Chapter 4 Consumers’ Product Knowledge and Involvement McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Levels of Product Knowledge Consumers use different levels of product knowledge to interpret new information and make purchase choices. Product knowledge can be at four levels: Product class Product form Brands Model/features

Exhibit 4.1 - Levels of Product Knowledge

Consumers’ Product Knowledge Consumers can have three types of product knowledge: Knowledge about the attributes or characteristics of products. The positive consequences or benefits of using products. The values the product helps consumers satisfy or achieve.

Products as Bundles of Attributes Consumers often think about products and brands as bundles of attributes. Marketers need to know: Which product attributes are most important to consumers. What those attributes mean to consumers. How consumers use this knowledge in cognitive processes.

Products as Bundles of Attributes (cont.) Types of product attributes: Concrete attributes Abstract attributes

Products as Bundles of Benefits Consumers think about products and brands in terms of consequences. Functional consequences are tangible outcomes of using a product that consumers experience rather directly. Psychosocial consequences refer to the psychological and social outcomes of product use.

Products as Bundles of Benefits (cont.) Consumers think about products and brands as bundles of benefits. Benefits are the desirable consequences consumers seek when buying and using products and brands. Consumers can be divided through a process called benefit segmentation.

Products as Bundles of Benefits (cont.) Perceived risks concern the undesirable consequences that consumers want to avoid when they buy and use products. Risks can be: Physical Financial Functional Psychosocial

Products as Bundles of Benefits (cont.) Amount of perceived risk is influenced by: Degree of unpleasantness of the negative consequences. Likelihood that these negative consequences will occur.

Products as Value Satisfiers Values are people’s broad life goals. Types of values: Instrumental Terminal Core Form key elements in a self-schema. Satisfying a value usually elicits positive affect, whereas blocking a value produces negative affect.

Means-End Chains of Product Knowledge A means-ends chain links consumers’ knowledge about product attributes with their knowledge about consequences and values. Four levels of means-end chain: Attributes Functional consequences Psychosocial consequences Values

Exhibit 4.4 - A Means-End Chain Model of Consumers’ Product Knowledge

Exhibit 4.5 - Examples of Means-End Chains

Identifying Consumers’ Means-End Chains Measured by one-on-one personal interviews. Involves two steps: Researcher must identify/elicit the product attributes most important to each consumer. Laddering - interview process designed to reveal how the consumer links product attributes to more abstract consequences and values.

Exhibit 4.6 - Identification Key Attributes Considered by Consumers

Means-End Chains - Marketing Implications Provide a deeper understanding of consumers’ product knowledge. Identify the basic ends consumers seek when they buy and use certain products and brands; gives insight into consumers’ deeper purchase motivations. Identify the consumer-product relationship.

Digging for Deeper Consumer Understanding Use of qualitative research methods: Focus groups Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) Elicits metaphors from consumers that reveal their deep meanings (both cognitive and affective) about a topic.

The ZMET Interview The ZMET interview involves the following steps: The pre-interview instruction Storytelling Expand the frame Sensory images Vignette Digital image

ZMET - Marketing Implications Can stimulate managers’ imaginations and guide their strategic thinking about a variety of marketing problems.

Involvement Involvement refers to consumers’ perceptions of importance or personal relevance for an object, event, or activity. A motivational state that energizes and directs consumers’ cognitive and affective processes and behaviors as decisions are made. Felt involvement emphasizes that involvement is a psychological state that consumers experience only at certain times.

Focus of Involvement Products and brands Physical objects People Activities or behaviors

The Means-End Basis for Involvement A consumers’ level of involvement or self-relevance depends on two aspects of the means-end chains that are activated: Importance of self-relevance of the ends. Strength of connections between the product knowledge level and the self-knowledge level.

Factors Influencing Involvement Intrinsic self-relevance is based on consumers’ means–end knowledge stored in memory. Acquired through past experience with a product. Situational self-relevance is determined by aspects of the immediate physical/social environment. Activates important consequences and values, thus making products and brands seem self-relevant.

Factors Influencing Involvement (cont.) What marketers need to understand: Focus of consumers’ involvement. Sources that create it.

Exhibit 4.8 - A Basic Model of Consumer Product Involvement

Involvement - Marketing Implications Understanding consumers’ product knowledge and involvement can help marketers: Understand the critical consumer–product relationship. Develop more effective marketing strategies.

Understanding the key Reasons for Purchase Marketers can use means–end analyses to: Identify the key attributes and consequences underlying a product purchase decision. Understand the meaning of those concepts to consumers.

Understanding the Consumer-Product Relationship Marketers need to understand the cognitive and affective aspects of consumer–product relationships. Four market segments with different levels of intrinsic self-relevance for a product category and brand are: Brand loyalists Routine brand buyers Information seekers and brand switchers

Influencing Intrinsic Self-Relevance If marketers can understand the means–end knowledge that makes up consumers’ intrinsic self-relevance: They are better able to design product attributes that consumers will connect to important consequences and values. Over longer periods consumers’ means–end knowledge can be influenced by various marketing strategies.

Influencing Situational Self-Relevance Strategies to create, modify, or maintain consumers’ situational self-relevance, usually with the goal of encouraging a purchase, include: Semiannual clearance sales Premiums Special pricing strategies Linking a product to a social cause

Summary Consumers don’t buy products to get attributes. Consumers think about products in terms of their desirable and undesirable consequences—benefits, and perceived risks. Consumers form knowledge structures called means-end chains.

Summary (cont.) Consumers’ feelings of involvement are determined by intrinsic self-relevance, the means-end knowledge stored in memory. Situational factors in the environment also influence the content of activated means-end chains and thereby affect consumers’ involvement.