Consumer Behavior Test Part 2

What is the definition of learning?

A permanent change in behavior that is caused by experience.

We learn by observing others' behavior.

Cognitive learning occurs as the result of mental processes. For example, observational learning occurs when the consumer performs a behavior because of seeing someone else performing it and being rewarded for it.

Name the three stages of information processing.

Encoding, storage, and retrieval.

It is important to understand how consumers learn about products and services.

Learning is a change in behavior that experience causes. Learning can occur through simple associations between a stimulus and a response or via a complex series of cognitive activities

What is consumer involvement? How does this concept relate to motivation?

We can define involvement as "a person's perceived relevance of the object based on their inherent needs, values, and interests." The word object is used in the generic sense. It refers to a product (or a brand), an advertisement, or a purchase situation. Consumers can find involvement in all these objects. Involvement increases consumer motivation to process information about the object.

The other products we associate with an individual product influence how we will remember it.

We do not store information in isolation; we incorporate it into knowledge structure where our brains associate it with other related data. The location of product information in associative networks, and the level of abstraction at which it is coded, help to determine when and how we will activate this information later. Some factors that influence the likelihood of retrieval include the level of familiarity with an item, its salience (or prominence) in memory, and whether the information was presented in pictorial or written form.

The way we evaluate and choose a product depend on our degree of involvement with the product, the marketing message, and/or the purchase situation.

a. Product involvement can range from very low, where purchase decisions are made via inertia, to very high, where consumers form very strong bonds with what they buy. In addition to considering the degree to which consumers are involved with a product, marketing strategists also need to assess their extent of involvement with marketing messages and with the purchase situation.

Describe at least two alternative techniques marketing researchers have used to measure values.

a. The Rokeach Value Survey. b. List of Values

What are values, and why should marketers care?

A value is a belief that some condition is preferable to its opposite. For example, it is safe to assume that most people place a priority on freedom, preferring it to slavery. Others avidly pursue products and services that will make them look young, believing that this is preferable to appearing old. A person's set of values plays a very important role in consumption activities. Consumers purchase many products and services because they believe these products will help to attain a value-related goal.

What is external memory and why is it important to marketers?

During the consumer decision-making process, this internal memory is combined with external memory that includes all of the product details on packages and other marketing stimuli that permit brand alternatives to be identified and evaluated.

How can marketers use repetition to increase the likelihood that consumers will learn about their brand?

Many classic advertising campaigns consist of product slogans that have been repeated so many times that they are etched in consumers' minds. Conditioning will not occur or will take longer if the CS is only occasionally paired with the UCS. One result of this lack of association may be extinction that occurs when effects of prior conditioning reduce and finally disappear. This can occur, for example, when a product is overexposed in the marketplace so that its original allure is lost.

Our brains process information about brands to retain them in memory.

Memory is the storage of learned information. The way we encode information when we perceive it determines how we will store it in memory. The memory systems we call sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory each play a role in retaining and processing information from the outside world.

What is motivation, and how is this idea relevant to marketing?

Motivation refers to the processes that lead people to behave as they do. It occurs when a need is aroused that the consumer wishes to satisfy. Once a need has been activated, a state of tension exists that drives the consumer to attempt to reduce or eliminate the need. Marketers try to create products and services that will provide the desired benefits and permit the consumer to reduce this tension.

There is a difference between classical and instrumental conditioning, and both processes help consumers learn about products.

Operant, or instrumental, conditioning occurs as the person learns to perform behaviors that produce positive outcomes and avoid those that result in negative outcomes. Whereas classical conditioning involves the pairing of two stimuli, instrumental learning occurs when reinforcement occurs following a response to a stimulus. Reinforcement is positive if a reward follows a response. It is negative if the person avoids a negative outcome by not performing a response. Punishment occurs when an unpleasant event follows a response. Extinction of the behavior will occur if reinforcement no longer occurs.

What is the difference between an unconditioned stimulus and a conditioned stimulus?

Pavlov induced classically conditioned learning by pairing a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a salivation response in dogs (he squirted dried meat powder into their mouths). The powder was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) because it was naturally capable of causing the response. Over time, the bell became a conditioned stimulus (CS); it did not initially cause salivation, but the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of the bell only.

Give an example of a halo effect in marketing.

People react to other, similar stimuli in much the same way they responded to the original stimulus; this generalization is called a halo effect. A drugstore's bottle of private brand mouthwash deliberately packaged to resemble Listerine mouthwash may evoke a similar response among consumers, who assume that this "me-too" product shares other characteristics of the original.

List three types of consumer involvement, giving an example of each type.

Product Involvement, Message-Response Involvement, Purchase Involvement

Products help us to retrieve memories from our past.

Products also play a role as memory markers. Consumers use them to retrieve memories about past experiences (autobiographical memories). We often value them because they are able to do this. This function also encourages the use of nostalgia in marketing strategies.

List the three types of memory, and tell how they work together

Sensory memory permits storage of the information we receive from our senses. This storage is temporary; it lasts a couple of seconds at most. Short-term memory (STM) also stores information for a limited period, and it has limited capacity. Similar to a computer, this system can be regarded as working memory; it holds the information we are currently processing. Long-term memory (LTM) is the system that allows us to retain information for a long period. Elaborative rehearsal is required in order for information to enter into long-term memory from short-term memory. This process involves thinking about the meaning of a stimulus and relating it to other information already in memory.

What is memory?

The process of acquiring information and storing it over time so it will be available when needed.

Learned associations can generalize to other things and this is important to marketers.

This response can also extend to other, similar stimuli in a process we call stimulus generalization. This process is the basis for such marketing strategies as licensing and family branding, where a consumer's positive associations with a product transfer to other contexts.

How Do We Classify Consumer Needs?

Through motivational approaches that focus on specific needs and their ramifications for behavior.

Name the two basic measures of memory and describe how they differ from one another.

Two basic measures of impact are recognition and recall. In the typical recognition test, subjects are shown ads one at a time and asked if they have seen them before. In contrast, free recall tests ask consumers to independently think of what they have seen without being prompted for this information first-obviously this task requires greater effort on the part of respondents.

Define nostalgia, and tell why it is such a widely used advertising strategy.

We can describe nostalgia as a bittersweet emotion; the past is viewed with both sadness and longing. References to "the good old days" are increasingly common, as advertisers call up memories of youth-and hope these feelings will translate to what they are selling today.

Marketers measure our memories about products and ads.

We can use either recognition or recall techniques to measure memory for product information. Consumers are more likely to recognize an advertisement if it is presented to them than they are to recall one without being given any cues. However, neither recognition nor recall automatically or reliably translates into product preferences or purchases.

How do different types of reinforcement enhance learning? How does the strategy of frequency marketing relate to conditioning?

When the environment provides positive reinforcement in the form of a reward, the response is strengthened and appropriate behavior is learned.

What are some strategies marketers can use to increase consumers' involvement with their products?

a. Appeal to the consumers' hedonic needs. For example, ads using sensory appeals generate higher levels of attention. b. Use novel stimuli, such as unusual cinematography, sudden silences, or unexpected movements in commercials. c. Use prominent stimuli, such as loud music and fast action, to capture attention in commercials. In print formats, larger ads increase attention. In addition, viewers look longer at colored pictures as opposed to black and white. d. Include celebrity endorsers to generate higher interest in commercials. e. Provide value customers appreciate. f. Let customers make the messages (user-generated content). g. Invent new media platforms to grab consumer attention. h. Create spectacles/performances where the message is a form of entertainment.

Products that succeed in one culture may fail in another if marketers fail to understand the differences among consumers in each place.

a. Because a consumer's culture exerts such a big influence on his or her lifestyle choices, marketers must learn as much as possible about differences in cultural norms and preferences when they do business in more than one country. One important issue is the extent to which we need to tailor our marketing strategies to each culture. Followers of an etic perspective believe people in many cultures appreciate the same universal messages. Believers in an emic perspective argue that individual cultures are too unique to permit such standardization; marketers must instead adapt their approaches to local values and practices. Attempts at global marketing have met with mixed success; in many cases this approach is more likely to work if the messages appeal to basic values or if the target markets consist of consumers who are internationally rather than locally oriented.

Conditioning results in learning.

a. Behavioral learning theories assume that learning occurs because of responses to external events. b. Two major approaches to learning represent this view: classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning

It is important for marketers to recognize that products can satisfy a range of consumer needs.

a. Marketers try to satisfy consumer needs, but the reasons people purchase any product can vary widely. The identification of consumer motives is an important step to ensure that a product will satisfy appropriate needs. Traditional approaches to consumer behavior focus on the abilities of products to satisfy rational needs (utilitarian motives), but hedonic motives (e.g., the need for exploration or for fun) also play a key role in many purchase decisions. b. As Maslow's hierarchy of needs demonstrates, the same product can satisfy different needs, depending on the consumer's state at the time. In addition to this objective situation (e.g., have basic physiological needs already been satisfied?), we must also consider the consumer's degree of involvement with the product.

Consumers vary in the importance they attach to worldly possessions, and this orientation in turn has an impact on their priorities and behaviors.

a. Materialism refers to the importance people attach to worldly possessions. Although we describe many Americans as materialists, there are indications of a value shift within a sizable portion of the population—and this accompanies much greater interest in environmentally sustainable products and services.

Western (and particularly American) culture has a huge impact around the world, although people in other countries do not necessarily ascribe the same meanings to products as we do.

a. The United States is a net exporter of popular culture. Consumers around the world eagerly adopt American products, especially entertainment vehicles and items they link to an American lifestyle (e.g., Marlboro cigarettes, Levi's jeans). Despite the continuing "Americanization" of world culture, some people resist globalization because they fear it will dilute their own local cultures. In other cases, they practice creolization as they integrate these products with existing cultural practices.

Our deeply held cultural values dictate the types of products and services we seek out or avoid.

a. Underlying values often drive consumer motivations. Products thus take on meaning because a person thinks they will help him or her to achieve some goal that is linked to a value, such as individuality or freedom. A set of core values characterizes each culture, to which many of its members adhere.