How marketing communications works (MC, unit 1)

Lots of theories - lots of debate:

1) AIDA (gain attention, stimulate interest, create desire, result in action)
Elmo Lewis' theory whereby an advertiser seeks to position the product as an answer to a previously indentified problem.
This principle of sequential activity - 'the hierarchy of effects' - is now challenged

2) Hall’s Four Frameworks model (1992)
Sales – messages to shift product, e.g. direct response advertising
Persuasion – moving buyers through sequential steps
Involvement – drawing consumers into an emotional response
Salience – using conspicuous presentation

3) The Heightened Appreciation Model (Yeshin, '93)
Identifies a desirable attribute of a product (through consumer research) and stresses that attribute in advertising. The consumer is a) more aware of that attribute and b) has a more positive image of the brand.

4) Jones Strong Theory
Jones’s strong theory of advertising views consumers as passive and maintains that advertising can persuade and generate repeat purchase behaviour.

5) Ehrenberg's ATR Model (Awareness-Trial-Reinforcement) (1974)
Suggests that advertising reminds people of a need, which is more likely to explain why they purchase. Saw few customers were 100% brand loyal implying that Hierarchy of Effects was wrong, attitude didn't necessarily drive behaviour.

6) Prue’s alphabetical model (1998)
Prue seeks to create a more simplistic active-consumer model (argues AIDA assumes a passive-consumer model)

Four stages are observations of what the advertisement (not the consumer) must achieve:
- Appreciation - must be considered to have sufficient value for it not to be screened out
- Branding - stimulate recognition e.g. tony tiger = frosties
- Communication - should in some way communicate something strategically relevant about the brand
persuasion - rational, not necessarily sequential
involvement - a subtle emotional response whereby emotions transfer to the brand e.g. Andrex - soft, strong, family
salience - strikingly different, making a big impact on its target group and allowing a brand to punch above its weight e.g. Tango
- Desired effect on the brand - perception change