Communication Concepts and Models

Chapter Objectives

• Students should be able to understand the basic model of communication
• Students should be able to analyze receivers
• Students should be able to understand the response process
• Students should be able to analyze traditional response hierarchy models
• Students should be able to understand alternative response hierarchies
• Students should be able to understand the cognitive response approach
• Students should be able to analyze source, message, and channel factors
• Students should be able to establish communication goals and objectives
• Students should be able to allocate budgets

The Nature of Communication

• Integrated marketing communications programs aim to communicate with current and potential customers and other relevant groups.
• Organizations use various methods including advertisements, brand names, logos, website, and promotional materials to communicate.
• Effective communication requires understanding customer knowledge and opinions about the company as well as the product image.
• Successful marketing communication involves understanding how consumers perceive and interpret messages, thus shaping their response to the company and product.

Communication

• Different definitions of communication exist, including information exchange, idea exchange, or establishing commonness of thought.
• Communication needs commonality in thinking between the sender and receiver with information passing from one person to another (or group).
• Communication processes are complex and often unsuccessful. Factors affecting communication include message nature, receiver interpretation, and environment.
• Linguistic nuances and dialects pose major communication barriers in international marketing.

A Basic Model of Communication

• The communication model identifies sender and receiver as major participants, with message and channel as crucial communication tools.
• Major communication functions and processes are encoding, decoding, response, and feedback.
• Noise represents any extraneous elements.

Source/Encoding

• The source is the person or organization sharing information.
• Encoding is converting thoughts and ideas into a symbolic form, like words, pictures, or symbols that the target audience will understand.
• Source credibility and trustworthiness affect how the communication is received.

Message

• The message is the actual advertisement containing the intended message-the symbolic expression of the sender's thoughts.
• The message must be comprehensible to the target audience.
• Highly recognizable symbols are effective in advertising (e.g., McDonald's Golden Arches, Nike swoosh).

Channel and Receiver/Decoding

• The channel is the method of communication, including personal or non-personal means (e.g., face-to-face contact, salespeople, social channels, mass media like TV, print).
• A non-personal channel communicates messages without direct interaction between sender and receiver (e.g., mass media).
• The receiver decodes the message into thoughts, which depends on the receiver's frame of reference or experience.
• Effective communication requires matching of the message decoding process and the sender's encoding process.

Noise

• Interference at any stage of communication can hinder effective communication (e.g., competitive messages, misinterpretation)

Response/Feedback

• Receiver responses are reactions to messages (e.g., storing information, ordering a product).
• Feedback is the part of the receiver's response communicated back to the sender, allowing monitoring of the message decoding process.
• Successful communication needs selecting a suitable source, developing an effective message, choosing the right channel, and ensuring effective decoding by the receiver.

Analyzing The Receiver

• To communicate effectively with customers, marketers must understand who they are targeting, their knowledge of the company, product knowledge, and intended communication influence process.
• Marketers must understand consumer response to various communication sources and types of messages, considering factors like source, message, and channel.
• Different audiences (mass, market segment, niches) require different communication approaches.

The Response Process

• Understanding how receivers process messages from awareness of the company or product, to detailed, information, to attitude and behavioral changes, is crucial.
• Traditional response hierarchy models (AIDA, hierarchy of effects, innovation adoption, information processing) describe the stages that consumers may go through.
• Alternative response hierarchies (standard learning, dissonance/attribution, low-involvement) offer alternative sequences, based on perceived product differentiation and involvement.

Cognitive Response Approach

• Analyzing cognitive responses like thoughts and feelings about ads and products during consumer exposure to advertising is important.
• Three main categories of cognitive responses are product/message thoughts, source-oriented thoughts, and ad execution thoughts. Each category affects attitude toward products and advertisements.

Source, Message, and Channel Factors

• The persuasion matrix outlines how source, message, and channel factors influence consumer response. Independent variables (source, message, and channel) interact with dependent variables (steps of persuasion)
• Factors like the person or source conveying the message, message appeal type, and channel (e.g. media) affect consumer's response
• Different media formats (e.g., Print media, Broadcast media) have different processing rates and effects on consumers.

Message structure and appeal

• Effective communication relies on various techniques like message structure (e.g. order of presentation, conclusion drawing, sidedness) and message appeal (e.g. fear appeals, humor appeals, comparative advertising).
• Understanding target audience and utilizing effective channels are essential for persuasive communication.

Establishing and Allocating the promotional Budget

• Budget techniques like affordable method, arbitrary allocation, percentage-of-sales, competitive-parity, and objective-and-task methods are discussed.
• Defining objectives, deciding on a fixed time period, and understanding relevant audience are crucial steps when creating a marketing campaign strategy.

A Complete IMC Program

• A complete IMC program involves factors like category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, purchase intention and purchase facilitation.
• The correct approach to setting communication objectives, based on audience and time frames, should be employed when creating a program.

DAGMAR Model

• Defining advertising goals for measurable advertising results (DAGMAR) is a communication-based approach to measuring advertising effectiveness.
• It emphasizes a communication-based approach to measuring advertising results.
• Measurement should be based on clear, specific, measurable objectives to establish promotional campaign success.

This quiz covers the fundamental concepts and models of communication, including the analysis of receivers and the response process. It explores traditional and alternative response hierarchies, along with the cognitive response approach. The goal is to understand communication goals, budget allocation, and the factors affecting communication.