JM602 Consumer Behaviour

1. JM602Consumer Behaviour Lecture 9 – Learning and memory

3. Material in these slides • Primarily drawn from: • Neal, Quester and Hawkins (2005). Consumer behaviour: Implications for marketing strategy (4th ed). McGraw-Hill Irwin: Queensland

4. Material in these slides • Primarily drawn from: • Neal, Quester and Hawkins (2005). Consumer behaviour: Implications for marketing strategy (4th ed). McGraw-Hill Irwin: Queensland

5. Learning and Memory • How do individuals (and consumers) learn? • What types of learning exist? • What are the main characteristics of learning? • How do we use learning in marketing strategies? • What is the importance of brand image and product positioning?

6. Learning • Learning refers to any change in the content or organisation of long-term memory • Consumer behaviour is largely learned behaviour

7. Learning as a Key to Consumer Behaviour

8. Learning Results from Information Processing and Causes Changes in Memory

9. Involvement and Learning • Learning under high-involvement conditions • consumer has a high motivation to learn • Learning under low-involvement conditions • most consumer learning is in a low-involvement context

10. Learning Theories in High- and Low-Involvement Situations

11. Types of Learning • Conditioning • classical conditioning • operant conditioning • Cognitive learning • iconic rote learning • vicarious learning/modelling • reasoning

12. Conditioning Conditioning is based on the association of a stimulus (information) with a response (behaviour or feeling)

13. Classical Conditioning • Establishing a relationship between stimulus and response to bring about the learning of the same response to a different stimulus • Most common in low-involvement situations • Learning is more often a feeling or emotion than information

15. Consumer Learning through Classical Conditioning

16. How Affective Response Leads to Learning

17. Operant Conditioning • Trial precedes liking • reverse is often true for classical conditioning • product sampling is an example of this type of learning

18. The Process of Shaping in Purchase Behaviour

19. An Advertisement Designed to Induce Trial

20. Cognitive Learning • Iconic rote learning • association between two or more concepts in the absence of conditioning • a substantial amount of low-involvement learning involves iconic rote learning • achieved by repeated advertising messages

21. Cognitive Learning (cont.) • Vicariouslearning/modelling • observe others' behaviour and adjust their own accordingly • common in both high-involvement and low- involvementsituations • Reasoning • most complex form of cognitive learning • most high-involvement decisions generate some reasoning

22. An Advertisement Using Reasoning

23. General Characteristics of Learning • The strength of learning is influenced by: • importance • separates high- and low-involvement learning situations • involvement • mood • reinforcement • stimulus repetitions • imagery

24. General Characteristics of Learning (cont.) • Extinction • forgetting occurs when reinforcement for learning is withdrawn

25. Spontaneous Awareness: Brand A

26. Spontaneous Awareness: Brand B

27. Characteristics of learning (cont) • Stimulus generalisation – the ‘rub-off- effect • brand equity • brand leverage

28. Example of Stimulus Generalisation to Launch a New Product

29. General Characteristics of Learning (cont.) • Stimulus discrimination • Process of learning to respond differently to similar but distinct stimuli • why your brand is different

30. The Response Environment • Strength of original learning affects ability to retrieve relevant information • Similarity of the original learning and the type of learning is important • Marketers aim to replicate these situations

31. Memory • Memory is the total accumulation of prior learning experiences • Short-term memory • working memory • Elaborative activities – use of stored experience, values etc to interpret and evaluate information • Maintenance rehearsal – repetition of information to hold it in memory

32. Memory (cont.) • Long-term memory • unlimited permanent storage • Episodic memory • schematic memory • linking to ‘chunks’ of information

33. Marketing application and Classical Conditioning - Advertising • Retention of advertising: • Forgetting is greatest following learning, but extinction is rarely complete (Robertson, Zielinkski and Ward, 2004); • Retention increases with repetition: • The more repetition the greater the depth of learning and the slower the rate of decay (forgetting) • Repetition is more effective distributed over several periods than concentrated in a single period • Variation is form, style and expression, together with repetition of main points, is more effective • Greater complexity requires greater repetition • Greater interference from competing messages requires greater repetition

34. Classical Conditioning and Advertising • Repetition: • At least three exposures is important: • First: creates awareness • Second: demonstrates its relevance to consumer • Third: reminds the consumers of its benefits (O’Guinn, Allan and Semenik 1998) • Too much of a good thing is wasted (Solomon 1992) • Media scheduling: • Frequency and timing to maximise learning and minimise forgetting is a major consideration (Runyon 1977)

35. Classical conditioning (cont) • More meaningful or vivid material is better retained than less meaningful or vivid material • The more completely the material is initially learned the greater is retention • Material presented first (primacy) or last (recency) is better retained than material presented in the middle

36. Instrumental Conditioning and Advertising • Advertising focused on rewarding or punishing consumers for a purchase decision: • Brand loyalty: • Over time consumers choose products that make them feel good or satisfy some need • Loyalty occurs because the brand responses made were sufficiently reinforced to result in learned behaviour (Robertson) • Difficult, but not impossible to break brand loyalty: • Marketers use deal activity and free sampling

37. Instrumental Conditioning and Advertising • Positioning: • Way a companies positions itself vis a vis its competitors in the consumer’s schematic memory • Requires successful attention to all aspects of information processing: exposure, attention, interpretation and committed to memory (through repetition) • Advertising must be consistent with all elements of marketing mix • Product repositioning

38. Cognitive learning applications • Marketing is primarily concerned with cognitive learning (Runyon 1977) • Modelling • Many applications of consumer problem solving are related to ways information is represented in memory and recalled at later date (Solomon 1992) • Corrective advertising: • Difficult to ‘unlearn’ information

39. Marketing applications • Brand equity: • Consumers will exhibit other positive behaviours which benefit the compan • Brand leverage • Stimulus generalisation • Elements of successful brand leverage: • Complement • Substitutes • Transfer • image

40. Product Positioning Strategy • Brand image • Product positioning • Perceptual mapping • Product repositioning • Brand equity and brand leverage

41. Next Lecture… Chapter 10: Motivation, Personality and Emotion

42. JM602Consumer Behaviour Lecture 10 – Motivation, personality and emotion

44. Material in these slides • Primarily drawn from: • Neal, Quester and Hawkins (2005). Consumer behaviour: Implications for marketing strategy (4th ed). McGraw-Hill Irwin: Queensland

45. Motivation, Personality and Emotion • What is motivation? • What theories help us understand motivation? • How do marketers can appeal to consumers’ motives? • What are the underlying aspects of the theories of personality? • How is personality related to marketing? • How can emotions can be used in marketing strategies?

46. What is the nature of motivation? • Consumer motivations are the energising forces that activate behaviour and provide purpose for and direction to that behaviour • Seem highly dependent on the situation at hand • Neal et al (2005) p. 322

47. Theories of Motivation • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs • McGuire’s psychological motives

48. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • All humans acquire a similar set of motives through genetic endowment and social interaction • Some motives are more basic or critical than others • The more basic motives must be satisfied to a minimum level before other motives are activated • As the basic motives become satisfied, the more advanced motives come into play.

49. Maslow’s • Hierarchy • of Needs Self-Actualisation (Self-fulfillment) Social Needs (affection, friendship, belonging) Ego Needs (Prestige, status, self esteem) Safety and Security Needs (Protection, order, stability) Physiological Needs (Food, water, air, shelter, sex)