Marketing Communications

Introduction

Effective marketing and business strategies require obtaining the attention, informing and influencing relevant constituencies of the firm. Potential customers do not buy products or services that they are unaware of. Communication of the reasons a particular product should be purchased, e.g., the benefits associated with the product, and the ways in which a given brand within a product category is different or superior to competitive products, e.g., how the brand is differentiated, are fundamental to marketing success. Kotler (2000: 550) observes, ‘the question is not whether to communicate, but rather what to say, to whom and how often.’

Research on marketing communications has a long and rich history. It has roots in early research on verbal learning in psychology (Ebbinghaus, 1885). The first systematic treatment of the role and influence of marketing communications was published by psychologist Walter Dill Scott (1908). Subsequently, the work of social psychologists such as McGuire (1969), Hovland et al. (1953), Lewin (1948), Merton (1946), Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), and Klapper (1960), among others, played an important role in the development of both empirical research and theory focused on mass communications in general, and marketing communications more specifically. By the 1950s a rich tradition of research and theory development on marketing communications had begun to develop within the marketing discipline, but there continues to be a strong link between work on marketing communications and research in psychology on social influence, attitude change, and communications processes. Contemporary theories of marketing communications rest on such psychological foundations as the functional theory of attitudes (Fazio, 1990; Katz, 1960), the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981), social cognition (Bandura, 1994; Fiske & Taylor, 1992) and theories of goal-derived categorization (Barsalou, 1991). At the same time, research in communications (e.g., Bryant & Zillmann, 1994; Rogers, 1983) and other fields have offered insights into the influence of marketing communication. Finally, important work by practitioners and academics working with commercial data (e.g., Haley, 1985; Jones, 1995; Lodish et al., 1995; McDonald, 1996; Schwerin & Newell, 1981) have provided useful and important evidence regarding the effects of marketing communications.

The purpose of the present chapter is to review the generally accepted body of knowledge about the influence and effects of marketing communications. In addition, the chapter will examine factors that may mediate or moderate the influence of marketing communications. Page constraints prevent a detailed discussion of the rich theoretical foundations on which the body of knowledge rests. The focus of the chapter is the influence of marketing communications at the market or market segment level. Thus, the considerable literature on individual differences in response to marketing communication and on individual-level processes associated with marketing communication will not receive detailed treatment.

The advent of the Internet, other interactive media, and sophisticated customer relationship management systems, clearly create new opportunities for one-to-one targeting of consumers (Pavlou & Stewart, 2000). However, these opportunities are [Page 283]still largely untapped and the literature on such targeting is still in its infancy. To a large degree, the relatively recent origin of these technologies confounds the unique effects of this type of communication with the effects of the adoption of new technology by both consumers and marketers. For these reasons this chapter will not provide a comprehensive review of the role of interactive media and one-to-one marketing. A comprehensive review of interactive media can be found in Stewart et al. (2002), and Internet marketing is discussed elsewhere in this volume (see Chapter 21). While it is likely various new media will open new areas of research, it is also likely that much of the considerable theory and research related to more traditional forms of marketing communication will ultimately be found to be generalizable to various new media once the effects of technology adoption are sorted out. Thus, the goal of the present chapter is to provide a summary of a vast literature on marketing communication that can serve as an introduction to the rich empirical research and theory in the field.

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