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What is Consumer Behavior?

The study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires
Was originally referred to as buyer behavior
But, consumer behavior is actually an ongoing process

Stages in the Consumption Process

Consumers Perspective (CP) to Marketers Perspective (MP)

Prepurchase Issues
CP: How does a consumer decide that he/she needs a product? What are the best sources of information to learn more about alternative choices? > MP: How are consumer attitudes toward products formed and/or changed? What cues do consumers use to infer which products are superior to others?

Purchase Issues
CP: Is acquiring a product stressful or pleasant experience? What does the purchase say about the consumer? > MP: How do situational factors, such as time pressure or store displays, affect the consumer’s purchase decision?

Postpurchase issues
CP: Does the product provide pleasure or perform its intended function? How is the product eventually disposed of, and what are the environmental consequences of this act? > MP: What determines whether a consumer will be satisfied with a product and whether he/she will buy it again? Does this person tell others about his/her experiences with the product and influence their purchase decisions?

Consumer behavior goes beyond the 4Ps

Perception, learning, memory, motivation and effect, the self

Who is the consumer?

A consumer is a person who identifies a need or desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of the product during the three stages of the consumption process

You may be in the consumption process without even knowing it

How are consumers different?

Heavy vs. Light consumers: Heavy users are a company’s most faithful users and use the product most heavily
Building loyalty with existing consumers is sometimes better than trying to gain new consumers

80/20 rule: 20% of users account for 80% of sales
*This is more of a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule

Consumer Demographics

Age, gender, family structure, social class and income, race and ethnicity, geography, lifestyle

Segmenting by Behavior

Relationship Marketing: building relationships between brands and customers is key to success and interaction is frequent

Database Marketing: tracks specific consumers’ buying habits closely and crafts products and messages tailored precisely to people’s wants and needs

Big Data: collection and analysis of extremely large datasets
Consumers create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data a day!

Know the difference between these three

Types of Consumer-Brand Relationships

Role Theory: Consumers act out many roles and make consumption decisions depending on the “play” they’re in

Self-Concept Attachment: Product helps to establish user’s identity (ex. family cars)

Nostalgic Attachment: Product serves as a link with a past self

Interdependence: Product is a part of the user’s daily routine

Love: Product elicits emotional bonds of warmth, passion, or other strong emotion

Our relationships with brands evolve over time.

Need vs. Want

Happiness is linked to satisfying needs and wants

Meaningfulness concerns activities that express oneself and impact others in a positive way

Need: something you need to live or achieve a goal
Utilitarian: functional
Hedonic: emotional or experiential
Want: manifestation of a need determined by personal cultural factors

The changing consumer

Technology has created an “always on” consumer

The Digital Native: Living in a Social (Media) Life

B2C e-commerce = businesses selling to consumers

C2C e-commerce = consumers selling to other consumers

Digital Native = consumers that have grown up “wired” in an always-on world where digital technology has always existed

Synchronous Interactions = happen in real time

Asynchronous Interactions = do not happen in real time, do not require immediate response

Social media platforms enable a culture of participation

Business Ethics and Consumer Rights

Ethical business is good business

When a organization behaves ethically, consumers think better of the products the firm sells

Business ethics

Rules of conduct that guide actions in the marketplace

These are the standards against which most people in a culture judge what is right or wrong

Universal values: honesty, trustworthiness, fairness, respect, justice, integrity, concern for others, accountability, loyalty

Do marketers create artificial needs?

A need is a basic biological motive (physical or mental, ex. need for food vs. need for belonging; a want represents one way that society has been taught to satisfy the need

Therefore, the need can already exist in consumers

Marketers provide particular solutions to satisfy those needs

A basic objective of marketing is to create awareness that needs exist, not to create needs

Do marketers promise miracles

Advertising functions as mythology does by providing simple, anxiety-reducing answers to complex problems

The truth is that marketers simply don’t know enough about people to manipulate them

In reality, the industry is successful when it tries to sell good products and unsuccessful when it tried to sell poor products

Materialism: Are you what you own?

Materialism is an individual difference

Materialists are more likely to value possessions for their status and appearance-related meanings and link more of their self-identity to products

Non-Materialists

Prize products that connect them to others

Cherish items that provide some personal significance

Provenance

When shoppers are willing to pay more for an item when they know where it comes from and are assured that “real people” have thoughtfully selected the things from which they choose

We value items more when they’re “curated”

Curation can refer to travel, art, and food

Consumers’ Rights and Product Dissatisfaction

If dissatisfied with a product or service, consumers have three possible courses of action (you can take more than one at the same time):

1. Voice response: you can appeal directly to the retailers for redress (ex. a refund)

2. Private response: you can express your dissatisfaction to friends and boycott the product or store where you bought it

3. Third-party response: you can take legal action against the merchant, register a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, or write a letter to the newspaper

From the business, any kind of response is better than no response

When are consumers likely to respond to dissatisfaction?

When dissatisfied with expensive products

Consumers satisfied with a store in general are more likely to complain if they experience something negative and feel better if the company resolves the problem

Consumers’ Rights and Product Dissatisfaction

Organizations should encourage people to complain because:

• They get the chance to correct the situation

• They can avoid escalating the problem that results when consumers take to social media

• They collect valuable insights about customers’ experiences

• If consumers don’t believe the store will respond to their complaint, they’re more likely to switch brands than fight

Transformative Consumer Research

How are consumer researchers addressing consumer welfare?

Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) – promotes research for which the goal is to help people or bring about social change

Researchers work with at-risk populations, children, the disadvantaged, and the disabled

Researchers work on topics such as materialism, consumption of dangerous products, and compulsive consumption

Ultimately can influence public policies to make sure consumers are protected

Social Marketing and CSR

Consumers are interested in choosing brands that support causes they find personally relevant

Many firms today try to integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their business models

• Consumer research shows that all things being equal, people are likely to choose a brand that gives back to the community over one that does not.

• Cause marketing is a popular strategy that aligns a company/brand with a cause to generate business and societal benefits

Data Privacy and Identity Theft

One of the biggest ethical issues marketers face today relates to how much they can – or should – know about their customers

Identity theft = occurs when someone steals your personal information and uses it without your permission

• The most common consumer complaint, almost 20% of all consumer problems

• Phishing, botnets, and locational privacy are all major concern Consumers need to make tough tradeoffs between convenience and constant surveillance

Market Access

The ability to find and purchase goods and services

Not everyone has the same opportunity for market access, can be influecned by disabilities, food deserts, literacy

Conscientious Consumerism

Consumers’ focus on personal health merging with a growing interest in global health

Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship

The way organizations approach being environmentally conscious is based on maximizing return in three ways

Financial Bottom Line: Provide profits to stakeholders

Social Bottom Line: Return benefits to the communities where the organization operates

Environmental Bottom Line: Minimize damage to the environment or even improve natural conditions

Green Marketing

Sustainability is different than green marketing

Sustainability: Everything we need for our survival and well-being depends (directly or indirectly on our natural environment)

Green marketing: A strategy that involves the development and promotion of environmentally friendly products and stressing this attribute when communicating with consumers

Greenwashing

While consumers want to choose green products, there’s two reasons why consumers may be less likely to purchase

1. Green products are more expensive

2. Distrust from greenwashing: occurs when companies make false or exaggerated claims about how green their products are

Connecting with nature

Connectedness to Nature (CTN): Feeling close to nature and including nature in one’s own self-concept

An individual difference

Effects of Connectedness to Nature (CTN)

Greater CTN has been linked to

• Positive affect

• Psychological well-being

• Meaningfulness

• Vitality

• Better ability to reflect on personal problems

Effects of CTN on consumer choices

Connecting with nature during childhood can have a lasting effect

Feeling greater CTN can then in turn have positive effects on sustainable consumer behavior

Humanizing Nature

Humanizing nature can increase feelings of connectedness to nature

Ultimately increases consumer willingness for pro-environmental behavior (ex. willingness to choose and use green products)

sensation and perception

sensation: immediate response of our sensory receptors (aka the five senses) to basic stimuli like light, color, sound, odor, and texture

perception: process by which people select, organize, and interpret sensations

sensory inputs: external stimuli that are the raw data to begin the perceptual process

• AKA The sensory characteristic of a product that sticks with consumers, helping them to remember the product in a unique way

• ex. hearing a jingle, feeling a sweater, sampling ice cream

external sensory data can trigger internal sensory experiences

According to the exposure factor leading to adaptation, frequently encountered stimuli habituate as the rate of exposure increases.

hedonic consumption

hedonic consumption: multisensory, fantasy, and emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with products

context effects: sensations experiences that subtly influence how one thinks about products encountered

• ex. standing on tile may influence harsher product evaluations than when standing on carpet

the design of a product is often a key driver of its success or failure

consumers want products that provide hedonic value in addition to its utility

sensory marketing

vision, taste, smell, touch, sound

products and commercial messages often appeal to our senses, but because of the profusion of these messages, we don’t notice most of them

Sensory marketing has proven to be largely effective as a marketing approach.

vision

marketers rely greatly on visual elements in advertising, store design, and packaging

this allows for communication on the visual channel through a product’s color, size, and styling

colors

can influence our emotions directly

red > arousal and stimulates appetite

blue > relaxed

factors that can influence effects of color:

• learned associations

• gender

• age

the color palette

a key issue in package design

trade dress: color combinations that are very strongly associated with a corporation

fashion trends strongly influence color preferences

some firms produce color forecasts that are bought by manufacturers and retailers so that they’re up to date on the next popular color

marketing applications of color

smell

odors and aromas can stir emotions, invoke memories, or relieve stress

smells can increase the length of time consumers spend processing product information

some of our responses to scents come from early associations that call up good or bad feelings…that’s why marketers explore connections among smell, memory, and mood

• ex. Folgers coffee commercial

humans process fragrance cues through the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain and where we experience immediate emotions

sound

audio watermark: music or audio sound that a brand uses as a signature watermark (ex. Nissan)

sound symbolism: the way a word sounds influences our assumptions about what it describes and attributes

• consumers are more likely to recognize words that begin with a hard consonant

• can also influence perception of size

touch

the power of touch is very useful in marketing

endowment effect: touching a product encourages a consumer to imagine owning the product

experience of touch is like a primal language

the need for touch (NFT): individual difference scale, high on the haptic dimension

do you have to touch a product before you buy it?

taste

companies are using the electronic mouth to test new and improved flavors, even for formulating better tasting medicine

cultural factors can determine what tasted we find desirable

a food’s image and the values we attach to them influence how we experience the actual taste

• ex. increased appreciation for ethnic foods contributes to increased desires for spicy food

the perceptual process

perception is a three-stage process that translates raw stimuli into meaning

each individual interprets the meaning of a stimulus that’s consistent with own unique biases, needs, and experiences

stage 1: exposure

exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within the range of one’s sensory receptors (the five senses)

consumers will concentrate on some, be unaware of others, and even ignore some messages

sensory thresholds

sensory threshold: the point at which stimuli is strong enough to make a conscious impact in an individual’s awareness

absolute threshold: the minimum amount of stimulation a person can detect on a given sensory channel

• ex. a billboard with too small of print to read when driving by

differential threshold: the ability of a sensory system to detect changes in or differences between two stimuli

the minimum difference we can detect between two stimuli is the just noticeable difference (j.n.d.)

sensory thresholds - when will we notice?

dual issues of if and when consumers will notice a difference between two stimuli

when is it good v. bad for differences to be noticed?

Weber’s Law: the amount of change required for a perceiver to notice a change systematically relates to the intensity of the original stimulus

• EXAMPLE: A retailer decides to reduce the price of a sport coat that normally costs $98. The reduction in price is $3. The storeowner believes that the reduction will catch the eye of the value shopper. If the sport coat does not sell, the retailer might wish to consider which of the following before making another price change?

the relative difference is what’s important, rather than the absolute difference

ex. a 20% markdown would need to cut a $10 item to $8 ($2 reduction) but would need to cut a $100 item to $80 ($20 reduction)

subliminal perception

many consumers believe that marketers design ad messages so that they’ll be perceived unconsciously (i.e. below the threshold of recognition)

2/3 consumers believe in the existence of subliminal advertising

subliminal perception: a stimulus below the level of the consumer’s awareness

there’s virtually no proof that this process has any effect on consumer behavior

subliminal advertising is a controversial – but largely ineffective – way to talk to consumers

stage 2: attention

allocation of attention varies depending on both the characteristics of the stimulus and the recipient

sensory overload: we’re exposed to far more information than we can process

perceptual selection: because our brain’s capacity to process information is limited, consumers are selective about what they pay attention to

are you a “media snacker”?

personal selection factors

three factors that can influence what we pay attention to:

1. perceptual vigilance: more likely to be aware of stimuli that relate to our current needs

2. perceptual defense: we see what we want to see

3. adaptation: degree to which we continue to notice a stimulus over time

   1. intensity

   2. discrimination

   3. exposure

   4. relevance

stimulus selection factors

in general, we’re more likely to notice stimuli that differ from things around them (ex. we need a contrast)

1. size

2. color

3. position

4. novelty

stage 3: interpretation

we assign meanings to the stimuli we perceive based on our learned patterns and expectations

• this can be influenced by our culture or even the languages we speak

schema: set of beliefs; the meanings we assign to a stimulus based on our schema

• would you buy medicine that comes in a spray can?

stimulus organization

the way we interpret a stimulus is based on the relationship we think it has with other events, sensations, or images in memory

stimuli are often ambiguous: we see what we want to see based on our past experiences, expectations, and needs

interpretational biases

Gestalt Psychology: people interpret meaning from the totality of stimuli rather than any one single stimulus

What does this mean for consumers and how we organize information?

closure principle: we tend to fill in the blanks of incomplete information based on our past experiences (can be true for pictures, jingles)

similarity principle: consumers group together objects that share similar physical characteristics

figure-ground principle: one part of a stimulus will dominate (i.e. figure) and other parts make up the background (i.e. ground)

semiotics: the meaning of meaning

it is how signs can signify symbols and in turn how individuals assign meanings to the signs

every marketing message has three basic concepts:

• object

• sign (or symbol)

• interpretant

signs

relate to objects in one of three ways

1. icon: sign that resembled the product in some way

   1. ex. Ford Mustang’s hood ornament

2. index: sign connects to the product through a shared property

   1. ex. Pine tree on cleaning supply products (fresh scent)

3. symbol: sign relates to the product by either conventional or agreed-on associations

   1. Nestlé (mother bird nourishing babies)

logos require even more thought than products

hyperreality and perceptual positioning

hyppereality: making real of what’s initially simulation or “hype”; one of the hallmarks of modern advertising

our perception of a brand is made up of its functional attributes and its symbolic

marketers can use insights to develop a _positioning strategy and use elements of the marketing mix to influence consumers interpretations of its meaning relative to competitors

How do we learn?

We can learn from our own experiences or learn from observations of others’ events

The latter is called incidental learning

Learning research can be split into two broad streams:

1. behavioral learning theories

2. cognitive learning theories

It’s important to understand how consumers learn about products and services

Behavioral Learning Theories

These theories assume learning takes place due to responses to external events

• Behavioral theorists do not rely on internal mental states to explain learning, they look at external environmental factors

These theorists look at the mind as a “black box” and emphasize observable aspects of behavior (i.e. the things that go into the “box” and the things that come out of the “box”)

Two major approaches:

1. Classical conditioning

2. Instrumental conditioning

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning = occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially doesn’t elicit a response on its own

The process consists of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), a conditioned stimulus (CS), and a conditioned response (CR)

Basic form of classical conditioning focused on basic drives (e.g. hunger, thirst, etc.) – Pavlov’s classic experiment

Conditioning effects become stronger with repetition

The most effective strategy is a combination of spaced exposures that alternate in media type  (TV v. print ads) with spaced exposure

Shari Gomez sees the big red heart on the front of a Cheerios box and immediately thinks of an ad she has seen that discusses the heart-healthy benefits of Cheerios. This is an illustration of a stimulus-response connection.

Conditioning

Stimulus Generalization

• There’s a tendency for stimuli similar to a CS to evoke similar, unconditioned responses

• This is referred to as a halo effect

  • ex. buying off brand Listerine because you recognize the effects of Listerine

Stimulus Discrimination

• Occurs when a UCS doesn’t follow a stimulus similar to a CS.

• Reactions will weaken and disappear

• Part of the learning process involves responding to some stimuli but not to others

Marketing Applications of Classical Conditioning

Repetition – marketers need to expose consumers to marketing communication multiple times

Too much of a good thing can lead to advertising wear-out...when will consumers get sick of exposure? Better to vary the messages for the same product

Conditioned Product Associations – advertisements often pair a product with positive stimuli to create desirable associations (e.g. music, humor, imagery)

Marketing Applications of Classical Conditioning

Stimulus Generalization – often central to brand and packaging decisions to capitalize on consumers’ positive associations with existing brand/company name

Family Branding > positive corporate images allow different product lines (e.g. Heinz)

Product Line Extension > add related products to an established brand

Licensing > companies renting well-known names

Look-Alike Packaging > companies that make generic or private-label brands exploit linkages to premium brands when they use similar packaging

Consumer Confusion: when is one company’s logo, product design, or package too similar to another’s?

Instrumental Conditioning

Also known as Operant Conditioning

Occurs when we learn to perform behaviors that give us positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes, this is “shaped” over time

• There is also punishments in instrumental conditioning

• Negative reinforcement occurs when a negative outcome is avoided, while punishment is a negative outcome in response to an action

While classical conditioning responses are involuntary and fairly simple, instrumental conditioning responses are deliberate to obtain a goal and are more complex

Types of Reinforcement

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How can marketers use reinforcement?

Fixed-Interval Reinforcement = After a specific amount of time, the first response you make brings you a reward

Variable-Interval Reinforcement = You don’t know exactly when to expect the reinforcement, so you must respond at a consistent rate

Fixed-Ratio Reinforcement = Reinforcement occurs only after a fixed number of responses; makes you repeat the same behavior over and over

Variable-Ratio Reinforcement = Reinforced after a certain number of responses, but you’re not sure how many responses are required

Marketing Applications of Instrumental Conditioning

Frequency Marketing – popular technique that rewards regular purchases with prizes that get better as you spend more

• e.g. Frequent Flyer miles, credit card deals

Gamification – adding gaming elements to routine actions

• Important gaming elements are:

  • Dynamic digital environment that resembles a videogame

  • Multiple short- and long-term goals

  • Rapid and frequent feedback

  • Rewards for more or all efforts in the form of a badge or virtual product

  • Friendly competition in a low-risk environment

  • Manageable degree of uncertainty

Cognitive Learning Theory

Cognitive Learning Theory = stresses the importance of internal mental processes

• People are problem-solvers and use the world to master their environment

• Creativity and insight are key

Observational Learning

Observational Learning = we learn from others’ actions and the reinforcements they receive from their behavior

• We are likely to mimic others’ behavior as a social default (especially when we’re preoccupied with other demands)

• Powerful form of learning but can also be harmful

The consumer focuses on a model’s behavior (attention) > The consumer retains this behavior in memory (retention) > The consumer has the ability to perform the behavior (production processes) > A situation arises wherein the behavior is useful to the consumer (motivation) > The consumer acquires and performs the behavior earlier demonstrated by a model (observational learning)

Four conditions needed for observational learning

1. Consumer’s attention must be directed to the appropriate model that the consumer wants to emulate for reasons of attractiveness, competence, status, or similarity

2. Consumer must remember what the model says or does

3. Consumer must convert this information into actions

4. Consumer must be motivated to perform these actions

“Red sneakers” effect

Think: How can marketers apply observational learning? What about commercials?

How do we learn to be consumers?

We’re not born with consumer powers

Consumer Socialization = process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, attitudes relevant to functioning in the marketplace

Brand preferences and product knowledge that occurs in childhood persists later on

Where do we get our knowledge from as kids?

Parents’ Influence

Parents influence consumer socialization directly and indirectly

• Control contact with other information sources (e.g. TV, salespeople, peers)

• Serve as models for observational learning – helps create brand loyalty

Parents use different styles in socializing their kids

• Authoritarian – restrictive, and emotionally uninvolved; censor types of media and have negative views of advertising

• Neglecting – parents don’t exercise much control over what their kids do

• Indulgent – communicate more with their kids about consumption-related matters and are less restrictive; want their kids to learn about the marketplace on their own

TV and the Web: Electronic Babysitters

Advertising influences us at a very early age

• In a 2020 survey of parents in the US, kids age 8 and younger spent 105 minutes a day watching TV, DVDs, or videos (Statista)

• 32 minutes spent reading or being read to

• Total screen time was 144 minutes a day

Cognitive Development

Marketers segment kids in terms of their stage of cognitive development , or their ability to comprehend increasingly complex concepts

Kids differ in information-processing capability (i.e., the ability to store and retrieve information from memory)

• This approach identifies three developmental stages

• Limited – Kids ≤ 6 don’t employ storage-and- retrieval strategies

• Cued – Kids age 6 to 12 employ these strategies but only when told to do so

• Strategic – Kids ≥ 12 and older spontaneously employ strategies

Kids are not as likely to realize something on TV is not real and are more vulnerable to persuasive messages

Message Comprehension

Because kids interpret advertisements differently than adults, advertisers’ direct appeals to kids raises serious ethical concerns

Kids can’t distinguish between TV shows and commercials

• Food companies are taking action to combat growing problem of obesity

• For kids age 11 and younger, companies have promised to market only “healthy” foods that meet standards of American Heart Association or the government

• Companies must now obtain parental consent before they collect data from kids that can be used to identify, contact, or locate them

What is memory?

Memory: refers to when we acquire information and retain it over time; we can recall information when we need it

Our minds are like computers.. data are input, process, and output for later use

There are three stages:

1. encoding = information enters in a way that the system recognizes

2. storage = we integrate knowledge with what we already have in memory and “warehouse” it until it’s needed

3. retrieval = we access the desired information

How do we encode information?

It’s more likely we’ll retain information if we associate it with other things in our memory

Sensory Meaning: we process a stimulus simply in terms of how it is perceived by our senses

• e.g. shape or color of a product package

Semantic Meaning: symbolic associations at a more abstract level (deeper meanings)

• e.g. rich people drink champagne

Episodic Memories

Episodic Memories relate to events that are personally relevant to us

• Our motivation to keep these memories is strong

Flashbulb Memories: especially vivid associations

A narrative, a description of a product in story form, is often an effective way to convey product information

We’re able to store a lot of social information when we acquire in story from

Memory systems

Three distinct memory systems exist:

1. Sensory Memory

2. Short-Term Memory (LTM)

3. Long-Term Memory (LTM)

The Memory Process

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Sensory Memory

Sensory memory stores information we receive from our senses

Storage is memory, just a couple seconds at most

Short-Term Memory (STM)

Short-Term Memory (STM) stores information for a limited period of time and has

limited capacity

This is working memory, we hold information that we’re currently processing

working memory: we store information as we combine small pieces into larger ones

Chunks consist of units of information we can think about (e.g. brand name)

Helps marketers determine how consumers keep prices in short-term memory when comparison shopping

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Long-Term Memory (LTM) allows us to retain information for a long period of time

STM > Elaborative Rehearsal > LTM

This involves thinking about the meaning of a stimulus and relating it to other information already in memory

It helps to remember using jingles or catchy slogans that consumers can repeat on their own

How do we store information?

There are differing theories as to whether STM and LTM are connected

Multiple-Store: considers STM and LTM as two separate systems

Activation Models of Memory: the more effort it takes to process information (deep processing), the more likely that the information will become LTM

Associative Networks

Incoming pieces of information get stored in an associative network that contains many bits of related information

Knowledge Structures: Think of a spider web of information

We interpret new, incoming information to be consistent with the structures we’ve created

Apply to CB: How can marketers position a new brand to fit a network?

Spreading Activation

Spreading Activation: activating memory directly (e.g. brand showing a picture of a package) or indirectly when linked to something else related to our knowledge structure; by activating one node, we activate other linked nodes

Allows us to shift back and forth among levels of meaning

The way we store a piece of information in memory depends on the type of meaning we initially assign to it

We could store the memory trace for an Axe ad in any of the following ways:

Brand-Specific: claims made by the brand

Ad-Specific: in terms of the content of the ad itself

Brand Identification: in terms of the brand name

Product Category: in terms of how the product works or where is should be used

Evaluative Reactions: positive or negative emotions

Levels of Knowledge

Meaning: Gets stored as individual nodes; “Macho”

Proposition: Links two nodes to form a more complex meaning, can serve as a chunk of information; “Axe is good cologne for men”

Schema: Made up of propositions, a cognitive framework developed through experience; We encode information more readily when it’s consistent with an existing schema

Retrieving Memories During Purchase Decisions

What factors influence the likelihood that we’ll remember marketing messages?

1. Situational factors; we’re more likely to remember a pioneering brand than a follower brand

2. The way a marketer presents the message; the spacing effect (we’re able to better remember when messages are spaced periodically)

   1. Easier to recall commercials shown during TV shows with continuous activity rather than talk shows

   2. Viewers recall the first commercials in a set of ads better than the ones they see last

3. The nature of the ad

   1. 3D pop-ups, scented ads, large spreads all help!

What makes us forget?

A process of decay, memories fade over time

Memories of products are often replaced (forgotten) as we learn additional information. This displacement of information is called interference

Think: why do we buy souvenirs and mementos?

Can also occur from interference, as we learn additional information our previous information is displaced

Retroactive interference: consumers may forget stimulus-response associations if they later learn new responses to the same or similar stimuli

Proactive interference: prior learning can interfere with new learning

State-Dependent Retrieval

State-Dependent Retrieval: we’re better able to access information if our internal state is the same at the time of recall as when we learned the information

Familiarity and Recall

When we’re already familiar with an item, we’re more likely to recall messages about it

This is one of the basic goals of marketers with product awareness

Automaticity: when we’re too familiar, we may not pay attention to the marketer’s messages because we feel it won’t increase our knowledge on the topic

Highlighting Effect: the order that consumers learn about brands determines the strength of association between the brands and their attributes

Managers who introduce new entries into a market with well-established brand names need to work harder to create learning and memory linkages

Salience and Recall

Salience: level of activation of a thought in memory

von Restorff Effect: almost any technique that increases the novelty of a stimulus also improves recall

• This can include ads with surprise elements or mysteries

The intensity and type of emotions we experience also affect the way we recall the event later

We recall mixed emotions differently than unipolar emotions

Unipolar emotions become more polarized over time

The Viewing Context

The show in which an ad appears influences the ad’s impact

Viewers are almost one-third more likely to remember brands when the products were placed in shows they enjoy

Also helps when the marketer’s message is consistent with the theme/events in the program

Hybrid ads that include a program tie-in yield better recall results

Pictorial vs. Verbal Cues

We’re more likely to recognize information we see in pictures at a later time

We look at the dominant picture in the ad before we look at the rest of the copy

Pictures may enhance recall but don’t necessarily improve comprehension

How Do We Measure Consumer Recall?

Many consumers don’t remember ads later on

<40% TV viewers made positive links between commercial messages and associated products

65% noticed brand name in a commercial

38% recognized a connection to an important point

For online messages, recall improves when commercials reappear before YouTube videos as well as for mobile ads that pop up on smartphones

Recognition vs. Recall

Recognition test: showing ads to participants and asking if they’ve seen them before

Free recall test: ask consumers to think about what they’ve seen without prompting information first (requires greater effort for consumers)

Recognition scores are more reliable and don’t decay over time like recall scores

Recognition is a simpler process than recall

Both are important

• Recall is more important when consumers don’t have data at their disposal and must rely on memory to generate information

• Recognition is more important when retailers confront consumers with thousands of product options and one must recognize a familiar package

Memory Lapses

We’re prone to forgetting information or retaining inaccurate memories

Omitting: leaving facts out

Averaging: normalizing memories by not reporting extreme cases

Telescoping: inaccurate recall of time

The Marketing Power of Nostalgia

Nostalgia: the bittersweet emotion that arises when we view the past with both sadness and longing

• The good old days

Our cherished possessions often have mnemonic qualities that serve as a form of external memory when they prompt us to retrieve episodic memories

• Can evoke thoughts about prior events on many dimensions: sensory experiences, friends and loved ones, breaking away from parents or former partners

Spontaneous Recovery: a stimulus can evoke a weakened response even years after we first perceived it

• e.g. emotional reactions to songs or pictures years later