Axiological and Praxeological Dimensions of Marketing Communication Effectiveness – A Conceptual Framework

The topic of communication is one of the central issues of modern marketing. It can be said that all marketing boils down to a company’s communication with the market and its environment. From the point of view of management, a very important aspect is the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing communications, which directly translates into the results achieved by the organization.

The issue of marketing communication effectiveness has been studied by many authors (Jerman and Završnik, 2012; Rust, et al., 2004; Smith, et al., 2006). These studies are dominated by empirically proven models of effectiveness based on the variables indicated by the researchers.

For example, Jerman and Završnik (2012) demonstrate that the effectiveness of marketing communication is positively correlated with communication goals, two-way communication, and communication channels. In turn, the efficiency of marketing communications itself is positively related to the efficiency of the entire organization.

Low (2000) developed a three-item scale to measure the three aspects of marketing communications: the extent to which marketing communications tools are planned by the same person (integration), the extent to which marketing communications program elements are strategically consistent (strategic coherence), and the extent to which marketing communications tools focus on a common message (message coherence).

Lee and Park (2007) postulated measuring communication from the following perspectives: unified communication to provide a consistent message and image, differentiated communication to multiple customer groups, database-focused communication for tangible results, and relationships to support communication with existing customers.

Another group of studies on the effectiveness of marketing communications analyzes its individual components from the perspective of effectiveness, such as advertising (Hanssens and Weitz, 1980; Beerli and Santana, 1999) or trade shows (Gopalakrishna and Lilien, 1995). Relationships between different communication activities are also studied and their interdependence is shown (Gatignon and Hanssens, 1987).

The above literature review, which is brief due to the limitations of this test, shows that in the field of marketing communication effectiveness research, there are many models and approaches that lack a common, unified foundation. This article is an attempt to fill this research gap. We propose to consider the effectiveness of marketing communications from two fundamental perspectives: axiological and praxeological.

Adopting an axiological perspective will allow us to focus on the aspect of value that marketing communications deliver to audiences. This is consistent with the science of marketing, whose guiding postulate, after all, is to maximize the value delivered to the customer. It will allow us to answer the questions: what value and to whom are we delivering through marketing communications.

The praxeological perspective (Espinas, 1890; Kotarbiński, 1969) as a coherent theory of efficient action seems to be the best foundation for considering the efficiency of everything, including marketing communications. Praxeology focuses on the desirability of human action and has developed the necessary system of concepts for this. It deals with the typology of activities, combined with inquiry into the reasons for their successes and failures.

This article is structured as follows: in the first part, we introduce the aspects of marketing communication as such by defining the concept of marketing communication; in the second part, we emphasize the necessity of benefit-oriented communication and the community dimension; the third part is devoted to the axiological dimension of communication effectiveness, to identify its praxeological dimensions in the fourth part. The work is a conceptual framework. With the five research hypotheses formulated, it will be possible to verify the assumptions made, which can be the subject of further research.

Marketing promotion is part of the marketing mix, interacting closely with all the others. Marketing decisions regarding the product itself, distribution, and price, however, can be considered as components of building interactions with customers, as well as competitors and the broader economic and social environment in which the entity operates. The intensity of promotional activities and the instruments used closely depend on, inter alia, the type of product and the phase of the product’s life cycle, related to the product’s components – such as brand and packaging. Communication activities are not insignificant in informing and getting feedback on price levels, price changes, and perception. Promotion informs the place of sale and conditions of availability and promotes the synchronization of demand with the supply of distribution channels (Wiktor, 2013).

An organization operating in the market creates, more or less consciously, its own identity, the components of which are attitude, behavior, and visual identity. These identity elements, along with the organization’s mission, vision, and values, and the communication instruments used, are observed by various stakeholders as mediated by their own situation and perceptual structure – including attitudes and goals. It is here that the image is shaped. However, let’s keep in mind that the communication process does not end there, and in fact, being feedback, it does not end at all. Image and identity are thus included in a loop of constant mutual adjustment.

Whether we frame the marketing communication process as geared toward stimulating sales or advocate a more reflective and multifaceted understanding of it, it must be integrated with the organization’s strategy and should yield to a breakdown of communication acts that accomplish particular goals. These goals have different time horizons: ranging from short-term operational goals for individual actions; to medium-term tactical goals, such as increasing brand awareness in a particular segment for the upcoming season; to long-term strategic goals, such as entering new markets or increasing corporate value. They can also have different dimensions: for example, economic when they relate to costs or income, or psychographic when they are geared toward a specific audience. The insertion of communicative acts into the strategy of the enterprise and their inclusion as a concretization of the more general goals of the organization’s market activity should not obscure the fact that the formation of social interdependence ties of reciprocity and generalized trust does not lend itself to explicit planning, and even the strict grasp of their expediency itself can lead to modification of this effect.

Shaping relationships with different stakeholder groups through open communication unrestricted to directly influence the rapid response of the target market can translate into the effects depicted in the diagram distinguishing broad and narrow promotion. Narrow promotion is communication with a limited audience, which is an intermediate link that extends the communication that ultimately reaches a broader spectrum of potential customers. In this context, building close relationships based on shared values, with a specific group of brand ambassadors, can result, even through the use of whisper marketing, in the involvement of further audiences in the communication process.

Broad promotion is communicating with a diverse audience, which ultimately reaches a narrower group of potential customers. Communication focused on building deep value-based relationships can translate into this pattern as well. Here, the organization does not focus on pushing the message through mass communication media, but on creating heterogeneous relationships with various groups: the social environment, influence groups, or media representatives, which together create a climate that is conducive to indirectly communicating the promotional message to potential customers. Communication with groups other than potential customers, the effects of which can be translated into more direct promotional effects, is referred to as public relations (PR). Communication activities in this area involve diverse groups, such as media representatives, politicians, local government administration, and investors. Organizations operating in the market engage in activities aimed at pursuing interests not directly aimed at increasing shareholder value known as Corporate Social Responsibility.

Corporate social responsibility is understood here as a concept whereby organizations operating in the marketplace incorporate social, economic, ethical, and environmental aspects into their strategies and business activities in their daily decisions and interactions with the community. The essence of CSR is a company’s social responsibility for the consequences of its actions toward its so-called stakeholders, i.e., all those who are directly or indirectly affected by the company’s activities and who treat its powers as moral obligations (Wolak-Tuzimek, 2019). It is not uncommon for these activities to be recognized only as a basis for communication within PR, with care of an image, tarnished by previous activities, indicated as their primary goal. CSR as a basis for marketing communications is intended to serve the emotional and moral needs of potential consumers, business partners, and other stakeholders. However, it does not adequately perform the functions of bonding, insofar as it is an expression of a paternalistic attitude of marginal scope without taking into account global dependencies and a deep understanding of local needs, which can only be achieved through close cooperation with the beneficiaries. The solution to this problem is to be found in the concept of CSR 2.0, an integral part of which is the prioritization of the community dimension (Visser, 2011).

People communicate with each other for a variety of reasons – one of which is to obtain benefits. This focus underlies the standard understanding of the concept of marketing communications. When it is included as promotion, its tasks are specified as, for example, stimulating demand, informing customers, or positioning a brand or product. The marketing context of communication is one of many possible views of the process of human communication¹. The presentation of communication in a marketing context is based on a standard way on the transmission model (see, for example, Kotler and Armstrong, 2020), in which a certain portion of information treated as isolated and measurable is transferred, as it were, between successive stations in the likeness of public transportation transporting passengers.

The transmission model in the source view of its creators Weaver and Shannon (Shannon and Weaver, 1949), employees of Bell Telephone Labs, was intended to maximize the efficiency of telephone cables and served to make information a measurable value, and thus the mathematical study of information theory. However, it is not the maximization of the purity of the message or the mathematical measurability of the information that is the primary goal of communication in marketing terms. Marketers’ activities are organized around engaging consumers and managing profit-driven relationships. Marketing communication is sometimes included by marketing practitioners as a promotional part of the marketing mix, and promotion is limited in its functions to stimulating demand for services and products. Both of the aforementioned approaches to the concept of communication can lead to a narrowing of its understanding, and thus limit the spectrum of intersubjective interactions, and inhibit the processes of creating organizational social capital and community values that bind the subjects of communication together.

Marketing communication is benefit-oriented communication, which does not mean that in practice it should be narrowed down to direct interactions with the target customer, with the aim of arousing demand for the products or services offered. The term communication derives from the Latin communicare meaning to share, to take part in, and is related to the Latin communis meaning common (Kopaliński, 1967). This community aspect – communication as sharing – should not be forgotten when considering its marketing context.

Communication, in this approach, is an activity focused on the community dimension, on people joining together in social groups, communities, and associations. It allows for the efficient realization of external goals set by individuals or the group and the satisfaction of the individual’s need for affiliation, as well as the creation of social ties that give the group cohesion, identity, and permanence.

Social groups, that is, individuals interacting with each other through communication, create a sense of belonging and are oriented toward common goals (Wojciszke, 2006). An activity focused on the informational impact on the recipient, with the aim of transforming their consciousness and triggering a purchase need, is not communication in this sense, unless it is aimed at involving the recipient in the realization of shared values and their cocreation.

A multifaceted and in-depth understanding of marketing communications as building a value-based understanding with diverse stakeholders opens the organization to numerous opportunities – including building a cohesive group associated with the brand and creating lasting relationships; but also to threats that, in a narrowed approach, stand outside the spectrum of considered consequences of conduct (Kotler and Setiawan, 2010).

As was mentioned, the goals of marketing communications should be closely related to the goals of the organization. The first recognized problem concerning the most generally formulated goals of organizations operating in the market is the answer to the question of who should be the beneficiary, to whom the hierarchy of the organization’s goals and its communications are subordinated. Two opposing approaches – the concept of shareholder primacy and stakeholder theory – take shape on this most general plane.

According to the concept of shareholder primacy (cf. Rappaport, 1986), increasing the value of the company should be the primary goal of management activity, to which all other issues, including communication, are subordinated. It is supported by a focus on narrowly praxeological efficiency. Subordinating activities to a single specified goal facilitates planning and meaningful evaluation of the plan’s implementation.

Freeman’s (2010) stakeholder concept is considered in the dimension of efficiency, where, with the help of stakeholder mapping, the aim is to improve the conduct of relationships. The concept maintains that corporate management should be directed toward balancing the interests of all stakeholders. This captures the organization as nested in a network of contacts from which it cannot be disentangled. Any attempt at such abstraction must of necessity lead to the elimination of certain real properties of relevant axiological situations. Nevertheless, advocating stakeholder theory raises serious questions about who should be considered a stakeholder and, in view of this, whose interests must be taken into account when setting the goals of the organization and its communications – employees, shareholders, customers, the local community, government representatives … the list can go on, if not indefinitely, then certainly as long as reflection on the direct and indirect effects of the organization’s actions allows. The second ambiguity requiring clarification in each case stems from the vagueness of the term “balancing of interests.” It is difficult to identify clear, measurable markers to determine at what point the balance between the interests of, for example, shareholders, employees, community customers, and competitors will be achieved (Moriarty and Jeffrey, 2021).

It is impossible to organize a company’s external communications around values that are not recognized and acknowledged by its internal stakeholders. In this regard, the question of how communication is built within the organization and who is allowed to shape the values promoted cannot be overlooked. The situation here is symmetrical to that described earlier.

Internal communication in an organization is interpersonal communication. If considered in the transmission model, as the transmission of information, or in the narrow promotional model as a deliberate, planned, one-way effort to transform the consciousness of the recipient of the message and elicit the desired reactions, the bond-forming effects, including but not limited to those related to satisfying the need for affiliation, are limited. Building external communication in the spirit of community formation requires the prior inclusion of employees from various organizational levels in the co-creation of communication and its foundations, i.e., elements of ethical infrastructure, norms, values, and a deeper level of basic assumptions on which organizational culture is supported (Gasparski, et al., 2002). In addition, it should be noted that only such an approach makes it possible to take real care of the defense of workers’ interests, with recognition of their autonomy, and provides valuable, even necessary, training in political processes in the broader society.

Through internal communication that takes into account non-authoritarian behavioral directives, an organization can develop a coherent identity, which is the foundation for external communication that takes into account its community-creative nature. It is worth remembering, however, that the strong cohesion of an organization as a social group does not necessarily translate unequivocally into the consideration of ethical values in external relations. The negative consequences of a strong organizational identity involving unethical pro-organizational behavior have been recorded (Rożnowski and Fortuna, 2020). Therefore, marketing communications planning should be conducted with special attention to its axiological foundation.

As has already been mentioned, limiting marketing communications to either an informational or persuasive function leads to closing off valuable opportunities for building deep and lasting relationships. However, this does not mean that these functions can be ignored, especially their possible ethical implications. From an axiological point of view, the informational function of marketing communications allows the potential customer to realize their autonomy to make informed decisions about the satisfaction of needs and desires. Creating false perceptions about services or products will, of course, be a failure to realize this value. However, many promotional messages do not appear to be fraudulent despite being blatantly false or unverifiable: for example. “Gillette the best a man can get” or “It’s always time for Koral ice cream.” A fraudulent promotional message is when we have a right to expect that a rational person will be misled. Which means that marketing communication presupposes the sender’s understanding of the recipient, the ability to put themselves in the recipient’s place. Fraud is morally reprehensible because the recipient of the message is not treated as an autotelic subject and is reduced to the category of a means to serve market ends. This can, of course, lead to disadvantage to a potential consumer or competitor, but it can also undermine public confidence.

Ethical evaluation of the information function of marketing communications should be combined with ethical evaluation of its persuasive function. Marketing communication serves to provide information about ways to satisfy existing consumer needs, but also to generate and stimulate desires to be satisfied. This situation is not axiologically neutral, but its evaluation is not obvious. All our desires are influenced by our social environment. The question remains whether desires generated in the process of marketing communication are less important than desires generated in other ways (Hayek, 1961). There are, of course, more obvious situations when, for example, advertising tries to persuade the consumer, often by irrational methods, to make suboptimal decisions. This type of manipulation, for example, is associative advertising, which causes people to be misled about the satisfaction of their needs – encouraging them to try to satisfy non-market desires through market means (Moriarty and Jeffrey, 2021).

The above considerations lead us to propose a new perspective on measuring the effectiveness of marketing communications. This is the perspective of ethical delivery of value to stakeholder groups through marketing communications. Therefore, the following hypothesis is possible:

H1: Ethical delivery of value by marketing communications to an organization’s stakeholder groups is positively correlated with its effectiveness.

Interpersonal communication is an activity that people undertake spontaneously, not necessarily pursuing conscious, planned goals. Communication considered in marketing terms is oriented toward certain market benefits, and hence, it is recognized that its results should, in principle, be financially measurable and profitable. However, the sphere of human communication is exceptionally vast, and over-tightening its view, and thus its evaluation, to limited parameters can lead to misinterpretation of communication situations and, in the long run, exposure to specific difficulties or missed potential opportunities.

A certain extension of the field for evaluating communication activity in marketing terms can be praxeology – the general theory of action, which focuses its inquiries on how to act in order to act effectively. Praxeologists detail various properties of the act and the acting subject that can form the basis for their evaluation. Communication, including marketing communication, is, as has been said, a certain special kind of action, so the findings of the general theory of action should apply to it. So, let’s mention the selected qualities of an act that are subject to praxeological evaluation to recognize their possible application to marketing communications. We, therefore, postulate that the effectiveness of marketing communications should be considered from the perspectives of its: purposefulness, accuracy, diligence, and efficiency.

The basis for the effectiveness of an action is its purposefulness. What does it mean that the action taken should be in accordance with the purpose set before it? With regard to this quality, it is worth taking a closer look at what the proper purpose of marketing communication is, and how it relates to the desirability of interpersonal communication. In the most general way, the goal of marketing communications seems fairly obvious – to engage potential consumers and build lasting profitable relationships with them. But what determinants should be used to make sure that specific actions lead to it? To facilitate purpose-fulness, the goal should be formulated as specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound – or SMART. It seems that more specific goals, such as increasing demand, or shifting a specific customer, or target audience, in the purchasing decision process, provide an opportunity to adapt to these requirements. When specifying specific goals, however, one must not lose sight of the fact that the building of lasting relationships cannot take place without involving the community aspect of communication and human affiliative needs. This dimension of effectiveness can be verified by the following hypothesis:

H2: Specific and measurable marketing communication objectives aimed at building relationships with stakeholder groups are positively correlated with its effectiveness.

An action can be described as accurate when its effect is in significant aspects consistent with a recognized pattern. Considering the communication process in the transmission model, the application of this praxeological determinant should not present difficulties. The accuracy of the transmitted information is easily determined by comparing the information sent by the sender with that received by the receiver. The difficulty in meeting this determinant here will consist of the sum of communication noise and losses associated with the processes of encoding and decoding information in a specific communication context. With the axiological plan in mind, accuracy should address, inter alia, whether the product/service that is the subject of the message – presented in the context of the emotional and moral qualities of the brand – can actually satisfy the communicated needs and desires. Verification of the accuracy dimension as a measure of communication effectiveness will be possible with the following hypothesis:

H3: The accuracy of marketing communications, understood as the consistency of the message with reality, is positively correlated with the effectiveness of communications.

The diligence of the operation is the quality by which the product exceeds its most basic functional parameters. In terms of marketing communications, this can mean taking care to ensure that the message is not an intrusive element, disrupting and littering the perceptual field of the recipient – but that it provides some value in itself for the recipient. This type of communication is sometimes carried out using advertainment, brand entertainment, or content marketing², combining entertainment elements or other types of interesting content with marketing messages into a difficult-to-split whole. Attention to the value of the message, in a certain independence from the basic informational or persuasive function, can be considered the realization of the quality of diligence in the marketing communications arena. It is not insignificant in the situation of a flurry of stimuli reaching communication audiences, provided by explosively and autocatalytically developing media technologies. This dimension can be examined by means of hypothesis verification:

H4: Diligence, understood as the sum of the value delivered to the customer by marketing communications, is positively correlated with the effectiveness of communications.

Efficiency referring to maximizing the value of outputs without increasing inputs, with respect to communications geared toward mutual benefit, can be interpreted in the simplest, transmissive terms as the use of tools to expand the reach of communications. In the persuasion model, for example, efficiency is based on maximizing the conversion rate, which determines the percentage of recipients who have completed the desired action. Communication understood as building lasting relationships based on shared values can have a clear impact on performance due to the increase in the CLV (customer lifetime value) determinant, as well as the hard-to-measure effects of whisper marketing that increase reach. The same is true for savings, understood as achieving certain results while reducing costs. Instruments directed at building relationships and shaping brand ambassadors generally do not require a lot of money, although they may have their costs – building relationships takes time and commitment (Kotler and Armstrong, 2020). We can verify the performance dimension and its impact on the effectiveness of communication with another hypothesis:

H5: Efficiency, understood as maximizing the value delivered by marketing communications to stakeholder groups while rationalizing inputs, is positively correlated with its effectiveness.

The praxeological view of marketing communications should be complemented by reflection on the fact that the realization of individual determinants serving efficiency, in real situations, cannot be dissected from non-utilitarian attitudes. The sender’s own benefits in the communication process cannot be achieved without taking into account the benefits of the receiver, and the community of interest thus formed, in order to be sustainable, should include in its horizon directives for behavior that exceed the immediate satisfaction of individual needs with their expediency, toward the formation of the common good.

The issue of marketing communications occupies one of the central places in the consideration of enterprise marketing. In essence, marketing is strictly communication – it implies that a company is constantly communicating with the market and its environment.

A knotty problem for managers, therefore, is the issue of the effectiveness of their communication efforts, as they usually require considerable financial resources. Contemporary research, however, includes many partial models attempting to answer this research problem. These models and proposals seem to lack grounding, do not address the fundamentals of value theory, or make reference to a coherent theory of effective action.

We postulate here that measuring the effectiveness of marketing communications should be based first on the axiological dimension. Axiology will allow us to understand the essence of the value delivered to message recipients. Combining this dimension with the demands of stakeholder theory will allow us to conclude that the community aspect of communication should also be focused on. This leads us to propose the following hypothesis:

H1: Ethical delivery of value by marketing communications to an organization’s stakeholder groups is positively correlated with its effectiveness.

The second dimension of measuring the effectiveness of marketing communications should be based on praxeology. Praxeology is a scientifically grounded and coherent theory of efficient action. Its task is the scientific study of all purposeful human action, including the conditions for the efficiency of this action. Thus, we postulate that the effectiveness of marketing communications should be considered from the perspectives of its purposefulness, accuracy, diligence, and efficiency by formulating the following hypotheses:

H2: Specific and measurable marketing communication objectives aimed at building relationships with stakeholder groups are positively correlated with its effectiveness.

H3: The accuracy of marketing communications, understood as the consistency of the message with reality, is positively correlated with the effectiveness of communications.

H4: Diligence, understood as the sum of the value delivered to the customer by marketing communications, is positively correlated with the effectiveness of communications.

H5: Efficiency, understood as maximizing the value delivered by marketing communications to stakeholder groups while rationalizing inputs, is positively correlated with its effectiveness.

The challenge for future research focused on the axiological and praxeological dimensions of marketing communication effectiveness will be, first of all, the development of appropriate measurement scales for the identified predictors. Some of them will probably be complex in nature, as in the case of measuring the sum of value delivered to recipients, but, for example, the consistency of the message with reality (Hypothesis 3) will only take on the values true or false. Once the proposed hypotheses are properly operationalized, of course, research should be conducted to verify them.

This article can make a positive contribution to the development of management science, as it offers a different, seemingly more universal, and foundation-based perspective on marketing communication effectiveness research. The measurement tools resulting from future research will perhaps also be able to be used in the practice of business operations and be useful to marketing and marketing communications managers.