MKT 320 Exam 2
Discuss how perception can enhance strategies for retailing, branding, advertising, and packaging
marketers use their knowledge of perception to enhance strategies in a number of areas including retailing, branding, advertising, and packaging. for retailing, issues surrounding store and shelf location are important determinants of perception. for branding, issues surrounding the selection of brand names, extensions, and appropriate logos have important implications for perception. advertising strategies and media selection are heavily influenced by considering factors that enhance exposure and attention. packaging is a functional aspect of products, but also perceptual in that it can capture consumers attention and influence their brand interpretations.
Explain general lifestyles typologies and summarize those for VALS and PRIZM
at the other extreme, marketers can study the general lifestyle patterns of a population. these general lifestyle approaches are not specific to any one product or activity, so they have broad applicability in developing marketing strategies for a wide range of products and brands. general approaches include VALS and PRIZM. the VALS system divides the US into 8 groups- innovators, thinkers, believers, achievers, strivers, experiencers, makers, and survivors. these groups were derived on the basis of two dimensions. the first primary motivation, has three categories: ideals (those guided by their basic beliefs and values); achievement (those striving for a clear social position and influenced by others); and self expression (those who seek self expression, physical activity, variety, and excitement). the second dimension is the physical, mental and material resources to pursue ones dominant motivation. geo demographic analysis is based on the premise that individuals with similar lifestyles tend to live near each other. PRIZM is a system that examines demographic and consumption data down to the individual household with 66 lifestyle segments organized around social groupings and life stage.
Explain attention, the factors that affect it, and the resulting marketing implications
attention occurs when the stimulus activates one or more of the sensory receptors and the resulting sensations go into the brain for processing. people selectively attend to stimuli as a function of stimulus, individual, and situational factors. stimulus factors are physical characteristics of the stimulus itself, such as contrast, size, intensity, attractiveness, color, movement, position, isolation, format, and information quantity. individual factors are characteristics of the individual, such as motivation and ability. situational factors include stimuli in the environment other than the focal stimulus and temporary characteristics of the individual that are induced by the environment. clutter and program involvement are situational factors of particular interests to marketers. marketers can utilize all these factors to develop stimuli that attract consumer attention in todays cluttered environment. nonfocused attention occurs when a person takes in information without deliberate effort. hemispheric lateralization is a term applied to activities that take place on each side of the brain. the left side of the brain is concerned primarily with those activities typically called rational thought and the ability to be conscious and report what is happening. the right side of the brain deals with pictorial, geometric, timeless, and nonverbal information without the individuals being able to verbally report it. a message presented so fast or so softly or so masked by other messages that one is not aware of seeing or hearing it is called subliminal message. subliminal messages have generated a great deal of interest but are not generally thought to affect brand choice or other aspects of consumer behavior in a meaningful way.
Define attitude and its role in consumer behavior
attitude can be defines as the way people think, feel, and act toward some aspect of their environment. a result of all the factors discussed so far in the text, attitudes influence, as well as reflect, the lifestyle individuals persue
Discuss attitude change strategies associated with each attitude component
attitude change strategies can focus on affect, behavior, cognition, or some combination. attempts to change affect generally rely on classical conditioning. change strategies focusing on behavior rely more on operant conditioning. changing cognitions usually involves information processing and cognitive learning. it can involve changing beliefs about such things as a brands attribute levels, shifting the importance of a given attribute, adding beliefs about new attributes, or changing the perceived ideal point for a specific attribute or for the brand concept level
Summarize the three components of attitudes
attitudes have three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. the cognitive component consists of the individuals beliefs or knowledge about the object. it is generally assessed by using a version of the multiattribute attitude model. feelings or emotional reactions to an object represents the affective component of the attitude and can be assessed in various ways including AdSAM. the behavioral intentions with respect to specific attributes of the object or the overall object. in general, all three components tend to be consistent with each other. however a number of factors can create inconsistencies, and marketers must understand and incorporate these in their marketing research and communication strategies.
Understand the application of learning to brand positioning, equity, and leverage.
brand image, a market segment or individual consumers schematic memory of a brand, is a major focus of marketing activity. product positioning is a decision by a marketer to attempt to attain a defined and differentiated brand image, generally in relation to specific competitors. a brand image that matches a target markets needs and desires will be valued by that market segment. such a brand is said to have brand equity because consumers respond favorably toward it in the market. in addition, these consumers may be willing to assume that other products with the same brand name will have some of the same features, which relates to how consumers learn to generalize from one stimulus to another. introducing new products under the same name as an existing product is referred to as brand leverage or brand extension.
Discuss segmentation and product development applications of attitudes.
consumer evaluations, feelings, and beliefs about specific product features from the basis for market segmentation strategies, such as benefit segmentation, and for new product development strategies
Distinguish the different processes underlying high and low involvement learning.
consumers learn in various ways, which can be broadly classified into high versus low involvement learning. high involvement learning occurs when an individual is motivated to acquire the information. low involvement learning occurs when an individual is paying only limited or indirect attention to an advertisement or other message. low involvement learning tends to be limited as a result of a lack of elaborative activities. learning can also be classified as either conditioned or cognitive. there are two forms of conditioned learning- classical and operant. classical conditioning attempts to create an association between a stimulus (ex. brand name) and some response (ex. behavior or feeling) and is generally low involvement in nature. operant conditioning attempts to create an association between a response (ex. buying a brand) and some outcome (ex. satisfaction) that serves to reinforce and is generally high involvement in nature. the cognitive approach to learning encompasses the mental activities of humans as they work to solve problems, cope with complex situations, or function effectively in their environment. cognitive learning includes iconic role learning (generally low involvement), vicarious learning/modeling (low or high involvement), and analytical reasoning (generally high involvement). stimulus generalization is one way of transferring learning by generalizing from one stimulus situation to other, similar ones. stimulus discrimination refers to the opposite process of learning-responding differently to somewhat similar stimuli. the ability of consumers to differentiate and generalize is critical for successful brand positioning and leverage
Explain exposure, the types of exposure and the resulting marketing implications
exposure occurs when a stimulus comes within range of an individuals primary sensory receptors. people are exposed to only a small fraction of the available stimuli. and when consumers actively avoid certain marketing stimuli, this is referred to as selective exposure. selective exposure in the advertising area is termed ad avoidance. marketers try to overcome avoidance by using tactics such as a product placement and hybrid ads. it should be noted, however, that consumers seek out some marketing stimuli voluntarily. examples include super bowl ads, ads that go viral online, and company based e-mails that consumers choose to receive through permission based marketing
Explain interpretation, the factors that affect it, and the resulting marketing implications
interpretation is the assignment of meaning to stimuli that have been attended to. interpretation tends to be relative rather than absolute (perceptual relativity) and subjective rather than objective. two general forms of interpretation are cognitive and affective. cognitive interpretation appears to involve a process whereby new stimuli are placed into existing categories of meaning. affective interpretation is the emotional or feeling response triggered by stimulus. interpretation is largely a function of individual traits, learning, and expectations that are triggered by the stimulus and moderated by the situation. stimulus characteristics are critical. stimulus organization is the physical arrangement of the stimulus objects and related to the perceptual principals of proximity, closure, and figure ground. marketers can use these principals to design effective communication strategies. stimulus change and consumer reactions to it are also of concern and have consequences in relation to such strategies as "weighting out," whereby marketers attempt to reduce the quantity offered in increments that consumers wont detect. interpretation often involves consumer inferences. inferences go beyond what is directly stated or presented and help explain consumer use of quality signals (ex. higher price means higher quality), their interpretation of images, and how they deal with missing information. inferences also help explain how consumers can be misled by marketing messages even when those messages are literally true.
Describe the nature of learning and memory
learning is any change in the content or organization of long term memory or behavior and is the result of information processing. information processing is a series of activities by which stimuli are perceived, transformed into information, and stored. the four activities in the series are exposure, attention, interpretation and memory. thus memory is both an outcome of learning and a part of the process of learning. for example, when interpreting the price of a brand, consumers may retrieve information about competitor prices (prior learning) and once the comparison is made, store their price perception about the new brand in memory (new learning)
Define lifestyle and its relationship to the self concept and to psychographics
lifestyle can be defined simply as how one lives. it is a function of a persons inherent individual characteristics that have been shaped through social interaction as the person moves through his or her life cycle. it is how an individual expresses ones self concept through actions. psychographics is the primary way that lifestyle is made operationally useful to marketing managers. this is a way of describing the psychological makeup or lifestyle of consumers by assessing such lifestyles dimensions as activities, interests, opinions, values, and demographics. lifestyle measures can be macro and reflect how individuals live in general, or micro and describe their attitudes and behaviors with respect to a specific product category or activity
Explain the types of memory and memory's role in learning
memory is the result of learning, which involves information processing. most commonly, information goes directly into short term memory for processing, where two basic activities occur- maintenance rehearsal and elaborative activities. maintenance rehearsal is the continual repetition of a piece of information in order to hold it in current memory. long term memory is information from previous information processing that has been stored for future use. long term memory undergoes continual restructuring as new information is acquired. information is stored in long term memory in associative networks, or schemas. consumers often organize information in long term memory about brands in the form of brand schemas. these schemas represent the brands image in terms of key attributes, feelings, experiences and so on
Summarize the factors affecting information retrieval from memory
once learned, information is retrieved from long term memory for use in evaluations and decisions. retrieval failures or extinction of a learned response represents a reduction in marketing effectiveness. retrieval depends on strength of initial learning, memory interference, and the response environment. strength of learning depends on six basic factors: importance, message involvement, reinforcement, mood, repetition, and dual coding. importance refers to the value that the consumer places on the information to be learned-greater importance increases learning and retrieval. reinforcement is anything that increases the likelihood that a response will be repeated in the future-the greater the reinforcement, the greater the learning and retrieval. mood is the temporary mental state or feeling of the consumer. learning and memory appear to be greater in positive mood conditions. repetition refers to the number of times that we are exposed to the information or that we engage in a behavior. repetition increases learning and memory but can also lead to wearout. dual coding involves creating multiple complementary pathways to a concept in long term memory. dual coding increases learning and retrieval. memory interference occurs when consumers have difficulty retrieving a specific piece of information because other related information in memory gets in the way. a common form of memory interference is due to competitive advertising. competitive interference increases with increased advertising clutter. but it can be reduced by avoiding competitive clutter, strengthening learning, reducing similarity to competitor ads, and providing retrieval cues. the response environment can also be critical to retrieval. matching the response environment to the learning environment, or matching the learning environment to the response environment can enhance the ease and likelihood of retrieval.
Describe the nature of perception and its relationship to consumer memory and decisions
perception consists of those activities by which an individual acquires and assigns meaning to stimuli. perception occurs in 3 stages (namely exposure, attention, and interpretation). if and when perception occurs, the meaning derived from a stimulus is typically transferred to memory where it is stored and can be later retrieved when consumers are making purchase decisions
Describe the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
the elaboration likelihood model is a theory about how attitudes are formed and changed under varying conditions of involvement. the elm suggests different communications strategies depending on involvement. in general, detailed factual information (central cues) is effective in high involvement, central route situations. low involvement, peripheral route situations generally require limited information and instead rely on simple affective and cognitive cues such as pictures, music, and characteristics of people in the ad (peripheral cues). the elm has found general support however what is perceived as relevant can depend on the situation (ex. attractive model and hair may be "central" in shampoo as but "peripheral" in car ad) and the nature of competition can bolster the role of peripheral cues even under high involvement
Describe self concept, how it is measured, and how it is used to position products
the self concept is ones beliefs and feelings about oneself. there are four types of self concept: actual self concept, social self concept, private self concept, and ideal self concept. the self concept is important to marketers because consumers purchase and use products to express, maintain, and enhance their self concept. marketers, particularly those international marketing, have found it useful to characterize individuals and cultures by whether they have a predominantly independent self concept (the individual is the critical component) or an interdependent self concept (relationships are of primary importance) an individuals self concept, the way one defines oneself, typically includes some of the person's possessions. the self concept including the possessions one uses to define oneself is termed the extended self. marketers can position products and brands as a means to enhance an individuals self concept in terms of the extended self. sometimes products and brands can be positioned to help maintain the self concept as when the ideal and the actual self concepts are consistent. at other times, products and brands can be positioned to enhance the self concept as when the actual self concept is lower than the ideal
Describe the role of message source, appeal, and structure on attitudes
three communication characteristics are important to attitudes. they are source characteristics, message appeal characteristics, and message structure characteristics. in terms of source characteristics, source credibility is composed of two dimensions: trustworthiness and expertise. persuasion is much easier when the message source is viewed as highly credible. celebrities are widely used as product or company spokespersons. they are most effective when their image matches the personality of the product and the actual or desired self concept of the target market. in terms of message appeals, the appeals used to change attitudes are important and are varied. fear appeals use threat of negative consequences if attitudes or behaviors are not altered. humorous appeals can also be effective in influencing attitudes. however, the humorous message must remained focused on the brand or main selling point to be maximally effective. comparative ads produce mixed results. they are most effective for unknown brands having a strong functional advantage. the decisions to use a value expressive or utilitarian appeal depends on whether the brand fills value expressive or utilitarian needs. however, this is complicated when the brand fills both types of needs. emotional appeals have been found to have a strong effect on the attitudes toward both the ad and the product. message structure has three facets: two sided (versus one sided) messages can increase trust and message acceptance, but effects depend on characteristics of the individual and situation. message framing effects- presenting equivalent value outcomes either in positive (positive framing) or negative (negative framing) terms-depend on type of frame. positive attribute framing tends to work best whereas negative goal framing tends to work best. nonverbal aspects of the ad, such as pictures, surrealism, and music, also affect attitudes.
