Persuasive Communication

In order to create persuasive communications, the sponsor (who may be person, a for-profit company, or a not-for-profit group) must first establish the objectives of the communication, then select the appropriate audience for the message and the appropriate media through which to reach them, and then design (encode) the message in a manner that is appropriate to each medium and to each audience. The communications strategy should also include a prior feedback mechanism that alerts the sponsor to any need for modifications or adjustments to the media or the message.

Communications strategy

In developing its communications strategy, the sponsor must establish the primary communications objectives. These might consist of creating awareness of a service, promoting sales of a product, encouraging (or discouraging) certain practices, attracting retail patronage, reducing post purchase dissonance, creating goodwill or a favorable image, or any combination of these and other communications objectives.

There are numerous models claiming to depict how persuasive communications work. The cognitive models depict a process in which exposure to a message leads to interest and desire for the product and ultimately to buying behavior. For many decades, this general model had been widely adopted by advertisements.

Target audience

An essential component of a communications strategy is selecting the appropriate audience. It is important to remember that an audience is made up of individuals-in many cases, great numbers of individuals. Because each individual has his or her own traits, characteristics, interests, needs, experience and knowledge, it is essential for the sender to segment the audience into groups that are homogeneous in terms of some relevant characteristic. Segmentation enables the sender to create specific messages for each target group and to run them in specific media that are seen, heard, or read by the relevant target group. It is unlikely that a marketer could develop a single message that would appeal simultaneously to its total audience. Efforts to use “universal” appeals phrased in simple language that everyone can understand invariably result in unsuccessful advertisements to which few people relate.

Companies that have many diverse audiences sometimes find it useful to develop a communications strategy that consists of an overall communications message to all their audiences, from which they spin off a series of related messages targeted directly to the specific interests of individual segments. In addition, to maintain positive communications with all of their publics, most large organizations have public relations departments or employ public relations consultants to broadcast favorable information about the company and to suppress unfavorable information.

Media strategy

Media strategy is an essential component of a communications plan. It calls for the placement of ads in the specific media read, viewed or heard by each targeted audience. To accomplish this, advertisers develop, through research, a customer profile of their target customers that includes the specific media they read or watch. Media organizations regularly research their own audiences in order to develop descriptive audience profiles. A cost effective media choice is one that closely matches the advertiser’s consumer profile to a medium’s audience profile.

The Web is the newest advertising medium, and using it to communicate effectively with customers still represents a challenge to marketers. A recent study identified three groups of factors that marketers should consider when building a Web site:

1. providing information search tools such as easy site navigation, complete product information and ability to customize the content
2. incorporating designs that enhance the enjoyment of the site’s users
3. Providing tools that support the transaction such as security ease of entering the information and quick response time.

Table compares the potential persuasive impact of major advertising media along the dimensions of targeting precision, constructing a persuasive message, degree of psychological noise, feedback and relative cost.

Message strategies

The message is the thought, idea, attitude, image, or other information that the sender wishes to convey to the intended audience. In trying to encode the message in a form that will enable the audience to understand its precise meaning, the sender must know exactly what he or she is trying to say and why. The sender must also know the target audiences personal characteristics in terms of education, interests, needs and experience. The sender must then design a message strategy through words and/or pictures that will be perceived and accurately interpreted by the target audience. One study developed a list of messages elements designed to appeal to three personality types

1. Righteous buyer: who looks to recommendations from the independent sources such as consumer reports?
2. Social buyer: who relies on the recommendations of friends on celebrity endorsements and testimonials?
3. Pragmatic buyer: who looks for the best value for the money, though not necessarily the least expensive?

Message structure presentation

Some of the decision that marketers must make in designing the message include the use of resonance, positive or negative message framing, one-sided or two-sided messages, comparative advertising, and the order of presentation.

Resonance

Advertising resonance is defined as wordplay, often used to create a double meaning used in combination with a relevant picture. By using the resonance in ads marketers can improve the chances that their ads will be noticed by the consumers and create favorable and lasting impressions.

Message framing

Should a marketer stress the benefits to be gained by using a specific product (positive message framing) or the benefits to be lost by not using the product (Negative message framing)? Research suggests that the appropriate message framing decision depends on the consumer’s attitudes and characteristics as well as the product itself.

One sided versus two sided messages

Should marketers tell their audience only the good points about their products or should they also tell them the bad (or the commonplace)? Should they pretend that their products are only ones of their kinds, or should they acknowledge competing products? These are very real strategy questions that marketers face every day, and the answers depend on the nature of the competition face every day, and the answers depend on the nature of the competition. However, when competition does exist and when it is likely to be vocal, such advertisers tend to loose credibility with the consumer.

It the audience is friendly (eg: if it uses the advertisers products), if it initially favors the communicators position, or if it is not likely to hear an opposing argument, then one-sided(supportive)message that stresses only favorable information is most affective. However, if the audience is critical or unfriendly (e.g., if it uses competitive products).if is well educated, or if it is likely to hear opposing claims, then a two-sided(refutational) message is likely to be more effective. Two sided advertising messages tend to be more credible than one sided advertising messages because they acknowledge that the advertised brand had shortcomings. Two sided messages can also be very effective when consumers are likely to see competitor’s negative counter claims or when consumer attitude toward the brand are already negative.

Comparative Advertising.

Comparative advertising is a widely used marketing strategy in which a marketer claims product superiority for its brand over one or more explicitly named or implicitly identified competitors, either on an overall basis or on selected product attributes. Comparative advertising is useful for product positioning, for target market selection, and for brand-positioning strategies.

Order Effects.

It is best to produce a commercial first or last? Should you give the bad news first or last? Communication researchers have found that the order in which a message is presented affects audience receptivity. For this reason, politicians and other professional communicators often jockey for position when they address an audience sequentially; they are aware that the first and the last speeches are more likely to be retained in the audience memory than those in between.

Repetition

Repetition is an important factor in learning. Thus, if is not surprising that repetition, or frequency of the ad, affects persuasion, ad recall, brand-name recall, and brand preferences. Multiple message exposures give consumers more opportunity to internalize products attributes, to develop more or stronger cue associations, to develop more positive attitudes, and an increased willingness to resist competitive counterpersuation efforts. In low-involvement situations, individuals are more likely to regard message claims that are repeated frequently as more truthful than those repeated with less frequency. Different ads depicting different applications of the same promotional theme enhance the memorability of the brand advertised.

Advertising appeals

Sometimes objective, factual appeals are more effective in persuading a target audience; at other times emotional appeals are more effective. It depends on the kind of audience to be reached and their degree of involvement in the products category. In general, however, logical, reason-why appeals are more effective in persuading educated audiences and emotional appeals are more effective in persuading less-educated consumers. The following section examines the effectiveness of several frequently used emotional appeals.

Fear appeals:

Fear is an emotional response to some actual or perceived threat or danger. Advertisers use fear appeals in some situations to evoke the desired emotional response and motivate audience to take steps to remove the treat. Some people humorously call these as ‘slice-of-death’ ads. Toothpaste, deodorants, helmets, anti-dandruff shampoos, life insurance and a large number of other products and services use fear appeals.

In some situations, it appears to be quite reasonable for advertisers to consider using fear with explicit purpose of persuading the audience to elicit a favorable response. Fear is a powerful motivator, but only up to a point. Ad messages using fear appeals have been used to promote social causes as well, such as wearing helmets while driving two-wheelers autos, safe driving, paying taxes, the dread of drugs, dangers of smoking and AIDS, etc.

Humor appeals

Humor generates feelings of amusement and pleasure and, for this reason it has a potential for the feeling to become associated with the brand and affect consumer attitudes towards the brand and probably its image. Humor can also affect information processing by attracting attention, improving brand name recall, creating pleasant mood and reducing the chances of counter-arguing.

Abrasive Advertising

How effective can unpleasant or annoying ads are?  The memory of an unpleasant commercial that antagonizes listeners or viewers may dissipate over time, leaving only the brand name in the minds of consumers.

All of us have at one time or another been repelled by so called agony commercials, which depict in diagrammatic detail the internal and intestinal effects of heartburn, indigestion, clogged sinus cavities, hammer induced headaches, and the like.

Pharmaceutical companies often run such commercials with great success that are not visible and thus elicit little sympathy from family and friends.

Sex in advertising

In our highly permissive society, sensual advertising seems to permeate the print media and the airwaves. Advertisers are increasingly trying to provoke attention with suggestive illustrations, crude language, and nudity in their efforts to appear ‘hip’ and contemporary. In today’s advertising, there is a lot of explicit and daring sexual imagery, extending far beyond the traditional product categories of fashion and fragrance into such categories as shampoo, beer, cars and home construction.

Audience Participation

The provision of feedback changes the communication process from one way to two way communication. This is important to senders because it enables them to determine whether and how well communication has taken place. But feedback also is important to receivers because it enables them to participate, to be involved, to experience in some way the message itself. Participation by the receiver reinforces the message. An experienced communicator asks questions and opinions of an audience to draw them into the discussion.