Abstract
This chapter describes how consumer products are vital to consumer-derived attitudes, risk and benefit judgments, and intentions to engage or avoid a product or service. Although compression is preceded by exposure and attention, it is paramount to the product-consumer relationship. This chapter first unpacks terminology associated with consumer comprehension. This foundational section reviews distinct historical approaches to understanding and investigating product and message comprehension and details how comprehension has been conceptualized and measured across disciplines. Then the chapter turns to the process and context within which comprehension occurs. Issues and constraints of communication, information asymmetry and the role of branding, packaging, and labelling, consumer differences and vulnerable groups, and types of products are all discussed. Understanding this crucial process from which consumers comprehend and make judgments about products and messages is vital not only to improving consumer relations from an industry standpoint, but also is paramount for regulators and communicators who drive initiatives to inform consumers regarding potential benefits and risks of products.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aljukhadar, M. Senecal, S., & Daoust, C. (2010, September 30). Information overload and usage of recommendations. Paper presented at the ACM RecSys Workshop on User-Centric Evaluation of Recommender Systems and Their Interfaces (UCERSTI), Barcelona, Spain.
Aziz, S.J., Bolick, D.C., Kleinman, M.T., & Shadel, D.P. (2000). The National telemarketing victim call center: Combating telemarketing fraud in the United States. Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, 12(2), 93–98
Barnlund, D. C. (2008). A transactional model of communication. In C. D. Mortensen (Ed.), Communication theory (2nd ed., pp. 47–57). New Brunswick: Transaction.
Bonifield, C., & Cole, C. (2007). Advertising to vulnerable segments. In G. Tellis & T. Ambler (Eds.), The Sage handbook of advertising (pp. 430–444). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Celsi, R. L., & Olson, J. (1988). The role of involvement in attention and comprehension processes. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 210–224.
De Tullio, P., et al. (1986). Patient medication instruction and provider interactions: Effects on knowledge and attitudes. Health Education Quarterly, 13(1), 51–60.
Drumwright, M. (2007). Advertising ethics: A multi-level theory approach. In G. Tellis & T. Ambler (Eds.), The Sage handbook of advertising (pp. 399–415). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Elder Fraud Task Force. (1997). Report of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. Dept. of Law and Public Safety, Office of the Attorney-General, New Jersey, USA.
Graeff, T. R. (1995). Product comprehension and promotional strategies. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 12(2), 28–39.
Graeff, T. R. (1997). Comprehending product attributes and benefits: The role of product knowledge and means-end chain inferences. Psychology and Marketing, 14, 163–183.
Graeff, T. R., & Olson, J. C. (1994). Consumer inference as part of product comprehension. In C. Allen & D. Roedder (Eds.), Advances in consumer research (pp. 201–207). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Graham, D. J., & Mohr, G. S. (2014). When zero is greater than one: Consumer misinterpretations of nutrition labels. Health Psychology, 33(12), 1579–1587.
Greenwald, A. G. (1968). Cognitive learning, cognitive response to persuasion, and attitude change. In A. G. Greenwald et al. (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 147–169). New York: Academic Press.
Greewald, A. G., & Leavitt, C. (1984). Audience involvement in advertising: Four levels. Journal of Consumer Research, 11, 581–592.
Hess, T. M., et al. (2001). Motivation and representational processes in adulthood: The effects of social accountability and information relevance. Psychology and Aging, 16, 629–642.
Hoeffler, S. (2003). Measuring preferences for really new products. Journal of Marketing Research, 40(4), 406–420.
Hoyer, W., & Brown, S. (1990). Effects of brand awareness on choice for a common, repeat purchase product. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(2), 141–148.
Huang, L. Q., et al. (2014). Comprehension and assessment of product reviews: A review-product congruity proposition. Journal of Management Information Systems, 30(3), 311–343.
Jacoby, J., & Hoyer, W. (1987). The comprehension and miscomprehension of print communications. New York: The Advertising Education Foundation.
Jacoby, J., et al. (1980). The miscomprehension of televised communication. New York: American Association of Advertising Agencies.
Jarvis, C. (1998). An exploratory investigation of consumers’ evaluations of external information sources in prepurchase search. Advances in Consumer Research, 25, 446–452.
Krugman, H. (1965). The impact of television advertising: Learning without involvement. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 29(3), 349–356.
Mick, D. G. (1992). Levels of subjective comprehension in advertising processing and their relations to ad perceptions, attitudes, and memory. Journal of Consumer Research, 18(4), 411–424.
Morrison, K. L. (2004). Children reading commercial messages on the Internet: Web Sites that merge education, information, entertainment, and advertising. Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 64(11A), 3957.
Nwachukwu, S. L. S., et al. (1997). Ethics and social responsibility in marketing: An examination of the ethical evaluation of advertising strategies. Journal of Business Research, 39, 107–118.
Olson, J. C., & Reynolds, T. J. (2001). The means-end approach to understanding consumer decision making. In J. C. Olson & T. J. Reynolds (Eds.), Understanding consumer decision making: The means-end approach to marketing and advertising strategy (pp. 3–20). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Park, D., Morrell, R., Frieske, D., & Kincaid, D. (1992). Medication adherence behaviors in older adults: Effects of external cognitive supports. Psychology and Aging, 7, 252–256.
Paulhus, D. L. (1991). Measurement and control of response biases. In J. P. Robinson et al. (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes. San Diego: Academic Press.
Quillian, M. R. (1968). Semantic memory. In M. Minsky (Ed.), Semantic information processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Scheufele, D., & Lewenstein, B. (2005). The public and nanotechnology: How citizens make sense of emerging technologies. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 7, 659–667.
Sinclair, S., Hammond, D., & Goodman, S. (2013). Sociodemographic differences in the comprehension of nutrition labels on food products. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 45(6), 767–772.
Singh, S., & Cole, C. (1993). The effects of length, content, and repetition on television commercial effectiveness. Journal of Marketing Research, 30(1), 91–105.
Sjöberg, L. (1999). Risk perception by the public and by experts: A dilemma in risk management. Research Human Ecology, 6(2), 1–9.
Skurnik, I., et al. (2005). How warnings about false claims become recommendations. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 713–724.
Smith, N. C. (1993). Ethics and the marketing manager. In N. C. Smith, J. A. Quelch, & D. Richard (Eds.), Ethics in marketing. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
van Dam, Y., & Trijp, H. (2007). Branding and labelling of food products. In L. Frewer & H. van Trijp (Eds.), Understanding consumers of food products. New York: CRC Press.
Van Eenennaam, A. L., & Young, A. E. (2014). Invited review: Prevalence and impacts of genetically engineered feedstuffs on livestock populations. Journal of Animal Science, 92, 4255–4278.
Viswanathan, M. (1994). The influence of summary information on the usage of nutrition information. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 13, 48–60.
Walsh, G., & Mitchell, V. (2005). Consumer vulnerability to perceived product similarity problems: Scale development and identification. Journal of Macromarketing, 25(2), 140–152.
Wolf, M., Davis, T., Bass, P., Curtis, L., Lindquist, L., Webb, J., Bocchini, M., Bailey, S., & Parker, R. (2010). Improving prescription drug warnings to promote patient comprehension. Archives of Internal Medicine, 170(1), 50–56.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cummings, C.L. (2017). Comprehension of Products and Messages. In: Emilien, G., Weitkunat, R., Lüdicke, F. (eds) Consumer Perception of Product Risks and Benefits. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50530-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50530-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50528-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50530-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)