The RPG separates between affective and cognitive attitudes by discriminating between the "purchase motive which caused the attitude to form initially" (Rossiter et al., 1991). Furnishing information about the product and brand can satisfy consumers’ "functional" motives, and "transformational" motives can be fulfilled by the "promise to enhance the brand user by effecting a transformation in the brand user’s sensory, mental, and social approval" (Rossiter et al., 1991). In the RPG, the necessary communication objective for advertising is brand awareness prior to brand attitude, "whereas the FCB Grid is an attitude-only model" (Rossiter et al., 1991).

Figure 2 The Rossiter-Percy Grid

Brand Awareness

With today’s brand-cluttered environment, advertising aimed at developing a favorable consumer attitude is challenging, requiring established prior brand awareness reliably supported by consumers. "Brand attitude without prior brand awareness is an insufficient advertising communication objective" (Rossiter et al., 1991) Therefore, the RPG starts with brand awareness as the initiative communication purpose of advertising. "Without brand awareness, the management and creative effort put into generating brand attitude is in vain because the attitude can never be operational" (Rossiter et al., 1991).

As shown in Figure 2, the RPG separates brand awareness into brand recognition, "where the brand is chosen at the point of purchase", and brand recall, "where the brand, in order to be chosen, must be remembered before the point of purchase" (Rossiter et al., 1991).

The Involvement Dimension in the Rossiter-Percy Grid

While Ratchford (1987) approaches the conceptualization of involvement by three scales - decision importance, degree of thought, and perceived risk of choosing the wrong decision, the RPG limits involvement simply in view of perceived risk. "Specifically, involvement is defined as the risk perceived by the typical target audience member - who could range from a completely naive noncategory user to a very experienced loyal buyer of the brand" (Rossiter et al., 1991).

By criticizing the FCB Grid in terms of its approach to the conceptualization of involvement, "the Rossiter-Percy approach, on the other hand, makes a purely empirical and simply dichotomous distinction between low and high involvement" (Rossiter et al., 1991). Based on numerous qualitative interviews with consumers concerning an extensive range of product categories, Rossiter et al., emphasizes the dichotomy of high and low involvement rather than its continuum conceptualized by Vaughn (1980). "Virtually all consumers regard brand-choice decisions in this dichotomous low or high involvement manner rather than operating as if involvement were a continuum" (Rossiter et al., 1991).

The Motivational Dimension in the Rossiter-Percy Grid

In the Rossiter-Percy approach, there are five motives that would correspond approximately with the "think" side of the FCB Grid. Rossiter and his associates define these motives as "informational motives" that are translated into "negatively reinforcing" purchase motivation. In this dimension, providing information about the product and brand can help consumers in making a decision to purchase a product or choose a brand. According to Rossiter et al. (1991), these negatively-oriented motives are: "problem removal, problem avoidance, incomplete satisfaction, mixed approach-avoidance, and normal depletion."

In the FCB paper by Ratchford and Vaughn (1989), the "feel" classification is separated into three motives: ego gratification, sensory, and social acceptance. In the Rossiter-Percy approach, the "feel" motives are renamed as "transformation motives" that translated into "positively reinforcing" purchase motives including sensory gratification, intellectual stimulation (achievement, mastery) and social approval.

In their paper, Rossiter and his associates referred to the improvement of RPG compared to its archaic type, the FCB Grid.

The Rossiter-Percy model allows product-category purchase motives and brand purchase motives to differ, whereas the FCB approach does not.

Rossiter and Percy’ model identifies eight operatively distinct purchase motives, in comparison with the FCB model which distinguishes only one "think" motive and several "feel" motives and cannot measure the obviously important motive of social approval.

Finally, FCB’s admittedly vague conceptualization of "think-feel" is reflected in quantitative results where this dimension is shown to be highly correlated with the "involvement" dimension.

Rossiter and his associates suggest their RPG as a planning access to advertising creative strategy, while approving of the simplicity of the FCB Grid format in terms of making such models easy to comprehend, enough to be frequently adopted in practice.