Consumer Behavior
Communication programs
Consumer response to
communication
programs
Consumer Behavior
Communication programs
Outline
• Communication objectives
• Attitudes and their measurement
• Attitude change and persuasion
– The two routes to persuasion
– Central-route approaches
– Peripheral-route approaches
Consumer Behavior
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Communication objectives
• Category need
• Brand awareness
• Brand attitude
• Brand purchase intention/purchase
Consumer Behavior
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Attitudes
definition:
a tendency to evaluate people (e.g., a salesperson), objects
(e.g., a product, an ad), or events (e.g., the purchase of a
brand) with some degree of favorability or unfavorability;
components of an attitude:
– cognitive component: beliefs about the attitude concept;
– affective component: feeling-based reactions toward the
attitude concept;
– conative component: overt behavioral responses or
intentions to act;
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Measurement of attitudes
• Likert scaling: statements that are thought to
reflect either a favorable or unfavorable attitude
toward the concept of interest are rated on agreedisagree scales (typically 5-point scales) and the
ratings are then summated (after reverse-scoring
negative items);
• semantic differential scaling: the attitude
concept is rated on a series of bipolar adjective
scales (typically 7-point scales) such as good-bad,
favorable-unfavorable, or pleasant-unpleasant;
Consumer Behavior
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Advertising is generally informative.
__1__ __2__ __3__ __4__ __5__
strongly
disagree
disagree
neither
agree
strongly
agree
Most advertising insults my intelligence.
__1__ __2__ __3__ __4__ __5__
strongly
disagree
disagree
neither
agree
strongly
agree
Consumer Behavior
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My attitude toward advertising can be best
described as:
Positive
_1_
_2_
_3_
_4_
_5_
_6_
_7_
Negative
Unfavorable _1_
_2_
_3_
_4_
_5_
_6_
_7_
Favorable
Good
_2_
_3_
_4_
_5_
_6_
_7_
Bad
_1_
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Two routes to persuasion
• there are two routes to persuasion:
– central route: people scrutinize the arguments in the
message;
– peripheral route: cues that are not based on a careful
consideration of the true merits of the message can have
persuasive impact;
• a person’s motivation and/or ability to engage in
issue-relevant thinking determines the route:
– when motivation and ability are high, attitudes change
follows the central route;
– when motivation and/or ability are low, attitude change
occurs via the peripheral route;
Consumer Behavior
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The two routes to attitude change
persuasive
communication
nature of cognitive processing ?
motivation
to process ?
yes
yes
ability
to process ?
no
no
peripheral
cue present ?
yes
peripheral
attitude shift
favorable
neither or
unfavorable
thoughts
neutral thoughts
thoughts
predominate
predominate
predominate
central positive
attitude change
central negative
attitude change
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Influences on persuasion
variables can influence the extent and direction of
attitude change by:
• serving as persuasive arguments (e.g., weak vs.
strong arguments);
• serving as peripheral cues (e.g., source expertise
or attractiveness, number of arguments);
• affecting the extent and direction of message
elaboration (e.g., involvement as a determinant of
motivation to process and distraction as a
determinant of ability to process);
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Effects of the two routes
to persuasion
• centrally changed attitudes are relatively
enduring, resistant to counterpersuasion,
and predictive of behavior;
• peripherally changed attitudes are more
temporary, susceptible to counterpersuasion, and less predictive of behavior;
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Involvement and persuasion
(Petty et al.)
•
•
•
•
•
•
160 Ss were exposed to 12 ads, one of which was the target ad for a fictitious
product called the Edge razor;
Ss were assigned to one of the 8 cells in a 2 (involvement: low or high) x 2
(argument quality: weak or strong) x 2 (peripheral cue: celebrity or
noncelebrity status) factorial design;
involvement was manipulated by promising Ss a gift of either a brand of
disposable razors or a brand of toothpaste and by telling Ss that Edge razors
would soon be introduced in their own city or test marketed in another part of
the country;
argument quality was manipulated by presenting five cogent (e.g., advanced
honing method for unsurpassed sharpness) or five specious (e.g., floats in
water with a minimum of rust) product claims in the ad;
in the celebrity status condition, famous golf and tennis celebrities endorsed
the product, in the noncelebrity status condition Bakersfield, CA, endorsed it;
attitude toward the product and purchase intentions as the dependent variables;
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Involvement and persuasion (cont’d)
• attitudes: significant involvement x endorser and involvement x argument
quality interactions;
attitude
attitude
strong arguments
noncelebrity
celebrity
low
high
involvement
weak arguments
low
high
involvement
• intentions: argument quality was a more important determinant of
purchase intentions under high rather than low involvement; attitudes
were better predictors of intentions under high involvement;
Consumer Behavior
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Central-route persuasion:
Fishbein’s expectancy-value model
attitudes are a function of the strength of beliefs about
the attitude concept and the evaluative aspect of those
beliefs;
Ac = S bi ei
components:
• number of salient beliefs (i=1, ..., n)
• strength of each belief ( bi )
• evaluative aspect of each belief (ei )
Consumer Behavior
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My attitude toward Jif creamy peanut butter
can be best described as:
Unfavorable
___
(1)
___
(2)
___
(3)
___
(4)
___
(5)
___
(6)
___
(7)
Favorable
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creamy
fatty
Jif
fresh roasted
peanut taste
Unlikely
___
(1)
___
(2)
___
(3)
___
(4)
___
(5)
___
(6)
___
(7)
Bad
___
(-3)
___
(-2)
___
(-1)
___
(0)
___ ___ ___
(+1) (+2) (+3)
Likely
Good
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Changing cognitive structure
using the EV model
• add a new positive belief;
• increase the strength of an existing positive
belief;
• increase the evaluation of a strongly held
positive belief;
Consumer Behavior
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Central-route persuasion:
The cognitive response model
• people actively relate information contained
in persuasive messages to extant knowledge
stored in memory and generate idiosyncratic
thoughts in response to the message (socalled cognitive responses);
• attitude change depends on
 the extent of processing
 the valence of thoughts
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The measurement of
cognitive responses
• use of post-message thought listings to
assess cognitive responses;
• when content analyzing subjects’ thought
protocols, cognitive responses are often
classified as support arguments, counter
arguments, or source derogations;
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Peripheral-route persuasion
• source effects: credibility, attractiveness, and
liking of the spokesperson;
• message effects: number of arguments,
inferences based on brand name or product
attributes, etc.;
• context effects: message repetition, program
or editorial context, mood;
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Using classical (respondent)
conditioning for peripheral persuasion
I.
II.
UCS
UCS
elicits
elicits
UCR
UCR
paired with
NS (CS to be)
III.
CS
comes to elicit
CR
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Classical conditioning (cont’d)
• CS and UCS should be paired repeatedly and
consistently;
• forward conditioning is better than backward
conditioning;
• CC is more effective when the UCS and CS are
novel, salient, and relevant or similar to each other
(because associations are more easily formed);
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Music and pen choice (Gorn)
• one-minute extract of music from “Grease” as the
positive UCS, one minute of atonal Indian
classical music as the negative UCS; light blue
and beige pens as originally neutral CS;
• Ss watched a slide of either a light blue or beige
pen while hearing either liked or disliked music;
• as a reward for their participation in the study, Ss
could choose either a light blue or beige pen;
• finally, Ss were asked why they had picked a pen
with a particular color;
Consumer Behavior
Communication programs
Music and pen choice (cont’d)
• effect of music on pen choice:
choice of
choice of nonadvertised pen advertised pen
liked
music
79%
21%
disliked
music
30%
70%
• 91% of the people who provided a reason for their choice
mentioned color preference as their reason;
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Attitudes and behavior:
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)
(Fishbein and Ajzen)
B = f(BI) = w1 Aact + w2 SN
where: B
=
BI
=
Aact
=
SN
=
w1, w2 =
behavior
behavioral intention
attitude toward the behavior
subjective norm
weights that reflect the relative influence
of Aact and SN
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Components of the TRA
Aact: a person’s evaluation of performing the behavior
Aact = S bi ei
components:
• outcomes or consequences of behavior (i=1, ..., m)
• strength of behavioral beliefs (bi)
• evaluative aspect of each outcome or consequence (ei)
SN: a person’s perceptions of the social pressures put on
him or her to perform the behavior
SN = S NBj MCj
components:
• relevant referents for behavior (j=1, ..., n)
• strength of normative beliefs (NBj)
• motivation to comply (MCj)
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Components of the TRA (cont’d)
BI: a plan or an expectation to perform the behavior, which is a
function of both personal and social factors;
BI = w1 Aact + w2 SN
B: actual performance of the behavior
B = f(BI)
Note: if a person does not have complete control over performance of
the behavior, behavioral intentions and behavior may also be a function
of the person’s perceived behavioral control (i.e., how easy or difficult
performance of the behavior is thought to be);
In-class exercise: Predicting coupon usage
Consumer 1
Consumer 2
Consumer 3
CU
10
20
2
BI
6
9
2
b1
5
7
2
b2
4
1
2
b3
3
2
2
e1
2
3
0
e2
0
1
-1
e3
0
1
-1
NB1
1
4
3
NB2
2
2
3
MC1
3
3
2
MC2
3
3
1
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TRA applied to coupon usage (cont’d)
EV1
.71a
rewards
EV2
-.08b
Aact
encumbrances
EV3
.51a
-.12a
inconveniences
NB1MC1
BI
B
.48a
spouse
NB2MC2
.68a
.10b
SN
.31a
family
NB3MC3
friends
.05
Note: standardized path coefficients,
with a p<.01, b p<.05 (one-tailed)
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Conditions under which attitudes and
intentions will predict behavior
• volitional control
• correspondence in level of specificity
–
–
–
–
action: single/multiple acts
target: concept at which action is directed
context: situational circumstance of action
time: when an action is to be performed
• stability of attitudes and intentions