1. Consumer Attitude: Formation and Change
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Consumer Attitude: Formation and Change

2. A Simple Model of Consumer Decision Making
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter One Slide

3. Overview First: Definition of Attitude
Second: Tri-component model of Attitudes
Third: Attitude formation
Fourth: Attitude change
Here is an outline of the topics for Chapter Eight.
Chapter Eight Slide

4. First: Definition of Attitude
Introduction
We have attitudes toward many things (objects): e.g. people, products, brands, advertisements, ideas, places, activities.
The attitudes have been learned and guide our behavior toward the attitude object.
Chapter Eight Slide

5. You May Have Liked the Product but Disliked the Ad or Vice Versa
What Is Your Attitude Toward the Product Advertised? What Is Your Attitude Toward the Ad Itself? Are the Two Attitudes Similar or Different?
You May Have Liked the Product but Disliked the Ad or Vice Versa
Chapter Eight Slide

6. Attitude
definition
Attitude is a learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object.
Chapter Eight Slide

7. Concepts of attiudes
The attitude is toward an object which may be a store, product category , brand or anything else.
Attitudes are a learned predisposition, either through direct experience or from others. This predisposition may lead to a favorable or unfavorable behavior toward the object.
Attitudes have consistency, but are not necessarily permanent and can change over time.
Attitudes occur within a situation.
Situation here means: events or circumstances that, at a particular point in time, influence the relationship between an attitude and behavior.
How attitudes affect behavior depends on the situation in which the behavior occurs
Thus a specific situation may cause consumers to behave in ways that are inconsistent with their attitudes
From a marketer’s perspective, it is important to consider the situation in which the behavior takes place, or one might misinterpret the relationship between attitude and behavior
For example:
Jon Doe may dislike McDonald’s—because of the solid waste pollution, because it’s a multinational corporation, or because he doesn’t feel the food is healthy.
But if John Doe is running late for an evening meeting and has little time to eat, he may decide to eat at McDonald’s, even though that’s inconsistent with his attitude.
Has he changed his attitude?
No.
What does this mean for marketers?
Another example:
Jane Doe may buy a different shampoo each time she shops.
This might reflect dissatisfaction with the brands she has used in the past.
Or it may reflect that she is trying to save money and is buying the least expensive brand each time.
Attitudes are not permanent and can and do change
Once attitudes develop, they are not always easy to change
Often the goal of marketing is to change attitudes about a product or company
Circumstances sometimes preclude consistency between attitudes and behavior
Aspects of the situation
situational constraints (e.g., sparing one’s feelings) may prevent us from expressing our true attitudes
often we choose situations where we can engage in behaviors consistent with our attitudes
Chapter Eight Slide

8. It is Stylish, Safe, and Good for the Environment
What Information Does This Ad Provide to Assist Consumers in Forming Attitudes Toward the Saturn Vue Hybrid?
It is Stylish, Safe, and Good for the Environment
Chapter Eight Slide

9. Relation Between Attitude and Behavior
It is fair to say that attitudes at least sometimes guide behavior
Thus it is important for marketers to understand the role of attitudes in purchase situations
Is there always a direct link between attitude and behavior?
No, but… (1)
Chapter Eight Slide

10. Second: Tri-component Model of attitudes
Attitudes consist of three components. A change in one component tends to produce related changes in the other components.
Marketing mangers find it difficult to influence the consumer’s conation directly to buy the product, instead, they influence the behavior indirectly by providing information, music or other stimuli that influence a belief (cognition) or feeling (affection) about the product.
Cognition
Chapter Eight Slide

11. 1- Tricomponent Model Cognitive Affective Conative Components
The knowledge and perceptions that are acquired by a combination of direct experience with the object and related information from various sources (what we learn from others)
Cognitive
Affective
Conative
Experience: Marketer’s goal is to get consumers to try a product samples and, hopefully, develop a positive attitude towards it.
So, what does this mean for marketers?
Get people to try their products! (1)
(2) How might marketers stimulate trial of their products?
Ever happen to you?
Others: Family and friends, for example, are a major influence on our values, beliefs and attitudes
We carry over into adulthood many of the attitudes we developed as children
Our peer and social groups also influence our attitudes
Chapter Eight Slide

12. 1- Tricomponent Model Cognitive Affective Conative
A consumer’s emotions or feelings about a particular product or brand or any other object.
Components
Cognitive
Affective
Conative
Good or bad: favorable or unfavorable
These feelings often tend to be good or bad feelings.
Chapter Eight Slide

13. 1- Tricomponent Model Cognitive Affective Conative Components
The likelihood or tendency that an individual will undertake a specific action or behave in a particular way with regard to the attitude object
Cognitive
Affective
Conative
Example: tendency to buy a certain brand or from a specific store.
Chapter Eight Slide

14. Implications of tri-component model for marketing strategy
When marketers use the tri-component model to create or change attitudes, they use the various components as follows:
At the cognitive level with information
At the affective level with emotionally toned messages
At the conative level with incentives (samples, coupons, rebates)
What are the implications?
Chapter Eight Slide

15. Third: Attitude Formation
Knowing How consumer attitudes are formed is of vital importance to marketers in order to form consumer attitudes and influence their behavior toward their products.
Consumer attitudes are learnt. Hence, marketers enhance the sources that influence consumer learning.
Chapter Eight Slide

16. Sources of Attitude formation
Three Major Influences on Attitude Formation
Personal experience
Influence of family and friends
Mass-media
Exposure to direct marketing
How do people form their initial general attitudes towards things?
How do they decide whether to buy Lee or Levi’s jeans?
How do they decide whether to shop at Sears, Penney’s or Costco?
Land’s End or LL Bean?
Chapter Eight Slide

17. 1. Personal Experience
The primary basis on which attitudes towards goods and services are formed
Free products, cents-off promotions, etc.
Marketer’s goal is to get consumers to try a product and, hopefully, develop a positive attitude towards it
So, what does this mean for marketers?
Get people to try their products! (1)
(2) How might marketers stimulate trial of their products?
Ever happen to you?
Entertainment Book (for restaurants, at least) based on this theory
Chapter Eight Slide

18. 2. Influence of Family & Friends
Family and friends are a major influence on our values, beliefs and attitudes
We carry over into adulthood many of the attitudes we developed as children
Our peer and social groups also influence our attitudes
Family examples:
attitudes towards food (e.g., junk food, ethnic food), restaurants (2)
Examples (#3)?:
the car we drive (minivan vs. BMW), tattoos, pierces, etc.
Does the age of the consumer determine which group (family vs. friends) has more influence?
Sure, and we’ll see this in more depth later.
Chapter Eight Slide

19. 3. Mass Media
Mass media:
Television
Radio
News papers
Magazines
Those media provide marketers with unlimited opportunities to create positive attitudes towards their products
(3)…and negative ones as well!
Cause marketing serves this purpose
Chapter Eight Slide

20. 4. Direct Marketing
Direct marketers are able to use new technologies to target smaller and smaller market segments
As a result, many marketers are highly personalized and have the capacity to create favorable attitudes towards their products
(3)…and negative ones as well!
Cause marketing serves this purpose
Chapter Eight Slide

21. Fourth: Attitude Change
Attitude change and formation are not all that different. They are both learned, they are both influenced by many factors such as: personal experience, personality effects, family influence, and marketing communications.
Chapter Eight Slide

22. Strategies of Attitude Change
Changing the Basic Motivational Functions
Associating the Product with an Admired Group or Event
Altering consumer’s brand evaluation
Changing Beliefs about Competitors’ Brands
Chapter Eight Slide

23. 1- Changing the Basic Motivational Functions
An effective way to change consumer attitudes toward a product or a brand is to change his four motivational functions:
Utilitarian
Ego-defensive
Value-expressive
Knowledge
Chapter Eight Slide

24. 1- Changing the Basic Motivational Functions
Utilitarian function is how the product is useful to us. A marketer might want to create a more consumer positive attitude toward a brand by showing utilities the brand can do.
ego-defensive function would show how the product would make them feel more secure and confident (e.g. cosmetics that defense women’s appearance).
value-expressive function would more positively reflect the consumer’s values or lifestyle.
knowledge function would satisfy the consumer’s “need to know” and help them understand more.
It is important for marketers to realize that they might have to combine functions because different customers are motivated to purchase their products for different reasons. Someone might buy a product because it tastes good and fills them up (utilitarian), while another thinks it is low fat and will make them healthy and therefore look better (ego-defensive).
Chapter Eight Slide

25. Why and How Does This Ad Appeal to the Utilitarian Function?
The Product is Green and Works as Well or Better than Other Products.
Chapter Eight Slide

26. Healthy Eating and Snacking Lifestyle
Which Lifestyle- Related Attitudes (value expressive) Are Expressed or Reflected in This Ad?
Healthy Eating and Snacking Lifestyle
Chapter Eight Slide

27. How Does This Ad Provide Information to Establish or Reinforce Consumer Attitudes?
It Raises the Question About UVA Rays and then Provides Information (knowledge) n Sun Protection.
Chapter Eight Slide

28. 2- Associating the Product with an Admired Group or Event
Attitudes are related, at least in part, to certain groups, social events, or causes.
It is possible to alter (change) attitudes toward companies and their products by pointing out their relationships to these groups, events, or causes.
Example: advertisement around the playground in football matches or events sponsorships.
Chapter Eight Slide

29. Associating the Product with an Admired Group or Event
The Fiji water’s link to
Environmental Cause Likely to Impact Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Its Product. Accordingly, they Might Have a More Favorable Attitude toward the company and its product.
Chapter Eight Slide

30. 3- Altering consumer’s brand evaluation
Changing consumer’s evaluation of attributes. Example: Perhaps the consumer thinks that the product fine to be inexpensive, but a marketer might be able to point out that it is often worth paying a bit more for better quality.
Changing brand beliefs. Example: Maybe a consumer thinks a brand is very expensive when in fact it is less expensive than several other brands.
Adding an attribute. Example: Who thought chewiness was an attribute that could even exist for a vitamin until Gummy Vites came along?
Changing the overall brand rating, not a single attribute of it. Example: using statements like: “ the one all others try to imitate” or “ the largest selling brand”.
If we think analytically about a multiattribute model, we realize there are many different attributes that make up an overall attitude. As marketers, we can change the way the consumer evaluates a certain attribute.
Perhaps the consumer thinks inexpensive is fine for a product, but a marketer might be able to point out that it is often worth paying a bit more for better quality.
A marketer can also change the way consumers believe a brand rates on a certain attribute. Maybe a consumer thinks a brand is very expensive when in fact it is less expensive then several other brands.
There may be an attribute that does not even exist. Who thought chewiness was an attribute that could even exist for a vitamin until Gummy Vites came along?
Finally, we can step away from looking individually at the attribute and attempt to change the consumer’s overall assessment of the brand. We can do any of these attitude change strategies by changing beliefs of our own product or our competitor's product.
Chapter Eight Slide

31. How Is This New Benefit Likely to Impact Consumers’ Attitudes Toward the Product?
The ad states that there is a link between one’s mouth health and the health of one’s whole body, changing the overall brand rating in the minds of target consumers
Chapter Eight Slide

32. Adding an attribute (chewiness) to vitamins
How Is the Absence of an Ingredient Likely to Lead to a Favorable Attitude Toward a Product?
Adding an attribute (chewiness) to vitamins
Chapter Eight Slide

33. 4- Changing beliefs about the attributes of competitors’ brands
How Is Valvoline’s Attempt to Change Attitudes Toward a Competing Brand Likely to Impact Attitudes Toward Its Own Brand?
If we think analytically about a multiattribute model, we realize there are many different attributes that make up an overall attitude. As marketers, we can change the way the consumer evaluates a certain attribute.
Perhaps the consumer thinks inexpensive is fine for a product, but a marketer might be able to point out that it is often worth paying a bit more for better quality.
A marketer can also change the way consumers believe a brand rates on a certain attribute. Maybe a consumer thinks a brand is very expensive when in fact it is less expensive then several other brands.
There may be an attribute that does not even exist. Who thought chewiness was an attribute that could even exist for a vitamin until Gummy Vites came along?
Finally, we can step away from looking individually at the attribute and attempt to change the consumer’s overall assessment of the brand. We can do any of these attitude change strategies by changing beliefs of our own product or our competitor's product.
By Showing Better Wear Protection
Chapter Eight Slide

34. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Central and peripheral routes of changing attitudes (Elaboration likelihood model)
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Customer attitudes are changed by two distinctly different routes to persuasion: a central route or a peripheral route.
The ELM is a much more global view of attitude change than the models reviewed on the previous slide. A more detailed description is provided in a diagram on the next slide.
Elaboration: to which extent the customer will involve in purchasing decision:
1- High involvement (central route).
2- Low involvement: (peripheral route).
Chapter Eight Slide

35. Elaboration Likelihood Model
High Involvement
On the left-hand side of the model, we see central variables on the top and peripheral variables on the bottom.
Central variables, which lead to the central route, will be effective on highly-motivated and high involvement consumers. They will do the thinking necessary to seek out and understand the information regarding the attitude object.
Peripheral variables, including coupons, free samples, spokespeople, and packaging, work on lower-involvement consumers. Together, or alone, they create an attitude change that results in a certain behavior without a need of information regarding the attitude object.
Low Involvement
Chapter Eight Slide