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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
III. Analyzing the
Communication Process
5. The Communication
Process
Four others are the major communication functions and processes:
encoding, decoding, response, and feedback. The last element, noise,
refers to any extraneous factors in the system that can interfere with the
process and work against effective communication.
Source Encoding
The sender, or source, of a communication is the person or organization
that has information to share with another person or group of people. The
source may be an individual (say, a salesperson or hired spokesperson,
such as a celebrity, who appears in a company’s advertisements) or a nonpersonal
entity (such as the corporation or organization itself). For example,
the source of the ad shown in the opening vignette is the EDS
company, since no specific spokesperson or source is shown. However, in
the Rolex ad shown in Exhibit 5-1, Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street
is also a source since she appears as a spokesperson for the company.
Because the receiver’s perceptions of the source influence how the
communication is received, marketers must be careful to select a communicator
the receiver believes is knowledgeable and trustworthy or
with whom the receiver can identify or relate in some manner. (How
these characteristics influence the receiver’s responses is discussed further
in Chapter 6.)
The communication process begins when the source selects words, symbols, pictures,
and the like, to represent the message that will be delivered to the receiver(s).
This process, known as encoding, involves putting thoughts, ideas, or information
into a symbolic form. The sender’s goal is to encode the message in such a way that it
will be understood by the receiver. This means using words, signs, or symbols that are
familiar to the target audience. Many symbols have universal meaning, such as the
familiar circle with a line through it to denote no parking, no smoking, and so forth.
Many companies also have highly recognizable symbols—such as McDonald’s
golden arches, Nike’s swoosh, or the Coca-Cola trademark—that are known to consumers
around the world.
Message
The encoding process leads to development of a message that contains the information
or meaning the source hopes to convey. The message may be verbal or nonverbal, oral
or written, or symbolic. Messages must be put into a transmittable form that is appropriate
for the channel of communication being used. In advertising, this may range from
simply writing some words or copy that will be read as a radio message to producing an
expensive television commercial. For many products, it is not the actual words of the
message that determine its communication effectiveness but rather the impression or
image the ad creates. Notice how Spellbound perfume in Exhibit 5-2 uses only a picture
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Exhibit 5-1 Picabo Street
is a source in this Rolex ad
Exhibit 5-2 The image
projected by an ad often
communicates more than
words
141
Chapter Five The Communication Process