Consumer Behavior - Chapter 16

what are the three common metagoals for consumer decisions?

1) one metagoal is maximizing the accuracy of the decision. the is the only metagoal assumed in rational 2) a second relates to how consumers often seek to minimize the cognitive effort required for the decision. this is often the goal in nominal and limited decision making 3) a third metagoal is to maximize the ease with a decision can be justified

What methods are available for measuring consumers' judgments of brand performance on specific attributes?

A variety of methods are available for measuring consumers' judgments of brand performance on specific attributes. These include rank-ordering scales, semantic differential scales, and Likert scales (see Appendix A and Appendix Table A-3). The semantic differential scale is probably the most widely used technique. None of these techniques is very effective at measuring emotional responses to products or brands.

How does attribute-based choice differ from attitude-based choice? When is each most likely?

Attitude-based choice involves the use of general attitudes, summary impressions, intuitions, or heuristics; no attribute-by-attribute comparisons are made at the time of choice. Attribute-based choice requires the knowledge of specific attributes at the time the choice is made, and it involves attribute-by-attribute comparisons across brands. This is a much more effortful and time-consuming process than the global comparisons made when affective and attitude-based choices are involved. It also tends to produce a more nearly optimal decision. Again, motivation, information availability, and situational factors interact to determine the likelihood that attitude-based choices are made.

What are evaluative criteria, and on what characteristics can they vary? How can you determine which evaluative criteria consumers use?

Attribute-based choices rely heavily on a comparison of brands on one or more attributes. These attributes are called evaluative criteria because they are the dimensions on which the brands are evaluated. Evaluative criteria are the various dimensions, features, or benefits a consumer looks for in response to a specific problem. Evaluative criteria can differ in type, number, and importance. The type of evaluative criteria a consumer uses in a decision varies from tangible cost and performance features to intangible factors such as style, taste, prestige, feelings generated, and brand image.

What is the difference between consummatory motives and instrumental motives?

Consummatory motives underlie behaviors that are intrinsically rewarding to the individual involved. Instrumental motives activate behaviors designed to achieve a second goal.

How can the importance assigned to evaluative criteria be assessed?

Direct methods include asking consumers what criterias they use in a particular purchase scenario or in a focus group setting, noting what consumers say about products and their attributes. However sometimes consumers can't verbalize their evaluative criteria for a product particularly if emotions are involved. Indirect methods include projective techniques which allow the respondent to indicate the criteria someone else might use are often helpful the someone else will most likely be the projection of the respondent and the marketer can indirectly determine the evaluative criteria that would be used.Perceptual mapping is also another technique which involves having consumers look at possible pairs of brands and indicate which is most similar which is second most similar and so forth until all pairs are ranked.

Elimination by aspects decision rule

Elimination by aspects decision rule requires the consumer to rank the evaluative criteria in terms of their importance and to establish a cut-off point for each criterion. Those that do not meet or exceed these cut off points are then eliminated.

Disjunctive Decision Rule

Establishes a minimum level of performance for each important attribute often a fairly high level which sets the performance standard very high and makes it hard for a brand to attain. All brands that meet or exceed the performance level for any key attribute are considered acceptable.

How can knowledge of consumers evaluative criteria and criteria importance be used in developing marketing strategy?

Having context to the processes that consumers use to make decisions allows for marketers to create strategies that intercept and accommodate these processes.

What is sensory discrimination and what role does it play in the evaluation of products? What is meant by a just noticeable difference?

Sensory discrimation is the ability of an individual to distinguish between similar stimuli. Individuals typically don't notice relatively small differences between brands or changes in brand attributes. The just noticeable difference is referred to as the minimum amount that one brand can differ from another with the difference still being noticed.

Compensatory decision rule

States that the brand that rates highest on the sum of the consumer's judgements of the relevant evaluative criteria will be chosen. This can be illustrated as R(b)=i=1nW(i) B(ib)

What are surrogate indicators? How are they used in the consumer evaluation process?

Surrogate indicators are attributes used to stand for or indicate another attribute, consumers often use multiple factors such as price, advertising, intensity, warranties, brand, and country of origin as surrogate indicators of quality Surrogate indicators operate more strongly when consumers lack the expertise to make informed judgments on their own, when consumer motivation or interest in the decision is low, and when other quality-related information is lacking.

What factors influence the importance of evaluative criteria?

The importance of evaluative criteria can be measured by direct or indirect methods. The common sum scale is often the most common method of direct measurement, the most common indirect measurement approach is conjoint analysis where the consumer is presented with a set of products or product descriptions in which the evaluative criteria vary.

What is the conjunctive decision rule?

When a consumer establishes a minimum required performance standards for each evaluative criterion and selects the first or all brands that meet or exceed these minimum standards.

How can knowledge of the decision rules consumers might use in a certain purchase assist a firm in developing marketing strategy.

You can structure the presentation of different products to different audiences to maximize sales.

Lexicographic Decision Rule

It requires the consumer to rank the criteria in order of importance. The consumer then selects the brand that performs best on the most important attributes. If two or more brands tie on this attribute they evaluated, they move to the second most important attribute.

bounded rationality

a limited capacity for processing information

rational choice theory

implicitly or explicitly assumes a number of things about consumer choice that are often not true 1) consumers seek one optimal solution to a problem and choose on that basis 2) consumers have the skill and motivation to find the optimal solution 3) the optimal solution does not change as a function of situational factors such as time pressure, task definition, or competitive context

what is affective choice and when is it most likely to occur

process in which consumers make a choice based on how they think the product will make them feel. consumer use of the affective choice process is affected by underlying purchase motives. Affective choice is most likely when the underlying motive is consummatory rather than instrumental.

metagoal

the general nature of the outcome being sought