Module 2

Advertising
Strategy
Topic 4:

How Brand
Communications Work?
How Brand Communications Work?
Objectives:

Explain how communication works as a form of both mass communication

and interactive communication.
Discuss how the idea of advertising effects developed and what problems
exist in traditional approaches to advertising effects.
Describe the Facets Model of Effects, how it explains how brand
communication works, and the key facets of brand communication
effectiveness.
I. It All Begins with Communication

Brand communication is a message

to a consumer about a brand.
It gets attention and provides
information and sometimes even
entertainment.
It is purposeful in that it seeks to
create some kind of response, such as
an inquiry, a sale, a visit to a website,
or a test drive.
I. It All Begins with Communication
A. The Mass Communication Foundation
Mass communication is a process, as depicted in the SMCR model
I. It All Begins with Communication
I. It All Begins with Communication
source typically is the marketer or organization assisted by its agency that
encodes the information into various types of marketing communication. In
other words, advertising professionals turn the marketer’s information and
objectives into an interesting and attention-getting message .
The message, of course, can be an advertisement or other marketing
communication, such as an advertisement, press release, store banner,
brochure, video, or web page.
the marketer and its agency determine the goals and objectives for the
campaign in terms of the effects they want the messages to have on the receiver
(the audience).
I. It All Begins with Communication
the marketer and its agency determine the goals and objectives for the
campaign in terms of the effects they want the messages to have on the receiver
(the audience).
They also choose the media (channels), which are the vehicles that deliver the
message.
- In advertising, the media tend to be newspapers and magazines in print and
radio and television in broadcasting as well as the internet and cell phones and
other forms of out-of-home vehicles, such as outdoor boards and posters.
Other media include specialty items (mugs and T-shirts), in-store signs,
brochures, catalogs, shopping bags, inflatables, and even sidewalks and toilet
doors.
I. It All Begins with Communication
External noise, which hinders the consumer’s reception of the message, includes
technical and socioeconomic trends. Health trends, for example, often harm the
reception of fast-food messages.
Internal noise includes personal factors that affect the reception of an
advertisement, such as the receiver’s needs and wants, language skills, purchase
history, information processing abilities, and other personal factors.
If you are too tired to listen or your attention is focused elsewhere, your fatigue
or disinterest creates noise that hinders your reception of the message.
Feedback is the reaction the audience has to a message. It can be obtained
through research or through customer-initiated contact with the company, both
of which are important tests of the effectiveness of marketing communication
messages.
I. It All Begins with Communication
B. Adding Interaction to Brand Communication

Interactive communication is two-way communication—a dialogue

or conversation— and brand communication has moved in that
direction with the emergence of social media and word-of-mouth
communication strategies.
I. It All Begins with Communication
B. Adding Interaction to Brand Communication
I. It All Begins with Communication
B. Adding Interaction to Brand Communication

Another way to describe interactive communication is to describe

business-to-consumer communication as B C and business-to-
business communication as B B. Consumer-initiated
communication would turn around (C B), which means that the
customer is the sender and the company the receiver.
I. It All Begins with Communication
B. Adding Interaction to Brand Communication

Communication is more complicated now because of the increasing

use of social media and word of mouth
Marketers’ use of word of mouth, buzz marketing, and online social
media are indicators of the need for message integration.
I. It All Begins with Communication
C. Other Aspects of Communication

Nonverbal communication can be just as powerful as word-based

forms.
Commercials are essentially nonverbal, relying on the impact of
compelling visuals. Most billboards, packaging, posters, and ads rely
on the power of visual imagery. With print advertising, most people
look at the picture first in their decision about whether to stop and
read the ad.
I. It All Begins with Communication
C. Other Aspects of Communication
I. It All Begins with Communication
d. The Effects behind Effectiveness
The most important characteristic of brand communication is that it
is purposeful. Ads, for example, are created to have some effect on
the people who read or see their message.
We refer to this impact as effects, the idea being that effective brand
communication will achieve the marketer’s desired impact and the
target audience will respond as the marketer intended.
This desired impact is formally stated as a set of objectives, which
are statements of the measurable goals or results that the message is
intended to achieve. In other words, the brand message works if it
achieves its objectives.
I. It All Begins with Communication
d. The Effects behind Effectiveness
Good advertising—and brand communication—is effective when it
achieves the advertiser’s desired response.
Traditional approaches used by professionals to outline the impact
of advertising:
1. AIDA - The most commonly used explanation of how advertising
works is referred to as AIDA, which stands for attention, interest,
desire, and action. This concept was first expressed around 1900 by
advertising pioneer St. Elmo Lewis. Because AIDA assumes a
predictable set of steps, it also is referred to as a hierarchy of effects
model.
I. It All Begins with Communication
d. The Effects behind Effectiveness

2. Think/Feel/Do- Another relatively simple answer to how advertising

works is the think/feel/ do model developed in the 1970s. Also
referred to as the FCB model in honor of the agency where it was
developed as a strategic planning tool, the idea is that advertising
motivates people to think about the message, feel something about
the brand, and then do something, such as try it or buy it.
II. The Facets of Impact
Explaining how advertising creates impact in terms of various types of
consumer responses

Six-factor model that is useful both in setting objectives and in

evaluating the effectiveness of brand communication. Our answer to
the question of how brand communication works is that effective
brand messages create six types of consumer responses— (1)
awareness, (2) feel, (3) think/understand, (4) connect, (5) believe, and
(6) act/do—all of which work together to create the response to a
brand message.
II. The Facets of Impact
II. The Facets of Impact
Perception is the process by which we receive information through
our senses. If an advertisement is to be effective, first of all it must get
noticed. It has to be seen or heard, even if the perception is minimal
and largely below the level of awareness.

Affective responses mirror our feelings about something: anger,

love, fear, hate. The term affective describes something that
stimulates wants, touches the emotions, establishes a mood, creates
liking, and elicits feelings.
II. The Facets of Impact
Cognition refers to how consumers search for and make sense of
information as well as how they learn and understand something. It’s
a rational response to a message that comes from thinking
something through.

Association is the technique of communicating through symbolism;

we might say that symbolic meanings are transferred through the
process of association. The transfer of meaning connects personal
meanings to goods and other symbols, such as celebrities.
II. The Facets of Impact
Persuasion is the conscious intent on the part of the source to
influence or motivate the receiver of a message to believe or do
something. Persuasive communication—creating or changing
attitudes and creating conviction—is an important goal of most
brand communication.

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

buying the product, such as 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.
II. The Facets of Impact
III. The Power of Brand Communication
The six-factor Facets Model of Effects that we’ve been describing is
our answer to the question of how brand communication works.

These six factors, when they work together, can create a coherent
brand perception. You should remember two things about how this
model works:
(1) the effects are interdependent, and
(2) they are not all equal for all brand communication situations
III. The Power of Brand Communication
Strong and Weak Effects
Some professionals believe that sales volume is the only true indication of
message effectiveness. The power of advertising, for example, is determined by
its ability to motivate consumers to buy a brand. Some professionals even
believe that advertising is so powerful that it can motivate people to buy things
they don’t need a perception counterargued by the American Associationof
Advertising Agencies.

Strong Theory - Advertising increases people’s knowledge and changes people’s

attitudes, and therefore it is capable of persuading people who had not formerly
bought a brand to buy it, at first once and then repeatedly.
III. The Power of Brand Communication
Strong and Weak Effects
In contrast, those who believe in the “weak” theory of advertising think that
advertising has only a limited impact on consumers and is best used to reinforce
existing brand perceptions rather than change attitudes:

Consumers are not very interested in advertising. The amount of information

communicated is limited. Advertising is not strong enough to convert people
whose beliefs are different from those in the ad, overcome their resistance, or
change their attitudes. Most advertising is more effective at retaining users
rather than converting new ones.
End..