1. Understanding the Consumer and How Advertising Works

2. Humbling Revelations About Consumers
Brands and the consumers’ loyalty to them are not nearly as important as they are to marketers
Consumer needs are neither logical or clearly defined
Needs are sometimes not “needs” until a product comes along to make consumers aware of their desire to fill a need.
In only a minority of cases do consumers use careful, conscious consideration to product decisionmaking.

3. Humbling Revelations About Consumers
…nor are they as complex in product decision-making as marketers would hope
In general, consumer decisions occur at a low-level of cognitive processing
Product choices are managed at the ‘good enough’ level
Habituation => routinized response, automatic behavior
Imagery => Impressions, attribute networks, associations with other attitude objects
Clustering => decisions made as an outcome to purchase situation and/or criteria (p. 10)

4. Humbling Revelations About Consumers
‘Brand loyalty’ is a notion marketers aspire to, but that rarely exists
Evoked set loyalty
Outlet loyalty
Sometimes consumer decisions are made based on the distribution outlet and what it has to offer.

5. Humbling Revelations About Consumers
Advertising’s effectiveness is generally unpredictable due to
The need to economize consumer decisions
The state of the market
The brand’s position
State of play of the brand/category at a given time
Other elements of the marketing mix
In fact, “much of the effect of advertising must be at a very low level of consciousness at which impressions ‘rub-off’ to become part of the vast store available to the individual for image-making.” (p. 11)

6. The New Rules for Engagement

7. The Audience Is Not the Audience
Consumers may not be using television media as an information source, but as a means for “vegging”
As an advertising audience, they are largely inattentive – not watching, not listening

8. The Consumer Is Not Engaged
Consumption is passive and centered in the moment of purchase or use
People have the energy to be constantly engaged with product marketing, packaging, choice, competition, or advertising

9. The Category Isn’t
“The most powerful brands have an emotional role that transcends their historical category usage.”
Starbucks  culture, community
Wonderbra  confidence
Disney World  childhood dreams

10. The Category Isn’t
Marketers may, in fact, be limiting their own potential by ‘thinking in a box’ that limits a product to a specific function or use

11. So, Why Use Advertising? Used over time, it
increases brand familiarity, attention
builds brand associations (emotive and cognitive)
conveys information about the brand

12. Why Use Advertising? improves accuracy of brand knowledge
acts as a forum for advancing brand perspectives”
reinforce brand choice

13. Advertising is an investment in
Brand identity
Brand prominence
Brand salience
Brand resonance
Brand salience = the extent to which it is seen to have clear and pronounced characteristics and properties.

14. Advertising does not work in a vacuum
but it does add value to a product over time
Advertising does not cause sales

15. Communication’s Other Role
Marketers have to go beyond just the idea of communication toward an idea of engagement
“seizing the audience’s imagination…”
Must look for relevance within or outside of the specific category

16. The Role for Advertising Research
…to worry less about what advertising does and more about what people do with advertising