Importance of ELM Theory in Business - Essay Example

Campaign Review 2 School Affiliation: Introduction Every business owner knows all too well that for the products or services the business offers to be sold, there is a need to avail the information. For that reason, a considerable amount of resources, specifically money, is spent on advertising these products or services in a bid to reach as many as possible. However, just other areas that concern humanity, advertisement has evolved tremendously with firms employing more than just mere advertisement (Welch, Smith & Gerhardt, 2014; Kanaraj et al, 2011). Currently, companies do not just create commercials with information; rather, these advertisements have humor meant to attract prospects. Worth noting about the topic of advertisement is that various studies have been conducted to determine the influence humor has in terms of persuasion. In the past, it has been established that customers or prospects seldom responds to mere information meant to advertise. Conversely, when an advertisement has humor included, it inevitably catches the attraction of many people. Consequently, many tend to seek more information regarding the product or service being advertised. In the end, there is a high possibility of the client purchasing the service (Cialdini, 2001). Having presented a campaign review on Old Spice’s “Your man can smell like me” advertisement, this paper will analyze how one theory of communication process was appropriately applied. One theory that was evidently applied in the campaign is Richard Petty’s and John Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). Overview of the theory ELM theory is one that Richard Petty and John Cacioppo developed in the 70s that sought to explain how prospects respond to advertisements. The theory explains the path taken in the shaping, formation and reinforcement of attitudes through persuasive arguments. In essence, the theory claims that once information is availed to a person, there is some inevitable elaboration level that tends to occur. It explains that persuasion takes one of the two paths: Central or Peripheral paths. Each of these is dependent on a couple of things exhibited by the prospects. Four principles are used to analyze which path a buyer or a prospect has taken (Payne, 2008). These include elaboration, attitude, information processing and the strength of the attitude that has been reinforced, and this section will highlight how the theory is analyzed. Elaboration In the case of Central path, a client has to understand the message behind an advert in order to take this side. In contrast, when the elaboration is limited the most likely route a prospect will take is the Peripheral. There are two reasons that might influence the route the prospect takes; the understanding and the explanation (Griffin, 2012; Zhou, Lu & Wang, 2014). If an advert is not well explained, the prospect will most likely take the peripheral route. On the other hand, ample information about a product will see a buyer take the central path. It is vitally too important to understand that elaboration here implies the effort one applies in order to evaluate, recall and either accept or reject a particular message. Information processing A prospect taking the central path will keenly seek to understanding the content of an advert. Normally, this kind of a buyer refuses to be influenced by other factors except information as they want an informed as opposed to an imposed choice (Thompson & Hamilton, 2006). Conversely, a peripheral buyer will not necessarily be influenced by the information in the advertisement. Rather, there are other outside factors such as the prospect’s interests that will compel them to make a choice unlike in the case of central path. For instance, if a celebrity used in the advertisement happens to a prospect’s favorite, a buying choice will be less motivated by information. Attitude The prospects who take the central path will have their attitudes changed depending on the information about the product. That is to say, their perceptions will not be shaped by a preconceived idea; instead, it is the processing of the available information that will influence the ultimate buying decision. Therefore, this part means a prospect may fail to buy a product if the information is not convincing or not easy to comprehend (Rucker & Petty, 2006). Concerning the attitude of peripheral path, an attitude may not be influenced by the information because the prospect is not in the first place committed to searching for it. Strength of attitude If a prospect’s elaboration is high, there will be more enduring unlike in the in the case of a person whose elaboration is low. In the latter case, the prospect will be less enduring and persuasive messages in the future will greatly influence their attitudes. Once this strength is confirmed, the person will then either reject or accept the message or a product. In short, an attitude will be formed or reinforced depending on what the buyer discovers from the message in the case of high elaboration but the one with low elaboration will be influenced by other messages in the future (Li, 2013; Sharma, 2012). Often, a prospect with high elaboration might be influenced by the brand reputation and buying intention besides the product information. Interestingly, a low elaboration prospect may be influenced by the attitude toward the advertisement itself. Applying ELM to the campaign The Old Spice advertisement had tremendous results as reported earlier in the first review where the audience was greatly influenced by the character used, actor Mustaffa. As already reported here, some clients may not always be keen to understand the content of an advertisement. Instead, some of them are influenced by the humor in it or whatever the advert seems to depict. In the case of Old Spice, the advert was well crafted to be pretty humorous, and the results were exceedingly tremendous. This result confirms that “humorous ads are better liked and therefore more effective than are non-humorous ones.” (Galloway, 2009 p.779). The above assertions are in line with the earlier understanding about the ELM. While some may take time to analyze the advert, some will be influenced by other factors, and in this case Old Spice benefitted greatly because of the humor it incorporated in the advert. Availability of information coupled with a sense of humor has two major effects on the prospect including distraction from counterarguments and information processing. According to Eisend (2010), one of the explanations offered by ELM is cognitive model which states that once a person has been exposed to information, they will either pay more or less attention to it. However, humor will most likely have higher attraction ability than just mere information. This fact was evident in the Old Spice advert because the product ended up attracting the attention of female buyers despite being more of a male product. The humor implying that all things would be possible confirmed by the actor’s ability to recite a monologue without hesitation made it more interesting. In this case, this scene was enough to catch the attention of the viewers which resulted in a majority of them either seeking further details on the product or simply buying. Clearly, this campaign implemented ELM effectively because the humor was too exciting to ignore, and this led to an increase in the sales. Additionally, humor significantly distracts consumers from any counterarguments that may be fronted against a product. This normally happens when the information being provided is catchy; attraction leads to elaboration before a decision is made. A decision, as already noted, will then be influenced by a number of things included the attitude and the intention to buy. Often, counterarguments emanate from extensive persuasion which often happens through advertising. In order to make sure this does not happen, humor is employed as a strategy (Eisend, 2010). Analyzing the adverts by Old Spice reveal that this objective may have been achieved as evidenced by the number of views that the commercial attracted as well as the subsequent sales. Favaro (2013) reported that in only 20 days, the advert had attracted 2.4 million views. For a marketing message to be effective, it ought to be both consistent and easy to grasp by the intended market (Dominic, 2009). In the advert, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Procter and Gamble ensured that the message remained the same despite having different adverts. The main message intended to be passed on to the audience was the uniqueness of the products the firm makes especially the body wash. This statement is informed by the fact that in one scene, the actor is talking to a group of women where it is implied their wishes could come true. Elsewhere, the actor sits on a motorbike and in yet another one on a horse. All these scenes are simulated to ensure that the advert sends a message on the uniqueness of the many products offered by the firm (Favaro, 2013). None of these scenes is too complicated for the viewer to understand, and this perfectly fits the requirement of ELM. Ability coupled with motivation ensures the processing taken by a viewer or a prospect is central path. According to Oh and Jasper (2006), the central processing entails the pensive consideration of the ideas, content and arguments in a message. However, for this to be possible, the receiver needs to have both the will and the ability to understand the message (Sher & Lee, 2009; Rollins & Bhutada, 2014). For this reason, humor is developed to ensure motivation pushes the prospect into seeking more information, and the messages used are easy to understand. If an advert uses complex language or hidden message, it may be impossible for a prospect to understand it even if they are motivated. Consequently, this would push them to use the peripheral processing which, if they have negative attitudes, would see the lose interest in the product. In light of the above, one would conclude that a great number of prospects showed interest in the Old Spice advert and products because the above principles were applied. First, the viewers were motivated to seek information because of the humor accompanying the advert. Secondly, understanding the message that the advert sought to convey was not as complex, thus making the buyers choose the central processing path. Therefore, it would be appropriate to conclude that the theory was applied and campaign messages and strategies were in order. Earlier, it was reported that the peripheral path persuasion usually occurs in the cases where the listener makes a decision to agree or disagree with the message conveyed in the advert based on factors or cues. For instance, a persuasion in this direction may be witnessed where a client uses a firm’s reputation to make a judgment on the message. Additionally, an agreement with the message may be influenced by an expert especially if there are arguments about a message. In other words, person fails to make an independent conclusion, but chooses the one that is popular (Yang, 2014). In this case, the decision was made because the person either lacked the motivation or ability to zero in on the best idea. Analyzing this campaign, one can clearly see that a portion of people lacked the ability, not motivation, in decoding the message Old Spice conveyed. According to Carpenter (2014), this becomes likely when people are excessively motivated, and are deaf to other arguments. Instead of evaluating the arguments, people make a decision based on their feelings toward the advert or the product. This case can be seen where the product ended up becoming a ‘women-favorite’ yet the target market were men. The reason for this shift was that the advert was directed to women but the product to men. Old Spice’s advert was a success because majority of the people found it humorous and this led to positive affect. Whenever consumers are absorbed by humor, there is a tendency to overlook the need for critical analysis of the brand’s benefits. Conversely, when one focuses mainly on the brand, there is a likelihood of negative affect but an enhancement of positive cognitions (Einsend, 2010). In other words, even though humor has the potential to distract prospects from negative arguments, it could also affect their knowledge of the brand. While customers may buy products due to the influence of either experts or their own emotions, a long-lasting business relationship is only possible when clients buy product after taking the central processing path. Before the launch of this campaign, Old Spice products were facing stiff competition from other rivals, and this campaign greatly remedied the situation (Peters, 2013). Nonetheless, it is clear that many of the people following the commercial or buying the products were more influenced than decided. In other words, humor helped the sale of products more than did an independent decision. Conclusion. To sum it up, Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like applied the theory of ELM in popularizing the men products. This theory tends to take two routes including the central and the peripheral routes. In the latter, people make decisions influenced mainly by external factors such as expert’s advice or personal preferences. Normally, this may also be catalyzed by a lack of understanding the messages; lack of motivation too. On the contrary, the central path is characterized by a need to evaluate the product before a decision is made. Here, the decision will hardly be a result of outside factors. Old Spice understood all too well the impact humor has on people, and applied resulting in the tremendous rise in the sales. Humor tends to influence people to focus more on the message than the product or brand. 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