Beliefs and Attitudes
Belief: A descriptive
thought that a person holds
about something
•X hotels have the best
facilities.
•A particular airline has poor
maintenance
•A particular country has
unhealthy food-handling
standards
Attitude: Relatively
consistent evaluations,
feelings, and tendencies
toward an object or idea.
•Liking or disliking things
•Healthy food – eat chicken
•Customers develop negative
or positive attitude towards
some products or places.
•Difficult to change
Consumer belief and attitude
 Beliefs are the knowledge and inferences that a consumer has
about products/brands and possible benefits derived from
using them.
 Beliefs result from cognitive learning.
 Attribute importance springs from:
 A person’s assessment of the significance of an attribute.
 The amount of attention directed to it.
 A person’s self-concept, advertising, and the salience of the
attribute can influence the attention focused on it.
• Companies or Retailers mark up prices before putting them
up on sale. -- Bargaining behavior
• Discounts offered by reputed companies are genuine
reduction in prices.-- Wait for the discount announcement
• Celebrities are admired by their followers though they do
not use the product they endorse. --Success of soaps and
cosmetics
• Lower price generally means inferior quality. Higher priced
brands are not superior in quality by the same degree of
multiplier. --Positioning at a lower quality end, as done by
Haier, Lenovo
• Shopping in a big departmental store saves money.--Big
Bazaar, Subhiksha
• Packaged ready-to-eat food items marketed in India are
generally not fresh.-- Limited success of MTR, ITC foods
Consumer feelings
• As part of “Advertising Experience”: Influence on viewers’
moods, attitudes, recall, affinity,
Examples: Hamara Bajaj Campaign, Amul Butter—“Utterly,
butterly delicious”
• As part of “Shopping Experience”: Influence of availability,
“environment/ambience”
Examples: Maruti service centers, Cafe’ Coffee Day, Brista
coffee
• As part of “Consumption Experience”: Influence consumers’
consumption evaluation
Examples: Vanilla Coke, Blue Pepsi, Asian Paints
Functions of attitudes
• Utilitarian function : Used to obtain rewards and
avoid punishments
• Ego-defensive function : Self-protection
Example: mouthwash
• Knowledge function : Simplifies decisions
Example: Forming of loyalty to certain brands
• Value-expressive function : Expresses identity to
others
Example : Peter England shirts- ‘ the honest
shirts’
Formation of attitude
Direct formation
• Corresponds to the decision-making perspective and
cognitive learning.
• Linked to the experiential perspective.
• Classical conditioning/Associative learning: Positive
affect is attached to object–using a jingle.
• Mere exposure—frequent exposure to stimulus
increases one’s desire for it.
• Environmental forces Example: design of the physical
environment, cafes
Change in consumer attitude
• Changing beliefs :Comparative advertising
Example: Sugar Free, Saffola oil (less
cholesterol)
• Changing attribute importance :Identification
of new, improved attributes Example:
Washing powders, soaps
• Changing ideal points
Tri- component attitude model
cognition
affection
conation
• Cognitive component: this part consist of
knowledge and perceptions that are acquired
by a combination of direct experience with
the attitude object and related information
from various sources.
• Affective Component:
A consumer’s emotions or feelings about a
particular product or brand constitute the
affective component of an attitude.
• The Conative component:
It is concerned with the tendency or likelihood
that an individual will undertake a specific
action or behave in a particular way with
regard to the attribute object.
Multi attitude model
Portrays
consumer’s
perception
and
assessment of the key attributes or belief held
with regard to the particular attribute object.
The attitude towards object model
The attitude towards behaviour model
The theory of reasoned action model
Attitude towards ad model
Changing consumer attitude: changing
belief
• Firms hope that changing beliefs about products will
result in more favorable product attitudes and
influence what consumers buy.
• If beliefs are false, they should be brought into
harmony with reality and then stabilized and
reinforced.
• If beliefs are accurate, it may be necessary to change
the product.
Comparative advertising can hurt beliefs about a
competitive brand
Changing consumer attitude : changing
attitude importance
• Changing an attribute’s importance is more
difficult than changing a belief.
• Increasing attribute importance is desirable
when the competitor’s brand is farther from
the ideal point than your product.
Firms may add a new attribute which
necessitated NPD or product revision.
Changing Consumer Attitudes:
Changing Ideal Points
• Altering consumers’ preferences for what the
Ideal product should look like.
• It is far more difficult than any other approach
in changing consumers, attitudes toward
brand and product.