Consumer Behaviour,
Second Edition
Martin Evans,
Ahmad Jamal
Gordon Foxall
Cardiff Business School
ISBN:978-0-470-99465-8
Chapter 3
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Chapter 3
Consumer Responses to
Marketing Actions: 2
Learning and Attitudes
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Chapter Objectives
• Integrate concepts from psychology within a
consumer model
• Apply aspects of behavioural learning to
increase marketing effectiveness
• Apply aspects of cognitive learning to increase
marketing effectiveness
• Analyse and evaluate different approaches to
explaining the link between attitudes and
behaviour
• Explain different approaches to attitude
formation and change
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Sequential Model of
Response to Marketing
Post-purchase
Action
Attitude
Learning
Perception
Attention
Exposure
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Learning
• One aim of marketing communications is to
create awareness (teach consumers) about
market offerings
• Hence, marketers can benefits from knowing
about how consumers learn about things
• Learning is closely associated with perception –
both are shaped by a person’s motives
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Learning & Memory
Learning and memory are interrelated yet different
concepts. Learning deals with how we acquire new
information whereas memory is the internal recording of
information or experiences and is related to our ability to
store, retain, and subsequently recall information.
Forgetting is our inability to retrieve previously stored
information. This could be caused by many factors
including the probability that the information was never
encoded into long term memory in the first place
(encoding failure) or that, for some reason, we are unable
to retrieve the information from long term memory
(retrieval failure).
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Two Main Approaches to Learning
Behavioural Learning
Classical (or Associationist) Conditioning
Operant (or instrumental) conditioning
Cognitive Learning
Kohler’s experiments
Gestalt Psychology
Vicarious Learning
Measurement of Learning
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Classical Conditioning
• Originally based on Russian physiologist Ivan
Pavlov (1928) who conducted some experiments to
observe dogs’ responses to different stimuli
• His observation: dogs salivated not only when
presented food, but also when they heard the
footsteps of assistants
• Presented various other stimuli at the same time as
presenting food
• Dogs salivated even when no food was served
• The notion of pairing stimuli simultaneously
became popular and is widely known as classical
conditioning
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Pavlovian Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned Stimulus
Meat paste
Unconditioned Response
Salivation
Neutral Stimulus
Bell
AFTER REPEATED PAIRINGS
Conditioned Stimulus
Bell
Conditioned Response
Salivation
Example
Unconditioned Stimulus
Dinner aroma
Unconditioned Response
Salivation
Neutral Stimulus
6 O’clock news
AFTER REPEATED PAIRINGS
Conditioned Stimulus
6 O’clock news
Conditioned Response
Salivation
Classical Conditioning:
Marketing Applications
• Principles of classical conditioning are widely used
• A brand can be simultaneously and repetitively
paired with, say popular music, so that each time
the consumer thinks of the brand the positive
feelings associated with that music are aroused
• Other examples include the use of celebrities in
advertising and the aim is to transfer the endorser’s
characteristics and what they stand for to the brand
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Classical Conditioning:
Marketing Applications
Classical Conditioning
Food
Safety
Salivate
Volvo=safety
Bell
Volvo
Association
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Example: Marlboro
Unconditioned Stimulus
Marlboro
Unconditioned Response
Smoking
Neutral Stimulus
Cowboy
AFTER REPEATED PAIRINGS
Conditioned Stimulus
Cowboy
Conditioned Response
Smoking
Classical Conditioning:
Marketing Applications
Brand associations made by a group of students:
• Volvo = safety
• Gold Gti = sporty
• BMV = quality
• Levi = trendy youth
Try this for yourself. Get a friend
to list some well-known brands
and then to ask you to
spontaneously come up with what
they mean to you.
• Wrangler = cowboys
• Benetton = colourful
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Classical Conditioning:
Marketing Applications
Creating an
association
between health
and looks and
buying a mattress
from Ikea!
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Operant Conditioning
• This approach to understanding learning is based
on the work of Skinner (1938)
• Frequency of occurrence of a specific behaviour
is modified by the consequences of that behaviour
• Learning can be encouraged through the use of
positive and negative reinforcements
• By pairing rewards or punishments with certain
behaviour, Skinner showed that these behaviours
can be reinforced
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Operant Conditioning:
Marketing Applications
• Principles of operant conditioning are also widely used
• A supermarket offers a price reduction of 10% off
everything bought at the time of purchase to increase
the possibility that consumers will repeat behaviour
(shop at store)
• Loyalty Card Benefits
• A charity sends direct mail to consumers with a free
pen; the consumer keeps the pen even though they do
not donate (they are positively rewarded for opening
the mail); next time around they look for direct mailing
from the charity still with no intention of donating, but
looking for a gift
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Cognitive Learning
• The cognitive perspective on learning rejects the
behavioural approach to learning and hence argues
that learning involves more than stimulus-response
processes
• As part of the learning process, consumers can
develop mental associations which may not always be
reflected in overt behavioural changes
• The focus is on what happens in the consumer’s mind
(the black box) and the cognitive processes of
evaluation and interpreting information
• New knowledge is learned and integrated with
existing knowledge
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Cognitive Learning
• E.g. Gestalt Theory (not a person)
• Kohler’s experiments
• Vicarious learning
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Puzzle: Welsh
Gestalt Law of Closure
Just a little bit of extra mental processing can lead to more effective learningbecause we have to engage/participate more so. It’s a example of learning by doing
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Photograph: Martin
Evans
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Reproduced by permission of
Proximity London and
Volkswagen Group UK Ltd
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Vicarious Learning
Britney Spears is a Grammywinning American pop singer,
dancer, actress, songwriter, and
endorsement model. She is also
ranked as the 8th best-selling
female recording artist in the
United States. Despite many
personal problems, she is still
very popular among teenage
girls. This Hidden Fantasy ad
extends her personality to the
perfume brand.
PRNewsFoto/Elizabeth Arden
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Measurement of Learning
• The degree of brand awareness, brand recognition
and/or brand recall aroused in the respondents by
the stimulus (advertising)
• The recognition method
• Aided recall method
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Back to the Sequential
Method
Post-purchase
Action
Attitude
Learning
Perception
Attention
Exposure
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Attitudes
• A predisposition to respond in a consistent or
predictable manner to the stimulus
• Attitudes can be towards:
• Physical object (e.g. a brand or product)
• Social object (e.g. a sales assistant)
• An action (e.g. buying products that can harm the
environment)
• Advertising (e.g. a particular ad)
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Structural Approaches to
Attitudes
• Cognitive component
A person’s beliefs or knowledge about an issue or
object
• Affective component
A person’s feelings or emotions about the issue of the
object; these feelings can be ‘positive’ or ‘negative’
• Behavioural component
Consists of how the individual is likely to respond to
the object based on what they know and feel about it
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We seek equilibrium in attitude formation …
• Alex wants to date
Larry; Alex has
positive sentiment
toward Larry
• Larry wears earring;
Larry has positive
attitude toward
earring
• Alex doesn’t like men
who wear earrings;
has negative
sentiment toward
earrings
Attitude measurement
For the (1) direct mail (2) Telesales you receive, in general do you think it is:
Interesting
1
2
3
4
5
Uninteresting
Informative
1
2
3
4
5
Uninformative
Intrusive
1
2
3
4
5
Not Intrusive
Entertaining
1
2
3
4
5
Not Entertaining
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
Damages the
Environment
Relevant to You
1
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Doesn’t Damage Environment
Not Relevant to You
2
Semantic Differential
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Attitude measurement
Strongly
Agree
Strongly
Disagree
I like organs sending me product
or service information
1
2
3
4
5
I like to decide for myself where
to look for product information
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
Stronger laws needed to control
sharing of personal information
1
2
3
4
5
Marketers have generally got my
details correct
1
2
3
4
5
I like to deal with organisations
over the phone
1
2
3
4
5
I like to deal with organisations
through the post
1
2
3
4
5
The more organs know about
me, the better they can meet my
needs
I really don’t mind marketers
having my personal details
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Likert Scales
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Attitude Change
• How?
• Advertising can be an important tool for
attitude formation and change
• Usage Rational and Emotional cues
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Rational Message Appeal
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Emotional Message Appeal
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Fear Appeal
A fear appeal is presented in this
ad to encourage parents to talk
frankly with their children about
various issues including drugs,
drinking, tobacco, and sex. This
ad is effective because it
addresses a fear that every
parent has, and suggests
courses of actions that parents
can take to decrease that fear.
Courtesy National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
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