Consumer Attitude Formation and Change

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Issues in Attitude Formation

• How attitudes are learned• Sources of influence on attitude formation• Personality factors

Cognition Affect

Attitude

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Attitude change

• Explain how the product manager of a breakfast cereal might change consumer attitudes toward the company’s brand by

• (a) changing beliefs about the brand,

• (b) changing beliefs about competing brands,

• (c) changing the relative evaluation of attributes, and

• (d) adding an attribute.

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Strategies of Attitude Change

• Changing the Basic Motivational Function• Associating the Product With a Special Group,

Event,or Cause• Resolving Two Conflicting Attitudes• Altering Components of the Multiattribute

Model• Changing Beliefs About Competitors’ Brands• The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

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Four Basic Motivational Functions

• The Utilitarian Function• The Ego-defensive

Function• The Value-expressive

Function• The Knowledge Function

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Utilitarian Utilitarian FunctionFunction

Changing attitudes by showing that the product serves a

useful purpose that the consumers did not previously consider

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Ego-Defensive Ego-Defensive FunctionFunction

Offers reassurance to the consumer’s self-concept

from inner feelings of doubt.

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Value-Value-Expressive Expressive FunctionFunction

Anticipates and appeals to the consumer’s values, lifestyle, and outlook

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Knowledge Knowledge FunctionFunction

Consumers have a strong need to know and

understand the people and things with which they

come into contact.

This is attempted by emphasizing a brand’s

advantages over competitive brands.

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Associating the Product with a Special Group, Event, or Cause

• It is possible to alter attitudes toward products by pointing out their relationships to particular social groups, events, or causes.

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Resolving Two Conflicting Attitudes

• If consumers can be made to see that their attitude toward a brand is in conflict with another attitude, they may be induced to change their evaluation of the brand.

• Chinese goods?

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Altering Components of the Multiattribute Model

• Changing the Relative Evaluation of Attributes

• Changing Brand Beliefs• Adding an Attribute• Changing the Overall Brand

Rating

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Changing the Relative Evaluation of Attributes

• The market for many product categories is structured so that different consumer segments are attracted to brands that offer different features or beliefs.

• In these market situations, marketers have an opportunity to persuade consumer’s to “crossover,” or to shift their favorable attitude toward another version of the product.

• It serves to upgrade consumer beliefs about one product although downgrading another.

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Changing Brand Beliefs

• This is the most common form of advertising appeal.• Advertisers constantly remind us that their product

has “more,” or is “better,” or “best” in terms of some important product attribute.

• Within the context of brand beliefs, there are forces working to stop or slow down attitude change.

– Therefore, information suggesting a change in attitude needs to be compelling and repeated enough to overcome the natural resistance to letting go of established attitudes.

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Adding an Attribute

• This cognitive strategy pivots on adding a previously ignored attribute, or adding an attribute that reflects an actual product or technological innovation.

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Changing the Overall Brand Rating

• Another cognitive-oriented strategy is altering consumers’ overall assessment of the brand directly, without attempting to improve or change their evaluation of any single brand attribute.

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Changing Beliefs About Competitors’ Brands

• This strategy involves changing consumer beliefs about attributes of competitive brands.

– One tool is comparative advertising. – But comparative advertising can boomerang

by giving visibility to competing brands.

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Elaboration Elaboration Likelihood Likelihood

Model (ELM)Model (ELM)

A theory that suggests that a person’s level of

involvement during message processing is a critical factor in determining which route to persuasion is likely to be

effective.

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The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Involvement

Central Route

Peripheral Route

Peripheral Cues

Influence Attitudes

Message Arguments Influence Attitudes

HIGH LOW

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Dual Dual mediation mediation

model model (DMM).(DMM).

This model demonstrates the interrelationship

between the central and peripheral processes.

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Why Might Behavior Precede Attitude Formation?

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Attribution Theory

Behave (Purchase)Behave (Purchase)

Form AttitudeForm AttitudeForm AttitudeForm Attitude

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Cognitive Cognitive Dissonance Dissonance

TheoryTheory

Holds that discomfort or dissonance occurs when a

consumer holds conflicting thoughts about a belief or an

attitude object.

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Your dissonance?

Think back to the time when you were selecting a college. Did you experience dissonance immediately after you made a decision? Why or why not? If you did experience dissonance, how did you resolve it?

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Postpurchase Postpurchase DissonanceDissonance

Cognitive dissonance that occurs after a consumer has

made a purchase commitment. Consumers

resolve this dissonance through a variety of

strategies designed to confirm the wisdom of their

choice.

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Dissonance reduction tactics

• Tactics that consumers can use to reduce dissonance include reduction:

– By rationalizing the decision as being wise– By seeking out advertisements that support

the original reason for choosing the product– By trying to “sell” friends on the positive

features of the brand– By looking to known satisfied owners for

reassurance

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Attribution Attribution TheoryTheory

A theory concerned with how people assign casualty to events and form or alter

their attitudes as an outcome of assessing their own or other people’s behavior.

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Issues in Attribution Theory

• Self-perception Theory– Foot-In-The-Door Technique

• Attributions Toward Others• Attributions Toward Things• How We Test Our Attributions

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Self-Self-Perception Perception

TheoryTheory

A theory that suggests that consumers develop attitudes by reflecting on their own

behavior.

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Defensive Defensive AttributionAttribution

A theory that suggests consumers are likely to

accept credit for successful outcomes (internal

attribution) and to blame other persons or products for failure (external attribution).

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Foot-in-the-Foot-in-the-Door Door

TechniqueTechnique

Individuals look at their prior behavior (e.g., compliance with a minor request) and conclude that they are the kind of person who says

“Yes” to such requests (i.e., an internal attribution).

Such self-attribution serves to increase the likelihood that they will agree to a similar, more substantial request.

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Price-off: foot in the door

• Most effective is a moderate incentive, one that is just big enough to stimulate initial purchase of the brand but still small enough to encourage consumers to internalize their positive usage experience and allow a positive attitude change to occur.

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Attributions Toward Others

• Every time a person asks “Why?” about a statement or action of another or “others”—a family member, a friend, a salesperson, a direct marketer!

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Attributions Toward Things

• Happens when judging product performance

• To find out why a product meets or does not

meet their expectations.

– Consumers could attribute the product’s

successful performance (or failure) to the

product itself, to themselves, to other people or

situations, or to some combination of these.

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How We Test Our Attributions

• By acting like “naive scientists;” that is, by collecting additional information in an attempt to confirm prior inferences.

• In collecting such information, consumers often use:

– Distinctiveness—Attribute an action to a particular product or person if the action occurs when the product (or person) is present and does not occur in its absence.

– Consistency over time—Whenever the person or product is present, the consumer’s inference or reaction must be the same, or nearly so.

– Consistency over modality—The inference or reaction must be the same, even when the situation in which it occurs varies.

– Consensus—The action is perceived in the same way by other consumers.