaigns can stand out
How MC’s can “increase” comprehension and elaboration (and hence stand out)?
1) Increase attention (attention effect), so that more resources are allocated to the stimulus →
stimulate involuntary attention and stimulate voluntary attention
2) Increase ease of processing (memory effect), so that less resources are needed to
comprehend and elaborate on the stimulus
1. Increase attention
a. Stimulating involuntary attention
A number of communication cues can trigger involuntary attention, such as salient & novel stimuli, centrally located stimuli
(horizontal centrality), stimuli presented first (primacy effects), and picture superiority (pictoral vs. text vs. brand). Involuntary
attention is an automatic orienting response. Cialdini (2016) calls this “attractors”
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, 1. Salient stimuli can be novel, unexpected or original stimuli, or can be related to life and death (sexual or threatening stimuli).
Salient stimuli often sticks out and is hard to ignore, attracts attention involuntary, so that more capacity will be allocated when
processing the corresponding stimulus. They elicit an orienting response, resulting in mild psychological arousal and physical
orientation toward the source of stimulation (i.e., focal attention).
→ Arousal is the mediator. Arousal is a state of wakefulness or alertness and affects
cognitive capacity. Salient stimuli will result in a moderate level of arousal, which will
results in a high level of cognitive capacity. A low or high level of arousal results in a
low level of cognitive capacity. This is due to the Yerkes-Dodson Law.
2. Horizontal centrality is that stimuli in the center receive more attention and are more
likely to be chosen.
3. Primacy effects mean that attention to items presented first in a list is higher. The Golden Triangle
says that people pay more attention to the first three hits on Google and attention has the form of a
triangle. But, this study was conducted when Google showed their sponsored links on the right and not
on the left. Also, people nowadays search more on mobile devices and search more in a vertical
instead of horizontal way. A new article including ads on the left doesn’t find the golden triangle anymore.
4. Picture superiority: people pay more attention to visual stimuli. Pieters and Wedel (2004) did an eye-tracking study on many
printed ads, they find that:
→ Pictures: attract attention, regardless of their size
→ Text: the bigger the text, the more attention
→ Brand: the bigger the brand name, the more attention, not only to the brand, but also to pictures and texts (and no
negative effect on overall attention) (because people try to find a connection between the brand and the visual).
→ Resource competition: the more attention to the picture or the text, the less attention goes to the other ad elements
b. Stimulating voluntary attention
After orienting response, more capacity can be freed up. Voluntary attention is captured by self-relevance, unfinished ads and
mysterious ads. Cialdini (2016) calls this “magnetizers”
1. Self-relevance
a. Personal interest: increasing voluntary attention by taking into account personal interest. For example, having campaigns
for Kleenex in regions where there is the flu.
b. Inattentional blindness, for example counting how often the ball is passed and missing the gorilla, which walked by. Also,
you only pay attention to adds for pregnancy tests if you are interested. A study shows that people only look at relevant
information while searching on the internet.
• SEO is search engine optimalisation: how to get on top of the organic results, which is free
• SEA is search engine advertising: how to get in the list of sponsored results, which is paid.
→ Organic results generate more traffic, because of their higher credibility. Sponsored results suffer from
inattentional blindness.
→ A thesis found that people look at advertisements if they are relevant, e.g. if they have the goal to buy.
c. Self-referencing: if you use self-referencing, people
can recall more about the commercial. A study used
‘you’ or ‘it’ in statements and questions in ads.
Recall is higher if ‘you’ was used in statements or
questions than if ‘it’ was used. Using ‘you’ results in
a higher attitude when using statements, but using
‘it’ results in a higher attitude when using questions.
Probably, this was due to too much elaboration.
d. Proximity and (E-)WOM: word of mouth
communications increase sensory and spatial proximity. WOM comes from people close to use, which results in more
attention and higher believability. This can be family, but also opinions from bloggers and influencers. You can use ‘buzz’
marketing.
2. Curiosity
a. Unfinished ads: according to the Zeigarnick effect, interrupted tasks receive more attention. Think about unfinished ads,
narratives or information.
b. Mysterious ads: for example, ads that only show the brand in the end of the ad.
2. Increasing ease of processing
The easier to process, the less capacity is needed for comprehension and elaboration. “Existing” knowledge (memory) makes it
easier to comprehend information. Think about experts vs. novices and the use of concrete information (visual vs. verbal
information (picture superiority effect), concrete vs. abstract words, narrative vs. statistical information, detailed product descriptions
vs. expert ratings).
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