Effective Strategies for Marketing Communication - Essay Example

Marketing Strategies In putting together an advertising campaign for a particular product or service, advertisers are typically only focused on how that advertisement can work to better promote their product or service over their competition. Studies are utilized by advertising agencies to identify potential buying demographics. This information is then used to target specific markets and to learn about public attitudes, why they buy specific products and what sort of promotions would most appeal to their desires to purchase. To some companies, marketing is about generating sales, period. However, attention should be given to the different types of advertising that have proven to be the most effective. The debate continues as to which approach is most effective. There are many approaches a company can take to their advertising, including a general emphasis upon informing their customers regarding their product’s strong points, features or other information. Recently, though, more and more companies have been focusing upon the concept of brand building, attempting to form an emotional bond with their customers that becomes associated not only with the individual product, but also with the overall brand to which this product belongs. To determine what creates the most effective advertising – informing consumers about the product’s features or creating an emotional bond with consumers – it is necessary to examine the available literature regarding these issues as they have been addressed in consumer studies. The history behind the debate The debate between whether advertisements should concentrate on building emotional bonds with consumers or should focus on brands has been held since the advent of scientific application to the field. While ad agencies in America embraced the psychology of images to influence consumer choice reflecting an emotional appeal to the senses, businesses recognized the need to avoid the outrageous claims and voyeurism most commonly associated with the medical hawkers that worked to swindle people out of their money by selling contrived unproven concoctions to cure everything from balding heads to excess weight (Thomson, 1996). Meanwhile, the British market took the stance that it was the marketer’s responsibility to educate a previously unthinking public about the brands and products available, effectively providing all information necessary for them to make the ‘correct’ decision (Church, 2000). Despite this early emphasis on bringing product features to the attention of a viewing audience, recent scientific thought regarding the importance of relationship principles has led to what Deighton (1996) has labeled a tremendous paradigm shift in the world of advertising. While some researchers conclude that presenting feature-based arguments is the most effective means of promoting a product or service (Millar & Millar, 1990), others now insist emotion-based appeals are the best method of eliciting desired consumer behavior (Edwards & von Hippel, 1995). Despite the willingness of corporations to jump into the relationship market, though, there remain few studies that examine the reasons consumers might seek ongoing relationships with specific brands or even if they do (Webster, 1992). The debate The general lack of specific information available to advertising agents regarding how best to promote their products to the general consumer remains a major concern for those hoping to increase sales. Despite the obvious benefits of providing product feature information to a viewing public as a means of giving real value to the potential consumer, brands have been shown to gain benefits through the fostering of emotional ties with their customers. “Far from losing their power in the marketplace, brands were shown to serve as powerful repositories of meaning purposively and differentially employed in the substantiation, creation and (re)production of concepts of self in the marketing stage” (Fournier, 1998: 365). Although the ways in which this is accomplished have not been sufficiently studied, one common factor is that brand loyalty is developed over time, through a long series of communications with the public. Because of this, the application of this theory to advertisements is an unwise blanket action if significant behaviors are expected to be instantaneous. “Indeed, some recent large-scale field experiments suggest that only half of ads tested actually worked. Moreover, changes in medium or creative were more likely to change advertising effectiveness than were even huge increases or decreases in advertising level” (Thaivanich, Chandy & Tellis, 2000: 32). While it is admittedly difficult to quantify the level of brand equity that is built up over time as a brand builds its reputation in the marketplace and remains a constant image before the consumer as is explained by Thaivanich, Chandy & Tellis (2000), it is possible to measure the effectiveness of individual advertising campaigns. Therefore, how each approach effects sales in individual ad campaigns will be focused on throughout this report. Agreeing that most consumer research ignores entire blocks of pertinent information, Ritson & Elliott (1999) point out that most consumer research focuses on the individual consumer rather than taking into account the broader social and cultural aspects of the audience. This is a major omission in that no one lives in a bubble and must make decisions based on individual, social and other factors. “Much of consumer behavior is a socially interactive experience” (Howard & Gengler, 2001: 189) that depends upon the interactions of the consumer, the advertisements, the products, the company, the consumer’s friends, relatives and acquaintances and a variety of other similar factors. For example, the adolescent age group places a high degree of importance on those products and services that are important to the group, regardless of individual needs. These considerations play a large role in determining whether the most effective advertisements should appeal to the intellect by focusing on product features or on emotions by focusing on brand as the product is used or consumed within the greater social context. Having eliminated these considerations from many studies has led to an overall lack of information when attempting to make an emotional appeal. What is meant by ‘Emotional Advertising’ While advertising product features is relatively self-explanatory, the concept of making an emotional appeal in advertising can be somewhat murky. Within a broad context, emotional advertising can be considered any advertising that attempts to link a brand with an emotion-laden message. This can be done through the concept of an emotional benefit as a result of a specific product’s use such as the reduction of fear of osteoporosis with the use of a pill or the promise of falling in love by drinking a specific coffee brand. “Some brands are positioned on the basis of emotions (e.g., Pontiac automobiles and excitement, with various slogans including ‘We build excitement’ and ‘Pontiac Sunfire is driving excitement’). Others explicitly link the brand to emotional benefits through the brand name such as the ‘Worry-Free Handycam Camcorder by Sony’” (Ruth, 2001: 99). It is thought that by making these claims and associations, potential consumers automatically re-experience these emotions at some level and thereby associate the memory of the feeling with the brand making the claim. These positive experiences then encourage the consumer to buy that product or brand based on the desire to re-experience that emotion. Benefits of emotional advertising This method of appealing to the emotions is thought to be effective for a variety of reasons. To begin with, people of many different culture types nevertheless tend to interpret the primary characteristics of emotion types, their similarities and differences, along relatively consistent prototypical perspectives of categorical knowledge (Fehr & Russell, 1991). However, this is only true for the basic emotions in terms of their information processing tasks of categorization. These include reasoning, identification and cognitive economy instead of actual physiological or biological responses (Izard, 1992). The study conducted by Ruth (2001) demonstrates that consumers do tend to perceive brands differently depending upon the categories of emotion they have associated with a specific brand. Those brands which demonstrate a close match between the product and the emotional categorization with which they’ve been linked are generally considered in a more favorable light than those brands that are associated with more negative emotions or that present a mismatch between the emotional appeal and the product delivery. The degree of success of an advertisement making an emotional claim is largely dependent, then, upon the degree to which the consumer feels the product lives up to the claims made as well as the hierarchical level of the emotion category with which it is linked. Difficulties of emotional advertising Yet, attempting to appeal to the consumer’s emotions can also be inherently tricky, as studies have continuously shown the consumer to experience a wide range of emotions in their selection of products and services. This is supported by Ruth (2001) in that “emotion benefit congruity can influence attitudes independently of the feelings elicited by advertising” (108). While many advertisers may automatically assume that it is necessary to appeal to the positive emotions of the consumer when attempting to produce advertisements, studies have indicated that the role of emotions in the purchasing decision may falsify this assumption. “The desire to experience mixed emotions may actually motivate individuals to participate in certain activities. Conversely, our own research indicates that mixed emotions often result directly from interactions in, or structural features of, the marketplace and that ambivalence may in fact be a hindrance to consumers during the purchase process” (Otnes, Lowrey & Shrum, 1997: 80). The term ‘ambivalent’ remains unclearly defined in not only the advertising field, but also in psychological and sociological debates, making it difficult to find an appropriate way to both study and apply this concept to the notion of appropriately and effectively appealing to the emotional range of the consumer. Finally, the degree to which emotional marketing actually has an effect on consumer decisions is difficult to measure. Although there have been studies that suggest elements such as background music and ad likeability serve to increase brand awareness (Biel, 1990), other studies have indicated that likeability is not enough to suppress cognitive intervention in product selection. In their study, Rothschild and Hyun (1990) show how recognition of television advertisements was increased when the right brain was employed, demonstrating emotional appeal, but that the left brain (cognitive function) took over after the first initial seconds. They did this using EEG technology as a means of bypassing the cognitive intervention of placing emotions into words when trying to study the effects advertising has on potential consumers. In a study conducted by Franzen (1994), it was also found that some cognitive awareness of the product features was necessary for an advertisement to be effective regardless of the degree of emotional appeal. Features-based advertising From its earliest days, advertising has been associated not as much with emotional appeals as it has been with cognitive or thinking appeals (Nevett, 1982). This means that the consumer has most often been thought of as a thinking, rational unit capable of processing complex information such as product features, weighing them against other products of similar function or usage and determining the best product for that individual. Subsequent advertising approaches have also included product features as one of the primary appeals, sometimes followed by emotions or other concerns, such as consumer experience or bias. The advertising of product features provides the consumer with the additional benefit of decreased search time as they are already informed about the product prior to going to the store and the need to search for information elsewhere is eliminated (Wright & Lynch, 1995). However, the type of information offered has formed a whole subrealm of discussion. For example, the inclusion of prices in advertisements remains an issue of debate, as is discussed in Vakratsas & Ambler (1999). While several studies have indicated that the inclusion of price in advertising may help to boost the consumer’s perception of a product’s worth, it may also serve to increase price sensitivity, thereby driving the price down. Feature-based advertising vs. emotion-based advertising It has also been erroneously argued that emerging research regarding the effects of incidental exposure to advertisements prove the effectiveness of emotional advertising. The reason for this is because it was believed that this incidental exposure, in which consumers see the ad as they read an article but don’t necessarily process the ad, was effective only on emotional terms through its graphic presentation. However, new research conducted by Shapiro (1999) indicates that this is not the case. In his study, Shapiro demonstrates that a great deal of semantic information within an ad can be and is often included as part of the information processing that occurs on the incidental level. While actual recall is not a part of incidental advertising studies, primarily because incidental advertisement exposure by nature is not within an individual’s recall set, Shapiro demonstrates throughout his study how product features are best retained when the product is featured individually as well as how this method of advertising produces the most positive results for the product’s inclusion in a consideration set. The relation between the advertisement and actual brand selection is also effected more when appeals are made based upon product specific information rather than emotional connections. In a study measuring the relationship between advertisement exposure and actual brand choice made at time of purchase, Baker (2001) found that the most effective strategy was to provide information. “When the goal of advertising is to directly influence the brand-choice process, attitude change may often be a necessary but insufficient condition for maximal effectiveness. To maximally impact brand choice, advertising must also be capable of maximizing the accessibility of specific brand information that is likely to be used by the consumer to discriminate brand alternatives” (Baker, 2001: 138). This becomes increasingly important as the motivation to deliberate over brand choice increases at the time of choice. In other words, when a consumer has several factors to consider, or the brand choice involves a higher price tag or range of features, the consumer is more likely to desire more product specific information. While catchy emotion-laden advertisements might help to make the brand or product seem ‘friendlier’, it does little to provide the consumer with the information they need. Even after a product experience, advertising can have a strong influence on consumer opinion as has been shown in Braun’s experiment (2006). In this experiment, informational advertising shown to consumers after they had experienced the product first hand had a positive effect on the respondents’ opinions regarding the product. The study used a taste-test of various types of orange juice followed by the test group viewing informational advertisements about the product. Even when respondents were given a watered-down, vinegary orange liquid as the juice, those that had experienced the positive informational advertising that described the natural roots of the orange juice and the pure processing techniques remembered the juice as sweet, refreshing and pleasant to wake up to. This was compared to control respondents who had not been shown the advertising who described the same juice as bitter, sour and unpleasant, which was a much more realistic assessment. Newest findings In determining which advertisement approach is best for the product, the most recent research in the field seems to suggest that the answer depends to a great extent on the context of the product as well as the market (Petty & Wegener, 1998). This conclusion seems only logical in the face of the evidence presented. For example, in a young market, consumers who have very little knowledge of a particular product, brand or service are interested in learning more about the product, brand or service prior to purchasing it. Therefore, they are more willing to pay attention to the information provided in an informational advertisement that focuses on product features and to spend the necessary effort to process this information into something meaningful for them. For the ad to be effective, then, it has to address the concerns of the consumer, such as the level of purchase risks as well as pointing out how this product, brand or service is different from anything else that might be on the market. Through this process, this approach provides the consumer with a valid, logical reason to purchase the product advertised. Emotion-based ads in the young market scenario can prove to have negative effects as they irritate the consumer who desires additional information. Because these types of advertisements rarely contain any true informational data, they do not function to significantly reduce the purchase risks for the consumer or help them to differentiate the product from others on the market. “Although emotions may convey warm feelings and stimulate favorable brand attitudes, attitudes formed by such processes may not lead to choices of products about which consumers are not well informed. The reason may be that such ads may neither provide a credible reason for buying the product nor change fundamental beliefs about it” (Chandy et al, 2001: 402). Not only do consumers feel ill-informed, they have little reason to commit the product to memory and therefore less motivation to make a purchase, rendering the ad campaign ineffective. By contrast, an older market that is already aware of the product, service or brand being offered is less motivated to learn more about it and quickly looses interest in the types of informative ads that consumers in a younger market crave. In fact, Schumann, Petty and Clemons (1990) found that the informative ad in an older market may actually bring about negative results as consumers become satiated with information, bored or even irritated by extraneous details. Since this market already presumably has a broad base of knowledge about the product, the emotion-laden ad has the opportunity to be successful as it functions to grab the consumer’s attention as well as bring up memories of previous product knowledge. “Emotion-based ads may be more user-oriented and therefore more capable of enabling high-knowledge consumers to imagine themselves interacting with the product. This usage-oriented imagery may stimulate consumers to elaborate on the benefits of personal usage, thus motivating behavior” (Chandy et al, 2001: 402). With a measure of entertainment or other emotional value attached to the product, the consumer is more likely to remember the product or brand and thus more likely to make a purchase when the opportunity presents itself. Advent of technology One of the problems with this approach is that there may be significant numbers of consumers familiar with a particular product category in an area who will quickly tire of information-based advertising while another large group of consumers in this same area represents a younger market that is still assimilating the information provided. This is particularly true in activity-specific markets such as sports fields or crafting. The question regarding what makes the most effective advertising campaign has only been further complicated by the rise in multiple mass communications methods with the introduction of the internet, text messaging, blogging and other forms of information gathering. This has had the effect of fragmenting the market space and forcing advertising firms to adopt multi-dimensional approaches to their campaigns. Conversely, the rise in technological achievements has also made it possible for these same firms to collect more relevant data regarding their target markets, including the level of knowledge and interest they might have in a product, their age group to denote the level to which societal values might effect them and purchasing habits to illustrate where they place their values (Esteban, Gil & Hernandez, 2001). In this study, it is examined how modern technology can function to allow a firm to use emotion-laden advertising for a more informed target market while still delivering completely different information-laden advertising to a lesser informed, low-demand target market. At the same time, costs are further reduced by allowing firms to place these target-specific advertisements in the appropriate venue for maximum results. Conclusion While the debate rages regarding whether it is best to focus upon developing an emotional bond with consumers or whether it is best to present specific product features that help to differentiate one product from another, the conflicting results of study after study lend credence to the concept that the best method of advertising is highly context specific. Emotion-laden advertising, however, remains difficult to apply effectively as the number of studies regarding why, how or if it works remain somewhat unfocused on real causations or specific applicable approaches. The types and ranges of emotions to invoke, the level at which to invoke them and the degree to which this might affect consumer behavior remain ambiguous in the present climate. Although further research has been conducted indicating there have been significant cases in which emotional advertising has been effective, the underlying causes remain sufficiently mysterious to preclude reliable replication. Information-based advertising, on the other hand, has the basis of historical application to support it as well as the ability to differentiate the product from other similar products or brands. Rather than presenting the potential consumer with insubstantial meaningless presentations that do little else than waste their time, informational advertising helps to reduce the amount of time consumers must spend in researching a new product or brand while alleviating fears of buyer’s remorse or concerns of quality. Arguments that a highly informed marketplace might become easily bored or irritated with such advertisements is valid, however, causing information based ads to contribute to levels of information overload experienced by the modern consumer. It is only in this context in which the emotion-laden advertisement gains advantage in its ability to entertain and distract. References Baker, William E. 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