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Advertising practitioners’ metatheories Andreea Elena Ghitescu

ADVERTISING THEORY AND PRACTICE Authored by: 16011031

ADVERTISING PRACTITIONERS’ METATHEORIES Andreea Elena Ghitescu This essay will present the theoretical underpinnings of a journal article “Agency practitioners’ meta-theories of advertising” (Nyilasy & Reid, 2009) and gauge the most important ideas from the article and its relationship to advertising theory. The essay will also identify and discuss rival theories and concepts which have been missing from the journal article as well as suggest alternative explanation for the findings presented in the article. Managerial implications will be discussed, and real-life advertising campaign examples will be provided. There is a big difference between academia and praxis: the first one looks at “how advertising works” and “what works better” as a single question, while the latter one sees them as two distinctive entities. The journal article explores the advertising academiapractitioner gap. It brings to discussion knowledge autonomy and it proposes a practitioner knowledge autonomy model. This model states that there should be an exchange of information between academia and practitioners and that the relationship should work both ways, not just that advertising practitioners should apply knowledge from academic findings. Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

Practitioner knowledge autonomy model

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Academia

Practice

Academia

Practice Content: practitioner theories Presuppositions: practitioners meta-theories Social context: pseudoprofessionalization tactics

what works best

Advertising has an effect on the consumer buying behavior, as it can change cognitions, emotions and behavior. On the other hand, these effects are somewhat limited by the fact that customers filter everything, either consciously or unconsciously. The main effect of advertising has been identified as: attention to advertising, brand awareness, rational and emotional attitudes and behavioral response (Nyilasy & Reid, 2009). The main purpose of advertising is to generate attention, so the brand can get access to the customers’ memory. Once this happens, advertising can lead to brand awareness as customers can recall the brand. Advertising is believed to be a tool used in boosting the existence and perception of the brand in the consumer memory. Practitioners believe that advertising affect the way consumers interact with a brand, the beliefs and attitudes towards it. Although adverting can have an impact on both rational and emotional level, the latter one is believed to be more enhanced. They believe that attitudes towards a brand that are formed emotionally are “rationalized” by using a cognitive attitude. This belief (the emotional effect of advertising) is part of the practitioner’s theory of consumer behavior. Practitioners believe that attitudes towards a brand are important as an effect of advertising, but the most important goal is to increase sales, therefore to generate a behavioral response. Advertising practitioners do not only have an opinion on what the main ingredients of good advertising is they also have two theories when it comes to advertising: “break through

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

how advertising works

Practitioners do not believe in this

Practitioners agree

Knowledge autonomy is represented by the differences about how advertising works in regard to knowledge, between academia and praxis. The authors of the journal believe that the practitioner’s knowledge autonomy can be the explanation for the advertising academia – praxis gap (Nyilasy & Reid, 2007). Meta-theories are “fundamental underlying assumptions about the possibility and nature of knowledge-in-advertising” (Nyilasy & Reid, 2009, p. 640). On important fact that comes into attention in the journal article is that practitioners believe that basic theories about how advertising works can be applied to advertising, but moderator-focused theories that suggest what works best in advertising are unreliable.

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and engage” and “mutation of effects” (Nyilasy & Reid, fall 2009; Nyilasy & Reid, 2009; Nyilasy & Reid, 2007; Shelly & Esther, 2012). BREAK THROUGH AND ENGAGE (THEORY 1)

AWARNESS

• Create awarness about the brand and about the advertisment itself. Advertising should draw attention and make the customer aware of the brand

ENGAGE

• Advertising should appeal to consumers either emotionaly or rationally, but emotional is more important. Creativity plays an important role in this step.

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE

• Advertising was effective and customers engaged in buying the product.

The first theory, “Break through and engage” proposes that for the purpose of generating a behavioral response, marketers should aim at two things: creating brand awareness through their advertising, the next step being to address customers either emotionally or rationally.

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

This theory can be compared to the academia theory: “Hierarchy-of-Effects model” (Barry & Howard, 1990; Colley, 1961; Sheth, 1974; Lavidge & Steiner, 1961), but not only. The journal only compares this two and slightly mentions the Hierarchy-free model (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999). This theory developed by practitioners can be considered to be a really simplified version of one of these models: AIDA, DRIP, RACE planning and Hofacker’s 5 stages of information.

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The main difference found in the article between the first practitioners theory and Hierarchy-of-Effects model is that in the practitioner’s view, the order of effects cause does not matter. In academia it is argued that customers must think first, then feel and then act while in praxis this order does not matter. In regard to this perspective there is a big difference as practitioners believe feelings are the ones that come first, and the cognition plays only a role of classification. Hierarchy of effects model

AWARENESS

KNOWLEDGE

Cognitive

LIKING

PREFERENCE

Affective

CONVICTION

PURCHASE

Conative

Looking at other models we can briefly compare the “Break through and engage theory” to all those mentioned above. The AIDA model (Lewis, 1899; Lewis, 1903; Lewis, 1908; Lewis, 1909; Lewis, 1910) follows the exact same steps except that the second stage is divided in two steps (interest and desire). It is all about generating awareness, creating

desire and get people to action (make a purchase). Even if this model is pretty old 1899, the similarity in the thinking behind the model could be explained by the fact that the person who developed AIDA, Elias Elmo Lewis, was a practitioner. AIDA

AWARENESS INTEREST DESIRE ACTION

The DRIP model is an alternative to AIDA and it was developed by Chriss Fill in the third edition of Marketing Communications (2002). Although this model is similar to the presented practitioner’s theory it is more focused on cognitive attributes and it takes another order of action. It first focuses on the attributes of the product and the brand and only after it generates awareness and reaction.

D

R

I

P

•Differentiate a product or service

•Reinforce a brand's message

•Inform or make people aware of the brand

•Persuade audiences to behave in particular ways

The RACE planning framework is relatively a new model developed by David Chaffey in 2010. It follows the exact same steps as the practitioner’s theory only it adds a few things: it takes in account brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth and it also takes a look at how advertising is applied in relation to campaign objectives (Annmarie & Dave, 2017).

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

DRIP

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RACE planning

Even though Hofackers’ 5 Stages of information processing model (Hofacker, 2001) was developed for internet usage it can be applied to advertising as well. It has more stages than the previous model so is more precise. The first step takes into account which channel to use to get best exposure for the brand, the second step, attention, can refer to the creative part of the ad, the third step is the cognitive one where customers absorb the information provided to them, the fourth one is about trusting, and it can be related to emotions, being the affective part of the process. The ultimate goal as in every model “call to action” is not presented here, instead it suggests that is of highly importance that the customer remembers the brand (Annmarie & Dave, 2016). Hofackers’ 5 Stages of information processing (2000) EXPOSURE

ATTENTION

COMPREHENSION AND PERCEPTION

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

YIELDING AND ACCEPTANCE

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RETENTION

Whereas the journal article discusses that the gap between praxis and academia as being big it can be argued that at least the first theory developed by practitioners can be integrated in existing theories in academia and reality is not that far away from what academic papers say. Managers can use either of these theories in their advertising campaigns. Practitioners point of view is important; therefore managers should try to use emotions to correlate their brand with. By doing this, a special relationship with the customer is created. The most important thing that managers should look at is brand awareness as it is presented in these models and it is essential.

The second theory developed by the practitioners interviewed for the article is “Mutation of effects” theory. MUTATION OF EFFECTS (THEORY 2)

MUTATION OF EFFECT THEORY

TIME RUNNED

ADVERTISING 2

IMPACT

This theory focuses on the importance of time. It states that if the same advertising is running for a period of time customers grow resistance towards it and therefore when talking about advertising it has to be creative, new, surprising and constantly changing so the customers remember the brand and pay attention to it. The theory states that the effects/impact of advertising decreasses over time because customers develop resistance to advertising tehniques. This theory is hardly presented and discussed in academic reasearch. The weakness in this theory is that it does not neceserelly apply to all brands. For example Coca Cola brand has used the coke trucks and polar bears advertisment for several years and it only make customer more in love with the brand and more aware of its brand values. And also, it does not take into accound emotions. People get attached to certain things that a brand promotes they get used to it and maybe it goes even further to TOMA. For example, Duracell’s bunny, Churchill the Nodding dog, Felix (cat food), Chester (Cheetos), these are all mascots of brands that have been used in advertising and that people grew attached to. It is true that the advertisment change in some way, but the essence is the same every time. There is one theory in literature that has similar grounds, but is different as it focuses on a different aspect: “Persuasion Knowledge Model” (Friestad & Wright, 1994). Practitioners theory focuses on the longitudinal aspects of advertising, the effect during time and the fact that advertising loses persuasion advantage in time, while academia theory focuses on the actual resistance the customer generates.

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

ADVERTISING 1

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Persuasion Knowledge Model

Although these are general theories, practitioners think that there are some circumstances that influence the work of advertising: objective, product/service category, the medium used and historical time periods.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVE

PRODUCT/SERVICE CATEGORY

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

MEDIUM USED IN CREATING AWARENESS

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HISTORICAL TIME PERIOD

• Focuses on the effects that advertising should have, based on Objective: • Brand awareness can be an objective for new brands or for old brand that need to revitalise • Attitudinal change, called "image" or "brand" campaigns • Generate Sales, called "direct advertising" or "direct marketing"

• impulse (create brand awareness) vs. considered purchase (focus on information) • emotional vs rational • unique (rational approach) vs. commodity (emotional approach) • brands that are less visible and "badge brands" (more emotional > impact on self) • Different mediums are used for different tehniques • Television is believed to be more emotional while print is believed more rational due to the amount of information provided to possible customers • it is believed that there are two main time domains: past and present. • Past is believed to be the Golden Age, advertising used to have more effect. • In the present, acording to the "mutation of effect" theory advertising is not as effective as it used to be due to resistance. Also, another reason woud be: volume of advertisments and brands.

Another interesting subject approached in the journal article is that practitioners believe that there are no rules in advertising, they do not believe in academia they do not believe there is a secret formula, as you cannot dictate mundane reactions. If advertising would have been reduced to a formula, people wouldn’t be needing agencies as it could all be done on one computer. Advertising is more of an art, a skill than science, you learn how to do it in practice (like riding a horse). Therefore, Pavlov theory (Pavlov, 1902) does not work in advertising how it is supposed to, academia says that if you do a certain thing, the expected result will happen, while practitioners believe this does not work, at least not for long. Thus, it can be said that there are no exact rules. It follows that consumer

behavior cannot be completely explained (in relation to advertising) because there are too many variables. Advertising is only a part of the mix that makes customers buy, therefore due to the multitude of external factors, that can influence consumer buying behavior, it is hard to establish a direct connection between advertising and behavior. Furthermore, creativity plays one of the most important roles in advertising as it creates emotions which cannot be copied or replicated. Creativity is the core of advertising, as it is subjective, every individual visualizes and interpret content in their own different way.

Creativity or innovativeness Art over science Skills Strucure or layers

They do not believe in the research conducted by academics. Practitioners stated that they do not read academic research and they lack knowledge when it comes to classic academic advertising theories (Nyilasy & Reid, 2009). Most research does not have a real time feeling, as researches lack experience in advertising. Researchers are not as specific (when it comes to details on categories) as practitioner. Although papers state something, there is a low chance of applying what they say in real life. Research is not really connected to the “now”, it becomes outdated and hard to use as practitioners cannot apply in time. (Nyilasy & Reid, fall 2009; Nyilasy & Reid, 2007; Shelly & Esther, 2012) Practitioners argue that most of the methods for researching are providing inaccurate results as these can be influenced by several factors that are not evaluated. The most concerning (from practitioner’s perspective) is copy testing, as it is too rational and not emotional, also it can bias the result (people influence each other) and people cannot explain why they have a specific attitude (like or dislike) towards something. Managers should always try to be creative and innovate the brand as time goes on by. It’s the Age of speed and everything goes on really, really fast, thus managers have to keep up. Managers should follow their instincts in advertising, as they are expected to have good results. As people react in different ways, managers should always take into account segmentation and differentiate their advertising campaigns accordingly. One of the things managers should look out for, that it was not mention in the findings is the results. Practitioners need to have tools that measure the effectiveness off their

Advertising practitioners’ meta-theories 16011031

ADVERTISING CHARACTERSISTICS

Practitioners believe that advertising is defined by some basic characteristics as: creativity or innovativeness, the domination of art over science, skills and structure or layers. (Nyilasy & Reid, fall 2009; Nyilasy & Reid, 2009).

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advertising campaign and to find ways in by which they can create brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. To conclude, there is an existing gap between practitioners and academia and it is created by the fact that there are different point of views, but the hot areas are: creativity and emotions. This is because creativity and emotions are not related to science they are related to humans, therefore harder to predict and to measure. The way practitioners look at advertising is more simplified, they “feel” what they have to do, as they said, they think of it as “common sense” (Nyilasy & Reid, fall 2009). There are areas where academia intersects with praxis, but it is hard to create an equilibrium as contrary to all beliefs science cannot measure them all when it comes to mundane.

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[Accessed 20 november 2017].

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