Marketing communication: principles and practice

A C O M M U N I C A T I O N C O N C E P T
21

---

• it places presentation ahead of attention (apprehension)
• it assumes that desired responses can be evoked
• it is premised on a transmission conception of communication
Perhaps DeLozier can be forgiven for the inadequacy of his thinking, but
contemporary slips are unforgivable. Kotler (2000), for example, unashamed-
ly explains the communication process as a linear series of encoding and
A C O M M U N I C A T I O N C O N C E P T
22
Table 2.1
Critique of prevailing themes in marketing communication theory
Textbook theme
Critique
The individual is the appropriate unit 
Marketing has communicative effects at 
of analysis
household, family, institutional and cultural 
levels, yet, in common with other fields of 
enquiry, there has been bracketing of 
human experience – the exclusion of some 
elements while including others – to simplify
the complex situation to make it more 
accessible to explanation. This ignores the 
systemic character of the social world
The principal concern is the effect
Marketing communication has a pervasive,
of particular messages
inescapable presence in our day-to-day 
consciousness. Consumers can find meaning
in almost any publicly accessible 
information about corporations, products, 
people, etc. All elements of the ‘marketing 
mix’ are (at least potentially) communicative.
The intention of the source determines
Assumes that the audience is passive and
the meaning of a message
that the receiver is relatively powerless in 
how they respond to the content of a 
message to which they are exposed. Recent 
communication theory development has 
introduced the notion of interpretative 
community members deriving meaning by 
interacting with the content
Communication is ‘effective’ when
Assumes that the content of marketing
the receiver’s decoding of
communication is closed, but accessible to
message content produces the
a competent receiver. But people 
same meaning as intended
contextualize received messages – 
by the encoder
co-orientation and fidelity are unlikely once
the message is released out into others’ 
interpretative frames
Source
: Adapted from Buttle, 1995

---

decoding acts, even though this does not sensibly explain human interaction.
Professor Kotler does not appear to acknowledge that the model he adopts
is challenged by alternative approaches.