Andrew’s insightful comment on my last post inspired me to take a closer look at communication: what it consists of and how context plays a role. To prevent this from turning into a full-blown research paper (aka–me putting you to sleep), here are some thoughts and findings in a nutshell.

Communication can be understood as exchanges of information, which can be further broken down into acts of learning. Traditionally, learning has been explained as the acquisition of knowledge and a means/end activity. It starts with specifying a desired outcome, deciding how to achieve this outcome, then conducting some sort of evaluation on the result. Conventional advertising has followed a similar method: brands want to reach target audience, agencies create ad to push message, effectiveness of campaign gets measured. Simple, logical—right? Problem is, this model implies that advertisers have great influence/control over how people take in info. It doesn’t take into account individual differences (ie–personal values), varying stimuli in the environment (ie—sounds, smells, lighting, etc) and surrounding context (ie—who’s around you at that point in time).

Recent models of thought suggest that learning is much more than absorbing info; it has to do with the social context in which learning occurs because knowledge is mostly mediated/specified through some form of human activity. Learning, and the subsequent transfer of information from one person to another, does not just occur in the individual’s mind; it’s a process that takes place in a participation framework (language acquisition is a good example—you have to speak it with others in order to truly learn it).

Knowing that communication breaks down to learning creates some interesting implications for advertising. Instead of focusing on ways to get a message across, marketers can get behind what it means to ‘communicate’ and start thinking about how to help their consumers learn. After all, communication within this industry translates to creating a two-way learning opportunity between the brand and the consumer. So if we follow recent models of thought on learning, strategic communication plans should = crafting the best circumstances for an audience to learn.

And let’s not forget to include social context in the equation: increasing participation can be used as a primary motivational driver. Encouraging participation not only works as a viral technique, it also invites consumers to reflect on the on-going campaign and make contributions towards the campaign’s effectiveness. Enabling your audience to shape the marketing message will be the only true reflection of ‘what the consumer wants.’ Once the consumer is transformed into a participant, they become both a member of a community as well as an agent of change. Thus, a comms plan should not only reflect a message, but also reflect how it is intended for consumers to learn the message in a social context.

All of this can be wrapped up with the following quote by William F. Hanks: “Learning is a way of being in the social world, not a way of coming to know about it. Learners, like observers more generally, are engaged both in the contexts of their learning and in the broader social world within which these contexts are produced. Without this engagement, there is no learning, and where the proper engagement is sustained, learning will occur.”

Brav-O to W.F. Hanks! Now let’s all go think some more about context

P.S.—Thanks for the inspiration Andrew!