Consumer Behavior Test 2- ch 8

Individual Characteristics: Traits:

*specific traits of the stimulus, such as size and shape, affect interpretation.* Physiological and psychological traits drive our needs and desires. These traits influence how a stimulus is interpreted. (Physiologically Consumers differ in their sensitivity to stimuli, e.g., taste.) (Psychologically Consumers have natural cognitive, emotional, and behavioral predispositions, e.g., affect intensity.)

Stimulus Characteristics: Traits:

*specific traits of the stimulus, such as size and shape, affect interpretation.* Color is one trait in which learning affects meaning. Canada Dry's sugar-free ginger ale sales increased dramatically when the can was changed to green and white from red. (Red is interpreted as a "cola" color and thus conflicted with the taste of ginger ale)

Stimulus Factos: Contrast and Expectations

- Consumers pay more attention to stimuli that contrast with their background. - Expectations drive perceptions of contrast. Ads that differ from expectations for a product category often motivate more attention.

Stimulus Factors: Position:

- Position is the placement of an object in physical space or time. - In retail stores, items that are easy to find or stand out are more likely to attract attention, such as end-caps and kiosks. - High impact zones in print ads in the U.S. tend to be toward the top left portion of the ad.

Three aspects of interpretation:

1. It is generally a relative process rather than absolute, referred to as perceptual relativity. 2. It tends to be subjective and open to a host of psychological biases. 3. It can be a cognitive "thinking" process or an affective "emotional" process.

Attention (nonfocused attention): Subliminal Stimuli

A message presented so fast, softly or masked by other messages that one is not aware of seeing or hearing it is call a subliminal stimulus. A subliminal ad "hides" key persuasive information within the ad by making it so weak that it is difficult or impossible for someone to physically detect. Subliminal advertising has been the focus of intense study and public concern.

Voluntary Exposure

Although consumers often avoid commercials and other marketing stimuli, sometimes they actively seek them out for various reasons including purchase goals, entertainment, and information.

Brand Name and Logo Development: Co-branding:

An alliance in which two brands are put together on a single product. An example is "Intel Inside" Compaq computers.

Quality Signals: Price Perceived Quality

An inference based on the popular adage "you get that you pay for". Consumers often infer that higher-priced brands possess higher quality than do lower-priced brands.

Stimulus Factors: Color and Movement:

Both color and movement serve to attract attention, with brightly colored and moving items being more noticeable. Certain colors and color characteristics create feelings of excitement and arousal, which are related to attention. Brighter colors are more arousing than dull colors. And warm colors, such as reds and yellows, are more arousing than cool colors such as blues and grays.

Quality Signals: Advertising Intensity:

Consumers tend to infer that more heavily advertised brands are of higher quality. One reason is that effort is believed to predict success, and ad spending is seen as an indicator of effort. Any factor related to advertising expense such as medium, use of color, and repetition can increase quality perceptions and choice.

Attention (nonfocused attention): Hemispheric lateralization

Hemispheric Lateralization refers to activities that take place on each side of the brain. The *left side* of the brain controls activities related to rational thought. The *right side* of the brain deals with images and impressions

Interpretation is determined by three Characteristics :

Individual characteristics, situational characteristics, stimulus characteristics

Stimulus Factors: Attractive Visuals:

Individuals tend to be attracted to pleasant stimuli and repelled by unpleasant stimuli. This explains the ability of attractive visuals, such as mountains scenes and attractive models, to draw consumer attention to an advertisement.

Individual Characteristics: Expectations

Interpretations tend to be consistent with expectations, an effect referred to as the expectation bias. Consumers often evaluate the performance of a well-known brand as higher than that of an identical product with an unknown brand name.

Stimulus Factors: Size

Larger stimuli are more likely to be noticed than smaller ones.

Brand Name and Logo Development: Logo Design and Typographics:

Logos are very important to brands: Natural logos depict commonly experience objects; elaborate logos entail complexity; symmetrical logos are visually balanced. Fonts also impact the view of a brand. (ex. scripted fonts signal elegance and may be better for a fountain pen rather than a mountain bike)

Attention (individual Factors): Ability:

Refers to the capacity of individuals to attend to and process information. Ability is related to knowledge and familiarity with the product, brand, or promotion.

What are the two types of exposure?

Selective and voluntary

What are examples of stimulus factors?

Size, intensity, attractive visuals, color and movement, position, isolation, format, interestingness, information quantity

Attention is determined by three factors:

Stimulus Factors Individual Factors Situational Factors

What is the boiling frog syndrome?

The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly

Define Selective Exposure

The highly selective nature of consumer exposure is a major concern for marketers, since failure to gain exposure results in lost communication and sales opportunities.

Stimulus Factors: Intensity

The intensity of a stimulus can increase attention. For instance, the longer a scene in an ad is held on screen, the more likely it is to be noticed and recalled.

Individual Characteristics: Learning and Knowledge:

The meanings attached to such "natural" things as time, space, relationships, and colors are learned and vary widely across cultures. Consumers also learn about marketer-created stimuli like brands and promotions through their experiences with them.

Stimulus Characteristics: Changes: Just noticeable difference (j.n.d):

The minimum amount that one brand can differ from another (or just its previous version) with the difference still being noticed. The higher the initial level of an attribute, the greater of salt to a pretzel would not likely be noticed unless that pretzel contained only a small amount of salt to begin with.

Stimulus Characteristics: Changes: Sensory discrimination

The physiological ability of an individual to distinguish between similar stimuli. This involves such variables as the sound of stereo systems, the taste of food products, or the clarity of display screens.

Situational Characteristics

The situation provides a context within which the focal stimulus is interpreted. The contextual cues present in the situation play a role in consumer interpretation independent of the actual stimulus.

Brand Name and Logo Development: Branding Extensions:

This is where an existing brand extends to a new category with the same name such as Levi Strauss putting its Levi name on a line of upscale men's suits

What are three individual characteristics?

Traits, learning and knowledge, and expectations

Stimulus Factos: Interestingness:

What one is interested in is generally an individual characteristic. Snowbaorders would be likely to attend to ads or shop in stores related to that activity, whereas nonboarders would not.

Missing Information and Ethical Concerns

When data about an attribute are missing, consumers may assign it a value based on a presumed relationship between that attribute and one for which data are available; they may assign it the average of their assessments of the available attributes; the may assume it to be weaker than the attributes for which data are supplied; or any of a large number of other strategies may be used. (ex. -The Subaru Outback gets better gas mileage than the Pontiac Aztek. - It has more cargo space than the Saturn VUE. -It has more power than the Toyota RAV4.)

Quality Signals: Warranties

With longer warranties generally signaling higher quality. Consumers infer that a firm wouldn't offer a longer warranty if it weren't confident in the quality of its products because honoring the warranty would be expensive

Attention (individual Factors): Motivation:

a drive state create by consumer interests and needs. Interests are a reflection of overall lifestyle as well as a result of goals (pro guitar player) and needs (hunger).

Cognitive interpretation

interpretation is a process whereby stimuli are placed into existing categories of meaning.

Stimulus Characteristics: Organization: Closure:

involves presenting an incomplete stimulus with the goal of getting consumers to complete it and thus become more engaged and involved. Advertisers often will use incomplete stimuli in this manner because closure is often an automatic response engaged in by consumers to interpret message meaning.

Stimulus Characteristics: Organization: Figure-ground:

involves presenting the stimulus in such a way that it is perceived as the focal object to be attended to all other stimuli are perceived as the background.

Affective interpretation

is the emotional or feeling response triggered by a stimulus such as an ad.

Attention (Situational Factors): Program Involvement:

refers to how interested viewers are in the program or editorial content surrounding the ads (as opposed to involvement with the ad or brand). Program involvement has a positive influence on attention (see graph).

Stimulus Characteristics: Organization: Proximity:

refers to the fact that stimuli positioned close together are perceived as belonging to the same category. Sometimes proximity comes from the stimulus itself.

Stimulus Factors: Format:

refers to the manner in which the message is presented. In general, *simple, straightforward presentations receive more attention* than complex presentations. Elements in the message that increase the effort require to process the message tend to decrease attention.

Attention (Situational Factors): Clutter:

represents the density of stimuli in the environment. In-store research suggests that cluttering the environment with too many point-of-purchase displays decreases the attention consumers pay to a given display.

Stimulus Factors: Information Quantity:

represents the number of cues in the stimulus field. Cues can relate to the features of the brand itself, typical users of the brand, typical usage situations, and so on.

Stimulus Factos: Isolation:

separating a stimulus object from other objects. In advertising, the use of "white space" (placing a brief message in the center of an otherwise blank or white advertisement) is based on this principle, as is surrounding a key part of a radio commercial with a brief moment of silence.

What is the Adaptation level theory

suggests that if a stimulus doesn't change over time we habituate to it and begin to notice it less.

interpretation

the assignment of meaning to sensations. Interpretation is related to how we comprehend and make sense of incoming information based on characteristics of the stimulus, the individual, and the situation.

Interpreting Images & words

the meaning of images/words changes across cultures so advertisers should be careful when moving to a new market

Stimulus Factors

•Are physical characteristics of the stimulus itself. Stimulus factors such as ad size and color are under the marketer's control and can attract attention independent of individual or situational characteristics