Consumer Attitude Formation and Change

1. Consumer Attitude Formation and Change

2. Class #1 • Administrative • Midterms and academic articles returned in class Thursday • The Basics of Attitude • What are attitudes? • The structure of attitudes • How are they formed?

3. Attitudes • Cereal Exercise • Get into groups of 4 or 5 students • You will be provided with a cereal box. Write down your attitudes toward this type of cereal independently. Then discuss your attitudes toward this type of cereal with your group. • Consider these questions as well. • How were these attitudes formed? • Are your attitudes toward this type of cereal now: • The same you held at the beginning of the exercise? • The same you have always held? • Why or why not? • Why do we have attitudes?

4. Attitude A learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object.

5. What Are Attitudes? • Important definitional components: • The attitude “object” • Attitudes are a learned predisposition • Attitudes have consistency • Attitudes occur within a situation • Other important characteristics: • Directionality • Degree

6. Attitudes • List 5 products/brands/companies/ services toward which you have a positive attitude. • Have you ever purchased, used or consumed something toward which you did not have a positive attitude? • Attitude toward H1N1 Vaccine? • Rant • A positive attitude is generally a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for purchase

7. How are attitudes formed? • Attitudes are learned • Classical conditioning (through past associations) • Operant conditioning (through trial and reinforcement) • Cognitive learning (through information processing) • And formed based upon personality characteristics • From whom/what do we learn attitudes? • Attitudes are strongly influenced by: • Personal experience • Influence of family and friends • Direct marketing • Mass media • The Internet

8. Attitude Models • Structural Models of Attitudes • Tri-component Attitude Model • Multi-attribute Attitude Models • Theory of Trying to Consume • Attitude toward the ad Model • attempt to understand the relationships between attitude and behavior; assume a rational model of human behaviour

9. The Tri-component Model Exercise #1 Conation Affect Cognition • Cognitive Component • knowledge and perceptions acquired through direct experience and information from various sources. • Affective component • Emotions and feelings about the object • Conative or Behavioural Component • Action tendencies toward the object

10. Multi-attribute Attitude Models Attitude models that examine the composition of consumer attitudes in terms of selected product attributes or beliefs. • Includes: • Attitude-toward-object Model • Attitude is function of evaluation of product-specific beliefs and evaluations • Attitude-toward-behaviour Model • attitude toward a specific behaviour is a function of how strongly one believes that the action will lead to a specific outcome (either favorable or unfavorable) • Theory-of-Reasoned-Action Model • Theory of Planned Behaviour

11. Use the theory of reasoned action to describe your attitude toward your college/university when deciding on which school to attend. • Includes cognitive, affective, and conative components • Includes subjective norms in addition to attitude

12. Theory of Trying to Consume An attitude theory designed to account for the many cases where the action or outcome is not certain but instead reflects the consumer’s attempt to consume (or purchase). Attitude-Toward-the-Ad Model A model that proposes that a consumer forms various feelings (affects) and judgments (cognitions) as the result of exposure to an advertisement, which, in turn, affect the consumer’s attitude toward the ad and attitude toward the brand.

13. A Conception of the Relationship Among Elements in an Attitude-Toward-the-Ad Model – Figure 6

14. Class #2 • Review attitude structure with short case • Discuss attitude change strategies

15. Case One: The Not-So-Extreme Sport • On the basis of the Theory of Reasoned Action, how would you explain the 180-dregree shift in attitudes about skateboarding that occurred over the last 30 years?

16. Strategies of Attitude Change

17. Changing the Basic Motivational Function

18. Discussion Questions • What products that you purchase associate themselves with an Admired Group or Event? • When does it personally influence your purchasing?

19. Altering Components of the Multiattribute Model • Changing relative evaluation of attributes • Changing brand beliefs • Adding an attribute • Changing the overall brand rating

20. How Is This New Benefit Likely to Impact Consumers’ Attitudes Toward the Product?

21. The Consumer Will Have a More Positive Attitude Overall from the New Attribute.

22. Which Attitude Change Strategy Is Depicted in This Ad?

23. Changing the Overall Brand Rating

24. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) Customer attitudes are changed by two distinctly different routes to persuasion: a central route or a peripheral route.

25. Elaboration Likelihood Model

26. Behaviour Can Precede Attitude Formation • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Attribution Theory Behave (Purchase) Form Attitude Form Attitude

27. Issues in Attribution Theory • Self-Perception Theory • Foot-in-the-Door Technique • Attributions toward Others • Attributions toward Things • How We Test Our Attributions • Distinctiveness • Consistency over time • Consistency over modality • Consensus

28. Attitudes and Marketing Strategy • Appeal to motivational functions of attitudes • Associate product with a special group, cause or event • Change affect first through classical conditioning • Change behaviour first through operant conditioning • Resolve conflicts among attitudes • POM Wonderful; • Change beliefs about competitors’ brands (Campbell’s/Progresso War; Stuffed ; PR Lady; Broken Promises; Mr. Bean) • Influence consumer attribution • Alter components of the attitude • Change relative evaluation of attributes • Focus Group • Change brand beliefs • Ad 1 ; Ad 2 • Add an attribute • Change overall brand evaluation

29. Discussion Question #5