Marketing Messages

Examine the reasons why consumers interpret marketing messages differently. The first article by Osmonbekov investigates the relationship between materialism and attitudes toward advertising in general. The second article by Taejun, the study examines US and Korean college student consumers’ attitudes towards product placements in three different media films, TV shows, and songs. The product placement acceptability based on media genre and product type. Both of the articles state the main reason the consumers interpret marketing messages differently because of the selective perception of each individual. Humans are design to have their own particular selective perception that makes all of us different from each other. The selective perception is defined as “the preceding discussion illustrates the consumer’s “selection” of stimuli from the environments based on the interaction of expectations and motives with the stimulus itself.” (Cooper, D. R. & Schindler, 2011, P. 164).

There are four important concepts concerning perception selective exposure, selective attention, perceptual defense and perceptual blocking. Selective exposure is an information filter for the consumer. It only allows the pleasant and enjoyable thought to pass through. It would be impossible to expose are self to every single thing we encounter in daily. This lets the consumer pick and choose from large amount of data. Selective attention lets the consumer select the products or information that would satisfy their needs. Perceptual defense is consumers subconsciously filter that blocks out threatening or damaging information. Perceptual blocking is protecting them from unwanted information.

Since marketing is all about perception and the first impressions are extremely important to make the best impression, selective perception must be carefully study prior to sending out any message. There are many factors contribute to interpreting a message such as background, region, time, perception and tradition. Although of these are important but tradition play the biggest role in interpreting a message.

Tradition includes the values, behaviors, products, along with other features common to the people in a specific group or society. By tradition, people as well as groups comply with society’s shared principles that contribute to society. Tradition contains several social factors including language, traditions, ideals, norms, mores, principles, companies, as well as establishments. Tradition is the most basic reason for a person’s desires as well as behavior. When kids are growing up, they find out basic ideas, requirements, as well as values from their Parents.

Reference
Osmonbekov, T., Gregory, B. T., Brown, W., & Xie, F. T. (2009). How consumer expertise moderates the relationship between materialism and attitude toward advertising. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 17(4), 321-327.

Taejun (David) Lee, Yongjun Sung, Federico de Gregorio, (2011) “Cross-cultural challenges in product placement”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 29 Iss: 4, pp.366 – 384

Schiff man. (2010, p.142).EBOOK COLLECTION: Cooper, D. R. & Schindler, P. S. (2011). Business Research Methods (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.