PART 3: IMPLEMENTING THE MARKETING MIX
CHAPTER 8: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PRINCIPLES
Defining ‘Marketing Communications’
‘Marketing communications is a management process through which an organization
attempts to engage with its various audiences. By understanding an audience’s
communications environment, organizations seek to develop and present messages
for its identified stakeholder groups, before evaluating and acting upon any
responses.
By conveying messages that are of significant value, audiences are encouraged to
offer attitudinal and behavioural responses’.
There are three main aspects associated with this definition:
• Engagement – what are the audiences’ communications needs and is it
possible to engage with them on their terms using one-way, two-way or dialogic
communications?
• Audiences – which specific audience(s) do we need to communicate with and
what are their various behaviour and information processing needs?
• Responses – what are the desired outcomes of the communication process?
Are they based on changes in perception, values, and beliefs or are changes in
behaviour required?
The Scope of Marketing Communications
Marketing communications should be regarded as an audience-centred activity
comprising three elements: a set of tools; the media; and messages.
The five common tools are:
- Advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, public
relations (PR)
Figure 8.1 highlights the breadth and the complexity of managing marketing
communications.
, PART 3: IMPLEMENTING THE MARKETING MIX
CHAPTER 8: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PRINCIPLES
How Marketing Communications Works
Communication theory explains how and why certain marketing communications
activities take place. Communication is the process by which individuals share
meaning.
Three Main Models of Communication:
• Linear model of communication
The linear model of communication is regarded as the basis model of mass
communications.
The linear communication model established by Shannon and Weaver supports and
advocates the notion of one-way communication.
- The model depicts a source at one end of the spectrum that encodes and
sends information.
- The encoded message then travels through a neutral medium until it arrives at
the mind of the other participant, who then receives the message.
- The model suggests that, at any given time during a conversation or
communication between people, only one party is expressing the information
because the other party is exclusively absorbing the information.
Encoding = a part of the
communication process during which
the sender selects a combination of
appropriate words, pictures, symbols,
and music to represent a message to
be transmitted.
Decoding = the part of the
communication process during which
receivers unpack the various
components of the message and begin to make sense of and give the message
meaning.
Feedback = a part of the communication process referring to the responses offered
by receivers.
Noise = influences that distort information in the communication process, which, in
turn, make it difficult for the receiver to decode and interpret a message correctly.
CHAPTER 8: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PRINCIPLES
Defining ‘Marketing Communications’
‘Marketing communications is a management process through which an organization
attempts to engage with its various audiences. By understanding an audience’s
communications environment, organizations seek to develop and present messages
for its identified stakeholder groups, before evaluating and acting upon any
responses.
By conveying messages that are of significant value, audiences are encouraged to
offer attitudinal and behavioural responses’.
There are three main aspects associated with this definition:
• Engagement – what are the audiences’ communications needs and is it
possible to engage with them on their terms using one-way, two-way or dialogic
communications?
• Audiences – which specific audience(s) do we need to communicate with and
what are their various behaviour and information processing needs?
• Responses – what are the desired outcomes of the communication process?
Are they based on changes in perception, values, and beliefs or are changes in
behaviour required?
The Scope of Marketing Communications
Marketing communications should be regarded as an audience-centred activity
comprising three elements: a set of tools; the media; and messages.
The five common tools are:
- Advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, public
relations (PR)
Figure 8.1 highlights the breadth and the complexity of managing marketing
communications.
, PART 3: IMPLEMENTING THE MARKETING MIX
CHAPTER 8: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PRINCIPLES
How Marketing Communications Works
Communication theory explains how and why certain marketing communications
activities take place. Communication is the process by which individuals share
meaning.
Three Main Models of Communication:
• Linear model of communication
The linear model of communication is regarded as the basis model of mass
communications.
The linear communication model established by Shannon and Weaver supports and
advocates the notion of one-way communication.
- The model depicts a source at one end of the spectrum that encodes and
sends information.
- The encoded message then travels through a neutral medium until it arrives at
the mind of the other participant, who then receives the message.
- The model suggests that, at any given time during a conversation or
communication between people, only one party is expressing the information
because the other party is exclusively absorbing the information.
Encoding = a part of the
communication process during which
the sender selects a combination of
appropriate words, pictures, symbols,
and music to represent a message to
be transmitted.
Decoding = the part of the
communication process during which
receivers unpack the various
components of the message and begin to make sense of and give the message
meaning.
Feedback = a part of the communication process referring to the responses offered
by receivers.
Noise = influences that distort information in the communication process, which, in
turn, make it difficult for the receiver to decode and interpret a message correctly.
