DRAFT Blog 2

It has been claimed that when you buy a can of Coca-Cola for $1, you are paying 10c for the product and 90c for the image (source unknown). How are social psychological principles applied in marketing, advertising and branding?

 

Coca-Cola's image has directed its focus on the emotions and feelings of individuals. Coca-Cola image has entwined its image within cultures and has become embedded with social values and attitudes throughout the world. It has established its image via a number of techniques and strategies that have fully overcome the cultures of the world within the advertisements of the Coca-Cola product. The elaboration likelihood model, social learning theory, and classical conditioning can all be used to explore and explain some of Coca-Cola's marketing, advertising, and branding techniques and successes.

The elaboration likelihood model was developed by Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann in 1983 to "bring the concept of the motivational state described by enduring involvement to bear upon the question of the persuasiveness of advertising" (Foxall & Goldsmith, 1994). This theory combines the characteristics of the audience (consumers or potential consumers) such as high or low involvement with the characteristics of the message, i.e. the argument and the presentation.

The elaboration likelihood model posits that there are two routes to persuasion. These two routes can alter the belief structure of an individual based on the occurring cognitive processes at the time of persuasion. The first route, the central route, is a dynamic and conscious process that determines a persuasive argument's pro. Individuals make favourable and unfavourable opinions in response to the advocated position during the central route's cognitive process. Determination of whether the position holds any merit is reliable on the outcome of these favourable and unfavourable t processes.

The second route is the peripheral route, which is correlated with individual's inability to exercise careful and effortful analysis on all massages they encounter. There are countless messages in our environment and thus the central processing route cannot pay attention to them all. "There are many variables which affect the likelihood of thinking about the merits of a message and thus the route to persuasion" (Gresko, Kennedy, & Lesniak, 2003).
An individual's motivation to consider issue-relevant information is affected by such variables, as is the ability to complete cognitive processing. Some variables also affect an individual's direction of thinking, such as favourable or unfavourable, and some influence the amount of thinking that an individual performs.

The question asked by Petty et al. (1983) was how does advertising persuade people, given both the differences in their ability and motivation to process information which characterise mass media audiences? Consumers' message involvement seems to be a consequence of their enduring involvement, as those who display high enduring involvement in a product area are more likely to pay attention to a message (Foxall & Goldsmith, 1994). The message argument such as claims to brand superiority will be their point of focus, and if they are persuaded by the message it will be a function of how convincing they found the arguments, which places this process in the central route to persuasion. For example, those consumers who collect the merchandise and collectibles that the company has produced are individuals who have high long-term involvement with Coca-Cola. Note to self: NEED BETTER EXAMPLE

Conversely, a message will hold no intrinsic interest if the individual is less involved in the product category. Though an individual may not be interested in the message argument, some aspect of the ad may however "grab" their attention, and thus low levels of their information processing capacity will be focused. Here, the message can still be persuasive as individuals can use an heuristic such as buying the most familiar product, which is familiar due to having some attention placed on the applicable ad. This type of consumerism is the peripheral route to persuasion. EXAMPLE?

Social Learning, also known as observational learning or vicarious conditioning is "a type of learning in which people are more likely to imitate behaviours if they have seen others rewarded for performing them, and less likely to imitate behaviours if they have seen others punished for performing them" (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008). Social learning, with respect to marketing, advertising and branding, occurs when consumers imitate the behaviours of others. Consumers learn patterns of behaviour by studying other's behaviour and implementing it into their own lives. "A variety of consumer behaviours, such as shopping, interacting with sales clerks, brand selecting and consumption, can be modelled for consumers who pattern their future behaviour on the examples observed" (Foxall & Goldsmith, 1994, p. 73). Consumers are frequently influenced by marketers via advertising modelling how the company would like the consumers to behave with regard to their product.

Many Coca-Cola advertisements focus on the brand being associated with fun, partying, being with friends, and having a great time. In Coca-Cola television advertisements, Coca-Cola is the sparkling, bubbly, and refreshing drink that so many people have enjoyed. Its unique taste and cool refreshing drink is all that is needed to satisfy Australians on a hot summer's day. Thus, just about every party you attend will have Coca-cola to drink. In Australia, Coca-Cola has tapped into our large beach culture as identified in many of the brand's adverts. These types of advertisements model how Coca-Cola should be enjoyed: on the beach with friends, having a party etc. As a component of the brand's image, these advertisements associate a distinctive type of user Coca-Cola. This is usually carefully cultivated by the marketer because of the dual promises that it poses. Firstly, using the brand acts as a symbol of what kind of person you are. For example, if you drink Coca-Cola you must be cool, young, keen to have fun, and good looking. Secondly, if this is not you, then you can become more like the portrayed desirable consumer by using the brand (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MPlKynCwb-0.http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bgBr7Sp7nLU). For example, if you drink Diet Coca-Cola you will be young, sexy, and drive expensive cars and dine at expensive restaurants (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xRs4uMvk1bA). Conversely, it can be argued that Coca-Cola advertisement such as these have not imitated the Australian culture of partying and having fun, but rather, created it. Consumers have imitated the behaviours seen on television and thus when they want to have fun they go to the beach or have a party and they wear sexy clothes AND drink Coca-Cola.

Classical conditioning is proposed to aid the formation of attitudes. Using classical conditioning to their advantage, marketers and advertisers link products with desirable people, such as Sarah Jessica Parker with Garnier Nutrisse, or Lleyton Hewitt with Nike. The pairing of, or association with, a neutral stimulus, the conditioned stimulus (e.g. brand name) with an unconditioned stimulus can cause the consumer to feel the same feeling when they encounter the specific brand name only. For classical conditioning to be effective the association must be presented to the consumer frequently (e.g. regular advertising on television), and the conditioned stimulus must be presented prior to the unconditioned stimulus and very close in timing. Propositions have been made that music in advertisements in television act as unconditioned stimulus which elicits an unconditioned emotional response that is likely to result in the consumer purchasing that specific brand. Note to self: REFERENCE HERE

An example of a song used to elicit such an emotional response in a Coca-Cola advertisement is that sung by Michael Jackson "Always Coca-Cola". This song utilises classical condition on three levels. Level one is the use of a desirable person, Michael Jackson with the brand. Although not so favourable now, when the advertisements were running Michael Jackson was a prime spokesperson for Coca-cola: girls wanted to date him, boys wanted to dance like him. Level two is the song. The unconditioned stimulus being linked with the brand, will elicit an emotional response and thus condition the consumer to purchase Coca-Cola. For example, as a consumer spots Coca-Cola in the shopping isle she recalls the advertisement and the song she had heard, which in turn produces a positive emotional reaction to the brand-she picks up a bottle of Coca-Cola and places it in her trolley while singing "...whenever there is fun there's always Coca-cola...".

Level three is the literal, blatant association being made between fun and Coca-Cola as stated in the words of the song "...whenever there is school there will always be homework, whenever there's a beat there's always a drum, whenever there's fun there's always Coca-Cola...the stars will always shine, the birds will always sing, as long as there is thirst there's always the real thing...Coca-Cola is always the one, whenever there is fun there's always Coca-Cola". Here, the brand is linking Coca-Cola with fun; Coca-cola is synonymous with fun. It is implied that Coca-Cola goes hand in hand with fun, one does not occur without the other, such as a beat always occurring with a drum, or not being able to go to school without having homework as a result. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9cthWOuSURM

 

 

Exposure → Preattention → Focal Attention → Comprehension → Elaboration

↘         ↘                                ↙

Peripheral Route            Memory Containing:             Central Route

• Beliefs
  
• Feelings
  
• Associations
  
• Schemata
  
• Scripts
  

 

Figure 1. A model of consumer information processing. Source: Foxall & Goldsmith, 1994, p. 75.