New research challenges preconceptions about marketing communications
Marketing communication has long been seen as a process where companies send messages to passive recipients. But in his doctoral thesis at Hanken School of Economics, Sigge Birkenfalk shows that this approach does not reflect reality and our actual knowledge of the human being.
“Marketing communication is not a dialogue or a battle for attention,” says Birkenfalk. “Nor is it about trying to control people's behavior, but about understanding what influence is possible based on the mediated and indirect nature of marketing communication.”
Time to rethink the view of marketing communication
The thesis points out that key concepts such as ‘message’, ‘broadcast’, ‘noise’ and ‘receiver’ are based on technical models that do not reflect how people actually discover, interpret and interact with published content.
“The notion that communication needs to ‘cut through noise’ and trigger behavior is misleading,” Birkenfalk points out. “Instead, research shows that indirect and mediated influence is a process that requires alternative starting points than the prevailing Message Logic has.”
According to Birkenfalk it is a simple observation that marketing communication is mediated and that people interpret perceptions based on their current understanding, but in marketing communication this seems to have been overlooked for a long time and is institutionalized in what he calls The Message Factory.
A new logic for marketing communication
Birkenfalk therefore proposes an alternative model and logic that takes into account the characteristics of marketing communication and puts the active role of the individual as interpreter at the centre. Companies and organisations are encouraged to revise their expectations and focus on creating content that can support changing the understanding over time.
Defence
You can read the whole thesis here (in Swedish):
Budskapsfabriken -Dominerande teorier och synsätt på marknadskommunikation
Sigge Birkenfalk will defend his thesis on 29 November at 14:00 at Hanken School of Economics, Arkadiankatu 22, Helsinki.
You can participate in the defense on-site or via videoconference. Join the videoconference via the link: https://go.hanken.fi/defence-birkenfalk
Opponent: Assistant Professor Rickard Andersson, University of Lund
Kustos: Professor emeritus Christian Grönroos, Hanken School of Economics