Marketing communication: principles and practice

C O N S U M E R B E H A V I O U R A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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recipients of promotional messages. Even when messages are transmitted,
there is interaction between the apprehender and the message – it is
interpreted in a particular context, attitudes and beliefs. The conduit
metaphor for communication does not explain this adequately, and yet it is
still used as an explanation! The traditional notion of a seller always taking
the marketing initiative in making an offer (promise) to which a buyer
responds is being challenged. Today buyers are more realistically seen as
often active searchers for suppliers and their products to fulfil their needs.
This phenomenon is termed ‘reverse marketing’, ‘proactive procurement’,
and ‘buyer initiative’.
A rather more sophisticated (and complex) model that relates an
information-processing sequence to a purchase decision-making process, and
which has gained considerable respect, is the Howard–Sheth model of
consumer behaviour. This shows inputs processed by and into perceptions,
interpretations, judgements, learning, and so on. Figure 3.1 shows informing
connections (solid lines) and feedback effects (broken lines).
We will examine some key elements of the Howard–Sheth model.
Significance factors can be addressed in pictures and words during the
information search phase when you are actively attending to marketing
communication materials and activities. Symbolic factors are concerned with
identity and image relative to other people and our self-esteem, and arise
mostly before the active information search, often outside our awareness.
Social factors are power, wealth, prestige, and so on, relating consumption
and purchase and use of products to culture. According to the theory of
symbolic interactionism, our behaviour towards an object or event depends
on the symbolic meaning ascribed by referent others in society. As consumers,
we behave towards goods and services, according to this theory, according