Media Involvement

What makes print inherently more involving than radio or TV?
Drewniany and Jewler (2008, p 210) say that radio is less inherently involving than print media because it is transient, listeners cannot go back and reread something. An advertisier is relying on their memory to record and playback the marketing message. Likewise Duncan. He says (2005, p 360), “Broadcast messages are fleeting.” They have the staying power of dayflies and can be just as annoying. Duncan further notes that customers can be doing something else while listening to radio or watching TV, especially during commercials when they get restive or jerk themselves back to reality to get a soda or something.
He notes these as weaknesses for TV and Radio (p 349).

When should a more involving medium be used?
The level of consumer involvement is an important consideration in media selection. Duncan (2005, p. 142) says that consumer involvement has two facets, relevance and perceived risk. He goes on to say (2005, p. 141), that relevance is key to determining the level of involvement, the extent to which a product or its message is pertinent and connects with a customer’s personal interests. Customers are more willing to invest pre-purchase energy in learning more about a relevant and more risky buy.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model by Cacioppo and Petty can provide a framework for analyzing the most effective balance in the media mix for marketing communications. Cacioppo and Petty define the primary relationships in persuasive communication as communication engagement and cognitive commitment.

According to the model, the greater our communication engagement with the other party the more likely that party is to use what the model calls central route processing, which is to say a great deal of message related thinking. Media appropriate for in-depth thinking and evaluation of the message should be used in such a case. On the other hand, if communication engagement is low, what the model calls peripheral cues are best. In this case, more attention getting media that do not necessarily lend themselves to protracted analysis would be a better choice.

Perceived Risk
Perceived risk may be difficult for advertisiers to identify. Perceived risk is related to unsatisfactory product performance and as noted above is related to consumer involvement. The level of risk may depend on context. Hawkins, et al (2007, p 550) give an example of buying wine. If you are buying for yourself, no big problem if it is unsatisfactory. The same decision, if you are buying for a dinner with a significant other, can be much riskier.

In some ways, a different context can make one product perform like a completely different product in response to IMC. Hawkins, et al (p 551) do give examples of products that generally have high perceived risk. They are classified by types of failure:

• Social costs (e.g. new suit not appreciated by peers)


• Financial cost (e.g. expensive vacation that had rain everyday)


• Time Cost (e.g. auto repairs are not just cash costs)


• Physical cost (e.g. interactions or side effects of prescription drugs)

It also seems intuitive that context may be ascertainable from the audience characteristics of the specific media companies employed. In these cases, advertisers should be able to make a good bet on risk level.

References

Cacioppo, John and Richard Petty (1986.) THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL OF PERSUASION. Retrieved on Feb 19, 2009 from the EBSCOHost database.

Drewniany, B and J Jewler (2008). Creative Strategy in Advertising. Wadsworth.

Hawkins, D., Mothersbaugh, D. and Best, R. (2007). Consumer behavior: building marketing strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Is There a Smoking Hole in the Future of TV and Print?

I think yes, powerful vicious circles are converging around the traditional TV and Print media formats. They must face a new revenue reality. They must face accountability. Their God Complex days are over.

The interdependent nature of the variables in vicious circles means that different circles can become coincident and reinforcing, creating a perfect storm. TV and Print will be pulled through a vortex much more powerful than radio, and after which their look and capacity will be very much different than today.

An unspeakable degree of financial revenue destruction has been initiated. Advertising, especially classified advertising is shifting to the Internet, to the new media. Classified advertising had been the financial spine of newspapers, cross-subsidizing reporting, political commentary and editorial activities (See Free Press Article). It represented 30% (See Newspapers Suffer) to 37% of newspaper revenues (See Media Manager).

Accountability. That dread word. On the corporate side of this table, marketing has acted like a junkie in the boardrooms, tin-cupping for money without demonstrable value. On the other hand, the new media can provide the metrics that management wants.

It is plainly clear from current events that revenue base destruction, and accountability will change the business model in the traditional media of TV and Print. Their days of royal power are numbered, and they will become more of a first among equals in the world shaped by the new media.

For a more complete analysis see Redmond Review Smoking Hole.

New Media Disintermediation of Traditional Business Structures

The Boston Consulting Group, in their Harvard Business School publication examines the impact new information technology will have on business strategy. The authors of the work, Evans and Wurster (2000, p 72) describe the disintermediation wrought by the new media as a “technology [that] allows for the richness/reach curve to be displaced, allowing new players to offer greater reach and greater richness simultaneously.” This results not in a re-segmentation of the old business but in an industry transformation to a new model.

This is happening with newspapers, a dismantling and reformulation is underway driven by the relentless economics of the new media. In their consulting work with Newspapers, The Boston Consulting Group (p 42) has observed that “Newspapers exist and can survive and profit as intermediaries between journalists and readers, because of the economies of scale in the printing press.” Journalists had no direct access to readers.

Newspapers are vulnerable to new media at critical points in their value chain. The most critical being classified advertising, which is a natural for on-line publication. As Evans and Wurster note (p 42) “classifieds account for about 40% of a newspapers revenues and only 10% of its costs…. If classifieds are lost, most newspapers would become financially unsustainable.”

This is the impact of new media on the existing business world. When its existing value chain is unraveled, companies in general, but newspapers specifically for this post can no longer subsidize poor performance of editorial or political commentary by combining them with other links in the chain. The profitable links of old that at one time were capable of carrying dead weight are now under relentless profit pressure.

Reference
Evans, Phillip and Thomas Wurster (2000). Blown to Bits. The Boston Consulting Group. Harvard Business School Press.