Marketing Communications

92 CHAPTER 3 HOW MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS WORK

credibility. When rational arguments are used, a refutational two-sided message leads to a significantly higher

source credibility and message credibility than a non-refutational two-sided message. When the issue is ambi-

valent, and the arguments are emotional, a refutational two-sided message leads to a higher source credibility and

message credibility than a non-refutational two-sided message. When rational arguments are used, a refutational

and a two-sided message lead to no difference in source credibility and message credibility.

The results of the study show that the need for refutation depends on the ambivalence of the issue and the

consistency of the argument tone in the message with the motivation to conduct the behaviour at hand. When

the health risk issue is univalent, a two-sided message is regarded as more voluntary (because the source is not

‘supposed’ to give both sides of the issue), leading to more credibility. When such a univalent issue is combined

with highly relevant, emotional arguments, the overall credibility is high, regardless of whether the message is

refutational or not. Hence, in this case, refutation is not needed, as the credibility is already high. When, however,

such a univalent issue is communicated with less relevant, rational arguments, refutation is needed in order to

enhance the overall credibility. Conversely, for an ambivalent issue, characterised by a lower perceived voluntari-

ness, credibility might be lower: an ambivalent issue is obviously dual, making a two-sided message more the

‘expected’ way of acknowledging this duality, rather than a sign of honesty or voluntariness. When, for an ambi-

valent issue, the more relevant, emotional arguments are used, refutation is a helpful tool to increase the credibility.

When, however, less relevant rational arguments are used, refutation vs non-refutation does not have a different

impact on source and message credibility.

Self-generated persuasion^61

Another form of central-route, cognitively based processing is self-generated persuasion. In

this case, the consumer is not persuaded by strong brand arguments, but by his or her own

thoughts, arguments or imagined consequences. These thoughts go beyond the information

offered in the ad. The consumer combines the information in the message with previous

experience and knowledge, and tries to imagine him- or herself consuming the product and

the consequences thereof. Sometimes consumers even come up with new product uses. For

example, when seeing an ad for canned lobster soup, a consumer might think of using the

soup not as a soup, but as an ingredient for a sauce to use in a fish pasta. In other words, the

persuasive process is imagery-based. These self-generated thoughts and the cognitive and

affective responses evoked by the imagined brand experience give rise to fairly strong brand

beliefs. These beliefs are believed to have a considerable impact on brand attitude.

Low elaboration likelihood, cognitive attitude formation

In this case, one of the MAO factors is low, leading or forcing the consumer to concentrate

on peripheral cues. The consumer will try to make inferences on the basis of the cue in order

to form a cognitively based attitude. For example, when consumers do not have the time to

compare all available brands on relevant attributes, they may infer from a high price that the

brand is a high-quality brand and therefore form a positive attitude towards it. This process

is called heuristic evaluation.^62 When MAO is low, central information processing is very

unlikely to occur and consumers will probably process the communication peripherally. This

means that they do not elaborate on the message, but try to make inferences on the basis of

ad characteristics. In other words, peripheral cues in the ad are used as a heuristic cue to

evaluate the quality of the message and to form a general evaluation of the brand advertised.

These inferential beliefs have a significant influence on the attitude people form towards the

brand. Heuristic evaluation has also been referred to as the satisficing choice process.^63 Since

consumers’ MAO factors are not optimal, they lack the motivation, ability or opportunity to

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