contemporary brand by encouraging everyone to maintain social distance

during the pandemic.

Done right, marketing communications can have a huge payoff. This
chapter describes how they work and what they can do for a company. It also
addresses how holistic marketers combine and integrate marketing
communications.

THE ROLE OF MARKETING

COMMUNICATION
Marketing communication is the means by which firms attempt to inform,
persuade, and remind consumers—directly or indirectly—about the products
and brands they sell. In a sense, it represents the voice of the company and
its brands; it is a means by which the firm can establish a dialog and build
relationships with consumers. By strengthening customer loyalty, marketing
communication can contribute to customer equity.
Marketing communication also works by showing consumers how and
why a product is used, by whom, where, and when. Consumers can learn
who makes the product and what the company and brand stand for, and they
can become motivated to try or use it. Marketing communication allows
companies to link their brands to other people, places, events, brands,
experiences, feelings, and things. It can contribute to brand equity by
establishing the brand in memory and creating a brand image, as well as by
driving sales and affecting shareholder value.

THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS

Marketers should understand the fundamental elements of effective
communication. The communication process can be viewed from two
perspectives: a more general macro perspective delineating the key aspects
of communication as an interactive process, and a more specific micro
perspective focusing on the way the message recipient responds to the
communication. These two perspectives are reflected in the two models of
communication: a macromodel and a micromodel.
Macromodel of the Communication Process.The macromodel of
marketing communication articulates the interaction between the sender
(company) and the recipient (consumer) of the communication message.
Figure 12.1 shows a macromodel denoting nine key factors in effective
communication. Two represent the major parties—sender and receiver. Two
represent the major tools—message and media. Four represent major
communication functions—encoding, decoding, response, and feedback.
And the last element in the system is noise, random and competing messages
that may interfere with the intended communication.
Senders must know what audiences they want to reach and what responses
they want to evoke. They must encode their messages so the target audience
can successfully decode them. In other words, the sender must express the
message in a particular tangible form—words, images, sounds, or
movements—so that the intended message can later be retrieved by the
recipient. Senders must transmit the message through media that reach the
target audience and develop feedback channels to monitor the responses.
The more the sender’s field of experience overlaps with the receiver’s, the
more effective the message is likely to be. Note that selective attention,
distortion, and retention processes (discussed in Chapter 4) may affect how
recipients receive and interpret the message.

Micromodel of Marketing Communication.A micromodel of marketing

communication concentrates on consumers’ specific responses to
communications.6 Classic response hierarchy models assume that the buyer
passes through cognitive, affective, and behavioral stages, in that order.7
This “learn–feel–do” sequence is more appropriate when the audience has
high involvement with a product category perceived to have meaningful
differentiation, such as an automobile or a house. An alternative sequence,
“do–feel–learn,” is relevant when the audience has high involvement but
perceives little or no differentiation within the product category, as is the
case with airline tickets or personal computers. A third sequence, “learn–do–
feel,” is relevant when the audience has low involvement and perceives little
differentiation, such as with salt or batteries. By choosing the right sequence,
the marketer can do a better job of planning communications.

FIGURE 12.1
Elements in the Communication Process

Regardless of their specific sequence, several steps are involved in

generating a consumer response.
Awareness. In order to take any kind of action, customers must be
aware of the existence of the company’s offering. If most of the target
audience is unaware of the offering, the communicator’s task is to build
awareness.
Knowledge. The target audience might have awareness but not know much more about the
offering.
Liking. Members of the target audience may know the brand, but how do they feel about it?
Preference. The target audience might like the product but not prefer it to other products. The
communicator must then try to build consumer preference by comparing the product’s quality,
value, performance, and other features to those of likely competitors.
Conviction. The target audience might prefer a particular product but not develop a conviction
about buying it.
Purchase. Finally, some members of the target audience might have conviction but not quite get
around to making the purchase. The communicator must lead these consumers to take the final
step, perhaps by offering the product at a low price, offering a premium, or letting them try it
out.

To increase the odds of success for a communication campaign, marketers

must attempt to increase the likelihood that each step occurs. Thus, the
communication campaign must ensure (1) that the right consumer is exposed
to the right message at the right place and at the right time, (2) that the
offering is correctly positioned in terms of desirable and deliverable points
of difference and points of parity, (3) that the consumer pays attention to the
campaign and adequately comprehends the intended message, and (4) that
consumers are motivated to consider purchasing and using the offering.

DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

PROGRAM
To develop an effective communication program, a company must follow a
systematic process that starts with setting the goals to be achieved by the
communication campaign and concludes with assessing the outcome of the
campaign. The key steps in developing effective communications are shown
in Figure 12.2. These include setting the communication objectives,
identifying the target audience, crafting the communication message,
selecting the communication channels, developing the creative aspect of
communication, and measuring communication effectiveness.
The ultimate success of a company’s communication campaign depends
on the viability of the overall strategy and tactics for managing the
company’s offering, which serve as a basis for developing a communication
plan. Thus communication objectives, the choice of target audience, and the
design of the communication message typically follow from the company’s
overarching marketing plan that defines the offering’s goals, its target
customers, and its value proposition.

SETTING THE COMMUNICATION

OBJECTIVES
Setting the objectives of a communication campaign involves three key
decisions: defining the focus of company communications, setting
communication benchmarks, and determining the communication budget.
We discuss these decisions in more detail in the following sections.