From Advertisements to Word of Mouth: Understanding the Elaboration Likelihood Model in Consumer-Directed Persuasion

Marketers regularly rely on advertisements and consumers’ word of mouth to promote their brands, products, and services. But how do such forms of consumer-directed persuasion actually influence consumers’ opinions and behavior? And what similarities and differences are there between advertisements and word of mouth in these respects? The present chapter uses one of the most influential theories on persuasion from social psychology, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, to organize the factors, variables, and processes critical in understanding consumer persuasion. In doing so, the chapter highlights how the consumers’ state of elaboration (i.e., how much the consumer is thinking about the persuasion attempt) affects the psychological process by which the persuasion occurs. In turn, this helps explain the influence of any specific variable (e.g., the consumer’s mood, who the source of the message is, etc.) on downstream persuasion outcomes. The chapter concludes by offering general insight on how to instill the most impactful forms of persuasion – whether through an advertisement or consumers’ word of mouth.