Consumer Behavior Chapter 9

Short-Term Memory (STM)

(Working Memory). That portion of total memory that is currently activated or in use.

Product Positioning

A decision by a marketer to try to achieve a defined brand image relative to competition within a market segment.

Concepts

Abstractions of reality that capture the meaning of an item in terms of other concepts.

Pulsing

Any time it is important to produce widespread knowledge of the product rapidly, such as during a new-product introduction, frequent (close together) repetitions should be used.

Cognitive Learning

Encompasses all the mental activities of humans as they work to solve problems or cope with situations. Involves learning ideas, concepts, attitudes, and facts that contribute to our ability to reason, solve problems, and learn relationships without direct experience or reinforcement.

Iconic Rote Learning

Learning a concept or the association between two or more concepts in the absence of conditioning.

Script

Memory of how an action sequence should occur, such as purchasing and drinking a soft drink to relieve thirst, is a special type of schema.

Modeling

Observe the outcomes of others' behaviors and adjust their own accordingly. Use imagery to anticipate the outcomes of various courses of action.

Vicarious Learning

Observe the outcomes of others' behaviors and adjust their own accordingly. Use imagery to anticipate the outcomes of various courses of action.

Stimulus Generalization (Rub-Off Effect)

Occurs when a response to one stimulus is elicited by a similar but distinct stimulus. Common and provides a major source of brand equity and opportunities for brand extensions.

Perceptual Mapping

Offers marketing managers a useful technique for measuring and developing a product's position. Takes consumers' perceptions of how similar various brands or products are to each other and relates these perceptions to product attributes.

Brand Leverage

Often termed family branding, brand extensions, or umbrella branding, refers to the marketers capitalizing on brand equity by using an existing brand name for new products.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

That portion of total memory devoted to permanent information storage.

Semantic Memory

The basic knowledge and feelings an individual has about a concept. Represents the person's understanding of an object or an event at its simplest level.

Explicit Memory

The conscious recollection of an exposure event.

Low-Involvement Learning

The consumer has little or no motivation to process or learn the material.

High-Involvement Learning

The consumer is motivated to process or learn the material.

Episodic Memory

The memory of a sequence of events in which a person participated.

Product Repositioning

A deliberate decision to significantly alter the way the market views a product.

Schema

A pattern of such associations around a particular concept. Sometimes called schematic memory, knowledge structure. A complex web of associations.

Conditioning

A set of procedures that marketers can use to increase the chances that an association between two stimuli is formed or learned.

Flashbulb Memory

Acute memory for the circumstances surrounding a surprising and novel event.

Analogical Reasoning

An inference process that allows consumers to use an existing knowledge base to understand a new situation or object.

Learning

Any change in the content or organization of long-term memory or behavior and is the result of information processing.

Reinforcement

Anything that increases the likelihood that a given response will be repeated in the future.

Retrieval Failure

Forgetting. Information that is available in LTM cannot be accessed, that is, retrieved from LTM into STM.

Extinction

Forgetting. The desired response (e.g., pleasant feelings or brand purchase) decays or dies out if learning is not repeated and reinforced.

Self-Referencing

Indicates that consumers are relating brand information to themselves.

Analytical Reasoning

Individuals engage in creative thinking to restructure and recombine existing information as well as new information to form new associations and concepts.

Imagery

Involves concrete sensory representations of ideas, feelings, and objects. Permits a direct recovery of aspects of past experiences. Involves the recall and mental manipulation of sensory images.

Operant Conditioning (Instrumental Learning)

Involves rewarding desirable behaviors such as brand purchases with a positive outcome that serves to reinforce the behavior.

Implicit Memory

Involves the non-conscious retrieval of previously encountered stimuli.

Brand Image

Refers to the schematic memory of a brand. Contains the target market's interpretation of the product's attributes, benefits, usage situations, users, and manufacturer/marketer characteristics. What people think of and feel when they hear or see a brand name.

Memory Interference

Sometimes consumers have difficulty retrieving a specific piece of information because other related information in memory gets in the way.

Maintenance Rehearsal

The continual repetition of a piece of information in order to hold it in current memory for use in problem solving or transferal to LTM.

Accessibility

The likelihood and ease with which information can be recalled from LTM.

Punishment

The opposite of reinforcement. Any consequence that decreases the likelihood that a given response will be repeated in the future.

Stimulus Discrimination (Differentiation)

The process of learning to respond differently to similar but distinct stimuli. This process is critical for marketers who want consumers to perceive their brands as possessing unique and important features compared with other brands.

Classical Conditioning

The process of using an established relationship between one stimulus (music) and response (pleasant feelings) to bring about the learning of the same response (pleasant feelings) to a different stimulus (the brand).

Elaborative Activities

The use of previously stored experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings to interpret and evaluate information in working memory as well as to add relevant previously stored information. Serve to redefine or add new elements to memory.

Brand Equity

The value consumers assign to a brand above and beyond the functional characteristics of the product.

Shaping

This process of encouraging partial responses leading to the final desired response (consume a free sample, buy at a discount, buy at full price).

Advertising Wearout

Too much repetition can cause consumers to actively shut out the message, evaluate it negatively, or disregard it.