Volker Gehrau, Johannes Schulte
The role of conversation in advertising
Over the last years the amount of advertising has grown enormously and has especially been boosted by the diffusion of the Internet. Thus it gets harder for each campaign to reach the publics’ attention and achieve positive effects. One constraint is set by the limited cognitive capacity of people, another is set by adverse reactions towards advertising. Both problems might be attenuated if people talk about advertising and the corresponding products or services. Marketing strategies like ‘word of mouth’ and ‘viral marketing’ count on positive conversation effects, and numerous examples from music or film industry seem to confirm these assumptions. But besides this practical evidence there is only little theoretical and empirical knowledge about the interplay of conversation and the effects of mass media advertising. However, the relation between persuasive media effects and interpersonal communication has been an early focus of studies in mass communication. Approaches like the Two-Step Flow of Mass Communication (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944) and the Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 1962/2003) stressed out the mediating function of interpersonal communication, and studies like Personal Influence (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1956) indicated a moderating effect of interpersonal communication on mass media effects. Over the following years the scientific attention to the connection of interpersonal and mass communication declined. This tendency has changed in the new millennium. Particularly research in health and political communication rediscovered the role of interpersonal communication for mass media effects. Southwell and Yzer (2007; 2009) summarized the approaches and effects for media campaigns and outlined new perspectives for campaign research in a special issue of Communication Theory.
The presentation will give three perspectives on the relation between conversation and effects of mass media advertising. Firstly, theoretical models and approaches from mass communication studies are applied to the field of advertising effects. In doing so, moderator as well as mediator effects of conversation on advertising effects are discussed. Secondly, TV advertising will be taken as an example to estimate the probability of such conversations and factors will be identified that enhance the likelihood of their occurrence. Finally, the role of these conversations on TV advertising effects will be exemplified in an empirical model. For parts two and three results of a representative online study (2010 in Germany) with more than 400 participants (16 - 49 years old) are presented.