Can consumer attitudes towards a brand be manipulated? Well...

The dark side and light side of consumer attitudes

As a widely debated topic with ambiguity, dissonance and even controversy since its inception, integrating marketing communications (IMC) has been nevertheless put into practices by brands. Through consumer-oriented synergy efforts across all relevant channels, IMC provides marketers with countless communication possibilities and opportunities. Despite the fact that Caemmerer (2009) majorly discusses the crucial country-of-origin effect on the planning and implementation of IMC, there is one other tidbit of the article that particularly draws my attention, i.e. the significance of consumer attitudes towards brands in terms of their decision-making.

Based on my limited understanding, consumer attitudes simply derive from their perceptions and assessments for any brands, whereas it may also be further influenced and even altered by communication messages and external environment. Furthermore, such brand associations can be either positive or negative. It is logical for a brand to reinforce any positive consumer attitudes, what is genuinely problematic and challenging is to deal with the unfavourable scenario triggered by the negative ones that it faces. To reverse the situation and enable brands to stay competitive in the marketplace, marketers need to cautiously craft effective attitude change strategies, which I assume can be fulfilled through the approach of conveying detailed information among all distinct communication outcomes.

Why bother caring about consumer attitudes so much?

To explore the in-depth connection between consumer attitudes and consumer behaviour, I sought more enlightenment and perused practitioners' opinions. In its article, Forbes Marketplace (2020) asserts that consumer attitudes have never been more vital amid the COVID-19 crisis, while its formation and alteration reflects the complexity, uncertainty and radical transition of our world under the pandemic circumstance. Consumers may learn attitudes from numerous sources, while their respective personalities also help from their individual attitudes. Consequently, thoroughly comprehending such attitudes contributes to understanding and anticipating consumer behaviours.

As one of the components of brand associations, consumer attitudes also determine the brand image to some extent, which in turn comprises the broader concept of brand knowledge. To properly scrutinise consumer attitudes, the article further introduces two routes of persuasion in terms of human processing messages, utilising Petty and Cacioppo's (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model framework. It offers marketers efficient approaches to convince consumers to form or covert to more favourable attitudes towards brands, which in turn is capable of consistently driving expected consumer behaviours.

 The Mouldy Whopper Ad (Burger King, 2020)

Burger King tried, but maybe…too hard?

With the aim of announcing its effort to remove artificial preservatives from all products, Burger King launched "The Mouldy Whopper" campaign in the US in February (Contagious I/O, 2020). Having created a time-lapse video of a mouldy Whopper, marketers of the burger chain highlighted the change and conveyed the message of the beauty of no artificial preservatives in a relatively disturbing way that shocked adland. It might be quite counter-intuitive at first glance since the striking visual in the ad was probably the last thing that a food company would ever consider, let alone making one and releasing it publicly. Having featured mould in a food ad, Burger King broke almost every rule of food advertising and even the entire advertising industry.

Consumers continuously equate fast food with harmful lifestyle and demand more transparency about the ingredients. Confronted with such negative perspective centring on abuse of additives and little nutritional value in its food, Burger King tackled the issue with the ad, hoping to create some positivity and reshape consumers' notions about it. However, its attempt at manipulating consumer attitudes received mixed reviews. Some praised the creativity and honesty of the brand, while others argued that the disgusting image of a rotting burger might worsen consumer attitudes. The impact of Burger King's peculiar marketing effort remains to be seen. Ultimately, only time (and sales) will tell.

OOH signage of the Mouldy Whopper campaign

References

Burger King. (2020, Feb. 19). The Mouldy Whopper [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDC4C3_16Y

Caemmerer, B. (2009). The planning and implementation of integrated marketing communications. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 27(4), 524-538. doi: 10.1108/02634500910964083

Contagious I/O. (2020). Burger King and the method behind the Moldy Whopper madness. Retrieved from https://www.contagious.com/news-and-views/insight-and-strategy-behind-burger-king-moldy-whopper-advert

Forbes Marketplace. (2020). This marketing expert says understanding consumer attitudes matters now more than ever. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesmarketplace/2020/05/14/this-marketing-expert-says-understanding-consumer-attitudes-matters-now-more-than-ever/

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,19, 123-205. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2