Marketing Chapter 5 How Brand Communication Works Persuasion Other Words Area Which Cognitive And

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Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

 Persuasion, in other words, is an area in which cognitive and affective factors are

interrelated. Persuasion works both through rational arguments and by touching

emotions in such a way that they create a compulsion to act. Persuasive strategies can

be used to touch both the head and the heart. Negative advertising, or attack ads, are

good examples of how people form opinions at the same time they process

information that is presented within an emotional frame.

Factors That Drive Persuasion

There are many dimensions to persuasion, but advertisers identify the following factors to

explain how persuasion affects consumers:

 Motivation. A factor in creating a persuasive message is motivation. Underlying

motivation is the idea that something, such as hunger or a desire to be beautiful or

rich, prompts a person to act in a certain way. This feeling sets up a state of tension,

and the product becomes a tool in achieving that goal and thus reducing the tension.

 Influence. If you think you need to lose weight or stop smoking, how much of that

decision is based on your own motivations and how much of your motivation results

from messages from others? Some people, known as opinion leaders, may be able to

Bandwagon appeals, messages that suggest that everyone is doing it, are also used to

influence people’s decisions. Word-of-mouth communication has always been recognized

as the most powerful form of persuasion, and that’s why strategies that engage

influencers are so important.

 Involvement. Advertisers distinguish between products, messages, and media on the

basis of the level of involvement they require from the buyer. Involvement refers to

the degree to which you are engaged in attending to an ad and the process you go

through in responding to a message and making a product decision. Some products

call for a more involved process than others, such as cosmetics as compared to

 Engagement. The idea of engagement is that a consumer is more than just interested

in something. Rather, they are “turned on.” Engagement cultivates passion.

 Conviction. Effective persuasion results in conviction, which means consumers agree

with a persuasive message and achieve a state of certainty—a belief—about a brand.

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

 Preference and Intention. When consumers marry belief with a preference for or an

intention to try or buy a product, they are motivated by conviction. Intention can be

heightened with reward strategies, such as good deals, sale pricing, and gifts. Good

intentions are the motivations behind cause marketing and social responsibility.

Providing information about warranties, customer service, and technical support for

technology products is an important part of brand loyalty strategies. The idea is to reduce

risk and put the customer’s mind at ease. Incentives are used in loyalty programs, such as

frequent flyer or frequent buyer programs, and social responsibility and cause marketing

programs can build trust, respect, and preference that lead to loyalty.

 An important issue in persuasion is believability, which refers to the credibility of the

arguments in a message. Related to believability is credibility, which is an indication

of the trustworthiness of the source. Source credibility means the person delivering

the message, such as an expert, is respected, trusted, and believable.

The Behavior Facet: Act/Do

 Behavior can involve different types of action in addition to trying or buying the

product – for example, to visit a store, return an inquiry card, call a toll-free number,

join an organization, donate to a good cause, or click on a website.

 We must distinguish, however, between direct action, which represents an immediate

response, and indirect action, which is a delayed response to advertising. Advertising

almost by definition is characterized by indirect action.

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

 There is also purposeless action, which became a fad during the 2000s when viral

email messages were used to generate a sudden and conspicuous gathering of people.

Called flash mobs, these public spectacles included concerts, marriage proposals, and

even a worldwide day of pillow fights. Flash mobs demonstrate the power of the

internet and buzz to engage people, involve them in something memorable, and drive

them to action, even if the action is largely meaningless.

Factors that Drive Behavioral Response

The behavioral response involving action of some kind is often the most important goal

of marketing communication, particularly for tools such as sales promotion and direct

marketing. Factors that drive a behavioral response include:

 Mental Rehearsal. The mental rehearsal of behaviors is made possible by showing

visuals of people doing things. Visualization is an imagined action, but one that is the

predecessor to the behavior with which the advertiser hopes the consumer will feel

comfortable and familiar.

 Trial. The first step in making a purchase is often to try the product. Trial is

important for new products and expensive products because it lets a customer use the

Sales, however, for many managers, is the gold standard for effective advertising. They

feel that, even if they are funny, memorable, or entertaining, ads are failures if they don’t

help sell the brand. The problem is that it may be difficult to prove that a marketing

communication message is the singular factor in the marketing mix that delivered the

sales. They could have been induced by price, distribution, or product design and

performance.

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

 Contacting. Responding by making contact with the advertiser can be an important

sign of effectiveness. Initiating contact is also valuable, particularly in IMC programs

that are designed to maintain brand relationships by creating opportunities for

customer-initiated dialogue, such as encouraging customers with a complaint,

compliment, suggestion, or referral to contact the company.

 Advocating and Referrals. One of the behavioral dimensions of brand loyalty is

advocacy, i.e., speaking out on a brand’s behalf and referring to it when someone

asks for a recommendation. Contacting other people is a valuable response,

particularly when a satisfied customer brings in more business for the brand by

 Prevention. In some social action situations, advertising messages are designed to

deter behaviors, such as clean-air campaigns that hope to reduce car use. This is a

complicated process that involves counter-arguing by presenting negative messages

about an unwanted behavior and creating the proper incentives to stimulate the

desired behavior. Because the effects are so complicated, the impact of such

campaigns is not always clear.

THE POWER OF BRAND COMMUNICATION

 The six-factor Facets Model of Effects is our answer to the question of how

advertising works. These six factors, when working together, can create a coherent

brand perception. There are two important things to remember about how this model

works: (1) the effects are interdependent and (2) they are not all equal for all

marketing communication situations.

Strong and Weak Effects

 Some professionals believe that sales are the only true indication of message

effectiveness. The power of advertising, in other words, is determined by its ability to

motivate consumers to buy a brand. Some believe that advertising is so powerful, it

can motivate people to buy things they don’t need.

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

 Others, including the authors of this textbook, believe communication effects include

a wide range of consumer responses to a message. Those responses may be just as

important as sales because they lead to the creation of such things as brand liking and

a long-term brand relationship. The debate over the power of brand communication is

analyzed in terms of “strong” and “weak” effects.

 Complicating the issue is the recognition that the impact of traditional advertising is

seldom immediate. In other words, advertising is a victim of delayed effects.

Messages are seen at one point in time and may or may not come to mind at a later

date when you are in a purchase situation. Advertisers must keep the delayed effects

problem in mind when relying on the ‘surrogate effects,’ such as attention, interest,

motivation, and memory to bring the message to mind days or weeks later.

END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT

REVIEW QUESTIONS

5-4. What are the key components of a communication model and how do they

relate to brand communication?

Mass communication is usually thought of as a process that begins with a source,

a sender who encodes a message and puts it in words and pictures. The message is

presented through channels of communication, such as a newspaper, radio, or TV.

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

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The advertiser’s objectives in advertising are focused on the receiver’s response; they

predict the impact the message will have on the target audience. That impact is what we

measure to determine whether the message met its objectives and was effective.

In advertising, noise hinders the consumer’s reception of the message. On a macro level

noise includes consumer trends and problems with the product’s marketing mix. On a

micro level external noise could be bad radio or TV reception or clutter, which is the

multitude of messages all competing to get your attention.

5-5. Why is it important to add interaction to the traditional communication model?

Mass communication is traditionally seen as a one-way process with the message

depicted as moving from the source to the receiver. However, interactive communication

is two-way communication, and marketing communication is moving in that direction.

The difference between one-way and two-way communication is that the two-way

communication process is interactive, and the source and receiver change positions as the

message bounces back and forth between them.

5-6. What are the six categories of effects identified in the Facets Model? What does

each one represent in terms of a consumer’s response to an advertising message?

 See/Hear (perception)

 Feel (affective/emotion)

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5-7. Explain the difference between recall and recognition. What facets does each

represent?

Advertisers are interested in two types of memory: recognition, which means people

remember seeing the ad and recall, which means they remember what the ad said.

Recognition is a measure of perception and is used to determine awareness. Recognition

5-8. Explain the difference between brand responses that involve thinking and

feeling.

Affective responses mirror our feelings about something. The term affective describes

something that stimulates wants, touches the emotions, creates liking, and elicits feelings.

Feelings and emotions can be positive or negative. Generally, marketing communication

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

5-9. This chapter identifies six major categories of effects or consumer responses. Find an

ad in this book that you think is effective and explain how it works, analyzing the way it

cultivates responses in these six categories.

When answering this question, students should make sure that each of the following

categories is analyzed:

 See/Hear (perception)

 Feel (affective/emotional)

5–10. Eva Proctor is a planner in an agency that handles a liquid detergent brand that

competes with Lever’s Wisk. Eva is reviewing a history of the Wisk theme “Ring around

the Collar.” In its day, it is one of the longest-running themes on television, and Wisk’s

sales share indicates that it has been successful. What is confusing Eva is that the Wisk

history includes numerous consumer surveys that show consumers find “Ring around the

Collar” to be boring, silly, and an irritating advertising theme. Discuss why Wisk is such

a popular brand even though its advertising campaign was so disliked.

Wisk’s consumer surveys that seemingly contradict the long-running success of the “ring

around the collar” theme demonstrate the significance of advertising relevance—

isolating a point that resonates with consumers. Wisk solved and continues to solve a

5–11. You have been asked to participate in a debate in your office about three

different views on advertising effects. Your office has the assignment to introduce a

new electric car. A copywriter says informing consumers about the product’s features

is most important in creating effective advertising. An art director argues that creating

an emotional bond with consumers is more important. One of the account managers

says that the only advertising performance that counts is sales. Your client wants to be

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

single-minded and tells you to pick one of these viewpoints to guide the new marketing

communication. Develop a position on one side or the other and discuss your point of

view.

These three professionals are arguing about what makes brand communication

purposeful, which is referred to as ‘effect.’ Ads are created to have an effect, that is,

some impact on the people who read or see their message.

5–12. Your small agency has been invited to work on a new product called Wikicells,

which are shell-like packaging systems that can be eaten. Milk, for example, could be

packaged in a strawberry or chocolate flavored pouch that you could wash and eat, like

the skin of an apple. Even if you decide to toss it, it is biodegradable. The first products

to be introduced using this new packaging system will be yogurt and ice cream. Your

assignment is to come up with a brand name and write a one-page brief on how to launch

these new items. Consider the relevant facets in preparing your proposal. (This is from a

list of new products published by the New York Times under the headline “Innovations

That Will Change Your Tomorrow.” It ran June 1, 2012. See www.nytimes.com.)

Chapter 5: How Brand Communication Works

TAKE-HOME PROJECTS

5-13. Portfolio Project: From current magazines, identify five advertisements that have

exceptionally high stopping power (attention), five that have exceptionally high pulling

power (interest), and five that have exceptionally high locking power (memory). Make

photocopies of these ads to turn in. Which of these advertisements are mainly information

and which are mainly emotional and focused on feelings? Which are focused on building

a brand or creating associations? Do any of them do a great job of creating action?

Choose what you believe to be the most effective ad in the collection. Why did you

choose this one, and what can you learn from it about effective advertising?

Student responses to this assignment will vary.

5-14. Mini-Case Analysis: We discussed some aspects of the “Imported from Detroit”

campaign for the Chrysler turnaround in the chapter. Briefly summarize the key decisions

behind this campaign. Now apply the Facets Model of Effects to analyze how the

campaign worked and explain your conclusions about what did or didn’t make this an

effective campaign. Write a short analysis (no more than two double-spaced pages) that

explains your thinking.

Key decisions included the goals, objectives, the big idea, and message strategy, each of

which is identified in the case study at the beginning of this chapter. The campaign

TRACE NORTH AMERICA CASE

Multicultural Communication Effectiveness

Read the TRACE case in the Appendix before coming to class.

5-15. Explain how brand communication works in the case of the “Hard to Explain, Easy

to Experience” campaign.

5-16. How could you strengthen the target audience’s participation in the campaign?