Marketing Communications

100 CHAPTER 3 HOW MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS WORK

or dissatisfaction will have an impact on the next purchase. For example, if you have been

driving a Ford for six years and you are really satisfied with its design, petrol consumption

and after-sales dealer service, the probability that you will buy a Ford next time is much

higher than if you find out that your Ford consumes much more petrol than your friend’s

Mazda, spare parts are more expensive than Opel’s and your Ford broke down five times in

six months. Another example is that when you buy Lay’s crisps you expect them to be fresh,

otherwise you are very likely to switch brands.

An example of a model that incorporates brand experience is the post-experience

model.^100 This model assumes relations between the current purchase, on the one hand,

and previous purchase, previous advertising, previous promotion, current advertising and

current promotion, on the other. The post-experience model was tested using scanner panel

data for an 84-week period on ketchup and detergent brands. The data included household

purchase records, store environment information on price and promotion, and advertising

exposure records. The results revealed that the current purchase is significantly influenced by

previous purchase behaviour, current advertising and current promotion, but not by previous

advertising, and negatively by previous promotion. The fact that a brand was previously

bought in a promotion diminished the probability that the consumer would purchase the

brand again in the next period. The latter can be explained by the fact that people who take

advantage of promotions are more likely to be brand-switchers who are less inclined to buy

the same brand in subsequent purchases. Current advertising also enhanced brand-switching.

The results of this study seem to suggest that previous purchase behaviour is indeed the most

important explanatory factor of current behaviour and that advertising mainly serves to

remind people who have not recently purchased the brand of the fact that it exists.

However, what is the role marketing communications can play for first buys, on the one

hand, and for other than first-time purchases, on the other? The Perception–Experience–

Memory model (see Figure 3.8) tries to formulate an answer to this.^101 When consumers do

not yet have brand experience, the main function of advertising consists of framing percep-

tion. Framing can affect consumers’ expectation, anticipation and interpretation. Expectation

is concerned with notifying consumers that a particular brand in a certain product category

is available and putting the brand in a frame of reference so that consumers expect to see it.

Next, marketing communications should try to create anticipation or generate hypotheses.

Research indicates that exposing consumers to an attribute-based ad before brand trial makes

consumers more curious about the brand (‘Would Red Bull really energise my body and

mind, and give me wings?’), it helps consumers to formulate hypotheses about the brand

Figure 3.8 The Perception–Experience–Memory model

Source: Based on Hall, B.F. (2002), ‘A New Model for Measuring Advertising Effectiveness’, Journal of Advertising Research,

42 (March/April), 23–31.

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