1. 4/21/2013
How do I use insight to advertise?
Should I
Advertise?
AD 442
Advertising Management
Was It
Effective?
Who Do I
Target?
Boğaziçi University, Spring 2012/13
Consumer Insight
How Do I Use
Creative?
How Do I Use
Insight?
Hüseyin S. Karaca
How Do I
Select Media?
How Do I
Position?
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How to determine whether a brand is
likely to be attractive to a target?
What factors influence consumers’
beliefs about categories and brands?
• Assessment of consumers’ beliefs about the
category and brand
• Consumer goals
– Functional benefits
– Motivation or symbolism reflected
– Life goals, momentary psychological states
• Stage in the life cycle
– Individual stage, generational effects
• What strategy to follow?
• Individual differences
– Position to embrace/accommodate current
beliefs
– Confront accepted beliefs if defining character is
viewed negatively
– Age, social class, gender
• Knowledge allows whether/how a segment will
be attracted
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Insight about consumers’ goals:
Life goals
Insight about consumers’ goals:
Momentary psychological states
• Psychographic analysis
• Momentary psychological states can affect brand
preferences and response to advertising
– Focuses on lifestyle, e.g., activities, interests, opinions
• Geodemographic analysis
– People who live in the same neighborhood are more likely to
have similar characteristics than people chosen at random
• Primary analysis of consumer segments and target is
typically performed using demographic data
• Psychographic data supplements demographic data to
offer insight about consumers’ goals and dispositions
– Useful in presenting a brand’s position and in the execution of
creative strategy
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– Powerful vs. powerless: Those feeling powerless have a
greater desire to acquire status-related items
– Energized vs. fatigued: Those who are fatigued are likely
to spend more when shopping than those who are not
depleted
• Difficult to identify when they would occur. But there
are correlates…
– Recession or negative economic news might serve as a
predictor of powerlessness
– Days of the week or time of the day might be a predictor
for consumer fatigue
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2. 4/21/2013
Insight about individual differences:
Age
Insight about stage in the life cycle
• Most frequently used variable in segmentation for advertising (e.g., 2024, 25-29, 30-34 etc.)
• Stage in life cycle affects goals and beliefs
about categories and brands
• Children under age of 6
– Story structure (problem-episode-outcome) is easily learned
– Advertising should involve a problem solution or other story format
• Try to match goals in a particular stage of
the life cycle with benefits delivered by brand
• Kids between the ages of 6 and 10
• Generation in which people grew up also
affects beliefs and motivations
• 65 and older
– Exhibit the skill to retrieve related information but do not use these skills
reliably
– Reminding rules for effective processing and retrieval of message
information likely to facilitate later use of message information
– Easily reached via mass media (print media is the most effective)
– Typically view themselves as being healthier and younger than do younger
adults
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Insight about individual differences:
Social class
Insight about individual differences:
Gender
• Demographics can be used to infer social class
• Under certain circumstances men and women differ in how they
respond to persuasive messages
– Women are encouraged to be communal (consideration of self and others
in decision making)
– Men tend to be agentic (self-expressiveness and goal-directedness)
• Upscale people value uniqueness and individuality
– More willing to try unknown brands
– Often engage in downscale consumption
• Research shows that compared to men, women
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• Midscale people value neatness and organization
Are slower to make decisions
Exhibit greater uncertainty about their decisions
Are more persuadable
Are more likely to process message information that includes different types
of product benefits
• Downscale people value functionality
• Gender differences emerge in a limited set of circumstances
– Exhibit greater reliance on major brands
– Purchase high-ticket items in categories that represent
their aspirations
– Under time pressure women are likely to invoke heuristics as men
– If a decision is important men exhibit use of disparate types of information
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Cognitive path to persuasion
Metacognitive path to persuasion
• People activate their own repertoire of message-relevant
information during the information retrieval stage when making a
decision
• Evaluation depends on the feeling about the judgment process
• Advertising might help inform consumers about a brand, but it is
consumers’ own response to and interpretation of ad that affects
their behavior
• Unlikely to be used by those who have substantial experience
with the brand or who are at point of entry into the category
– Advertising ultimately relies on self persuasion
– Target advertising initially to current users
– Advertising has little hope of saving a poor product
• Feelings of ease
• Infrequent users of category are more likely to rely on
metacognitions in evaluating a brand
• Extent to which consumers’ judgments are influenced by brand
benefits depends on the level of amplification
– Under limited time people might use heuristics
– Amplification not necessarily leads to more favorable brand
evaluations than heuristics
• Evaluation is metacognitive when there is a fit between how
information is presented and individuals’ self-regulatory goals,
i.e., promotion vs. prevention focus
– Internally initiated strategies to make progress toward desired
outcomes
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3. 4/21/2013
Perceptual path to persuasion
• Relying on perceptions of thin slices of information as basis for
judgment (e.g., packaging, color, brand name, icon)
• Poor learning yet consumers are more likely to select the
advertised brand
– Repeated presentation helps reduce feelings of uncertainty
– Brand seems more familiar which is then often misattributed to liking
• Will be overcome if consumers amplify on benefits of brands
other than the target brand
• Persuasion via this path is likely to benefit from internet
advertising
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