The Power of Marketing

Ways of Advertising
 Newspaper - Newspaper advertising can promote your business to a wide range of
customers. Display advertisements are placed throughout the paper, while classified
listings are under subject headings in a specific section.
 Magazine - Advertising in a specialist magazine can reach your target market quickly
and easily. tend to read magazines at their leisure and keep them for longer, giving your
advertisement multiple chances to attract attention. Magazines generally serve consumers
and trade
 Radio - Advertising on the radio is a great way to reach your target audience. If your
target market listens to a particular station, then regular advertising can attract new
customers.
 Television - Television has an extensive reach and advertising this way is ideal if you
cater to a large market in a large area. Television advertisements have the advantage of
sight, sound, movement and color to persuade a customer to buy from you. They are
particularly useful if you need to demonstrate how your product or service works.
 Online - Being on the internet can be a cost-effective way to attract new customers. You
can reach a global audience at a low cost. Many customers research businesses online
before deciding whom to buy from.

Four Important Aspects of the Cognitive System that Influence How

Consumers Interpret Information
 Interpretation involves interactions between knowledge in memory and information from
the environment.
 The activated knowledge influences which information consumers attend to and how they
comprehend its meaning.
 Because their cognitive systems have a limited capacity, consumers can consciously
attend to and comprehend only small amounts of information at a time.
 Much attention and comprehension processing occurs quickly and automatically with
little or no conscious awareness. For instance simple interpretations such as recognizing a
familiar product.

Consumer Insight 5.1

Measuring “Out-of-Home” Exposures to Television Advertising

The basic TV rating service by ACNielsen measures couch potatoes—people sitting on

their couches at home watching TV. Over the years, Nielsen has improved how it measures in-
home exposure to television advertisements to include the use of “people meters,” into which
each TV viewer punches a personal code to show which household members are exposed. But in
the United States, television is everywhere—in bars, airports, college dorms and
fraternity/sorority houses, even in cars. Thus, the question is “How many people watch TV ads in
environments where they may be exposed to ads?” In 1993, ABC, NBC, and CBS commissioned
Nielsen to conduct a study to answer this question.

The study used a diary method in which viewers were asked to remember which
programs they watched and where. Based on this research, Nielsen estimated that 28 million or
so people received up to 25 percent of their TV viewing exposure out of the home, but those out-
of home exposures were not being counted in the regular TV ratings procedure. Unmeasured
viewers translate into lost advertising dollars, so some networks supplemented the Nielsen
ratings with their own detailed research data. CNBC realized that its average viewer was
educated, influential, and affluent—the kind of viewer advertisers covet. However, the network
suspected that most of those viewers watched outside the home and thus remained uncounted by
the Nielsen ratings.

In 1998, CNBC surveyed The Wall Street Journal subscribers (whose annual median
income is well over $100,000) and learned that 61 percent of them watched CNBC every day. Of
those, 41 percent, or 700,000 people, watched CNBC outside the home. CNBC can use this
information to show advertisers that the network reaches more people—and more affluent
people—than it would appear based solely on the Nielsen estimates of exposure.

Selective Exposure to Information

As the amount of marketing information in the environment increases, consumers

become more adept at avoiding exposure (some consumers intentionally avoid reading product
test reports or talking with salespeople). Or consumers do not maintain accidental exposure to
marketing information (some people automatically throw away most junk mail unopened). Such
behaviors result in selective exposure to marketing information.

Consider the problem marketers are having with consumers’ selective exposure to TV
commercials. In one simple study, college students observed family members watching TV.
Only 47 percent of viewers watched all or almost all of the ads that appeared on ABC, NBC, and
CBS, and about 10 percent left the room when the ads came on.

Current technology enables consumers to easily control which ads they see on TV.
Thanks to remote controls, viewers can turn off the sound or “surf” from one station to another
during a commercial break. Consumers who have TIVO or similar recorders can simply fast-
forward past commercials on taped programs. In response, some advertisers are placing ads at
the bottom of the screen during the program to reduce viewers’ ability to avoid exposure.

Marketing Implications
 Facilitate intentional exposure- where consumers’ exposure to marketing
information is the result of an intentional search, marketers should facilitate
intentional exposure by making sure appropriate marketing information is available
when and where consumers want it.
 Maximize accidental exposure- marketers should try to place their information in
environmental settings that maximize accidental exposure to the appropriate target
groups of consumers
 Maintain exposure- Television advertisements, for instance, must generate enough
attention and interest so that the consumer will maintain exposure for 30 seconds rather than
zap the ad, turn to a magazine, or leave the room to get a snack. One tactic is to use distinctive
music in ads to attract attention and maintain exposure of the target audience.

Attention Processes
Once consumers are exposed to marketing information, whether accidentally or
through their own intentional behaviors, the interpretation processes of attention and
comprehension begin. In this section, we discuss attention, levels of attention, and
factors affecting attention, and describe several marketing strategies that can
influence consumers’ attention.
What does it mean for a consumer to attend to a marketing stimulus such as a
newspaper ad, a display in a store, or a clerk’s sales pitch? First, attention implies
selectivity. Attending to certain information involves selecting it from a large set of
information and ignoring other information. Consider the cognitive processes of
shoppers in a crowded, noisy department store. They must selectively attend to
conversations with salespersons, attend to certain products and brands, read labels
and signs, and so on. At the same time, they must ignore other stimuli in the
environment. Selective attention is highly influenced by the consumer’s goals that are
activated in the situation.
Attention also connotes awareness and consciousness. To attend to a stimulus
usually means being conscious of it. Attention also suggests intensity and arousal.
Consumers must be somewhat alert and aroused to consciously attend to something,
and their level of alertness influences how intensively they process the information. If
you have ever tried to study when you were very tired, you know about the
importance of arousal. If your level of arousal is very low, you might drift off to sleep
while trying to read a text chapter (not this one, we hope!). When arousal is low,
attention and comprehension suffer

Variations in Attention

Attention processes vary along a continuum from a highly automatic,

unconscious level called preconscious attention to a controlled, conscious level called
focal attention. As a consumer’s interpretation processes shift from preconscious
attention.
 ATTENTION PROCESS
 Attention implies selectivity. Attending to certain information involves selecting it from a
large set of information and ignoring other information.
 Attention also connotes awareness and consciousness. To attend to a stimulus usually
means being conscious of it.
 Attention also suggests intensity and arousal. Consumers must be somewhat alert and
aroused to consciously attend to something, and their level of alertness influences how
intensively they process the information.

LEVELS OF ATTENTION

PRECONSCIOUS ATTENTION FOCAL ATTENTION

 Uses activated knowledge from
long-term memory
 No conscious awareness
 Automatic process
 Uses little or no cognitive capacity
 Uses activated knowledge from long
term memory
 Conscious awareness
 Controlled process
 Uses some cognitive capacity

FACTORS INFLUENCING ATTENTION

 AFFECTIVE STATE - Consumers affective arousal can influence their attention

processes. As discussed earlier, low arousal reduces the amount and intensity of
attention

 CONSUMER’S INVOLVEMENT - The level of involvement felt by a consumer

is determined by the means end chain activated from memory, related affective
responses and arousal level. Involvement is a motivational state that guides the
selection of stimuli for local attention and comprehension.

 ENVIRONMENTAL PROMINENCE - The stimuli associated with marketing

strategies can also influence consumer’s attention.
1. Instrinsic Self relevant - important of the product to the customer.
2. Situational Self relevance- creating situation to gain customer involvement.
3. Vivid pictorial images- it makes the customer focus on the product or items.

By displaying some pictures of the product customers may ask whats with the product.
4. Novel or unusual stimuli- adding things that aren’t usual or simply unexpected like
putting print acts upside down to gain more customer attraction.

Comprehension refers to the interpretation process by which consumers understand or

make sense of their own behaviors and relevant aspects of their environment.
Variations in Comprehension

1. Automatic Processing
a. Highly automatic – little conscious awareness
b. More controlled – higher levels of awareness

2. Levels
a. Shallow comprehension - produces meanings at a concrete, tangible level.
b. Deep comprehension - produces more abstract meanings that represent less
tangible, more subjective and more symbolic concepts.

3. Elaboration
a. Less elaborate comprehension – produces relatively few meanings and requires
little cognitive effort, conscious control and cognitive capacity.
b. More elaborate comprehension - requires greater cognitive capacity, effort and
control of the thought processes.

4. Memorability
a. Lower recall – weaker memory
b. Greater recall – stronger memory

Inferences are interpretations that produce knowledge or beliefs that go beyond the
information given.

Factors Influencing Comprehension

1. Knowledge in Memory – affects their ability to comprehend.

a. Expert consumers are quite familiar with a product category, product forms, and
specific brands.
b. Novice consumers have little prior experience with the product or brand.
2. Involvement – affects their motivation to comprehend.
3. Exposure Environment – affects the consumers’ opportunity to comprehend.

Marketing Implications
1. Knowledge and Involvement
2. Remembering
3. Miscomprehension of Marketing Information
4. Exposure Environment