What is attitude?

attitude for marketers

there is a lot of attitude research because it can be simply and directly measured - decomposing attitude into components increases complexity

Attitude toward objects

Ao: objects can be concrete, abstract, imaginary or conceptual

factors that weaken the intention-behavior link

1. intervening time 2. different levels of specificity * the more specific we are about doing something the more likely we will do it (ex. buying a condo) 3. unforeseen events/environmental context 4. degree of voluntary control 5. instability of intentions 6. new information

Attitude

A persons overall evaluation of a concept

attitude towards one's own actions or behavior

Aact: past, present or future behavior - not always positive, can be positive negitive or neutral

attitude change strategies

add new beliefs, make unimportant existing beliefs salient, change strength of existing belief, change evaluation

Aact and SN

are weighted (the w's in the formula) to reflect their relative importance in a particular context

brand variations, levels of a prodcut can lead to different a0 or Aact

attitudes toward an object is not always the same, ex. you could like a mercedes benz but you may not like buying a mercedes benz

Aact does not equal Ao

because consequences does not equal attributes, actions do not equal objects and social factors are added

bi

belief strength = the probability of association of attribute <-> object measured 1-10 scale anchored likely/un likely

brand equity & attitude

brand equity can be interpreted as positive attitude towards that brand. Marketers can build, borrow or buy brand equity strong Ao

ei

evaluation of each belief = good/bad measured on -3 to +3 scale how strong is it related and is it a good or bad thing take the sum over the number of salient beliefs (beliefs that are activated)

Focus: Aact or Ab

having an object v. buying an object

analyze salience per segment or per situation

how important are these attributes, overall attitude

w1 and w2

how influential your opinion of buying an object or other peoples, w2 could be close to zero if you do not care about what other people think

attitude can be affective ->

immediate/automatic positive, negative or neutral no conscious processing

Aact

integrates beliefs about consequences and evaluations of beliefs with social factors (sn)

attitude can be cognitive ->

integration process produces evaluation attitude itself is stored in memory (no need to reprocess each time) can be positive, neg, or neutral *attitude is important because it is thought to be preceding behavior

Weather Ao or Aact affects behavior depends on

its accessibility or its probability of activation -is salience high? -frequently activated in the past? -strong association between A <-> concept? marketers believe attitude predicts behavior, gives you more info making you better than before, harder to create an attitude than retrieve an attitude

multi attribute attitude model

measured at the attribute level; assumes input from higher in the means-end chain "flows down"

attitude evaluation toward the product

packaging, price, advertisements, sales people, physical and social environment can all have meaningful implications toward marketers marketers must evaluate attitude at the level of specificity that it is relevant to the marketing problem or scenario

levels of concept

product class - fast food restaurants product form - burger pizza brand model - McDonelds burger king brand/model/general situation - lunch with friends, dinner with kids dinner with kids - after soccer game, birthday party *could have a different attitude, same mcdonalds, same kids, different event

Ao

seldom predicts specific behaviors at specific times because of social or environmental factors, thus it assumes -alternatives consciously considered -choose alternative with the most desirable consequence -BI behavioral intention is the consequence and is the best predictor of behavior (b) -B must be voluntary and goal directed Aact(w1) +SN(w2) = BI ~ B does not equal behavior because what people intend to do is different than what they actually do

subjective norm (sn)

sometimes called social norm, this reflects social pressure from salient others

Ao model for marketers: conduct tracking studies

we can conduct studies over intervals and we can see how changes over time -> measure the 4 p's