Ámbito de la gestión de liderazgo y la comunicación.

This is an essential component of a communication strategy. It involves the selection of the appropriate audience. The fact that the audience is made up of great number of individuals must be taken into consideration because each individual has his or her own traits, characteristics, interests, needs, experiences, knowledge and so on and so forth. It is therefore necessary for the sender to segment the audience into groups that are homogeneous in terms of some relevant characteristics.

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 very unlikely for marketers to develop a message that can appeal simultaneously to its total audience. Companies that have diverse audiences sometimes find it useful to develop a communications strategy that consists of an overall or umbrella communication message to all their audiences from which they develop a series of related messages targeted directly to the specific interests of individual segment.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

Describe the process involved in designing persuasive communication

Answer

The first step in designing a persuasive communication is to establish the objectives of the communication and then (i) select the appropriate audiences for the message, (ii) select the appropriate media through which to reach them and (iii) Design or encode the message in a manner that is appropriate to each medium and each audience .

3.3.1 Media Strategy

This is an essential component of a communication plan, which calls for the placement of advertisement in the specific media, read, viewed or heard by each targeted audience. To accomplish this, advertisers develop a consumer profile of their target customers through research, which 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 the one that closely matches the advertiser’s consumer profile to medium audience profile.

Before selecting specific media vehicle, advertisers must select general media categories that will enhance the message they want to convey. The media category the marketer selects depends on:

i. The product or service to be advertised ii. The market segments to be reached and iii. The marketer’s advertising objectives

Rather than select one media category to the exclusion of others, many marketers use multimedia campaign strategies with one primary media category carrying the major burden of the campaign and other categories providing support.

3.3.2 Message Strategies

The message may be referred to as 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 exact meaning, the sender must know exactly what he or she is trying to say and why (I.e.

what the objectives are and what the message is intended to accomplish). The sender must also know the characteristics of the target audience in terms of education, needs, interests and experience before designing a message through words and pictures that it would be easy to be decoded accurately by the target audience.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

What are the factors that influence the selection of media category in message strategy?

Answer

The factors that influence the selection of media category in message strategy are:

i. The product or service to be advertised ii. The market segments to be reached and iii. The marketer’s advertising objectives

3.3.3 Message Structure and Presentation

There are certain decisions that marketers must make in designing the message and these decisions include:

i. The use of Resonance

ii. Message Framing (Positive / Negative message framing) iii. One-sided versus two-sided messages

iv. Comparative Advertising and v. The order of Presentation

Now we are going to summarise these points one after the other.

i. The use of Resonance

Advertising Resonance may be defined as wordplay, often used to create double meaning and is used in combination with a relevant picture. Examples of advertising resonance are Airtel Telecommunication’s slogan (“ Nigeria we‘ve got you covered”) next to a lady and two men standing on the map of Nigeria with an umbrella over their heads and Pepsi’s slogan (“hit the beach topless”) next to Pepsi bottle cap lying in the sand.

By using resonance in advertisements, marketers can improve the chances that their adverts will be noticed by consumers and create favourable and lasting impressions. A recent study which tested the effectiveness of metaphors and puns showed that using rhetorical figures and symbols in adverts increased the recall and memory of these messages.

ii. Message Framing

In message framing, there are both positive message framing and negative message framing. Positive framing is when a marketer stresses the benefits to be gained by using a specific product and Negative framing stresses the benefits to be lost by not using the product.

Research shows that appropriate message framing decision depends on the consumer’s attitudes and characteristics as well as the product itself. For example, a study found out that persons with a low need for cognition were more likely to be persuaded by negatively framed messages. Another study found that an individual’s self-image impacts the type of framing that he or she finds more persuasive. Individuals with an

independent self-image (i.e., who view themselves as defined by unique characteristics) were more persuaded by messages stressing an approach goal (Positive Framing), and those with an interdependent self-view (i.e., who view themselves as defined by others) found messages that stress avoidance goals more convincing (negative framing).

iii. One-sided versus two-sided messages

There are very real strategy questions that marketers face every day and the answers to these questions depend on the nature of the audience and the nature of the competition. Some of these questions include, whether they should tell their audience only the good points about their product or also tell them about the bad or common place, whether they should pretend that their products are the only ones of their kind or also acknowledge competing products.

In situation where the audience is friendly (e.g. if it uses the advertiser’s products) and if it initially favours the communicator’s position, or if it is not likely to hear an opposing argument, then a one-sided (supportive) message that stresses only favourable information is most effective. On the other hand, if the audience is critical or unfriendly (e.g. if it uses competitive products), if it is well educated, or if it is likely to hear opposing claims, then a two-sided (refuting message) is likely to be more effective. However, two sided advertising messages tend to be more credible than one- sided advertising messages because they acknowledge that the advertised brand has shortcomings. Two-sided can also be very effective when consumers are likely to see competitor’s negative counterclaims.

iv. Comparative Advertising

This 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. However, some critics of this technique are of the view that comparative adverts often assist the recall of the competitor’s brand at the expense of the advertised brand. Some studies have however contradicted this view as it was discovered that comparative adverts are capable of exerting more positive effects on brand attitudes, purchase intentions and actual purchase than non -comparative advertisement.

v. Order of Presentation

Communication researchers have found that the order in which a message is presented affects audience respectively. Issue of whether to present the commercial first or last or whether to give bad news first or last usually arises. This is the reason why politicians and other professional communicators struggle for position when they address an audience sequentially and this is because they are aware that the first and

the last speeches are more likely to be retained in the audience’s memory than those in between. On TV, the position of a commercial in a commercial box can be critical, this is because the commercials shown first are recalled the best, whereas those in the middle are recalled the least.

Some researchers have found out that the materials presented first produces a greater effect, this is referred to as primary effects whereas others have found that the materials presented last is more effective and this is called recency effect. Magazine and newspaper publishers recognize the impact of order effects by charging more for advertisement on the front, back and inside covers of magazines than for the inside magazine pages because of their greater visibility and recall.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

There are certain decisions that marketers must make in designing the message under message structure and presentation, what are these decisions?

Answer

The decisions marketers make in designing the message under message structure and presentation are:

i. The use of Resonance

ii. Message Framing (Positive / Negative message framing) iii. One-sided versus two-sided messages

iv. Comparative Advertising and v. The order of Presentation

4.0 CONCLUSION

In designing persuasive communication, different stages are involved. There is need to establish the primary communication objectives, select the appropriate audience, media and the message. The manner in which a message is presented influences its impact as we have learned that on-sided messages are more effective in some situations and with some audiences and two-sided messages are more effective with others.

5.0 SUMMARY

This unit has described how the marketer goes about designing persuasive communication which is referred to as communication strategy and how these communications impact on consumer behaviour.

In order to create persuasive communication, the sponsor must establish the primary communication objectives which consist of creating awareness of a service, promoting sales of a product or encouraging (or discouraging) certain practices. The sponsor then selects appropriate audiences for the message and appropriate media through which to reach them and then design or encode the message in a manner that is appropriate to

each medium and to each audience. The communication strategy is not complete without an immediate feedback mechanism that alerts the sponsor to any need for modifications or adjustments to media or the message.

6.0 TUTOR MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. Write short notes on any three of the following:

a. The use of Resonance

b. Message Framing (Positive / Negative message framing) c. One-sided versus two-sided messages

d. Comparative Advertising and e. The order of Presentation

2. What do you understand by communication strategy? Discuss.

3. What are the steps involved in designing a persuasive communication?