1. CHAPTER
NINE
Communication and
Consumer Behavior
2. Learning Objectives
1. To Understand the Role of the Message’s Source in
the Communication Process.
2. To Understand the Role of the Message’s Audience
(Receivers) in the Communication Process.
3. To Learn About Advertising Media and How to Select
the Right Media When Sending Promotional
Messages Targeting Selected Consumer Groups.
4. To Learn How Understanding Consumers Enables
Marketers to Develop Persuasive Messages.
5. To Understand How Marketers Measure the
Effectiveness of Their Promotional Messages.
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3. Which Type of Communication Is Featured in This Ad,
and What Strategic Concept Does It Get Across?
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4. Nonverbal Used for Positioning
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5. Basic Communication Model
Figure 9.2
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6. The Source as the Initiator
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7. The Source -
Impersonal and Interpersonal Communications
• Source Credibility
• Reference Groups
– Normative
– Comparative
– Membership
– Symbolic
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8. The Source
Informal Sources and Word of Mouth
• Informal Sources
– Opinion leaders
• Word of Mouth and
eWOM
– Two-way communication
– Social networks
– Brand communities
– Message boards and
Blogs
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9. The Source
Word of Mouth – Strategic Applications
• Buzz Agents
• Viral Marketing
• Tackling negative rumors
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10. Discussion Questions
• How have informal
sources affected your
decision as a consumer?
• Which informal sources
are the most powerful?
Why? When?
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11. The Source
Credibility of Formal Sources
• Institutional
advertising
• Publicity
• Endorsers
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12. Discussion Questions
• Who do you consider credible spokespeople?
• Why?
• Can you think of certain ads with credible
spokespeople?
• Ads with spokespeople who are NOT credible?
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13. Why Are Consumers Likely to
Perceive This Ad as Credible?
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14. A Glamorous Celebrity Endorser is More Likely to be
Perceived as a Credible Source, Especially for a
Hedonistic Product.
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15. Credibility of Formal Sources
Endorser Effectiveness
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16. Credibility of Formal Sources
Other Credibility Sources
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17. The Receivers as the Target Audience
• Personal characteristics and motives
• Involvement and congruency
• Mood
• Barriers to communication
– Selective exposure to messages
– Psychological noise
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19. Media (Channel)
• Mass Media
• Nontraditional (New) Media is:
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20. The Shift From Traditional
To Nontraditional Advertising - Figure 9.5
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21. Nontraditional Media
• Out-of-home and On-the-go
– Advertising screens in buildings and transit
– Digital billboards on roads
– Ambient advertising (in new places)
• Online and Mobile
– Includes consumer-generated media
– Narrowcast messages
• Interactive TV (iTV)
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22. Media (Channel)
• Congruence with message
– Addressable advertising
– Branded entertainment
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23. Designing Persuasive Communications
Message Structure
and Presentation • Wordplay
• Used to create a double
• Resonance meaning when used
• Message framing with a relevant picture
• One-Sided versus Two-
Sided Messages
• Order Effects
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24. Which Advertising Technique Is Used
in Each Ad, and How So?
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26. Designing Persuasive Communications
Message Structure
and Presentation
• Resonance • Positive framing
• Message framing • Negative framing
• One-Sided versus Two-
Sided Messages
• Order Effects
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27. Designing Persuasive Communications
Message Structure
and Presentation
• Resonance Depends on nature of the
• Message framing audience and nature of
• One-Sided versus Two- competition
Sided Messages
• Order Effects
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28. Designing Persuasive Communications
Message Structure
and Presentation
• Resonance • Primacy
• Message framing • Recency
• Order of benefits
• One-Sided versus Two-
• Brand name
Sided Messages
• Order Effects
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29. Advertising Appeals
• Comparative
• Fear
• Humor
• Abrasive
• Sex
• Audience participation
• Timely
• Celebrities
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30. Which Advertising Appeal Is Shown in
Each Ad, and Why Is It Used?
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31. Comparative - It Has Positive Effects On Brand
Attitudes, Purchase Intentions, and Purchases
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32. Which Two Advertising Appeals Are
Shown in This Ad?
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33. Humor and Fear Appeal
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34. Types of Celebrity Appeals
Table 9.6
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35. Discussion Questions
• You are a marketer for your
college/university.
– How could you use comparative advertising?
– Do you think it would be effective?
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36. Feedback
Determining Effectiveness
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37. Feedback
Determining Effectiveness
• Exposure
– People meters
• Message Attention, Interpretation, and Recall
– Physiological measures
– Attitudinal measures
– Recall and recognition measures
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Here is an outline for the topics in Chapter Nine.
Before we begin talking about communication in more detail, it is worth taking a look at the basic communication model . What we see here is someone, the source, sending a message through a channel to a receiver, most likely the consumer. The model also shows that there is feedback from the receiver which tells the sender whether the message was received.
It is important to understand that the sender of the message can be a formal or an informal source. Informal sources have become of interest to marketers as consumers look online to find ratings from other consumers when taking in marketing information.
A message can either be impersonal and transmitted to many or interpersonal which involves more one-on-one communication. In either case, it is important to consider how credible the source might be. Are they seen as honest and objective? Are they well respected? Reference groups are considered very credible sources since they help define a person’s behavior. For instance, your family or friends give you a sense of what to buy, where to eat, and the type of clothes to wear to a given event. These are normative reference groups. Comparative reference groups also set benchmarks but for a much narrower part of your lifestyle. People often become members of groups, like a fraternity, and are influenced by other members’ purchases. Finally, a symbolic group is one in which you are not a member but take on the values and attitudes of the group.
Informal sources have a lot of influence on consumers because they appear to have nothing to gain from their recommendations. Opinion leaders tend to be category specific and specialize in the areas in which they offer information and advice. Word of Mouth is actually a two-way process that commonly takes place online through social networks, brand communities, and message boards and blogs. Blogs are so popular, in fact, that there are several search engines for blogs including this web link to technorati – a blog search engine.
Marketers realize the power of word-of-mouth (WOM) but also the difficulty in creating opinion leaders and being overly involved on WOM creation. Their strategy so far has focused on the strategies on this slide. P&G has been most active in the use of buzz agents, as you can see on this web link to tremor.com. Viral marketing has some challenges due to the mass amount of clutter in email. Consumers get so many messages, it is often hard for them to decide which ones are worth forwarding to their friends. WOM has created many marketing nightmares for students. Negative comments, or more dangerously, false rumors are very difficult for marketers to squelch online. Some experts think it is best to ignore the rumors, while other companies tackle them head on with statements and videos from company executives.
Reflect upon decisions you make as a consumer. There are bound to be informal sources who influence your decisions.
How credible are the sources themselves? To build their companies, credibility and image marketers will use institutional advertising. In addition, they will focus on publicity and how they may be perceived by their many markets. A source can also use a celebrity endorser to help their message be more credible.
There are many spokespeople in products you have seen advertised. Celebrities, sports super stars, CEO’s, and more. Which ones tend to appear credible to you?
Studies on the effectiveness of spokespeople and endorsers have found the following issues to be very important. The next time you see an advertisement with a celebrity endorser, try to remember this list and see how many of these points the marketer has followed.
In addition to a celebrity or spokesperson, there are other credibility issues that affect the consumer. Sometimes a product or brand is more credible if the retailer or vendor is well known and trusted for buying quality goods. In addition, we know there are certain magazines or other media where we can not believe a thing we read or hear – how much credibility can your ad have when placed in one of these media? Finally, the credibility from a celebrity, source, or vendor is often forgotten over time; this is known as the sleeper effect .
The receiver must comprehend and decode the message. This differs based on the issues stated on this slide. Let’s look at them individually to understand why they are important. Each consumer is very different as described in earlier chapters. Their personal characteristics , including personality, demographics, social groups, and lifestyle will impact how the message is received. In addition, consumers have different levels of motivation and involvement for different product groups and brands. This involvement and congruency are related in determining the types of ads consumers would prefer. A given consumer can differ in their mood when viewing an ad, and positive moods are likely to increase a consumer’s reaction to the ad. Finally, there are barriers to communication that may make the message difficult to decode. The first is that as consumers, we are bombarded with advertising messages. Because of this clutter, we are very selective in what we allow ourselves to be exposed to. We have pop-up blockers on our computers and caller ID on our phones.
There are many tactics marketers can use to overcome the psychological noise experienced by consumers. Breaking through is often done by contrast, repeated exposure, customized messages, effective positioning, and unique offers and benefits.
Mass media has been highly used by marketers over time but is quickly being replaced by new media which are often more focused, individualized, and targeted to the audience. The new media can be more customized, allows the consumer to interact, and is measureable for the marketer.
Here we get a sense of how some of the leading advertisers are changing their media expenditures to include more measurable media.
There are three big areas of nontraditional media presented on this slide. The first, out-of-home , includes all the posters, billboards, and ads you see as you are walking, driving, and taking public transportation. There are even ads placed in subway tunnels now which give the illusion of a moving picture. The web link on this page goes to sub-media, one of the leading firms in this business. We are all aware of the growth in Internet and mobile spending by marketers and the interest in getting messages that are relevant and useful to our cell phones. Finally, interactive TV is the goal of many advertisers where you can interact directly with a television show and send and receive information on related products and services.
It has been found that consumers favor web sites where they receive personalized messages, especially when they complain or need help. The example on this slide shows an ad that moves from being more picture oriented and a tag line that is more individualized. Addressable advertising sends a highly customized message directly to a single viewer. Another area where congruence with the message is an issue is with branded entertainment , which is more commonly known as product placement. Having the product integrated with the show and the characters builds more awareness than other vehicles of communication.
A message can be verbal or nonverbal. Basically, it is the thought, idea, attitude, image, or other information that the sender wants to convey. So how can they do it successfully, to make it persuasive? The first thing could be advertising resonance or wordplay. Examples of this are seen on the following slide.
An advertiser will often stress the benefits to be gained by using a product. This is positive framing and is very often used in advertising. You have probably also seen examples of negative framing where the consumer is shown what they will lose by NOT using the product.
In some instances, marketers only present one side of the product, its benefits, and the market as opposed to two sides. In a two-sided message , a marketer might mention the competitor or the risks a consumer might take with the product. Choosing one sided over two can be a difficult decision for marketers and depends on whether the audience is friendly, their educational level, and the competitor’s current advertising campaign.
Advertisers are always trying to figure out if they are better off as the first ad in a commercial break, or nearer the front of a magazine. Research has shown that for television, the ads shown first are recalled the best. Magazine advertisers know the covers are the best since they are often the only parts of the magazine seen many times by the readers. But what about during an ad? When should the benefits be listed, at the beginning or the end? This depends on how interested the audience is with the ad. If interest is low, benefits should come first. The same with brand name – it should come first to enhance brand recall and message persuasiveness if interest and involvement are low.
These are the major types of advertising appeals. Let’s look at them one by one. Comparative advertising is very commonly used. Some say it helps the viewer remember the competitor’s brand and that might reduce its effectiveness. Fear is effective but only if the threat is strong enough to actually make the consumer response. Humor is the most popular appeal because it is believed that it increases acceptance and persuasiveness. In fact, studies show that humor attracts attention, increases liking of the product, does not make an ad hard to understand, and is better for low-involvement products. Believe it or not, abrasive or unpleasant ads are sometimes effective if they are well targeted. Sex in advertising seems to be on the rise. They do get attention but studies show that they rarely encourage actual consumption. In fact, these appeals often detract consumers from the message and comprehension is reduced. Audience participation will almost always help the receiver internalize the information. Appeals can also be very timely with ties into political issues or seasonal activities. Celebrities are also used as was discussed earlier in the chapter.
Here are some common ways in which celebrities are used in advertising appeals. You can probably remember seeing at least one ad for each one of these. Maybe this shows that the use of celebrities helps retention.
This helps you think through the ways that marketers use comparative advertising. You will most likely compare your school to a close competitor, pointing out positive attributes of your school.
When determining feedback , the marketer most wants to know who received the message, did they understand it, and was it effective in increasing sales of their product or service?
The question as to how many people receive the message is often debated by marketers. Nielsen is a leader in measurement, including television, online, and other new media. The persuasion effects are also hard to measure. Some marketers have used physiological measurements, such as eye tracking and brain wave analysis, to measure how people look at their ads. Surveys can be given to receivers regarding their attitudes and engagement with messages, as well as traditional recall tests, including the popular day-after recall tests.