Chapter 14

The perceptual model of communication is a process where a message is sent to a person who interprets the meaning from their own points of view. There are 6 elements in this process: sender, message, and receiver, encoding, selecting a medium, decoding and creating meaning, feedback, and noise. The sender is the person who wants to communicate a message to the receiver, the person that the message is intended for. An example is a company, the sender, who wants to portray their product as reliable, the message, to its customers, the receiver. Encoding is transforming the message into a language, code, or word choice that the receiver would be able to understand. For our example, the company would select words that everyday consumers would be able to understand and relate to, as opposed to science jargon. Selecting a medium to send the message is choosing what type of media method. Such methods include T.V., telephone, internet, radio, or mail. In order to reach our intended audience of everyday consumers, T.V. and internet would be a good way to reach out to numerous amounts of people. Decoding and creating meaning rests on the job of the audience, the receiver. Once they’ve received the message, they interpret it based on cultural norms and values. Once the audience has created a meaning for the message, they react to it. In our example, consumers can react to the message in two ways, they either go out and buy the product or they don’t see any value of the product and don’t buy it. Noise is any interference between sending the message and the audience receiving the message. In our case, the noise would be a lack of internet users or T.V. viewers.

In my marketing book, by Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler, they define the different elements of the communication model by using McDonald’s as an example.
• The sender is McDonald’s, encoding is the use of words, sounds, and illustrations used in their ad to convey the message.
• The message that McDonald’s is the actual ad that they’re sending.
• McDonald’s media is the use of television and specific television programs that they select to reach their audience.
• Decoding is what the viewers, the receivers, interpret of McDonald’s words and images in the ad.
• A response would be more consumers like McDonald’s, more eat at McDonald’s, remembers the ad, or does nothing.
• Feedback would be that consumers remember the ad or praise/criticize the ad/products.
• Noise may be a misinterpretation of McDonald’s message.
According to the authors, a message is effective when the sender’s communication process meshes with the receiver’s decoding process. When symbols and words are familiar to the receiver, they are more likely to understand the message that the sender intended for them. In addition, the sender’s field of experience might be different than that of the receivers; therefore the sender must understand and take into consideration the consumer’s field of experience when creating the communication model. This section is important because it also takes in account for other factors that affect the communication model.

Works Cited
Armstrong, Gary and Philip Kotler. "Communicating Customer Value: Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy." Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 407-409.