The Applicability of the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Understanding Consumer Behaviour - Coursework Example

Critically discuss the applicability of the Elaboration Likelihood Model to understanding Consumer Behaviour Introduction Advertising is a vast and complicated field as it brings about varied outcomes for prospective customers. Consumers assimilate and interpret the messages at various levels of their consciousness – for example, ads may lead to generating interest or liking for a product, they may help in forming attitudes towards the brands and the products, or the advertising message may brig about a change in behaviour and lead to actual purchase (Dillard, J. P & M. Pfau, 2002). While the customers may be affected by the advertising messages in one or all the above mentioned ways, it is extremely crucial for the marketers to have an understanding about how the customers process the information that they come across as ads. Numerous models and theories have been proposed that have elaborated upon the manner in which customers assimilate and process the information as well as on the way ads and other marketing communications impact on the consumer behaviour (Cohen, 1990). Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), put forward by researchers Petty and Cacioppo (1983, 1986) is among the oldest and the most popular models that define how consumers formulate their attitudes towards a product or service on the basis of the communications that they receive as advertising. ELM has been employed by marketers and advertisers in making their communications more effective. ELM has also given the basic groundwork and direction to further research in areas like consumer cognitive processes and marketing communications elaboration. (Petty., Priester & Wegener, 1994).The current paper is aimed at evaluating the applicability of ELM to understanding consumer behaviour. The paper will begin with a brief overview of ELM and will contain a critical appraisal of its applicability in the consumer behaviour field. More specifically, it will focus on how ELM provides insights about consumer behaviour which in turn leads to more targeted and cost-effective advertising. The discussion will also include some of the weak points of ELM that need to be addressed in order to improve its applicability in the consumer behaviour field. Elaboration Likelihood Model The Elaboration Likelihood Model, when used in an advertising context, postulates that prospective customers form attitudes about ad messages via a process of message elaboration – or the amount of time and effort they spend on issue-relevant messaging. The extent to which they are likely to elaborate the message leads to two very different routes of information processing in the minds of the customers. These are the central processing route when the elaboration likelihood is high and the peripheral processing route when the elaboration likelihood is low. The central route is taken when the customers focus on the ad content and product relevant information and when they use their cognitive ability actively to compare the ads messages with their prior knowledge and understanding. In this case, the customer is involved with the message as he or she weighs and evaluates it with effort. Here, the customers can take an objective or a biased approach to information processing. They may be able to view the information objectively and on merit basis or they may evaluate it under the influence their already held strong opinions or biases. The biased approach may lead a customer to formulate arguments in support of a message that favors his own prior opinion while disqualifying a message that is counter to his own attitude (Petty and Wegener, 1998). The peripheral route is taken when the customers focus largely on the non-content elements or the peripheral elements of the ads to form their attitudes. This peripheral cues may include the presence of a celebrity, the look and feel of the ad, the music, the total number of arguments that the message extols (as opposed to the content of the arguments). When the customers are not involved actively with the relevant content of the ad, they give way to non-cognitive process – like classical conditioning and reinforcement - of forming attitudes (Perloff, 2003). With both the routes, both positive and negative attitudes can be formed. However, ELM proposes that the strength of the attitudes formed via central processing route will be more than for those that are formed on the basis of peripheral cues (Haugtvedt and Petty, 1992). Further, the model also states that the elaboration likelihood for the customers is dependent upon their motivation to process the information and their ability to process it. Motivation to process the information may be dependent on both external/situational factors like the probability of using the information and internal/personal factors like personal relevance of the message (Bryant & Oliver, 2002). The ability to process information is again dependent on situational factors like availability of time, lack of distractions, message repetition and personal factors like their need to indulge in cognitive thinking (Hafer, Reynolds and Obertynski, 1996). Applicability of Elaboration Likelihood Model To Consumer Behaviour ELM and Advertising Effectiveness Though ELM was developed from the information theories and attitude development theories, it had added largely to the literature on attitude formation processes. ELM places emphasis on the ‘process’ by which attitudes are formed and not merely on the outcome or the negative or positive attitudes. In the context of advertising and consumer behaviour, this ‘process’ based approach to attitude formation is extremely useful as it gives the marketers a chance to formulate their messages in ways that trigger specific routes to processing. ELM proposes dual routes to information processing but it does not place one route as more potent than the other. Thus, both the routes are targeted by the advertisers as and when needed. For example, ads running for 20 seconds or less have to persuade the viewers within this time. These ads are also cluttered along other ads that vie for the viewer’s attention. This difficulty is felt more by the ads that are hoping to sell products that generate low involvement in the people (for products like soaps, perfumes, toiletries groceries and other products that form routine purchases etc.) (Baxter, 1988). In such a case, the advertisers tend to introduce peripheral cues into their ads to make them catchy and attention grabbing and to positively impact the mental state of the viewer so that he gets a general feeling of well-being. By following this approach the advertisers hope to surmount the non-involvement of the customer and condition him with a positive liking for their brand of the product. Similarly, a product that has high involvement for the customer – like a car or a house – requires the advertisers to position their content in a manner that is direct and clear. Also, most ads selling such products carry a mention of places where more information can be had. However, in this case, the advertisers can use peripheral cues to create a positive bias for their products. For example, a car ad may have an endorsement by a celebrity along with the details about the car’s characteristics. Thus it can be said that ELM helps in formulating more targeted ads with content and peripheral cues that help in getting the desired response from the customers. ELM and Cost-effectiveness of Advertising The ELM model gives intricate and useful insights about how advertisers can use the mix of peripheral cues and potent arguments in order to deliver better advertising messages. This is because, the variables - situational/personal – are not categorized as leading to any one route of information processing. Instead, while on the one hand the motivational and ability factors impact upon the elaboration likelihood, the elaboration likelihood too impacts on the role the variable will play in facilitating either one or the other route of information processing (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994). For example, if a message is of low personal relevance to a person (say, an ad of detergent) the viewer will have low motivation to elaborate upon the information. However, if the ad is delivered by a beautiful young model, the source’s attractiveness will incline the viewer favorably towards the product. Similarly, if the topic has a personal relevance for the viewer and the viewer has high motivation to process information (for example, an ad for ant-acne cream viewed by a teenager troubled by acne), then the attractive model may bias the viewer towards the product. In the second case, though information processing is done via central route but the variable ‘attractive source’ is still used to define the approach that the viewer takes. Thus, ELM proposes that same ads can be used to affect a change in attitude in both the people who have high and low motivation to process information. ELM and changing Strongly Held Attitudes One of the postulates of ELM is that when the prior attitudes are strongly held, the impact of persuasive messages to bring about an attitude is less. Further, if a negative attitude is held strongly, a strong positive argument may lead the viewer to disregard it completely in order to maintain his equilibrium. This knowledge helps the advertisers in toning their ad’s content down as well as use peripheral cues so that they do not appear too imposing to the viewers who may have a pre-conceived negative attitude towards them. For example, an ad that promotes vegetarianism by extolling the health and connectivity benefits may be screened off by most people who rely heavily on non-vegetarian diet. Instead, if the same ad includes little discourse on benefits and focuses on the fact (preferably, through a visual image) that non-vegetarian food is prepared after killing the animal, it may lead to a better recall. Thus, the knowledge that ELM provided about how people may react to different types of messages, helps the consumer behaviour practitioners in creating more effective messages. ELM and Content Used in Messages to Influence Central Route to Processing One of the central assumptions of ELM is that the attitudes that are formed by the central processing route are stronger, more persistent and difficult to change. This postulate states that if the customer is motivated and able to assimilate the content of the message, the message will provide the best impact on this attitude development or attitude change. ELM also states that the ‘content’ needs to be persuasive and provide a good argument for the customer to think about. However, the model does not provide an insight about what comprises of a potent argument and if the potency of the argument is contingent upon the personality factors of the viewer (Perloff, 2003). Apart from the lack of information received from ELM, what constitutes a quality argument has been a debatable issue with little conclusive research done. According to Morley (1987), a high quality argument is the one that has significance to the receiver, is plausible and is novel. However, it completely depends upon the advertisers to assume what arguments may work with their target audience – with little help from the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Non-specificity of Variables as Peripheral or Central Processing Cues The ELM states that the same variables can act as peripheral cues as well as cues for central processing (Perloff, 2003). This adds a considerable amount of confusion and draws conflicting opinions from consumer behaviour experts on what cues to use in ads and how to ensure that they will serve the desired purpose. As such, most of the ads are developed on the basis of data obtained empirically via market research and consumer opinions, and have no links to the academic field of consumer behaviour or the elaboration likelihood model. ELM as a Descriptive Model instead of a Predictive Model of consumer Behaviour This lack of specificity in the ELM may have ensued from the fact that ELM is more of a descriptive model and less of a predictive one (Perloff, 2003). If the above is true, then it seriously hampers the applicability of the ELM model in consumer behaviour. If the model is based on empirical research and describes only those phenomena that have been observed by researchers, then it may not prove beneficial for predicting the way consumer’s may actually behave or react to ads based on new forms of cues. Reference: 1. Baxter, L.A. (1988). A dialectical perspective on communication strategies in relationship development. In S. Duck (Ed.), Handbook of Personal Relationships, pp.257-273. 2. Bryant, J. & M. B. Oliver. 2002. Media Effects. UK: Taylor and Francis 3. Chaiken, S., & Maheswaran, D. 1994. Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: Effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 460-473 4. Cohen, J. B. 1990. Attitude, affect and consumer behavior. In: B.S. Moore & A.M. Isen (Eds.), Affect and social behavior (pp. 152-206). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 5. Dillard, J. P & M. Pfau. 2002. The Persuasion Handbook. USA: Sage Publications 6. Haugtvedt C.P. and R. E. Petty, 1992. Personality and Persuasion: Need for Cognition Moderates the Persistence and Resistance of Attitude Changes, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 308-319. 7. Hafer, C., K. Reynolds and M. Obertynski, 1996. Message comprehensibility and persuasion: Effects of complex language in counter attitudinal appeals to laypeople. Social Cognition. 14: 317-337 8. Morley, D.D., & Walker, K.B. 1987. The role of importance, novelty, and plausibility in producing belief change. 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