Elaboration Likelihood Model

1. Elaboration Likelihood Model

1.1. ELM and Types of Persuasion

The Elaboration Likelihood Model is a theory by Petty and Cacioppo (1981) to explain about how a persuasive message worked to change the attitude of the receiver, where people’s motivation and ability to process information varies with situational and individual factors. ELM represents the possibility that the customers will elaborate on a marketing communications message by thinking about and reacting to it, and comparing it with their pre-existing thoughts and beliefs regarding product category, the advertised brand and perhaps, competitive brands (Chitty, Barker, Valos and Shimp, 2012). Therefore, ELM is significant for the marketer to understand and develop the marketing communication that reaches its target customers in the most proficient direction.

The model proposed that a massage was transmitted and received through one of the two routes of persuasion: central route or peripheral route. In the central route, attitudes are formed and changed by consideration and integration if issue-relevant arguments. This route leads to attitude change that is relatively permanent, resistant to counter-persuasion, and generally predictive of behaviour (Choi & Salmon, 2003).

On the contrary, in peripheral route, attitudes are formed and changed without active thinking about the object and its attributes, but rather as a result of associating the attitude object with positive or negative cues in the persuasion context. (Choi & Salmon, 2003) The peripheral route results in attitude change that is relatively temporary, susceptible to counter-persuasion, and less predictive behaviour.

All in all, when elaboration likelihood is high, the probability of a person’s following the central route to persuasion is heightened but when the elaboration likelihood is low, the peripheral route becomes more plausible. (Choi