Constructing Messages with Audience Involvement in Mind
BusinessDictionary.com defines the “level of involvement” as the intensity of interest that a buyer shows for a certain product in a particular purchase decision. Involvement, as a concept, has been embraced by marketing practitioners and is increasingly of concern to boards of directors.
Cho et al (2005) describes how they have devised a means of testing levels of values-, outcomes-, and impressions-relevant involvement for specific subjects. It seems that these three types of involvement are more inter-related than some scholars may have previously thought.
To simplistically summarize the differences between the three types of involvement:-
- Values-relevant involvement is related to belief systems. “I want that car because it has a small carbon footprint and it is made in my country.”
- Outcomes-relevant involvement is related to consequences. “I want that car because it is more economical to run and it supports local jobs and the economy.”
- Impressions-relevant involvement is related to one’s concern about others’ perceptions. “I want that car because I want my peers to see me as environmentally-conscious and/or as a patriot.”
In theory at least, based on the conclusions of Cho et al, one might be able to adopt and refine their research methods to nail down the interplay between values-, outcome-, and impressions-relevant involvement specific to each target audience. One might take that even further to see if there is any significant difference in that interplay of involvement types between sub-segments of target groups; male/female, minorities, demographics, city/country, etc.
How useful would that information be in crafting impactful messages?
Raising Involvement
I was asked by my university to lead an online discussion based around the question: “In your opinion, should MC practitioners devote resources to proactively raising a target public’s involvement with their companies or is involvement something to accept and react to?”
My two cents was as follows:
“Based on my interpretation of the Cho et al reading, it matters what type of business and what type of products a MC practitioner represents.
“Instinctively my initial reaction to the question was yes, mar-communicators should indeed endeavour to raise their target market’s involvement with their companies and thereby create vocal advocates for their products. Falcon/Commodore and Coke/Pepsi are examples of brand war combatants where high outcomes-relevant and impressions-relevant involvement among some user groups helps each brand maintain their respective “ground”.
“But, who’s going to care about your brand of paper-clip? Really!? Unless you are really clever, any attempt to communicate directly to office workers about the special attributes of your late-model hole punch risks backfiring and generating a negative reaction. Even administration/purchasing managers may have an issue with that sort of approach.
“For a product category such as stationery it may pay to become associated at the corporate/brand level (rather than at the sub-brand or product level) with issues that have values-based general agreement and acceptance in society, such as environmental concerns. To an extreme, that is exactly what one UK stationery company has done: http://www.greenstat.co.uk.”
In another discussion thread I offered top-of-mind examples of some of the ways not-for-profits try to raise our level of involvement. And I tried to link those back to the values-, outcomes-, and impressions-relevant involvement types, as follows:-
“1) Imagery:- harpooned whales, clubbed fur seals, crazy bears in cages, starving malnourished children, homelessness, addiction. Images are cheap and easy to obtain and are worth a thousand words. Set to appropriate music or supplemented with a suitable voice over, they can be used in powerful ads that are inexpensive to make. And I would imagine commercial networks will run such ads as a public service or favour if they have available unsold time-slots. I’m guessing these sort of ads tweak value systems and consciences, thus raising values-relevant involvement.
“2) Public relations:- taking journalists out on field trips. Human interest stories. Exposes. I would imagine that media coverage offers audiences new information about the issue and thus helps raise the level of outcomes-relevant involvement.
“3) Celebrity:- famous faces, rock concerts. It’s cool to be concerned. I’m guesstimating initial impressions-relevant involvement leads to greater awareness and on to new levels of outcomes-relevant involvement.”
I asked then, and I would ask again: Does anyone have any other examples?
Packaging the Message
Whatever the appropriate message is determined to be, whether through a study of target group-specific involvement or otherwise, how does one package and present the message? How does “creativity” in message design, per Dahlen et al (2010), assist the organization in grabbing attention and conveying the message?
As cited in that reading, an experiment by Dahlen, Rosengren and Torn showed that consumers exposed to “more creative [ads] perceived the brands to be of higher quality”. It can be argued that perceptions of quality contribute to perceptions of credibility, thus if Dahlen et al are correct it makes sense to explore how to creatively present one’s message. The various creative tools outlined by Dahlen et al are really only limited by one’s imagination.
However, creativity for its own sake is not enough. If resources permit, the marketing communicator should consider market-testing alternative creative treatments to ensure that the message has the best chance of grabbing attention in a crowded media marketplace.
Help Me Understand: What Do You Think?
References
Cho, Hyunyi; Boster, Franklin J., 2005 ‘Development and Validation of Value-, Outcome-, and Impression-Relevant Involvement Scales’ in Communication Research, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 235-264
Dahlen, M, Lange, F & Smith, T. (2010). Marketing Communication. A Brand Narrative Approach. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
