COMMUNICATION AS AN ELEMENT OF SERVICE ...

COMMUNICATION AS AN ELEMENT OF SERVICE VALUE Kristina Heinonen and Tore Strandvik CERS Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Centre of Direct Marketing Excellence, Hanken Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland

Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

Abstract Purpose – The paper explores consumers’ responsiveness to marketing communication about various services and products in three different media. Communication value is seen as an element of service value and is measured as consumer responsiveness to marketing communication. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data is based on interviews with consumers concerning their perceptions of the relevance and acceptance of marketing communication of 15 different services/products in three media, traditional direct mail, e-mail and SMS. The consumers have responded to scenarios of marketing communication. Findings – Findings showed differences in consumer responsiveness to different services and physical products. The overall responsiveness was relatively low for the offerings in all media. A division into responsiveness groups demonstrates that there are also consumers that are positive to communication. The share of positive consumers varies considerably over offerings. Research limitations/implications – The present study did not account for some important aspects in marketing communication. Firstly, the communication was not considered as part of a firm’s integrated marketing communication. The creative element was omitted even if it in practice is important in planned marketing communication. Moreover, the respondents have evaluated scenarios based on their general attitudes toward the communication. The consumer’s relationship to the company/brand/offering was excluded. However, despite these limitations it shows that it is necessary to consider that products and services may have different responsiveness patterns. Practical implications – The emergence of digital media has increased the number of ways to interact with consumers. The variation in the responsiveness to products and services for different media indicates that it is important to have an understanding of how the media adds and subtracts value. The analysis points to the need for companies to measure the responsiveness of consumers in order to understand and enhance consumer perceived value of the communication as a part of the service. Originality/value – The paper contributes to service marketing research by introducing the communication value and responsiveness conceptualisations that have an interest both for academic Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

research and practitioners. This includes a new perspective on the role of communication on one hand and on the empirical findings of differences in digital interactive media on the other hand. Keywords Service quality assurance, Customer service management, Marketing communications Paper type Research paper


Introduction Traditionally, advertising and marketing communication have been considered in general as salesgenerating functions. In a service context it is, however, relevant to change the perspective and look at communication as a part of the service. Services are in the service literature seen as processes cogenerated together with the consumer, and all contact-points between the consumer and the service company are moments-of-truth (Gro¨nroos, 2000). “Everything communicates something about a firm and its goods and services – regardless of whether the marketer accepts this and acts upon it or not” (Grönroos, 2000, p. 264). These contact points in other words form and influence the consumer perceived value of the service. This perspective is even more accentuated when customer relationships are considered. The (consumer perceived) quality and value of communication thus becomes an issue both managerially and theoretically. In line with Grönroos’ (2000) thinking we argue that communication is an essential part of the service and consequently it can create or destroy consumer perceived value: “Here there is a truly communication impact; almost everything the organization says about itself and its performance and almost everything the organization does that is experienced in the service encounters or elsewhere has an impact on the customer. Moreover, the various means of communication and their effects are interrelated. These communication effects, together with other factors such as the technical quality of the services, shape the image of the organization in the minds of customers, and potential customers” (Grönroos, 2000, p. 265). The service perspective differs from the traditional marketing communication and media effectiveness perspectives concerning the role of communication. Traditionally, marketing communication has been seen as an instrument to sell products and services. The consumer/customer is considered a passive object of this effort. Communication effectiveness is evaluated in terms of conversion of consumer attention to purchase action (Harvey, 1997; Mogg and Enis, 1973). Framing communication within the service logic, any marketing communication can be seen as an element of the service, rather than an instrument to sell a product or service. This is the perspective that we are introducing in this paper. From the marketer’s perspective the consequences of this shift in perspective means that communication effectiveness is based on how the consumer interacts with the company in all contact points – it is a question of how the consumer perceives value added through communication. We propose that in a service perspective the term communication value could be used to depict consumer perceived value of any communication between the consumer and the company covering both personal interaction and media-based interaction. Communication value is in turn an integrated part of service value. Our perspective combines service logic with ideas from the marketing communication literature, specifically Ducoffe’s (1995, 1996) notion of advertising value where he introduced and applied a consumer point of view on advertising. He, however, does not consider communication as an element of a service (process). In service research personal interactions have primarily been in focus while advertising and media-based communication has received less attention. New electronic media, for example e-mail and internet, with high potential for interactivity and high flexibility concerning when and where interaction can take place has caught the marketers’ attention. It is thus clear that communication value no longer is related only to traditional aspects like content and presentation but also to aspects related to time and place of communication. This raises an interest in exploring the potential of new media in creating interactions between the company and the consumer. A prerequisite for interactivity is that the consumer accepts the Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

medium and the communication and sees a value in it. All media have different specific characteristics and limitations concerning value-creating factors. They are also different from an economic point of view. The key issue is, however, the consumer’s reaction to the communication. We argue that communication value may be created through four factors, content (what), presentation (how), place (where) and time (when). This corresponds to Heinonen’s (2004) perceived service value model that consists of technical, functional, spatial and temporal value dimensions. Heinonen’s model builds on and extends Grönroos’ perceived service quality model (Grönroos, 1982) in order to cover eservices and explore customer perceptions of temporal and spatial value in addition to technical and functional value. On an aggregate level it becomes interesting to study and compare communication value characteristics for different media and different service/media combinations. If differences are found media choice will ultimately become a factor in the creation of customer perceived service value. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual framework for communication value and to explore consumers’ perception of communication value related to different media and offerings. More specifically we focus in the empirical study on whether communication value vary between different media and whether there is a difference between the communication value of different services and physical products? We focus on how consumers react to communication in traditional direct media and digital direct media. It should be noted that in principle in a service logic perspective all contact points between the company and the customer can be seen as media, even face-to-face communication as pointed out by Cowles and Crosby (1990), which means that the framework should be applicable to any type of service interaction. The design of the empirical study contains several delimitations compared to the theoretical framework. In the empirical study different services and physical products are compared on only three value dimensions, content, time and place (what, when and where). We exclude the creative aspect of marketing communication (how), which is traditionally considered to have a significant role on the effect of the communication in order to be able to conduct media comparisons. In the measurement model the dimensions time and place are further combined into an “acceptance” factor and content is represented by “relevance” to the consumer. Communication value In the marketing communication literature there has been a strong interest in media and advertising effectiveness (Harvey, 1997; Informed, 2001). Consumers are in these studies seen as targets for communication efforts where the aim is to sell products. There are, however, some studies that look at the value of advertising to the consumer (Ducoffe, 1995, 1996; Ducoffe and Curlo, 2000) and where the customer is assumed to play an active role. Ducoffe (1995) discussed and defined advertising value as “a subjective evaluation of the relative worth or utility of advertising to consumers” (p. 1). Ducoffe synthesised previous research on consumer reactions to advertising into four factors: informativeness, deceptiveness, irritation, and entertainment. Informativeness was assumed and found to have positive influence on advertising value because it includes information about the product. It was suggested and shown that the entertainment factor creates positive value because it fulfils consumers’ needs for variety and emotional stimulation. Ducoffe argued that the deceptiveness in contrast is likely to decrease advertising value because of the lack of advertising credibility. By irritation he denoted that the advertising Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

was perceived as annoying, manipulative, offensive, or insulting. He found that irritation and deceptiveness were highly correlated. In a second experimental study, only informativeness and entertainment were included as irritation was considered as an unwanted effect of planned communication. The findings indicated that consumers perceived informativeness and entertainment as two important value-increasing elements of communication. Ducoffe concluded that when optimising advertising effectiveness both the form (how) and the content (what) are important. He thus used only two of the advertising value factors and did not include the value-decreasing aspect in the study. Irritation in advertising has been researched in terms of possible explanations and causes (Greyser, 1973; Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985). Consumer feelings of irritation towards an ad have been argued to influence the effectiveness of the marketing communication (Greyser, 1973). Gao et al. (2004) studied web advertising and found that perceived irritation of the advertising has a negative effect on consumer attitudes toward the ad. They thus extended the research on communication value by showing the importance of irritation in an online context. The concept of intrusiveness has been suggested to influence the consumer’s perceptions of marketing communication and may be useful to describe how negative feelings arise from advertisements. Intrusiveness can be measured based on whether an ad is distracting, disturbing, forced, interfering, intrusive, invasive or obtrusive (Li et al., 2002). It is related to feelings of irritation, leading to avoidance behaviour. Moreover, the personal nature of direct marketing communication may even step over the line of discretion and invade consumers’ privacy. For example, unsolicited e-mail and spam mail are considered an invasion of privacy and have actually become a serious problem for many consumers (Windham and Orton, 2000). Also, interruptions may be extremely intrusive when they are unexpected (Li et al., 2002). For example, marketing messages to the mobile phone can reach consumers everywhere when, e.g. shopping or at meetings. The time and even the place can be more or less appropriate for the consumer to acknowledge and take interest in the marketing message. Supposedly, this reduces consumers’ attention to the marketing message and it may even be perceived as disturbing. A step further from Ducoffe’s advertising value is to consider communication as a part of a service. In line with the perspective in the services literature, where all types of communication are considered to influence the consumers’ perception of the service, we propose that communication value is the consumer perceived value of communication related to the service before, during and after using the service. The communication can be seen as an integrated part of the service and cannot be separated from other elements. Some e-services might to a large part consist of communication elements. In the present empirical study we propose that we can study consumer responsiveness to company-initiated marketing communication as an expression of communication value. The higher the responsiveness the more the company can take advantage of the interactive potential in a medium. If customers are irritated or do not perceive the relevance of the communication negative value effects may occur. Consumer responsiveness We propose that marketing communication contains value for the consumer and this value consists of the content as well as the means for delivering information. Consumers would accordingly evaluate these two factors, which we choose to denote relevance and medium acceptance. Relevance relates to the content of the communication, i.e. the value of what the consumer receives from the marketing communication. Medium acceptance depicts two of the value dimensions since it includes when and where the consumer receives the communication. If the fourth communication value dimension were included, i.e. the howHeinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

dimension representing the presentation of the content or the creative solution, it would represent a third factor in the consumer responsiveness model. Although each media contains presentation elements this factor is excluded from this study. In Figure 1, the two factors are combined and by using a simple categorisation of each factor in three categories, high (positive), neutral and low (negative), nine different potential outcomes can be depicted. One extreme represented by the low left-hand corner is communication that has low relevance to the consumer and where the communication is perceived as disturbance. The opposite case is when relevance is high and communication is welcomed. Mixed cases might, however, also occur. The cases can be categorised into three categories from a value creation perspective. In the figure the diagonal from upper left hand corner to lower right hand corner represent the neutral zone. Below the diagonal are value decreasing situations and above the diagonal value increasing situations. For a particular offering and medium, there will on an aggregate level be a distribution of opinions as different consumers have different reactions and preferences. Figure 1. Factors influencing communication value through consumer responsiveness

Content relevance One aspect that influences the consumer’s responsiveness to marketing communication is interest in and relevance of the marketing message (what). The intrusiveness of advertisements may be moderated by the utility that consumers derive from the content (Li et al., 2002). It may be difficult to create universally relevant marketing communication content, as relevance is most likely consumer specific. In other words something that is relevant for one consumer is probably less relevant for another. High relevance may have two roots. High commitment to a certain brand or service provider may make the consumer more responsive to marketing communication concerning that specific brand or service firm. Similarly, high involvement in a product category or activity may lead to higher consumer perceived relevance for corresponding marketing communication. Media acceptance The media effect of marketing messages is of interest because new interactive media allow more direct contact with the consumer. Consumer responsiveness and attention to marketing communication is influenced by the situation (when and where) in which the consumer receives the marketing messages. Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

Because of the interactive and personal nature of digital media, the consumers can be in various situations when receiving the marketing message. The medium influences consumer responsiveness to marketing communication by being perceived as acceptable, neutral or disturbing. If the consumer considers marketing communication via a medium as disturbing it may negatively affect the attention to and perception of the message. In contrast, the medium may also enhance the acceptance of the marketing communication if it is perceived as appropriate for the specific marketing communication. Empirical study An empirical study was conducted in Finland in 2002 to explore communication value by measuring consumer responsiveness to marketing communication. In the empirical study we focus on the part of communication that takes place before purchasing and using a service. The empirical data consists of interviews with consumers. The interview concerned consumer perceptions of the relevance and acceptance of marketing communication of different services/products in three media. Marketing students briefed on the topic and instructed to interview a specific number of respondents collected the data among relatives and friends. This resulted in a convenience sample of respondents between 12 and 73 years (median 25, mode 25) with equal gender distribution. The respondents evaluated scenarios of marketing communication based on 15 services and products received by direct mail, e-mail, SMS. Sixty-six respondents assessed 1-4 offerings in 2-3 situations resulting in a total sample size of 1,179 ranging from 60 to 124 responses per service/product, and 297 to 559 for the channels. The situations represented marketing communication of offerings received at home, at work and on the move. SMS was the only medium relevant for respondents when on the move. The offerings included services; printing services, apartment rental services, telephone services, language courses, pizza restaurants, hotel services, and travel services, and physical products; cosmetics, home electronics, furniture, books, grocery products, magazines, music, and office supply. Some offerings are traditional direct marketing services or products, such as music, home electronics, books, cosmetics; others are business items such as office supply, printing services and hotel services. Respondents were asked to assess acceptance and relevance of a number of fictive marketing communication messages on three-point scales. These message descriptions contained no pictures or visual design. An example of a scenario is: “Imagine that you are at home and that you receive an offer via SMS to buy a pizza. How relevant is the offering? How disturbing is the sales activity?”. For acceptance, the scale points ranged from positive, through neutral to negative perceptions and were defined as “I perceive the sales activity as welcomed”, “I have a neutral view of the sales activity” and “I perceive the sales activity as disturbing and do not read it”. Relevance was categorized on a three-point scale as “The offer is interesting, I might buy it”, “I am somewhat interested in the offer, I could possibly buy it” and “The offer is not interesting, I have no interest in buying it”. Findings Findings showed differences in consumer responsiveness to different services and physical products. To get an overview of differences between media and offerings average responsiveness values are shown in Figure 2. Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

Figure 2. Responsiveness to offerings in different media

Responsiveness is overall relatively low for the offerings in all media. Different media resulted in different responsiveness for particular services and products. For example, for travel services there was considerably higher average value for direct mail compared to SMS. Travel services seem to achieve high responsiveness on average, which can be compared to the low corresponding position for home electronics and cosmetics. The variation in responsiveness is largest for direct mail both on the relevance as well as on the acceptance dimension. In contrast the difference in responsiveness between offerings is smaller for SMS and overall responsiveness to SMS is also lower. Responsiveness to e-mail seems to be in-between SMS and direct mail. From this it can be concluded that the communication value shows variation both concerning media and type of offering, which makes it motivated to further explore these issues. Comparing the offerings in the three media indicates different patterns of responsiveness. One pattern characterised with large differences in the responsiveness between the three media consists of travel services, books and furniture. Direct mail shows the highest and SMS the lowest responsiveness for these offerings. Similarly, pizza and telephone services are characterised by large differences between the media, but with lowest responsiveness to e-mail. Another pattern is the direct opposite and is represented with small differences in the responsiveness for the three media. It consists of offerings where the Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

relevance remains stable but acceptance varies, i.e. office material, hotel services, cosmetics, and printing services. It also includes offerings where the acceptance is stable and relevance varies, i.e. grocery products and music. A third group consists of offerings, i.e. apartment renting, home electronics and magazines, with considerable difference between digital media and traditional media. Digital media represent lower responsiveness than traditional media. The fourth group is represented by language courses where SMS alone involves particularly low responsiveness, whereas e-mail and direct mail are perceived equally valued. To sum up, there are many different responsiveness patterns. The specific results are related to convenience sample but indicate that when a company studies their target customers they will probably find different reactions among their customers. Similarly, the situation in different industries will probably be different concerning responsiveness patterns. Figure 3 shows grouped consumer responsiveness distributions. Compared to findings presented previously that indicated low responsiveness, a division into responsiveness groups demonstrates that there are also consumers that are positive to communication. The share of positive consumers varies considerably over products with the highest shares for travel services and pizza, whereas apartment rental services, home electronics and cosmetics have low shares of positive consumers. On the other hand, the highest negative shares are for cosmetics and pizza. There are in other words quite different responsiveness patterns. Figure 3. Responsiveness groups

In Table I, the two aspects presented above are combined to illustrate the responsiveness to different products in different media. The products and services are sorted according to their responsiveness pattern. Responsiveness concerning direct mail is more positive for all products and services compared to the digital media. The responsiveness varies in two ways when comparing different products and services, i.e. either the level of both positive and negative responsiveness is high or the difference in the responsiveness between the media is high. Interestingly there seem to be combinations of offerings and Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

media that are more accepted than others. For example, offerings that frequently appear in traditional direct mail are divided into two categories of responsiveness to SMS, i.e. music and hotel services show high responsiveness whereas cosmetics and home electronics show low responsiveness. On the other hand, there are offerings with no positive responsiveness, such as apartment rental, and cosmetics. Discussion The contribution of the paper builds on introducing a new perspective on marketing communication effects on one hand and on the empirical findings of differences in digital interactive media on the other hand. It was argued that communication value could be measured as consumer responsiveness to marketing communication based on content relevance and media acceptance. Although the empirical study represents a situation with several limitations, it shows the need for further studies in how communication creates value. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that it might be very relevant to consider three different overall attitudes towards communication: the communication of a product or service can either add value, decrease value or it does not influence value. High content relevance and/or media acceptance adds value, whereas low content relevance and/or media acceptance decreases value. Hence, we believe the paper contributes to service marketing research by introducing the communication value conceptualisation. In other words, it includes value-decreasing elements of communication in addition to value-increasing elements. Communication value might be important not only for services but for products too. Gummesson argues that there is no distinction between products and services from a value creation point of view since “customers do not buy goods or services; they buy offerings which render services which create value. The offering and the value consist of many components, some of them being activities (services), some being things (goods)” (Gummesson, 1995, pp. 250-1).

Table I. Consumer responsiveness to different products and services One interesting finding is that there are considerable differences in the responsiveness patterns for different products and services. This finding is similar to earlier studies concerning irritation in advertising (Greyser, 1973; Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985). Differences in communication value may reflect differences in the ways products/services are purchased, traditions concerning marketing of the products/services, Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

or the complexity of the product/service.There are also different profiles for different media. Traditional direct mail seems to have a higher communication value than e-mail and SMS. This conceptualisation used in an exploratory study clearly points to the need for companies to measure the responsiveness of their consumers in order to understand the effectiveness of their marketing communication in different traditional and new communication media. In this particular empirical study the focus was only on a part of what would constitute communication value in, for example, an ongoing service relationship. Further research need to address the customer relationship perspective. It was proposed that communication value is created through four factors, content (what), presentation (how), place (where) and time (when). The present paper thus extends previous research on advertising value by introducing the context of communication in addition to the content of the communication. In other words, by taking insights from the service literature, the paper includes temporal and spatial elements in the new concept communication value. The present study did not account for some important aspects in marketing communication. All these issues represent important areas for further research. Firstly, in the study the communication was not operationalized as part of the firm’s integrated marketing communication, which in practice would be the normative recommendation. The creative element was omitted even if it in practice represents an important issue in planned marketing communication. Moreover, the respondents have evaluated scenarios based on their general attitudes toward the marketing communication. Different results are possible if they had assessed a specific marketing campaign. Thus, an area for future research involves focusing on the creative aspect of the marketing communication and exploring consumer perceptions of how a specific marketing communication is designed. Secondly, the convenience sample represents a limitation of the study. It should be noted that the findings presented are based on a sample that does not represent specific target groups for different offerings. It can thus be expected that conducting the study within the right target group would increase the communication value. Further research on marketing communication targeted at different consumer groups is called for. A third aspect not considered is the consumer’s relationship to the company/brand/product/service. However, even if the empirical study is limited in these aspects it shows that it is necessary to consider that products and services may have different responsiveness patterns. Further studies are warranted from a scientific point of view especially with a focus on understanding how consumer characteristics and product/service characteristics influence responsiveness. For example, for some consumers only some media may be relevant for a particular product/service, and likewise some media may add more value to certain products/services than to others. Fourthly, in this study we applied a traditional communication perspective, i.e. we only explored consumers responsiveness to marketer initiated (push) communication. Thus, we did not study interactivity within a consumer relationship or consumer initiated (pull) communication. Consequently, we covered only a part of what could be considered as the total communication value related to an offering. Finally, the measurement model for studying responsiveness and communication value needs further development. Now a very simple single question measurement procedure was used.


Managerial implications The value added by communication is influenced by type of services and products, media and consumers. The variation in the responsiveness to products and services for different media indicates that it is important to have an understanding of how media adds and subtracts value. The analysis points to the need for companies to measure the responsiveness of consumers in order to understand and enhance consumer perceived value of the communication as a part of the service. On an aggregate level some media are more “difficult” than other (compare Greyser’s (1973) findings). The study showed lower responsiveness to new interactive media and thus suggests competitive challenges in the new economy of online communication. Potentially interactive media are perhaps not as such easy to exploit when we take a service logic perspective based on consumer perceived communication value. Responsiveness to direct mail is more positive for all products and services compared to the digital media. The potential of the new digital media is hindered by negative feelings towards the medium. This indicates that online communication is more challenging than offline communication and suggests that there is a need to make better use of the benefits of online communication in comparison to offline communication. Hence, it is necessary to take into account the consumers’ temporal and spatial needs and focus on communicating the service in the right channels at the right time. By decreasing the communication’s temporal and/or spatial disturbance for consumers it is possible to increase consumer responsiveness to the communication and make the communication more effective. This is important also for traditional offline communication. Also, marketers need to understand that some services are better suited for digital media, whereas other services are more suitable for offline communication. The different responsiveness patterns for the media indicated that although the communication needs to be adapted to fit the particular medium for offerings with large differences in responsiveness, there is also a need to segment and target consumers for offerings where the differences in the responsiveness between the media is low. Taking a managerial perspective, the responsiveness framework represents a new view on marketing communication strategy and effectiveness measurement. A firm’s consumers may be divided into a portfolio of different responsiveness groups. By looking at consumer responsiveness as a function of acceptance and relevance it is possible to see four different situations for increasing the likelihood of getting the consumers’ attention. Obviously, in the situation where disturbance is high while relevance is low it is necessary to focus on both the medium and the content of the marketing communication. In other words, the marketer must improve the value consumers receive from the message content, as well as when and where the marketing communication is delivered to the consumer. Additionally, the creative aspect (how) may add value to marketing communication. Important to discover is who perceives the communication as valuable and why, indicating a need to target the marketing communication only to those consumers that potentially are responsive. In contrast, where the relevance is high (and disturbance is high), the content seem to be valuable to the consumer. In these cases it is necessary to focus on providing the marketing communication in such situations and ways that make it even more appealing. How, when and where grow in importance. On the other hand, in a third situation where the acceptance is high, and the relevance is low, the medium of the marketing message seems to be satisfactory to the consumer. This means that the communication Heinonen, K. and Strandvik, T. (2005), Communication as an element of service value, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 186-198 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09564230510592306 )

is directed to the wrong target group, to consumers that are not interested in the offering. Alternatively, focus could be placed on making the content more appealing, i.e. working on the creative presentation of the offering. Lastly, even in cases where acceptance is high and relevance is high, i.e. the communication is well received it is essential not to forget that the situation may change. In other words, both the content and medium of the marketing communication need to be reconsidered in order to create future communication value that in turn can add value to the services and products.

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Li, H., Edwards, S.M. and Lee, J-H. (2002), “Measuring the intrusiveness of advertisements: scale development and validation”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 37-47. Windham, L. and Orton, K. (2000), The Soul of the New Consumer: The Attitudes, Behavior, and Preferences of E-customers, Windsor Books Ltd, Oxford. Further reading Forrester Report, Lussanet et al. (1996), “The marketer’s guide to SMS”, Forrester Research, Inc., European Research Center, Amsterdam.

About the authors Kristina Heinonen, PhD, researcher at CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, HANKEN Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration and also at Centre of Direct Marketing Excellence, HANKEN and Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests include consumer use and perceptions of digital services, digital marketing communication, as well as the influence of digitalisation on customer relationships. Kristina Heinonen is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Tore Strandvik is Professor of Direct Marketing at HANKEN Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland and is associated to the two research centres. His research interests are related to service and customer relationship management.
