In considering the many and varied effects of advertising, a very central issue is how the information in an ad is processed, that is, how people understand and remember what an ad said.

“The consumer is constantly being bombarded with information which is potentially relevant for making choices. The consumer’s reaction to that information, how that information is interpreted, and how it is combined or integrated with other information may have crucial impacts on choice. Hence, decisions on what information to provide to consumers, how much to provide, and how to provide that information require knowledge of how consumers process, interpret and integrate that information in making choices (Bettman, 1979).”

The way in which information is received, processed and recalled by the human mind is necessary to know if advertising is to be efficiently devised and created to elicit the highest possible effect. IP models generally gain their power when they are applied to make predictions regarding what types of information will and will not be recalled.

Another consideration with regard to information processing is that high level of anxiety has been shown to reduce the efficiency of encoding strategies. It is thus necessary to choose the appropriate medium for advertising.

In an attempt to understand consumer choice in advertising, the approach taken is to focus on the information used by consumers and how that information is processed. “A clearer understanding of the stages of the processes involved in responding to advertisements would certainly have practical as well as theoretical importance (Harris, 1983).”

The basic approach to studying choice in advertising is to view the consumer as a processor of information; that is the consumer is characterized as interacting with his or her choice environment, seeking and taking in information from various sources, processing this information, and then making a selection from among some alternatives (Bettman, 1979). The purpose is to provide an integrated view of choice from an information processing perspective.

Information Processing of Consumer Choice:

1. Processing capacity

2. Motivation

3. Attention and perception

4. Information acquisition and evaluation

5. Use of memory

6. Decision rules and processes

7. Consumption and learning

The theory is also influenced by individual differences, situational influences and effects of different types of stimuli.

McGuire also outlined an approach to studying choice with his 8-step model of information processing. He presented these components as successive steps in the processing of information. His conceptualization is quite consistent with the consumer choice information processing theory.

McGuire also predicted from his two-step model that recipients of moderate intelligence should be more persuasive than those recipients with either lower or higher intelligence levels. This is also apparent in messages that induce fear. Those that induce moderate levels of fear are more persuasive than messages that produce low or high levels of fear.

Once new information has been integrated into long-term memory, there may still need to be intervention for successful construction of relationships. Many people are unable to recall necessary information that has been encoded.

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