ELSEVIER

Lost and Found: The Information-Processing Model

of Advertising Effectiveness
Marc Scholten
UNIVERSIDADECATOLICAPORTUGUESA

The objective of this study is toformulate a generalframeworkfor advertising

research. The article provides a brief review of the hierarchy-of-effects
para&gm, Petty and Cacioppo's (1983) elaboration-likelihood model
(ELM), and McGuire's (1978) information-processing model (IPM). It is
argued that the usefulness of the ELM for advertising research derives from
its heuristic rather than integrative merits. It is further argued that the
IMP, if appropriately revised on a number of critical aspects, incorporates
rival proposals in the hierarchy-of-effects paradwn as well as the ELM
and provides a sufficiently general framework for research on advertising
effectiveness, j BUSNaES 1996. 37.97-104

esearch on advertising effectiveness, like most other

elds of research in marketing, is characterized by great
etail and diversity of theoretical, methodological, and
technical approaches. This article is concerned with the formulation of a general framework for advertising research, sufficiently general to specify the main issues in research on advertising effectiveness as well as the major conceptual relationships
among the currently available approaches in advertising research. The motivation for this concern is twofold. First, an
adequate framework may be a powerful aid to the advertising
researcher in assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses
of available approaches and deciding on any particular app roach
in any particular problem situation. Second, the communication
between research and management in marketing practice may
be facilitated by a common frame of reference within which
both research requirements and action recommendations can
be specified. Given the objective of formulating an adequate
framework for advertising research, this article will begin with
a brief discussion of the more traditional views on advertising
effectiveness.

Address correspondence to Marc Scholten, Rua Diogo de Silves 16A, 1400 Lisboa,
Portugal.
Journal of Business Research 37, 97-104 (1996)
1996 Elsevier Science Inc.
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010

Hierarchy-Of-Effects Models
When is advertising effective and when is it not? This question
has often stimulated heated debate between two camps in the
world of marketing and advertising (Barry, 1987). According to
one view, advertising is effective only if it sell s . Thus, advertising
effectiveness is assessed by investigating the relationship between advertising expenditures and brand sales (e.g., Little,
1979). The other view stresses that advertising can satisfy its
ultimate objective of affecting demand only by establishing a
hierarchy of intermediate effects in its audience. Thus, an advertising message or campaign may be evaluated against the objective of establishing a hierarchy of effects up to any particular
stage, not necessarily the stage of demand (e.g., Colley, 1961).
A compromise position is, of course, that any message or campaign should be evaluated in terms of the entire hierarchy of
effects, including sales effects (Urban and Hauser, 1980).
Many hierarchy-of-effects models have been advanced for
advertising effectiveness (for an overview, see Barry, 1987).
Each model in this paradigm has assumed a particular sequence
of stages that consumers pass through until demand is affected.
For instance, Colley's (1961) defining-advertising-goals-formeasured-advertising-results (DAGMAR) model assumes a sequence of awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action,
whereas McGuire's (1978) information-processing model
(IPM) assumes a sequence of presentation, attention, comprehension, yielding, retention, and behavior.
Two major criticisms have been raised for such traditional
models in the hierarchy-of-effects paradigm. One is that they
fail to consider the marketing situation in which an advertising
message is transmitted or an advertising campaign is run and,
particularly, the consumer audience at which the message or
campaign is targeted. According to Ehrenberg's (1974) awareness-trial-reinforcement (ATR) model, for instance, repeated
advertising may be effective in three successive stages of consumer behavior, gaining brand awareness, making a trial purchase, or stimulating and sustaininga repeat buyinghabit if prior
experience was satisfactory. Whereas the traditional models
ISSN 0148-2963/96/$15.00
PII SO148-2963(96)00058-6

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present advertising effectiveness as a sequence of responses up

to a particular stage in the hierarchy, the ATR model conceives
it as a response at a particular stage in the hierarchy depending
on the history of consumer behavior.
Another stage model that has been advanced as a challenge
to the sequence models developed within the traditional view is
Ray's (1973) dissonance-attribution hierarchy, which identifies
the following three stages: brand purchase based on nonmedia
or nonmarketing communication sources, attitude change
based on experience with the brand purchased, and selective
and biased learning of advertising communications. Thus, advertising may be effective only at the third stage by aiding the
consumer in his or her purchase decision through dissonance
reduction or self-attribution (also identified as reinforcement
mechanisms by the ATR model).
It has been argued by Preston and Thorston (1984) that
stage models do not apply to the same situation as the sequence
models developed within the traditional view and therefore
cannot be considered a challenge to those models. It wilt be
argued here, however, that the stage models can be parsimoniously incorporated into a sequence model if such a model is
generalized to represent situational dependency. Actually, it
will be acknowledged that McGuire's (1978) IPM already adopts
this generalized view on the hierarchy of effects.
In its present state of development, however, the IPM remains
vulnerable to the second major criticism raised regarding traditional models in the hierarchy-of-effects paradigm, which is
that they are overly restrictive in assuming that cognitively
complex changes in consumer attitudes are necessary for effective advertising. Under Krugman's (1965) low-involvement hierarchy, for instance, repeated advertising may induce nonverbalizable changes in brand perception that are sufficient to
induce purchase. From this point of view, complex attitudinal
changes do not occur prior to purchase in response to advertising but only after purchase on the basis of experience with the
brand. This article will proceed by discussing a model according
to which the enforcement of cognitively complex changes in
consumer attitudes represents one out of two viable options
for effective advertising.

Elaboration-Likelihood Model
Petty and Cacioppo's (1981, 1986) elaborauonqikelihood
model (ELM) has been advanced as a general framework for
the study of persuasion in the field of social psychology. With
its application to advertising communications (Petty and Cacioppo, 1983; Petty et al., 1983), the model has obtained a great
popularity in the field of consumer behavior. This section will
provide a brief review of the model.
The ELM predicts changes in attitude toward an advertised
brand, where an attitude refers to a global evaluation of the
brand. The model identifies two distinct routes toward attitude
change. One is the central route, along which the consumer
changes his attitude on the basis of elaboration on arguments.

Here, arguments refer to message elements considered relevant

for assessing the true merits of the advertised brand, whereas
elaboration refers to the learning of arguments, the generation
of thoughts about these arguments (cognitive responses), and
the integration of these thoughts into one's attitude structure.
The other is the peripheral route, along which the consumer
may change his or her attitude on the basis of a variety of
processes, for instance, through heuristic inference of brand
quality from message elements, through association of message
elements with the brand, or through mere exposure to the
brand.
The ELM assumes that the probability of following the central
route (elaboration likelihood) depends on whether the consumer wants to assess the true merits of the advertised brand
(motivation) and whether be or she can assess its true merits
(ability). High motivation and high ability are singly necessary
and jointly sufficient conditions for a high probability of following the central route. In the case of low motivation and/or low
ability to assess the true merits of the advertised brand, the
ELM assumes a high probability of following the peripheral
route (hereafter referred to as the reciprocity postulate).
In order to deal with the possibility that a consumer may
be less than highly (un)motivated and/or less than highly (un)able to assess the true merits of the advertised brand, the ELM
assumes an elaboration-likelihood continuum. The probability
of following the central route changes continuously with the
level of motivation and ability (hereafter referred to as the
continuity postulate). In conjunction with the reciprocity postulate, the continuity postulate implies that elaboration likelihood
may range from a high probability of following the central route,
through a 50-50 probability of following either the central or
the peripheral route (see the "luck" factor depicted by Cacioppo
and Petty, 1989, p. 80), to a high probability of following the
peripheral route. With respect to attitudinal changes in a consumer audience, then, the ELM predicts a main effect of argument quality under high elaboration likelihood, moderate main
effects of argument quality and cue attractiveness under moderate elaboration likelihood, and a main effect of cue attractiveness
under low elaboration likelihood.
The ELM further assumes that thoughts about arguments
may be systematically biased against or in favor of the advertising claim (the biased-elaboration postulate). Initial attitudes
toward the brand are assumed to be a major source of biased
elaboration. One will be tempted to proargne or bolster a claim
that is congruent with one's initial attitude and to counterargue
a claim that is incongruent with one's initial attitude. Thus,
attitudinal changes along the central route may be biased upward or downward, depending on the congruency or incongruency between the advertising claim and the initial attitude of
the consumer.
Finally, the ELM assumes various consequences of the route
followed toward attitude change. Attitudes changed along the
central route are more persistent, more resistant to counterpersuasion, and more predictive of behavior than attitudes changed
along the peripheral route.

Lost and Found

Limitations of the ELM

The ELM predicts attitudinal changes by assuming that an element of a communication situation can affect persuasion by
functioning as a central argument, by functioning as a peripheral
cue, or by affecting elaboration in either a neutral or a biased
fashion. On this basis, the model has been advanced by Petty
and Cacioppo (1986) as a simplifyingand organizing framework
for the study of persuasion. Although the ELM has been accepted
by Bimer and Obermiller (1985) as a useful framework for the
study ofadver tising effectiveness as well, this section will discuss
limitations of the model that question its integrative merits.
Whereas the ELM
assumes that a reduced probability of following the central route
coincides with an equally enhanced probability of following
the peripheral route, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) suggest, as a
"complicating factor", that, when the motivation or ability to
assess the true merits of what is at issue is moderate or ambiguous, one may rely on peripheral cues so as to determine whether
to address central arguments. An enhanced attractiveness of
the cues, then, results in an enhanced probability that one
becomes motivated to assess the true merits of what is at issue
(hereafter referred to as the cross-route).
In order to reevaluate the ELM with regard to this complication, it is necessary to draw a conceptual distinction between
moderate motivation or ability, which refers to an intermediate
position on a continuum (e.g., "I'm mildly interested in it"), and
ambiguous motivation or ability, which refers to indeterminacy
of one's position on the continuum (e.g., "I don't know whether
I'm interested in it or not"). Although ignored by the ELM in
its present formulation, ambiguity may be descriptive of many
consumer situations. It may exist when the consumer is unfamiliar with a product or when the consumer is familiar with the
product but does not know whether s/he will ever buy it or,
if s/he knows s/he will, when s/he will actually do so.
With respect to the suggestion that the cross-route is followed
under ambiguous motivation or ability, the ELM is underspecilied. As a solution, motivation may be divided into drive, exerted
by factors external to the communication situation (e.g., perceived risk of product purchase), and force, which is exerted by
factors internal to the communication situation (viz., peripheral
cues). Furthermore, drive and ability may be defined in terms
of central tendency (specifying their level) and dispersion (specifying the ambiguity involved). In addition, it may be assumed
that drive and ability determine elaboration likelihood in the
case of low ambiguity in drive and low ambiguity in ability,
whereas force functions as a third determinant of elaboration
likelihood in the case of high ambiguity in drive and/or high
ambiguity in ability. Finally, the probability of force functioning
as a determinant of elaboration likelihood may be assumed to
change continuously with the level of ambiguity involved. Thus
expanded, the ELM predicts an interaction effect between cue
attractiveness and argument quality in ambiguous situations
THE CROSS-ROUTE TO ATTITUDE CHANGE.

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(see Puckett et al., I983). With respect to the suggestion that

the cross-route is also followed under moderate motivation or
ability, the ELM is misspecified. In particular, the continuity
postulate and the reciprocity postulate should be removed from
the model.
THE CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL ROUTES TO ATTITUDE CHANGE:

The ELM predicts that attitudes changed along

the peripheral route vary only with cue attractiveness. Petty and
Cacioppo's (1981) analysis of source-credibility effects suggest,
however, that attitude change under low elaboration likelihood
may also be a function of product-relevant thinking guided by
initial attitudes and that more such thinking will occur with
sources of moderate credibility than with sources of high or
low credibility. Thus, sources of high credibility will be more
persuasive than sources of moderate credibility for counterattitudinal claims, whereas this pattern will be attenuated or reversed for proattitudinal ones (see Sternthal et al., 1978). Conversely, sources of low credibility will be less persuasive than
sources of moderate credibility for proattitudinal claims,
whereas this pattern will be attenuated or reversed for counterattitudinal claims.
The ELM further predicts that attitudes changed along the
central route vary only with argument quality, although changes
in receiver attitudes may be systematically biased, particularly
by initial attitudes. Petty and Cacioppo's (1981) analysis of
source-credibility effects suggests, however, that, under high
elaboration likelihood, more product-relevant thinking guided
by arguments will occur with sources of higher credibility than
with sources of lower credibility. Thus, less credible sources
will be less persuasive than more credible sources when the
arguments are strong, whereas this pattern will be reversed
when the arguments are weak (see Mazursky and Schul, 1992).
Altogether, this analysis suggests that, even along the central
and peripheral routes toward attitude change, peripheral cues
may exert a force to perform product-relevant thinking, but
that the relationship between the attractiveness of the cues and
their potential as a force is conditional on the route followed.
Along the peripheral route, the relationship is nonmonotonic,
with the greatest force being exerted by neutral cues (i.e., the
relationship possesses an inverted U-shape); along the central
route, the relationship is monotonic, with the greatest force
being exerted by highly attractive cues. Force effects along these
routes, then, require further expansion of the ELM.
FORCE EFFECTS.

The ELM assumes that, on exposure to an

ad, a consumer will stay on route. He or she will change his
attitude toward the advertised brand, although this may be a
zero change if the arguments are mediocre or the cues are
neutral. Thus, the ELM ignores the possibility that the consumer
may switch off reception of the ad, either physically or psychologically (hereafter referred to as the escape route).
Although the escape route would seem to be a particularly
significant source of advertising ineffectiveness under low motiTHE ESCAPE ROUTE.

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vation and/or low ability, it could become a major source under

high motivation and high ability as well. Illustrative is the case
of threat appeals, which convey negative consequences of not
complying with the advocated behavior (e.g., brand purchase).
The notion that the receiver can be threatened presupposes
that the individual is motivated and able to elaborate on what
is at issue. With regard to the question of how much threat is
most effective, it is suggested (in agreement with Petty et al.,
1991) that threat has a positive effect on persuasion by making
the receiver perceive the negative consequences as more serious
and more likely to occur (which, incidentally, introduces the
notion that an element of a communication situation may function as a central cue), but that it has a negative effect on persuasion by disrupting elaboration (which indicates a tendency to
escape from the threatening communication). Joint occurrence
of these opposite effects yields an inverted U-shaped relationship between threat and persuasion, which allows for observing
negative, zero, or positive effects of threat on persuasion, depending on which amounts of threat are being compared. In its
present state of development, the ELM has no basis to synthesize
such conflicting evidence (for a review, see Sternthal and Craig,
1974).
CONSEQUENCES OF THE ROUTE TO ATTITUDE CHANGE: OTHER

FACTORS. The ELM assumes that persuasion along the central

route makes people more able to report the same attitude over
time, to defend their attitude against opposition, and to behave
on the basis of their attitude than persuasion along the peripheral
route. The validity of these assumptions may be seriously restricted by the operation of factors other than the route toward
persuasion.
Peripherally changed attitudes, as acknowledged by Petty
and Cacioppo (1983), may become relatively persistent through
repetition of an ad. Given that repetition is the rule rather than
the exception in advertising, this poses a serious restriction on
the validity of the differential-persistence assumption. Even
when having become relatively persistent through repetition,
however, peripherally changed attitudes are, according to Petty
and Cacioppo (1983), less resistant to counterpersuasion than
are centrally changed attitudes. More recently, Haugtvedt et al.
(1994) have defended the ELM on the basis of evidence that,
under moderate motivation, variation of cues across repetitions
may yield less resistant attitudes than variation of arguments
across repetitions, while these variation tactics yield equally
polarized and persistent attitudes. With motivation held constant at a moderate level, however, it remains inconclusive
whether people who accidentally followed the peripheral route
had less resistant attitudes than those who happened to follow
the central route. The differential-resistance assumption, then,
awaits confirmation that it is relatively easy to argue against
effective cues.
Petty and Cacioppo (1983) have further argued that cues,
without the benefit of repetition, are relatively vulnerable to
memory loss. Alba et al. (1992) have challenged this by arguing
that cues may beat arguments on such memory-enhancing as-

pects as simplicity and diagnosticity. The evidence presented

by these authors suggests that, through time, cues may come
to outweigh arguments in their influence on brand choice such
that people may even choose a brand that, without the passage
of time, would have been considered an inferior option. The
evidence presented by Miniard et al. (1992) further suggests
that, also without temporal effects, cues may acquire a decisive
role in brand choice through their potential functionality in
discriminating brands with similar advantages or even brands
with strong competitive advantages. Altogether, serious restrictions are posed regarding the validity of the differentialconsistency assumptions as well.
The ELM overcomes a critical limitation of traditional hierarchy-of-effects models by relaxing the assumption
that cognitively complex changes in consumer attitudes are
necessary for effective advertising. By identifying two distinct
routes toward attitude change, the model generates valuable
suggestions concerning advertising effectiveness. These suggestions, however, obtain much of their value from stimulating
attention to advertising effects that either go beyond the model
as presently formulated or go against it. Therefore, it may be
concluded that the usefulness of the ELM for advertising research derives from its heuristic rather than its integrative
merits.
CONCLUSION.

Information-Processing Model
Like the ELM, McGuire's (1972) IPM has been advanced as a
general framework for the study of persuasion in the field of
social psychology. Perhaps due to the popularity of the ELM, the
application of the IPM to advertising communications (McGuire,
1978) has received progressively less attention in the field of
consumer behavior. The remainder of this article will attempt
to revitalize interest in the IPM by proposing it, after appropriate
revision, as a general framework for the study of advertising
effectiveness. This section will provide a brief review of the
original model.
The IPM classifies the antecedents of advertising effects into
source factors (who communicates?), message factors (what is
communicated and how is it communicated?), receiver factors
(at whom is the communication targeted?), channel factors
(where, when, and how is the communication transmitted?),
and destination factors (what is the target effect of the communication?). The IPM further identifies advertising effects in terms
of the six hierarchically ordered stages referred to earlier, presentation of the communication, attention to the communication, comprehension of the arguments and conclusion, yielding
to the conclusion, retention of the new attitude, and behavior
on the basis of the new attitude.
Finally, the IPM adopts three major postulates. According
to the mediation postulate, the hierarchy of stages represents
a Markov chain of effects mediating the relationship between
advertising and demand. Each effect will occur with a particular

Lost and Found

probability on the condition that the effects by which it is

preceded in the hierarchy actually occurred.
According to the compensation postulate, an antecedent factor generally has opposite effects at different stages in the hierarchy. In conjunction with the mediation postulate, the compensation postulate implies that, if the opposite effects occur up to
the target stage in the hierarchy, the antecedent factor has an
inverted U-shaped relationship with advertising effectiveness.
Intelligence, for instance, tends to enhance the probability of
comprehension but, as a result of a greater ability to support
prior beliefs on the issue and to refute arguments discrepant
with those beliefs, to reduce the probability of yielding, implying
that people of intermediate intelligence tend to be most easily
persuaded (McGuire, 1972).
According to the situational-weighing postulate, the extent
to which the different stages in the hierarchy are affected by
an antecedent factor generally depends on the situation in which
the factor operates. Situational weighing allows for observing
that a later stage in the hierarchy is affected by an antecedent
factor while an earlier stage is not, which occurs when the
situation "guarantees" that the earlier stage will be passed. In
conjunction with the compensation postulate, the situationalweighing postulate implies that, with changing situations, the
relationship between an antecedent factor and advertising effectiveness changes in an upward or downward direction, depending on which effects are attenuated. Intelligence, for instance, tends to have an increasingly negative relationship with
persuasion when the message becomes increasingly simple (see
Eagly and Warren, 1976), which follows from attenuation of
the positive comprehension effect (since it becomes more likely
that the message will be comprehended regardless of intelligence) and, consequently, a greater "hegemony" of the negative
yielding effect in establishing the relationship between intelligence and persuasion.

Revisions of the IPM

From the present point of view, the IPM requires five revisions in
order to qualify as a general framework for advertising research
(see also Figure 1). First, "presentation" is replaced by "exposure", which does not refer to the sender activity of scheduling
a media insertion (see Rossiter and Percy, 1987) but to the
receiver activity of being in the audience for the media insertion
(see Urban and Hauser, 1980).
Second, "attention" and "comprehension" are replaced by
"reception", which is not a summary term for the processes it
replaces (see McGuire, 1972) but for the many processes by
which physical contact with an ad may result in psychological
representations ranging from subliminal perception of an ad
(which is among the peripheral processes identified by the
ELM) through focal attention to any feature or combination of
features of the ad, to full elaboration on all arguments presented
in the ad (for a proposal to maintain "attention" and to replace
"comprehension" by central and peripheral processing, see
Mehta, 1994). With this revision, the IPM abandons the restric-

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tive view that cognitively complex changes in consumer attitudes are necessary for effective advertising and thus resolves
the challenge posed by the low-involvement hierarchy and the
ELM. As a corollary, "yielding" to the conclusion is replaced by
"persuasion", which refers to attitude change.
Third, the compensation postulate is removed from the
model. Although the notion that an antecedent factor may have
opposite effects at different stages provides a valuable reminder
for formative and evaluative research on advertising effectiveness, the IPM merely restricts its validity by raising compensation to a principle according to which an antecedent factor
generally does operate in opposite directions at different stages.
Fourth, the situational-weighing postulate is reformulated.
Situational weighing is taken to refer to situational attenuation
of effects induced by an antecedent factor, regardless of whether
these effects are induced in different stages or in the same stage
in the hierarchy. Moreover, situational attenuation is assumed
to have direction and polarity, ranging from fully negative (i.e.,
the situation guarantees that a particular response will not occur), through neutral (i.e., the antecedent factor has its full effect
on the occurrence of the response), to fully positive (i.e., the
situation guarantees that the response will occur). Thus reformulated, the situational-weighing postulate provides the IPM
with a considerable power to synthesize empirical evidence
and, as will be argued later, to incorporate rival proposals in
the hierarchy-of-effects paradigm. While a complete review
of relevant research is beyond the scope of this article, the
applicability of the revised postulate may be illustrated with
evidence presented by Goldberg and Hartwick (1990) that
suggests a positive change in advertiser reputation may change
an inverted U-shaped relationship between advertising puffery
and brand preference into a monotonically increasing relationship. This follows when reasoning that, at the reception stage,
puffery stimulates proargumentation in the form of product
attributions (since there is no smoke without fire) but also
stimulates counterargumentation in the form of source attributions (since good wine needs no bush) and that a positive change
in advertiser reputation attenuates counterargumentation.
Fifth, the "destination factors" are removed from the antecedent side of the model. Instead, target effects are to be specified
in terms of the five hierarchically ordered stages on the effect
side. For a correct appreciation of the revised IPM, however,
it is necessary to realize that, just as each component on the
antecedent side represents a class of factors from which a selection can be made for any particular research purpose, each
stage in the hierarchy represents a class of possible target effects.
Whereas, for instance, the ELM takes "persuasion" to refer to
a changing evaluation of an advertised brand, the revised IPM
allows for other effects as well. When adopting the view that
an attitude toward a brand is essentially an association between
the brand and a specific evaluation, it follows that not only the
evaluation but also the strength of the association may change.
According to Fazio's (1986) process model of attitude-behavior
consistency, the strength of association determines the accessi-

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Source:
ilBehavior~
Who C o m m u n i c a t e s ?

Message:
What

Is C o m m u n i c a t e d

(Substance)?

H o w Is It

Communicated

(Style) ?

Channel:
Where,

When,

And How

iTi-

Retention

~,

Figure 1. The revised information-processing model.

Mediation is rep resented by the upward arrows interconnecting the stages in the hierarchy and the rightward
arrows providing exits from the hierarchy at the respective
stages. Situational weighing is represented by the bidirectional arrows indicating facilitation (upward) and obstruction (downward) of the progress through the hierarchy.

Is The C o m m u n i c a t i o n
Transmitted?

Receiver:
At W h o m Is T h e
W h a t Is The
Communication
T a r g e t E f f e c t Of
Targeted?
The Communication?

bility of the evaluation upon observation of the brand and,

consequently, the consumer's ability to behave on the basis of
this evaluation. Thus, when particularizing one's theoretical
perspective with this model, one will not only supplement
measures of brand evaluation with measures of accessibility or
other strength-related criteria such as the consumer's confidence in his brand evaluation (e.g., Haugtvedt et al., 1994) but
also obtain an additional basis to expect behavioral changes
without changes in brand evaluation.
Other nonevaluative aspects of brand attitude may gain research interest when further particularizing the theoretical perspective and addressing the representational structure underlying the association between brand and evaluation. In the
simplest case, this may be a direct connection between brand
and evaluation or, for instance, an indirect connection between
brand, product, and evaluation. In the latter case, the consumer's
evaluation of a brand is actually transferred from the evaluation
of the product (cf. Rossiter and Percy, 1987). Moreover, the
latter case is one in which changes in brand awareness, referring
to the accessibility of the brand given the product (e.g., Woodside and Wilson, 1985) or vice versa, may be substantially
related to changes in brand choice while brand evaluation remains unchanged.
Of course, other views on "persuasion" are permitted as
well. According to Ajzen and Fishbein's (1977) analysis of attitude-behavior consistency, a minimum requirement for accurate prediction of brand purchase is to replace attitude toward
the brand by attitude toward purchasing the brand. The ratio-

nale is that, whereas the former tends to accentuate the benefits

of a brand, the latter also tends to incorporate the (financial
and behavioral) costs of acquiring it. On a similar basis, Rossiter
and Percy (1987) have suggested distinguishing"brand attitude"
from "purchase intention" and "purchase facilitation" as criteria
of advertising effectiveness. Within the general framework provided by the revised IPM, "persuasion" may be taken to refer
to effectively enhancing the perceived benefits and/or reducing
the perceived costs associated with brand purchase.
Given the five revisions outlined in this section, the IPM is
advanced as a general framework for advertising research. In
order to appreciate the model as such, however, it is necessary
not to ignore the receiver factors as a major source o fadvertising
effects. McGuire (1972), for instance, has argued that the validity
of the hierarchy of effects as postulated by the original IPM may
be restricted by "ordinal reversals" originating from selective
perception (where yielding "precedes" attention), perceptual
contrast and assimilation (where yielding "precedes" comprehension), and behavioral justification (where, as also amplified
by the dissonance-attribution hierarchy and the ATR model,
behavior "precedes" yielding). This argument uses the rationale
of stage models in order to disqualify the IPM as a generally
valid sequence model. From the present perspective, however,
the IPM actually incorporates these challenging "hierarchies"
by asking: to whom is the communication targeted? In the cases
mentioned, this question would require an answer in terms of
initial attitude and past behavior. The 1PM acquires additional
power to incorporate "challenges" to its hierarchy by acknowl-

Lost and Found

edging receiver-induced attenuation of advertising effects, as

w h e n b r a n d awareness (the first stage in the ATR model) has
been established by prior c a m p a i g n i n g a n d prevents the current
campaign from beingeffective with regard to that criterion while
it is effective with regard to criteria tapping later stages in the
hierarchy.
To conclude, the IPM provides a general framework for
advertising research by (1) identifying four major classes of
antecedents of advertising effects, (2) identifying five major
classes ofadvertisingeffects, (3) conceivingadvertising effectiveness as a sequence of responses up to the target response in
the sequence, and (4) conditioning the effect of an advertising
treatment on other advertising treatments and on the marketing
context in which the advertising treatments are implemented.
O n this basis, the IPM integrates substantive theories that specify
in more detail which treatments are related to which effects
in the hierarchy and, in addition, which effects earlier in the
hierarchy are related to which effects later in the hierarchy.
The ELM, granted its heuristic merits, is simply one such theory.

This work has greatly benefited from comments by two anonymous reviewers
of the First International Research Seminar on MarketingCommunications and
Consumer Behavior The contributions and comments of Rik Pieters and Hans
Welling are also greatly appreciated.

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pp. 204-243.
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