The Communication Process
Communication is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts,
messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.
Communication requires a sender, a message, and a recipient, although the
receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at
the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances
in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share
an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete
once the receiver has understood the message of the sender.
The Nature of Communication
Source Encoding
The
sender, or source, of a
communication is the person or organization that has information to share with
another person or group of people. The source may be an individual (say, a salesperson
or hired spokesperson, such as a celebrity, who appears in a company’s advertisements)
or a non-personal entity (such as the corporation or organization itself).
In
this Rolex ad Tennis Legend Roger Federer is a source since he appears as a
spokesperson for the company.
Because
the receiver’s perceptions of the source influence how the communication is
received, marketers must be careful to select a communicator the receiver
believes is knowledgeable and trustworthy or with whom the receiver can identify
or relate in some manner.
The
communication process begins when the source selects words, symbols, pictures, and
the like, to represent the message that will be delivered to the receiver(s). This
process, known as encoding, involves putting thoughts, ideas, or information into
a symbolic form. The sender’s goal is to encode the message in such a way that
it will be understood by the receiver. This means using words, signs, or
symbols that are familiar to the target audience. Many symbols have universal meaning,
such as the familiar circle with a line through it to denote no parking, no
smoking, and so forth.
Message
The
encoding process leads to development of a message that contains the
information or meaning the source hopes to convey. The message may be verbal or
nonverbal, oral or written, or symbolic. Messages must be put into a
transmittable form that is appropriate for the channel of communication being
used. In advertising, this may range from simply writing some words or copy
that will be read as a radio message to producing an expensive television
commercial.
In
the adjacent ad published by DHL in a magazine, the message portrayed is quite
clear. They
have used a see through page to show the quickness in the delivery standards
from one place to another. The person delivers a package from the man to the
women as quickly as one turns over a page. That is creative marketing!!!
To
better understand the symbolic meaning that might be conveyed in a
communication, advertising and marketing researchers have begun focusing attention
on semiotics, which studies the nature of meaning and asks how our
reality—words, gestures, myths, signs, symbols, products/services,
theories—acquire meaning. Semiotics is important in marketing communications
since products and brands acquire meaning through the way they are advertised
and consumers use products and brands to express their social identities.
Channel
The
channel is the method by which the communication travels from the source or sender
to the receiver. At the broadest level, channels of communication are of two types,
personal and non-personal. Personal channels of communication are direct interpersonal
(face-to-face) contact with target individuals or groups. Salespeople serve as
personal channels of communication when they deliver their sales message to a
buyer or potential customer. Social channels of communication such as friends, neighbors,
associates, co-workers, or family members are also personal channels. They
often represent word-of-mouth communication, a powerful source of information for
consumers.
Personal Communication Non-Personal
Communication
Non-personal
channels of communication are those that carry a message without interpersonal
contact between sender and receiver. Non-personal channels are generally referred
to as the mass media or mass communications, since the message is sent to many
individuals at one time.
Receiver/Decoding
The
receiver is the person(s) with whom the sender shares thoughts or information. Generally,
receivers are the consumers in the target market or audience who read, hear, and/or
see the marketer’s message and decode it. Decoding is the process of
transforming the sender’s message back into thought. This process is heavily
influenced by the receiver’s frame of reference or field of experience, which
refers to the experiences, perceptions, attitudes, and values he or she brings
to the communication situation. Effective communication is more likely when
there is some common ground between the two parties. While this notion of
common ground between sender and receiver may sound basic, it often causes great
difficulty in the advertising communications process. Marketing and advertising
people often have very different fields of experience from the consumers who
constitute the mass markets with whom they must communicate.
Noise
Throughout
the communication process, the message is subject to extraneous factors that
can distort or interfere with its reception. This unplanned distortion or
interference is known as noise. Errors or problems that occur in the encoding
of the message, distortion in a radio or television signal, or distractions at
the point of reception are examples of noise. When you are watching your favorite
commercial on TV and a problem occurs in the signal transmission, it will
obviously interfere with your reception, lessening the impact of the commercial.
Noise
may also occur because the fields of experience of the sender and receiver don’t
overlap. Lack of common ground may result in improper encoding of the
message—using a sign, symbol, or words that are unfamiliar or have different meaning
to the receiver. The more common ground there is between the sender and the
receiver, the less likely it is this type of noise will occur.
Response/Feedback
The
receiver’s set of reactions after seeing, hearing, or reading the message is
known as a response. Receivers’ responses can range from non-observable actions
such as storing information in memory to immediate action such as dialing a
toll-free number to order a product advertised on television. Marketers are
very interested in feedback, that part of the receiver’s response that is
communicated back to the sender. Feedback, which may take a variety of forms,
closes the loop in the communications flow and lets the sender monitor how the
intended message is being decoded and received.
Analyzing the Receiver
To
communicate effectively with their customers, marketers must understand who the
target audience is, what (if anything) it knows or feels about the company’s
product or service, and how to communicate with the audience to influence its
decision-making process. Marketers must also know how the market is likely to
respond to various sources of communication or different types of messages.
Before they make decisions regarding source, message, and channel variables,
promotional planners must understand the potential effects associated with each
of these factors.
Identifying the Target Audience
The
marketing communication process really begins with identifying the audience that
will be the focus of the firm’s advertising and promotional efforts. The target
audience may consist of individuals, groups, niche markets, market segments, or
a general public or mass audience.
The
Response Process
Perhaps
the most important aspect of developing effective communication programs
involves understanding the response process the receiver may go through in
moving toward a specific behavior (like purchasing a product) and how the
promotional efforts of the marketer influence consumer responses.
Traditional Response Hierarchy Models
A number
of models have been developed to depict the stages a consumer may pass through
in moving from a state of not being aware of a company, product, or brand to actual
purchase behavior.
The
AIDA model was developed to represent the stages a salesperson must take a customer
through in the personal-selling process. This model depicts the buyer as passing
successively through attention, interest, desire, and action. The salesperson must
first get the customer’s attention and then arouse some interest in the
company’s product or service. Strong levels of interest should create desire to
own or use the product. The action stage in the AIDA model involves getting the
customer to make a purchase commitment and closing the sale. To the marketer,
this is the most important stage in the selling process, but it can also be the
most difficult. Companies train their sales reps in closing techniques to help
them complete the selling process.
Their
hierarchy of effects model shows the process by which advertising works; it
assumes a consumer passes through a series of steps in sequential order from initial
awareness of a product or service to actual purchase. A basic premise of this
model is that advertising effects occur over a period of time. Advertising
communication may not lead to immediate behavioral response or purchase;
rather, a series of effects must occur, with each step fulfilled before the
consumer can move to the next stage in the hierarchy.
The
innovation adoption model evolved from work on the diffusion of innovations. This
model represents the stages a consumer passes through in adopting a new product
or service. Like the other models, it says potential adopters must be moved through
a series of steps before taking some action (in this case, deciding to adopt a new
product). The steps preceding adoption are awareness, interest, evaluation, and
trial. The challenge facing companies introducing new products is to create
awareness and interest among consumers and then get them to evaluate the
product favorably.
The
final hierarchy model is the information processing model of advertising
effects, developed by William McGuire. This model assumes the receiver in a persuasive
communication situation like advertising is an information processor or problem
solver. McGuire suggests the series of steps a receiver goes through in being
persuaded constitutes a response hierarchy. The stages of this model are
similar to the hierarchy of effects sequence; attention and comprehension are
similar to awareness and knowledge, and yielding is synonymous with liking.
Each
stage of the response hierarchy is a dependent variable that must be attained and
that may serve as an objective of the communication process. Each stage can be
measured, providing the advertiser with feedback regarding the effectiveness of
various strategies designed to move the consumer to purchase. The information
processing model may be an effective framework for planning and evaluating the
effects of a promotional campaign.
Alternative Response Hierarchies
Michael
Ray has developed a model of information processing that identifies three alternative
orderings of the three stages based on perceived product differentiation and product
involvement. These alternative response hierarchies are the standard learning, dissonance/attribution,
and low-involvement models.
The
Standard Learning Hierarchy: In many purchase situations, the
consumer will go through the response process in the sequence depicted by the
traditional communication models. Ray terms this a standard learning model, which
consists of a learn → feel → do sequence. Information and knowledge acquired or learned about
the various brands are the basis for developing affect, or feelings, that guide
what the consumer will do (e.g., actual trial or purchase). In this hierarchy,
the consumer is viewed as an active participant in the communication process
who gathers information through active learning.
The
Dissonance/Attribution Hierarchy: A second response
hierarchy proposed by Ray involves situations where consumers first behave,
then develop attitudes or feelings as a result of that behavior, and then learn
or process information that supports the behavior. This dissonance/attribution model,
or do → feel → learn, occurs in situations
where consumers must choose between two alternatives that are similar in
quality but are complex and may have hidden or unknown attributes. The consumer
may purchase the product on the basis of a recommendation by some non-media
source and then attempt to support the decision by developing a positive
attitude toward the brand and perhaps even developing negative feelings toward
the rejected alternative.
The
Low-Involvement Hierarchy: Perhaps the most intriguing of
the three response hierarchies proposed by Ray is the low-involvement
hierarchy, in which the receiver is viewed as passing from cognition to
behavior to attitude change. This learn → do
→ feel sequence is thought to characterize situations of low
consumer involvement in the purchase process. Ray suggests this hierarchy tends
to occur when involvement in the purchase decision is low, there are minimal
differences among brand alternatives, and mass-media (especially broadcast)
advertising is important.
Understanding
Involvement
Involvement
is viewed as a variable that can help explain how consumers process advertising
information and how this information might affect message recipients. One
problem that has plagued the study of involvement has been agreeing on how to
define and measure it. Advertising managers must be able to determine targeted consumers’
involvement levels with their products.
The FCB Planning Model
An
interesting approach to analyzing the communication situation comes from the work
of Richard Vaughn of the Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency. Vaughn and
his associates developed an advertising planning model by building on
traditional response theories such as the hierarchy of effects model and its
variants and research on high and low involvement. They added the dimension of
thinking versus feeling processing at each involvement level by bringing in
theories regarding brain specialization. The right/left brain theory suggests
the left side of the brain is more capable of rational, cognitive thinking,
while the right side is more visual and emotional and engages more in the
affective (feeling) functions. Their model, which became known as the FCB grid,
delineates four primary advertising planning strategies—informative, affective,
habit formation, and satisfaction—along with the most appropriate variant of
the alternative response hierarchies.
The
FCB grid provides a useful way for those involved in the advertising planning process,
such as creative specialists, to analyse consumer–product relationships and develop
appropriate promotional strategies. Consumer research can be used to determine how
consumers perceive products or brands on the involvement and thinking/feeling dimensions.
This information can then be used to develop effective creative options such as
using rational versus emotional appeals, increasing involvement levels, or even
getting consumers to evaluate a think-type product on the basis of feelings.
Cognitive
Processing of Communications
The Cognitive Response Approach
One
of the most widely used methods for examining consumers’ cognitive processing of
advertising messages is assessment of their cognitive responses, the thoughts
that occur to them while reading, viewing, and/or hearing a communication. These
thoughts are generally measured by having consumers write down or verbally
report their reactions to a message. The cognitive response approach has been
widely used in research by both academicians and advertising practitioners. Its
focus has been to determine the types of responses evoked by an advertising
message and how these responses relate to attitudes toward the ad, brand
attitudes, and purchase intentions. Fevicol has always come up with innovative
ads and has evoked responses from consumers.
The
below model depicts the three basic categories of cognitive responses researchers
have identified—product/message, source oriented, and ad execution thoughts—and
how they may relate to attitudes and intentions.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model and Its Implications
Differences
in the ways consumers process and respond to persuasive messages are addressed
in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion. According to this
model, the attitude formation or change process depends on the amount and
nature of elaboration, or processing, of relevant information that occurs in
response to a persuasive message. The ELM shows that elaboration likelihood is
a function of two elements, motivation and ability to process the message. Motivation
to process the message depends on such factors as involvement, personal
relevance, and individuals’ needs and arousal levels. Ability depends on the
individual’s knowledge, intellectual capacity, and opportunity to process the
message. For example, an individual viewing a humorous commercial or one
containing an attractive model may be distracted from processing the
information about the product.
The
elaboration likelihood model has important implications for marketing
communications, particularly with respect to involvement. For example, if the
involvement level of consumers in the target audience is high, an ad or sales
presentation should contain strong arguments that are difficult for the message
recipient to refute or counter-argue. If the involvement level of the target audience
is low, peripheral cues may be more important than detailed message arguments. An
interesting test of the ELM showed that the effectiveness of a celebrity
endorser in an ad depends on the receiver’s involvement level. When involvement
was low, a celebrity endorser had a significant effect on attitudes.
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