- 精华
- 0
- 积分
- 813
- 经验
- 813 点
- 威望
- 71 点
- 金钱
- 244 ¥
- 魅力
- 132
|
When is advertising effective and when is it not? This question has often stimulated heated debate between two camps in the world of marketing and advertising (Barry, 1987). According to one view, advertising is effective only if it sells. Thus, advertising effectiveness is assessed by investigating the relationship between advertising expenditures and brand sales (e.g., Little,1979). The other view stresses that advertising can satisfy its ultimate objective of affecting demand only by establishing a hierarchy of intermediate effects in its audience. Thus, an advertising message or campaign may be evaluated against the objective of establishing a hierarchy of effects up to any particular stage, not necessarily the stage of demand (e.g., Colley, 1961). A compromise position is, of course, that any message or campaign should be evaluated in terms of the entire hierarchy of effects, including sales effects (Urban and Hauser, 1980).
Many hierarchy-of-effects models have been advanced for advertising effectiveness (for an overview, see Barry, 1987). Each model in this paradigm has assumed a particular sequence of stages that consumers pass through until demand is affected. For instance, Colley's (1961) defining-advertising-goals-for measured- advertising-results (DAGMAR) model assumes a sequence of awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action, whereas McGuire's (1978) information-processing model (IPM) assumes a sequence of presentation, attention, comprehension, yielding, retention, and behavior. Two major criticisms have been raised for such traditional models in the hierarchy-of-effects paradigm. One is that they fail to consider the marketing situation in which an advertising message is transmitted or an advertising campaign is run and, particularly, the consumer audience at which the message or campaign is targeted. According to Ehrenberg's (1974) awareness-trial-reinforcement (ATR) model, for instance, repeated advertising may be effective in three successive stages of consumer behavior, gaining brand awareness, making a trial purchase, or stimulating and sustaining a repeat buyinghabit if prior experience was satisfactory. Whereas the traditional models present advertising effectiveness as a sequence of responses up to a particular stage in the hierarchy, the ATR model conceives it as a response at a particular stage in the hierarchy depending on the history of consumer behavior.
Another stage model that has been advanced as a challenge to the sequence models developed within the traditional view is Ray's (1973) dissonance-attribution hierarchy, which identifies the following three stages: brand purchase based on nonmedia or nonmarketing communication sources, attitude change based on experience with the brand purchased, and selective and biased learning of advertising communications. Thus, advertising may be effective only at the third stage by aiding the consumer in his or her purchase decision through dissonance reduction or self-attribution (also identified as reinforcement mechanisms by the ATR model).
It has been argued by Preston and Thorston (1984) that stage models do not apply to the same situation as the sequence models developed within the traditional view and therefore cannot be considered a challenge to those models. It will be argued here, however, that the stage models can be parsimoniously (极度俭省地,吝啬地) incorporated into a sequence model if such a model is generalized to represent situational dependency. Actually, it will be acknowledged that McGuire's (1978) IPM already adopts this generalized view on the hierarchy of effects. In its present state of development, however, the IPM remains vulnerable to the second major criticism raised regarding traditional models in the hierarchy-of-effects paradigm, which is that they are overly restrictive in assuming that cognitively complex changes in consumer attitudes are necessary for effective advertising. Under Krugman's (1965) low-involvement hierarchy, for instance, repeated advertising may induce nonverbalizable changes in brand perception that are sufficient to induce purchase. From this point of view, complex attitudinal changes do not occur prior to purchase in response to advertising but only after purchase on the basis of experience with the brand. This article will proceed by discussing a model according to which the enforcement of cognitively complex changes in consumer attitudes represents one out of two viable options for effective advertising.
Petty and Cacioppo's (1981, 1986) elaborauonqikelihood model (ELM) has been advanced as a general framework for the study of persuasion in the field of social psychology. With its application to advertising communications (Petty and Cacioppo, 1983; Petty et al., 1983), the model has obtained a great popularity in the field of consumer behavior. This section will provide a brief review of the model.
The ELM predicts changes in attitude toward an advertised brand, where an attitude refers to a global evaluation of the brand. The model identifies two distinct routes toward attitude change. One is the central route, along which the consumer changes his attitude on the basis of elaboration on arguments.
Here, arguments refer to message elements considered relevant for assessing the true merits of the advertised brand, whereas elaboration refers to the learning of arguments, the generation of thoughts about these arguments (cognitive responses), and the integration of these thoughts into one's attitude structure. The other is the peripheral route, along which the consumer may change his or her attitude on the basis of a variety of processes, for instance, through heuristic (启发式的) inference of brand quality from message elements, through association of message elements with the brand, or through mere exposure to the brand.
The ELM assumes that the probability of following the central route (elaboration likelihood) depends on whether the consumer wants to assess the true merits of the advertised brand (motivation) and whether be or she can assess its true merits (ability). High motivation and high ability are singly necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a high probability of following the central route. In the case of low motivation and/or low ability to assess the true merits of the advertised brand, the ELM assumes a high probability of following the peripheral route (hereafter referred to as the reciprocity postulate). be less than highly (un)motivated and/or less than highly (un)able to assess the true merits of the advertised brand, the ELM assumes an elaboration-likelihood continuum. The probability of following the central route changes continuously with the level of motivation and ability (hereafter referred to as the continuity postulate). In conjunction with the reciprocity postulate, the continuity postulate implies that elaboration likelihood may range from a high probability of following the central route, through a 50-50 probability of following either the central or the peripheral route (see the "luck" factor depicted by Cacioppo
and Petty, 1989, p. 80), to a high probability of following the peripheral route. With respect to attitudinal changes in a consumer audience, then, the ELM predicts a main effect of argument quality under high elaboration likelihood, moderate main effects of argument quality and cue attractiveness under moderate elaboration likelihood, and a main effect of cue attractiveness under low elaboration likelihood.
The ELM further assumes that thoughts about arguments may be systematically biased against or in favor of the advertising claim (the biased-elaboration postulate). Initial attitudes toward the brand are assumed to be a major source of biased elaboration. One will be tempted to proargne or bolster a claim that is congruent with one's initial attitude and to counterargue a claim that is incongruent with one's initial attitude. Thus, attitudinal changes along the central route may be biased upward or downward, depending on the congruency or incongruency between the advertising claim and the initial attitude of the consumer.
Finally, the ELM assumes various consequences of the route followed toward attitude change. Attitudes changed along the central route are more persistent, more resistant to counterpersuasion, and more predictive of behavior than attitudes changed along the peripheral route. |
|