ADVERTISING AND PUBLICITY - AN INFORMATION-PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE

In an era of constant challenges to conventional wisdom about the relative effectiveness of various promotional tools, marketers are becoming increasingly aware of the value of publicity. Yet scholarly attention to this element is limited primarily to cursory textbook treatment. This paper draws upon communication and information processing theory to establish a framework for the development of propositions about advertising and publicity, in terms of their relative impact upon consumers' motivation, ability, and opportunity to process information. It also identifies a need for and suggests an approach to the systematic empirical comparison of these two promotional formats.