Comprehension Process: Understanding How We Recognize Things from A Marketing Student.

What is comprehension: When talking about marketing it is the understanding a consumer has about the given stimuli.

What goes into making people understand a message or a product. The factors will be broken down and between things, we consciously notice, as well as things that may be more unconscious. There are three main factors that play a part in how we comprehend information.

Factors Affecting Consumer Comprehension:

1. Features of the message.
2. Attributes of the message receiver
3. Qualities of the communication environment.

Characteristics of the Message:

There are many components that go into creating a message. All of which play a part in how your message will be understood, if at all. The following list will break down those components of a message, as well as provide some additional information on a few points.

1. Physical characteristic: One of the first things we notice whether we consciously recognize when we look at a product or a post is these attributes. A. Intensity B.Font: Scripted or more dramatic font may give more visual impact but can affect the readability of the product. Which can saw customers away from the product. C.Number D.Color: Certain colors associated with emotions. As well as some colors are easier to see and read. Like red is very hard to read. E.Shape F.Spacing: White space or blank space is very important for a page or a product description to be balanced.
2. Simplicity vs. Complexity
3. Message Congruity is the information in line with previously provided information about the company or product.
4. Ground and Figure: Figure refers to the object, person, or product and the Ground is the background. There should be a noticeable difference between the two.
5. Language Type ( Formal or Casual)
6. Message Source: Spokesperson, mascot, owner, actor, etc.
7. Likeability
8. Expertise
9. Trustworthiness
10. Appeal
11. Congruence

Message Receiver Characteristics

The next thing that plays a part in the comprehension process is solely on who is receiving your message. These are characteristics that the company can not change. If you keep these in mind when creating your message, you can gain the best impact for your target audience.

• Ability/Intelligence
• Prior Experience or Knowledge
• Involvement
• Familiarity/ Habituation 

Habituation: The process of how being repeatedly exposed to a stimulus can have influence.  

• Expectations
• Physical Limits
• Brain Dominance:  
• Left dominance is usually better with words and verbal stimuli, while the right does better with visuals.

The infographic showed both below and as the featured image, you clicked on for this post. While it is an image (jpeg file) it is mostly words, so theoretically if you are a left-brain this will be more valuable than for people with more of a right brain.  

Environment Characteristics

So, besides the message elements and the target audience you need to be aware of the environment.  These are things like how the message is being phrased, how much information is being given, and where the message lives are on social media, blog post newspaper, etc.

• Information Intensity
• Framing
• Prospect Theory: Suggests that things can be framed in different ways that affect risk assessments.
• Message Media
• Construal Level: concrete or abstract
• Timing

These are the main points discussed in the Cengage book I will list down below under the work cited section. So this is the comprehension process. Hopefully, after all of this you have learned, your message characteristics, the environment, as well as the induvial, will be the main determinant of whether your content will be effective or not.

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Ps. A comment is always welcomed and helpful.

Work Cited:

Babin, Barry, and Eric Harris. CB8 – w/ Coursemate Access. 8th ed., Cengage Learning, 2018, https://4ltrpressonline.cengage.com/products/KUYMLNCYD6EBFT1DT995/topics/WSMC7KGZU8KRFH6JL367.