Second-Order Conditioning
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Pair CS1 with US
Pair CS2 with CS1
CS2 produces CR
CS1 serves as US for CS2
Blair & Shimp (1992)
• Unpleasant experience paired with
music
• Brand paired with music
Design
• Pre-conditioning phase
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Subjects listen to theme music
Sessions during bad weather
Usually, music induces mood, so US
But, here treat music as CS1 and bad weather as US
• Conditioning phase
– Fictitious sportswear brand paired with theme music
– Brand is CS2
• Control group
– Random pairing of CS2 and CS1
• Test
– Measure affect toward brand
Terminology
• Article uses older terminology
– Music as US, not CS1
Results
• Negative conditioning to brand in preconditioning group
• Music acquired negative affect
• Negative affect transferred to brand
Implications
• Music choice in advertising significant
• May have previously conditioned
connotations
– Enhance or impede intended effect
– Transfer to brand
• Overshadowing effects
– Popular music
– More salient than brand (ignore CS)
US Pre-exposure
• Repeatedly present US
• More difficult to subsequently condition
CS
– US occurs without predictive stimulus
Second Order Classical
• US is affective state, mood, etc.
• CS1 is celebrity, expert, consumer, or
TPO
• CS2 is brand
Celebrities
• Famous people
• Associations
– Popular
– Rich
– Attractive
Experts
• Known or unknown
– e.g., scientist, doctor, lawyer, mechanic,
etc.
• Associations
– Knowledge
– Authorities
“Typical”Consumer
• Average shopper
– Real or fake
• Association
– Nothing to gain (leads to trust)
– Credibility
Third Party Organizations
• Popular in advertising
• Independent organizations
– Rank, rate, or promote a product
• Quality indicators
Effectiveness of TPOs
• Work through credibility vector
• Indicate quality
– TPO won’t want to lose public opinion
– Won’t endorse a poor product
• Good for
– Products of high financial value and low
psychological risk
Social Learning Theory
• Bandura
• Observational learning
• Attributes of model and learner
Characteristics
• Model
– Rewardingness
– Authority
– Dominance
– Similarity
– Sincerity
• Learner
– Uncertainty
– Age
– Sex
Operant
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Observe
Reinforcement or punishment
Imitate with expectation
Generalized imitation
Attractiveness
• Important for
– Celebrity endorsers
• Less important (but not ignored) for
– Experts, typical consumers
Attractiveness
• Can act as US itself
• Innate predispositions
• Evolved
– Health, genotype
– Evolutionary psychology
• Mating, social interactions
Nature vs. Nurture Debate
• Is attractiveness/beauty learned or
innate?
• Until early 1980s, common consensus
was learned
• Langlois and collegues
– Infant gaze studies
– Tips to innate predispositions (with
subsequent learning)
Attractiveness as US
• With actors and celebrities, usually
attractive
– Both the recognition of the individual and
association with specific traits
– Innate attractiveness
• Consider
– Antonio Banderas
– Danny DeVito
www.banderas-mall.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Image:Danny_DeVito_2008.jpg
Cognitive Factor
• Attention and recall
• Celebrities, experts
• Associated with specific aspect of
product
– Athlete with sports car (fast)
– Ex-drug addict with anti-drug campaign
(credibility)
Appropriateness
• Any celebrity/expert for any product?
• Achieving a match
• Changes in celebrity/expert’s status?
– e.g., O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Kobe
Bryant, Madonna, Kate Moss, etc.
– Associated with brand
• Change in brand status?
– e.g., tobacco
Ohanian (1991)
• Attractiveness, expertise, and
trustworthiness
• Use of product
– For self or for gift
• Male or female consumer
Fictitious Pairings
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Celebrities and products
Madonna and designer jeans
John McEnroe and tennis rackets
Tom Selleck and men’s cologne
Linda Evans and perfume
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Madonna-Material-Girl-333295.jpg
espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/McEnroe_John.html
tomselleck.tv-website.com/
www.geocities.com/lindaevans9/
Questionnaires
• Section 1
– Familiarity with celebrity?
– Demographic information
• Section 2
– Credibility scale
• Section 3
– Subject’s likeliness to purchase product
– For self or for gift
Subjects
• Residential neighborhoods
• Churches
• Graduate and undergraduate students
Results
• Age and gender
• No significant impact on evaluation of
celebrities’ attractiveness,
trustworthiness, or expertise
• Nor on likelihood to purchase a product
promoted by the celebrity
Celebrity Differences
• John McEnroe
– Least attractive and trustworthy
– High levels of perceived expertise with
sports gear
• Linda Evans
– High attractiveness and trustworthiness
ratings
– Only average perceived expertise with
perfume
Celebrity Attractiveness and
Trustworthiness
• Generally perceived as important by
advertisers, but:
• Minimal impact on subjects’ intention to
purchase product
– Most celebrities are attractive; minimal
range, so no differentiation
– Celebrities are paid for their endorsements,
so not perceived as trustworthy
– Expertise the determinant of intention to
purchase
Conclusions
• To be useful celebrity spokespersons
should be
– Knowledgeable
– Experienced
– Qualified to endorse the product
Celebrity
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Virgin
Christina Aguilera
Virgin mobile phone
UK release
The devil makes work for idle thumbs.
Keep yours busy. Text Virgin Mobile for
3P.
Celebrity
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Commodore Vic 20
Priceline
William Shatner
From playing on Star Trek status to
playing on Shatner status
Celebrity
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Independence Air
Dennis Miller
Comedian
Started SNL in 1980s
Currently, talk radio show
Endorses conservative opinions,
supports Republican candidates, pro
military action
Celebrity
• 7/11
• S.H.E.
– Selina Ren, Hebe Tian, Ella Chen
• Taiwanese girl band
• 10 albums, $4.5 million sales since
2001, multiple TV roles
Celebrity
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Power drink
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Japanese commercial
Sometimes celebrity does cross
cultures…but the ad might not
Expert
• Nike
• Tiger Woods
• Use the product, be like the expert
Expert
• Chesterfields
• Opinion of a physician
• Trusted
(Anti-) Expert
• BT information technology
• Gordon Ramsay
• Area of specialization
Expert
• Ask an expert
• Future Shop
• Spoofing use of experts in ads
Typical Consumer
• Tide
• Moroccan commercial, 1993
Typical Consumer
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Salem's cigarettes
Supposedly average couple
Note music score
Gives performance information
Co-Branding
• Higher order conditioning association
• Two brands are deliberately paired
• Favourable attitude to second brand
due to positive attitude to first brand
• MI
Does it Work?
• Well… sometimes
+
+
BMW Z3
Sales increase
Sony Mini Disk
No benefit
Prior Associations
• First brand should be: familiar, popular
• Coca-Cola
– Celebrities, characters, Olympics,
concepts, music, even colour
– Not an ideal co-branding candidate
• Change the context
– Present familiar brand in different context,
causing increased attention & processing
Belongingness
• See Rescorla & Furrow (1977); classic
study on 2nd order stimulus similarity
increasing learning rate
• Similar to product-model match
• Need to find some way to link two
brands
• Worked: Bill Cosby and Jello
• Failed: Bill Cosby and E.F. Hutton
Similarity
• Too much similarity can work against brand
– E.g., see Rescorla & Gillan (1980), exp. 2
• Mistake other brands for co-brand
• Salem cigarettes
– Freshness positioning
– Other brands followed this
– Consumers made association to more familiar
Salem ads, benefiting Salem
Bidirectional?
• Associative conditioning could work both ways
• Familiar brand (CS1) can be influenced by targeted
brand (CS2)
• Negative affect from targeted brand
• Greater attention paid to familiar brand; more
processing
• Erosion (additional associations weaken those
initially created)
Changing CS1 Post 2nd Order
Conditioning
• Rescorla (1973), Holland & Rescorla (1975a,b)
• 2nd order conditioning
– Tone & light as CSs, food as US
– Devalue US via satiation or rapid rotation; extinction of CS1
• Reduced CR for CS1 but not for CS2
• Subsequently restoring US returns some CR for CS1
(not a repairing of CS1-US here)
Brand Counterfeiting
• Illegally made products resembling genuine
product
• Traditionally lower quality
– Starting to shift for some counterfeits
– Outsourced factories run extra “fake” shift
– Sometimes shifts counterfeiters into legitimacy
• Becoming a serious problem
– Over $600 billion in sales
Types
• Deceptive
– Consumer unaware product is fake
• Nondeceptive
– Consumer is aware product is fake
– Especially prevalent in luxury brand
markets
Reasons to Purchase
• See: Eisend & Schuchert-Guler (2006)
• Person
– Demographic and psychological issues
– E.g., purchasers often of lower social status
• Aspects of product
– Price, uniqueness, availability
– E.g., likelihood of purchase negatively related to price
• Social and cultural
– Cultural norms to shopping environment
– E.g., consumer more likely to purchase counterfeit if
shopping experience more appetitive
Attitudes
• Social-adjustive attitude (SAA)
– Purchase motivated by effort to improve
individual’s approval level in social situations
– “Status-symbol”
• Value-expressive attitudes (VEA)
– Purchase demonstrate’s consumer’s central
beliefs, attitudes, values
– “Self-expression”
• Luxury brand purchases may serve both
these functions
Ad-Consumer Interaction
• See: Snyder & DeBono (1985)
• If holding SAA, more favourable to
product appeals showcasing social
validation goals
• If motivated by VEA, consumer more
favourable to ads highlighting intrinsic
aspects (“product function” appeals)
Luxury Items & Counterfeits
• VEA will motivate purchase for product
function (quality-related reasons)
– Less likely to purchase luxury counterfeits
• SAA will motivate purchase of
counterfeit luxury items (aim is to make
social statement)
– More likely to purchase luxury counterfeits
Brand Identifiability
• Recognizable logo/brand characteristic
• Easier higher-order conditioning vector
• Real product already paired with
celebrity, sports figure, social class, etc.
• Logo serves as CS2 for idealized trait
High Recognition Brand
Counterfeits
• Counterfeit gives same association, but
for less money
• Appearance of social elite…even if you
aren’t
• Actual quality irrelevant for social
validation vector
• “Surface” level analysis
Quality-Driven Luxury Brands
• Often non-explicit logo, characteristics, etc.
– Luxury detail based on subtle quality distinctions
– “If you have to ask”…
• Not ideal items for counterfeit
– VEA-driven, not SAA-driven
• 2nd order conditioning just not there to begin
with
– Salience on identifying these luxury items is low
Consumer Personality Traits
• Moral/ethics re:
counterfeit
– Lower on scale more
likely to purchase
• High-self monitors
– More likely to adopt SAA
• Low-self monitors
– More likely to adopt VEA
Anti-Counterfeiting
Campaigns
• Difficult to police
• Negative publicity to designer brands
– E.g., Louis Vuitton
• Fashion industry appeals
– Hurts designers
– Appealing to those who can already afford
high-end luxury items
• Negative ad framing
– Might highlight loss in social status if
counterfeit detected
Knock-offs
• Technically, not
counterfeits
• Inspired by more
innovative, higher-end
brands
– E.g., GAP, H&M
• Lacks the same
moral/ethical
objections to purchase
Kim Kardashian
Knock off
