Consumer Behavior, Module 6

A low-effort situation is when

Consumers are either unwilling or unable to exert a lot of effort or devote emotional resources to processing the central idea behind a marketing communication

Consumers are unlikely to think about

What the product means to them, feel strong emotions toward the brand, or generate arguments against or in support of the brand message

Consumers are passive recipients of the message and usually

Do not form strong beliefs or accessible, persistent, resistant, or confident attitudes

Marketers must use a strategy that takes into account

The effects of lower-level processing

Peripheral route to persuasion is defined as

Aspects other than key message arguments that are used to influence attitudes

Peripheral route to persuasion isn’t based on detailed consideration of the message or their ability to relate to the brand empathetically but rather on

Other easily processed aspects of the message

Peripheral cues are

Easily processed aspects of a message, such as music, an attractive source, picture, or humor

Marketers can try to design their ads to enhance the

Likelihood that consumers’ thoughts (the cognitive base), feelings (the affective base), or both will be favorable

Recent research indicates that much processing in low-effort situations occurs

Below conscious awareness

Consumers form attitudes on both cognitive and affective bases without

Being aware of how or why they have done so

Thin-slice judgements are

Evaluations made after very brief observations

Body feedback can influence

Attitudes and behaviors in some circumstances

Marketers can try to enhance thin-slice judgments and induce positive body feedback, even though

Consumers will not be consciously aware of these influences

Make product packaging intriguing and attractive enough to cause

Consumers to pick up a product

Aim to have consumers read

Ad copy from top to bottom (and then from bottom to top) to simulate nodding “yes”

Pay close attention to

Placement of images within the message

Marketers may actually be more successful in changing beliefs based on

Low processing effect than when consumers’ processing effort is high

Attitudes of low-effort consumers may be less resistant to

Attack than those of high-effort consumers

Consumers may acquire simple beliefs by forming

Simple inferences based on simple associations (peripheral cues)

Consumers can form simple beliefs based on

Attributions or explanations for an endorsement

Consumers can also form

Heuristics

Heuristics are

Simple rules of thumb that are used to make judgments

“If it is a well-known brand, it must be good” to infer that

Brands with more frequent ads are also higher quality

Frequency heuristic is a

Belief based simply on the number of supporting arguments or amount of repetition

Truth effect is when

Consumers believe a statement simply because it has been repeated a number of times

Marketers need to consider multiple factors when trying to influence cognitive attitudes:

• The strength and importance of consumers’ beliefs

• The likelihood that consumers will form favorable beliefs based on the inferences, attributions, and heuristics that use in processing the message

Marketers must consider three major characteristics of a communication:

• The source

• The message

• The context in which the message is delivered and the use of repetition

Credible sources can serve as peripheral cues:

• Using an endorser who does not advertise many other products

• The language used when communicating about the product

The message itself can

Influence attitudes when processing effort is low

Self-referencing is when you

Relate a message to one’s own experience or self-image

Marketers can increase self-referencing by:

• Directly instructing consumers to self-reference

• Using the word “you“ in the ad

• Asking rhetorical questions

• Showing visuals of situations to which consumers can easily relate

Mystery ads can

Arouse consumers’ curiosity and involvement

Mystery ad is an

Ad in which the brand is not identified until the end of the message

Marketers can also employ techniques to increase

Situational involvement and processing effort

The context in which the message is delivered can affect the strength of

Consumers’ beliefs and the prominence (or salience) of those beliefs

Incidental learning is

Learning that occurs from repetition rather than from conscious processing

Repetition can:

• Enhance brand awareness

• Make a brand name more familiar and easier to recognize in the store

• Increase the likelihood that consumers will remember the brand and be better able to process it when making a purchase decision

• Increase consumers’ confidence in the brand

• Make claims more believable

Attitudes can also be based on consumers’

Affective or emotional reactions to these easily processed peripheral cues

Mere exposure effect is when

Familiarity leads to a consumer’s liking an object

Wearout is

Becoming bored with a stimulus

Classical conditioning is defined as

Producing a response to a stimulus by repeatedly pairing it with another stimulus that automatically produces this response

Evaluative conditioning is a

Special case of classical conditioning, producing an affective response by repeatedly pairing a neutral conditioned stimulus with an emotionally charged unconditioned stimulus

Research suggests that conditioning is most likely to occur under the following circumstances:

• The conditioned stimuli-unconditioned stimuli link is relatively novel or unknown

• The CS precedes the unconditioned stimulus (forward conditioning)

• The CS is paired consistently with the UCS

• The consumer is aware of the link between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli

• Allowing consumers to experience emotional information enhances people’s attitudes toward the conditioned stimulus

Another concept that has been useful in understanding the affective bases of attitudes in low-effort situations is

The consumer’s attitude toward the ad (A_ad)

Consumers’ attitude towards ads may be the best indicator of

Advertising effectiveness

Dual-mediation hypothesis explains how

Attitudes toward the ad influence brand attitudes

Marketers may be able to make consumers’

Attitude toward the brand, A_b more positive by providing ads that please consumers (using humor, music, pleasant pictures, and sex)

The effect of ad attitudes on A_b may depend on whether

Consumers already have a strong attitude toward the brand

The effect of A_ad on attitude toward the brand

Dissipates over time

Affective attitudes can also be influenced by

The consumer’s mood

Mood can bias attitudes in a

Mood-congruent direction

Mood differs from classical conditioning in two important ways:

• Does not require a repeated association between two stimuli

• Can affect consumers’ evaluation of any object, not just the stimulus

Retailers can use physical surroundings and the behavior of store employees to put

Consumers in a good mood

Brighter in-store lighting tends to

Increase the extent to which shoppers examine and handle merchandise

A salesperson’s mood can also

Influence consumers

The same three factors that influence cognitive reasoning also influence affective attitudes:

• The communication source

• The message

• The context

Under conditions of low effort, two factors play a major role in determining whether or not the communication source evokes favorable affective reactions:

• Its physical attractiveness

• Its likability

Marketers frequently use pleasant pictures to

Influence consumers’ message processing

Visual stimuli can serve as a

Conditioned stimulus, affect consumers’ mood, or make an ad likable by making it interesting

Pleasant pictures can affect

Ad and A_b when they are processed peripherally

Online marketers can customize

Image delivery

Music is also frequently used as

A communications tool

Music can be an effective conditioned stimulus for

A classical strategy

Music can put the consumer in a positive mood and lead to

The development of positive attitudes

Music can be effective in generating

Positive feelings such as happiness, serenity, excitement, and sentimentality

Background music in ads can stimulate

Emotional memories of experiences or situations

Reaction to music can

Depend on consumers’ mood

Marketers must match their music to the

Desired affective responses

Humor can increase

Consumers’ liking of the ad and the brand

Humor tends to work best on

TV and radio

Humor is more effective with certain

Audiences than with others

Humor appears to be more effective for consumers who have either a

Lower need for cognition or a positive attitude toward the advertised brand

Humor can be used effectively throughout the

World, but its effect varies from culture to culture

Sex as a communication technique appears in two major forms:

• Sexual suggestiveness

• Nudity

In recent years, public response and regulatory scrutiny have prompted some advertisers to

Tone down their use of sexual references and imagery in traditional advertising

Sexual messages attract the consumer’s attention and can evoke

Emotional responses which in turn can affect consumers’ moods and their attitudes toward the ad and the brand

Sexual messages may also create negative feelings such as

Embarrassment, disgust, or uneasiness

Consumers’ response often depends on whether the sexual content is

Appropriate for the product/service

Consumer reaction to sexual messages

Varies from culture to culture

Emotional appeals can also be

Used effectively

Concrete emotional appeals are more effective in

Stimulating short-term behavioral intentions

Abstract emotional appeals are more effect in

Stimulating long-term intentions

Higher emotionality in communications can

Lower status perceptions

Transformational advertising includes

Ads that try to increase emotional involvement with the product or service

Dramas are

Ads with characters, a plot, and a story

The program or editorial context in which an ad appears can also affect

Consumers’ evaluation of the message

Ads embedded in a happy TV program may be evaluated more

Positively than those in sad programs

How well we like the program can affect

Our feelings about the ad and the brand

Programs influence us to process information in a

Manner consistent with our mood

A TV program can become too arousing and can therefore

Distract viewers from the ads