Introduction
Communication is a critical element of every business in terms of its management, marketing, and strategic development. There are plenty of theories that study communication as a scholarly phenomenon and as applied to organizations. These theories shed light on the communication processes of information exchange, the influence of communicative messages on a customer, and relations between the message producer and receiver (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011). For instance, the Elaboration Likelihood Theory claims that the information reaches the receiver in two ways – through central and peripheral processing, of which only the former leads to changes in behavior. The Social Judgment Theory, at the same time, asserts that decisions are made based on pre-existing anchors, such as personal experience, and confirmation or denial of information by trusted sources. This paper aims to analyze the Elaboration Likelihood Theory and the Social Judgment Theory, using Coles’ marketing campaigns to illustrate the theories’ application.
Communication: Scholarly Perspective
Sociopsychological Tradition
There are various approaches to studying communication – the Semiotic, Phenomenological, Cybernetics, Sociopsychological, Sociocultural, Critical, and Rhetorical traditions. Sociopsychological theories mostly have cognitive orientation and “study how human beings process information” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, p. 53). The emphasis is put on the information delivered and how it affects the behavior and other plans in the cognitive system. The process of perception, which consists of attention, retention, interference, selection, motivation, planning, and strategizing is the focus of this tradition. It is assumed that people are not aware of the studied processes. Three main branches of the tradition are behavioral, cognitive, and biological. Key theories that belong to the tradition are cognitive-focused – Attribution Theory, Social Judgment Theory, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, and Elaboration Likelihood Theory.
Sociocultural Tradition
This tradition refers to people who determine their identity in terms of their belonging to social groups, such as being a part of a particular cultural community with specific features – being gay, Catholic, living in New York, or working at the atomic station. This tradition studies how the interactions in the communication process are determined by cultural roles, values, rules, and meanings. It also mainly focuses on “how people interact together to create the realities of social organizations” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, p. 55). It operates with the concepts of sociolinguistics, philosophy of language, and language game. To some extent, this tradition complements the Sociopsychological tradition reviewed above.
Communication Theories
Elaboration Likelihood Theory
This theory is developed based on a sociopsychological perspective, or in terms of studying the cognitive aspects of communication. The name of the theory – ‘elaboration likelihood’ – can be explained as the probability that the recipient will elaborately evaluate the information, while the recipient can also think about it positively or negatively. The theory distinguishes between the two routes of information processing – central and peripheral. The peripheral route is a passive perception when the individual does not elaborately think about the information – they use schemata, heuristics, and mental shortcuts for its processing. The central route implies the critical evaluation of what was heard or seen and implies a greater extent of caring about the message.
Scholars use the theory in various studies to determine how it impacts the persuasion processes. Cyr et al. (2018) experimented using a model to determine the dynamics of online beliefs and found that the quality of argumentation was most often perceived through a central pathway, while design and social elements were seen as peripheral pathways to attitude change. Equally interesting, Leong et al. (2018) used the elaboration likelihood model to determine predictors of hotel booking intentions. Therefore, the theory or model is a handy tool for marketing studies and works mostly with the consumers’ perceptions and preferences.
Social Judgment Theory
This theory is another example of cognitive sociopsychological theories, and it focuses more on how people make judgments about incoming messages. In other words, the theoretical studies, how people evaluate the knowledge about which they do not have personal experience. According to the theory, people tend to develop judgments based on the so-called ‘anchors’ – reference points that guide the recipients in evaluating the validity of the information. These can be trusted sources, prior experiences, and track records.
Importantly, scholars are concerned with how the messages are accepted or how the message producers can convince the recipients. There are several ‘latitudes’ that characterize the recipients’ perceptive ability – the latitude of acceptance, the latitude of non-commitment, and the latitude of rejection. It is believed that recipients tend to instantly reject judgments that lay in their latitude of rejection and ignore the messages that lay in their latitude of acceptance, which means that the latitude of non-commitment is the plan of perception through which most message producers appeal to the recipient.
Scholars use this theory in marketing communications quite effectively and widely. Ihtiyar et al. (2019) found that experiential impressions and service quality positively impact experiential values and social judgment. At the same time, Masters-Waage (2022) discovered that the charisma of job applicants and their skills had a significant impact on managers’ social attention. They determined the latter as the process “by which people select information from the social world for mental processing,” and which is “a key factor that precedes all organizational behavior” (p. 11). Therefore, social judgments are not something separate from the general process of social interactions. In addition, experiences and impressions can influence social judgments, as can informational messages with persuasive content.
Applying Theories
Studying business and marketing opportunities means researching different campaigns aimed at attracting the attention of consumers and increasing their motivation to buy. The marketing component is usually a key element of business success as it directly affects sales. Purchase intent and purchase completion are the primary marketing objectives. Therefore, various advertising campaigns and promotions use sophisticated strategies to attract consumers. Companies and brands can be successful in persuading a person to make a purchase, depending on whether an advertisement, promotion, or campaign has worked.
Given this, the quality of advertisements and other communication phenomena, events, or campaigns is extremely important and is constantly monitored by managers. If a person makes a positive decision to make a purchase, sales increase, profits increase, and the company succeeds in the market. If communication has failed, this does not happen, and the company does not achieve its business goals. That is why managers pay so much attention to studying the influence of advertising on consumers, and scientists develop special theories that help systematize knowledge about such influence. Having a theoretical base, managers, students, and other users who plan to cooperate with businesses feel more confident about their practical actions. They can avoid mistakes and, using ready-made schemes and plans, create messages of such quality and direct them in such a way that they achieve marketing goals.
Coles’ Little Store Campaign
Coles is a supermarket chain selling food and household goods. The ‘Little Store’ campaign is an example of a successful application of marketing tools to achieve the goal of increasing sales. There is a lot of positive feedback on the Internet about this campaign, which has attracted and retained the attention of shoppers and their children for several seasons (“Little Shop is back,” 2019). A says that her children insist on choosing Coles every time they go for their weekly grocery shopping. The author admits to deliberately adding items she does not need to reach the $60 check required to receive two gifts (Wrobel, 2018). Little Store gifts are toy replicas of products sold in supermarkets. These are bright plastic models of edible products – bananas, eggs, chocolate, canned goods, cleaning products, and other household utensils. It is interesting that, according to reviews, the campaign not only sustains the buyers’ curiosity, but it also brings deep satisfaction to children, who continue to collect and accumulate gifts for fun games.
In terms of theories application, the Elaboration Likelihood Theory can be extensively applied to analyze the campaign. Importantly, ‘Little Store’ does not use text messages to attract the attention of consumers. On the contrary, since the campaign is aimed primarily at children, the authors of the campaign appeal directly to emotions by offering a bright gift on the condition of making a purchase in the store. Since the authors of the campaign use visual symbols of gifts, such a message is unlikely to reach the central processing route. It appeals to the peripheral perception and is likely to be never analyzed or evaluated elaborately, except maybe, in the feedback marketing articles.
No less importantly, from the perspective of the Social Judgment Theory, the campaign most likely found followers among the people who trust the brand and are devoted buyers. The campaign could also touch the groups who have trusted friends that were buying the Little Store items, and given this, it is of no surprise that the campaign encourages a friendly exchange of gifts to consolidate a positive purchase decision.
Perhaps the second season of the campaign retained its followers because of the tendency of people to trust their own previous experiences, according to the Social Judgment Theory. Interestingly, the buyers could also make a track record of the items collected, and this is expected to be a highly satisfying experience. According to the theory, the new participants of the campaign can be engaged by appealing to non-committed people – those who already perceive the ‘Little Store’ neutrally or indifferently.
Coles’ Zero Waste Campaign
Coles’ Zero Waste campaign offers a solution to the problem of waste disposal and is part of supporting the company’s image as environmentally conscious, which improves customer attitudes. The supermarket donates fresh but unsold leftovers to charity and composes organic waste to prevent carbon emissions (“Together to zero waste,” n.d.). Coles is also implementing a campaign to sort non-organic waste such as paper and plastic packaging. To simplify the user experience, the supermarket implemented a product labeling system, where the type of disposal of each package is indicated – full, partial, or absent. The stores as well sell eco-friendly bags for carrying products.
From the perspective of the Elaboration Likelihood theory, the campaign is likely to be perceived through the peripheral routes of the information processing. The buyers who had previous experience with sorting waste campaigns will likely use the shortcuts when processing the campaign-related information. Interestingly, through the lens of Social Judgment Theory, the campaign effectively addresses the buyers’ ‘anchors’ – the points that guide people in estimating that something is true or false. It appeals to trusted sources – since the eco-awareness and environmental protection movements have high support in Australia. The campaign also allows for the track record – every customer can keep track of how many packages they sent for recycling and feel the satisfaction of helping the planet. The Zero Waste campaign appeals to the customers’ prior experiences since most customers have already been participating in environmentally friendly missions or had the intention to do it.
If the campaign aims to persuade the customers to be eco-aware, it should address the audience whose perceptions lie in the latitude of non-commitment. Therefore, additional tools of persuasion – like colorful bags and rewards for disposing of plastics, can be helpful to make more people sort out the waste. At the first glance, it seems unclear, why should Coles even care, but as people will follow their advice, they will perceive the brand as more trustworthy which will impact the purchase decisions.
Conclusion
Thus, the Elaboration Likelihood Theory and the Social Judgment Theory were analyzed, using Coles’ marketing campaigns to illustrate the theories’ application. The Elaboration Likelihood Theory helps determine the ways of information processing and considers that only the central route leads to a strong attitude change. The Social Judgment Theory explains how people make decisions based on their ability to evaluate the information as trustworthy or not through using the anchors. The Coles’ Little Store and Zero Waste campaigns were analyzed and proved effective in their appeals to the customers and their buying decisions.
References
Cyr, D., Head, M., Lim, E., & Stibe, A. (2018). Using the elaboration likelihood model to examine online persuasion through website design. Information & Management, 55(7), 807-821.
Ihtiyar, A., Barut, M., & Ihtiyar, H. G. (2019). Experiential marketing, social judgments, and customer shopping experience in emerging markets. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.
Leong, L. Y., Hew, T. S., Ooi, K. B., & Lin, B. (2019). Do electronic word-of-mouth and elaboration likelihood model influence hotel booking? Journal of Computer Information Systems, 59(2), 146-160.
Littlejohn, S. W., Foss, K. A., & Oetzel, J. G. (2011). Theories of human communication. Long Grove, IL. Waveland Press, Inc, 30, 32.
Little Shop is back at Coles and it’s bigger and better than ever (n.d.). ColesGroup. Web.
Masters-Waage, T. C. (2022). Social Attention Capture and Judgement Formation in Virtual Reality. In Academy of Management Proceedings, 1(22), p. 11-25. Academy of Management.
Together to Zero Waste (n.d.). Coles. Web.
Wrobel, J. (2018). Coles Little Shop is one of the greatest retail marketing campaigns of all time. Mumbrella. Web.