Chunking in Advertisement 

Introduction                       

Human mind has a certain capacity to remember and recall information of a certain length (Klingberg, 2009). Therefore, advertiser groups information in “chunks” that could be within the limit of that capacity and possess a range of information for a better recall. Chunking is the process by which different stimuli are grouped together to produce one memory unit for a better recall Babin & Harris (2015, p. 83).  Chunking can also help in appealing to the workbench memory of consumers where they would be able to recall the advertised product or service when they need to buy it from their long term memory. Chunks of information can be organized in many ways to influence the memory of the consumers. Short phrases, bolded words, subheadings, and repetitive layouts etc. are some of the examples of chunking information in advertisement. For this paper, I have selected the information Chunking strategy adopted by KFC to advertise their Double Decker burger. This is an example of short phrases to leave an imprint on the explicit memory of the consumers.

Double Decker by KFC

KFC is one of the leading fast food provider in the entire world. They use different strategies to attract consumers towards their products via advertisement on the television, billboards, internet and the print media. The image show in Figure 1 is one of the advertisement where I believe they have used the chunking strategy to convey more information in two phrases. The main function of these phrases is to emphasize and influence the workbench memory of their customers in remembering that Double Decker burger is huge. The name Double Decker itself signifies an object, a Double Decker Bus, which is extremely big. The other phrase that has chunked the information that the burger is extremely big is “Man Sized”. Man Sized has been defined as “Large enough to occupy, suit, or satisfy a man” (“man-sized – definition of man-sized in English | Oxford Dictionaries”, 2016). This signifies that the burger is so big that it could satisfy even a hungry man. So this burger is big enough to satisfy the hunger of just anyone.

How it Works?

The information chunked in the advertisement by KFC is in the form of such phrases that they are easy to retain and reproduce when a person is hungry. For example if I see this advertisement on a billboard or in a televised advertisement, the phrases will be involuntarily saved in my mind irrespective of the amount of attention I pay to it. Let’s say that I am wandering around in a shopping mall or down town and I feel hungry. I would definitely try to find KFC to try Double Decker burger. Also if I see a double decker bus on the road, it would act as a stimuli for me and it could trigger my hunger and I might want to eat a Double Decker burger by KFC.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude my discussion by stressing the importance of chunking in the field of consumer behavior. Just like KFC, other businesses are using different chunking strategies to make it easy for their consumers to remember and reproduce the latent information through the manifested chunks. I think that companies could rely more on chunking to increase their customer base.

References

Babin, B. & Harris, E. CB7, 7th Edition.

Klingberg, T. (2009). The overflowing brain: Information overload and the limits of working          memory. Oxford University Press.

man-sized – definition of man-sized in English | Oxford Dictionaries. (2016). Oxford Dictionaries   | English. Retrieved 25 September 2016, from   https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/man-sized