Facing clutter: on message competition in marketing communications

Texts arising from advertising, promotions, PR, primary promoting, and sales agents abound. We come across all of them on our method to perform, in newspaper publishers and magazines and catalogs, outlets and cafes, if you watch well known sports, watching out of an airplane window, or even while mingling with friends. As a client, it is extremely hard to maintain a record of everything marketers are attempting to inform us.This abundance of selling messages is usually known as clutter. Clutter makes consumers more unlikely to concentrate on marketing messages. Moreover, clutter breeds avoidance behavior and skepticism, that creates buyers more prone to actively resist selling texts. This dissertation sets out to further our understanding of marketing communications and sales communications in a cluttered environment. The thesis comprises five articles in which issues of clutter are empirically investigated.Particularly, conventional wisdoms regarding slogans, mass media choice, and PR they fit to check in many environmentally valid settings than what has been utilized in the past investigation.

Contents: Facing clutter: on message competition in marketing communications

PROLOGUE
MESSAGE COMPETITION IN MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Practical Relevance of the Thesis
Academic Relevance of the Thesis
Aim of the Thesis
Outline of the Thesis
UNDERSTANDING CLUTTER
What is Clutter?
Dimensions of Clutter
Perspectives on Clutter
Conceptualizing Clutter
Conclusion: What is Clutter?
Effects of Clutter
General Effects
Brand Specific Effects
Media Context Effects
Conceptualizing Effects on Different Levels
Conclusion: Effects of Clutter
BRANDS AFFECT SLOGANS AFFECT BRANDS?
BRAND‐SLOGAN MATCHING IN A CLUTTERED ENVIRONMENT
COULD PLACING ADS WRONG BE RIGHT?
ADVERTISING VS. PUBLICITY IN A CLUTTERED ENVIRONMENT
WHAT’S CREDIBILITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Towards a Better Understanding of Clutter
Sorting Out Clutter
Extending Clutter
Studying Clutter
INTRODUCING THE ARTICLES
Methodology
Article 1. Brands Affect Slogans Affect Brands?
Article 2. Brand-Slogan Matching in a Cluttered Environment
Article 3. Could Placing Ads Wrong be Right?
Article 4. Advertising vs. Publicity in a Cluttered Environment
Article 5. What’s Credibility Got to Do with It?
DISCUSSION
Contributions to Marketing Communications Research
Synthesizing Clutter Research
Sorting Out Clutter
Extending Clutter
Studying Clutter
Contributions to Marketing Communications Practice
A Framework for Clutter
Questioning Common Knowledge
Facing the Clutter Challenge
Benefits of Clutter…