Marketing Communications Models – Introduction and Types

Marketing Communications Models are developed based on various studies that explain how communications work in product marketing. They are essential for understanding how communications work in real-life marketing situations and developing a communication strategy .Basically, communication strategy can make or break a brand by creating a positive image.

Two models are functional in marketing communications, namely Macro-Model, and Micro-Model.

Macro marketing is often considered alongside micromarketing. Unlike macro marketing, which emphasizes society at large, micromarketing centers on marketing products or services to a small group of highly targeted consumers who are selected based on specific identifying characteristics, such as zip code or title.

Types of Marketing Communications Models:

1) AIDA Model

2) DAGMAR Model

3) High Appreciation Model

4) Advertising Exposure Model

5) Joyee Model

6) Lavidge and Steiner Model

1. AIDA Model: This is one of the oldest and best popular models of marketing communications. St. Elmo Lewis first proposed this hierarchical model in 1900 for personal selling with stages: attracting attention, maintaining interest, creating desire, and getting the consumer to act.1911 Arthur Fredrick Sheldon revised the model by changing the first step to ‘favorable care’ and adding a fifth step, ‘permanent satisfaction.’ The revised model was named AIDAS: Favorable Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, and Permanent Satisfaction .Further, the various stages in the purchase process of the AIDAS model are:

• Attention: Get the attention of the target customer.
• Interest: Create interest in the product by providing information about the product (or special features) and how it can help meet the individual’s needs and wants.
• Result: If the potential buyer develops a favorable or unfavorable opinion about the product.
• Desire: Create a passion in the customer to own the product. This is accomplished by emphasizing the product’s benefits and how it will satisfy needs and wants.
• Action: Require action from the customer to convince him to purchase. A simple method to get customer action is to provide a toll-free phone number or contact person for more information.
• Satisfaction: The customer is satisfied after the purchase.

2. DAGMAR Model :‘Define advertising objectives for measured advertising results’, abbreviated as DAGMAR, proposed by Russell H. Coney in 1961. Coney suggested that achieving a hierarchy of communication objectives leads to actual buying. Marketing objectives measures in terms of sales, while advertising objectives measures in terms of the movement of customers through the hierarchy. Lastly, the various stages of this model are as follows:

• Awareness: – In this stage, the customer becomes aware of the product.
• Comprehension: – The customer knows the product’s characteristics and uses. He is also familiar with the brand name and brand logo.
• Conviction:-This stage refers to the emotional decision of preferring one brand to another.
• Action: – In this stage, the purchase starts.
• The DAGMAR model assumes a high-involvement “learn-feel-do” hierarchy. Likewise, advertising goals can be explicitly defined, tracked, and measured. The long-term effects of the advertisement can also be studied. With the help of the DAGMAR model, the advertisement’s effectiveness must measure  in terms of its ability to move the customer along the hierarchy. The model enabled marketers to define the target market or audience for the commercial.
• As the advertisement is based on the objectives, creative people involves in designing tend to feel that their creativity stifles. Implementing DAGMAR is also very costly, as extensive research requires  setting and measuring quantitative targets.

3. Heightened Appreciation Model

• The Heightened Appreciation Model helps the marketer to arrive at an advertising strategy. The model also suggests that an important product category attribute identifies, and the advertisement  conveys the link between the brand and that particular attribute.
• The consumer convinces about the importance of the attribute and the benefits derived from it. Hence, advertising campaigns based on the heightened appreciation model are successful if they increase usage and a positive brand image.

4. Advertising Exposure Model

• We know that an advertising message creates awareness, conveys information about benefits, attributes, or characteristics, builds a brand image and personality, gives the brand certain feelings, links the brand to group norms and peers/experts, and induces the behavior of buys.
• Exposure to an advertisement can initiate any of these processes. These five effects create an attitude towards the brand that, if favorable, leads to the purchase action. For a consumer to buy or use the brand. It is a direct incentive to act.

5. Jewel Model: Joyee suggested a new model for marketing communication in 1991. The Joyee model focuses on advertising, buying behavior, and consumer attitudes. It also assumes that there is a continuous cycle of events in all three areas and change in one. This is because the areas affect the other sites. For example, consumer attitudes refer to an individual’s positive or negative feelings towards a product or service.

• Attitudes  is going to  develop by personal experiences in the past or the experiences of others. Attitude is however, a psychographic characteristic and depends on age, gender, social class, region, and culture. It is although assumed that if the attitude towards a product is favorable, the person is likelier to buy the product.
• The advertisement must  consider adequate if it changes the viewer’s attitude in favor of the advertised product. It is not only difficult to change consumer attitudes but also time-consuming. Market research can identify the drivers of change.

6. Lavidge And Steiner Model: In 1961, Robert J. Lavidge and Gary A. Steiner proposed a new model for marketing communications, which used a hierarchy of effects but included encouragement as an essential factor in the model. Finally, this model considered the long-term impact of advertising too. According to the Lavidge and Steiner Model*, a customer who is unaware of the product anyhow, goes through the following six steps before making a purchase:

• Awareness: In this step, the customer becomes aware of the product’s existence.
• Knowledge: The customer additionally comes to know about the features and uses of the product.
• Liking: The customer develops a favorable attitude towards the product.
• Preference: The customer prefers the said brand over other competitive products or substitutes.
• Conviction: This step involves a desire to buy the product afterwards the customer will convince of a good purchase.
• Purchase: The customer makes the actual purchase.