Consumer Behavior Communication programs Consumer response to communication programs.

Consumer BehaviorConsumer BehaviorCommunication programs

Consumer response to Consumer response to

communication communication

programsprograms


Outline• Communication objectives

• Attitudes and their measurement

• Attitude change and persuasion– The two routes to persuasion

– Central-route approaches

– Peripheral-route approaches


Communication objectives

• Category need

• Brand awareness

• Brand attitude

• Brand purchase intention/purchase


Attitudesdefinition:

a tendency to evaluate people (e.g., a salesperson), objects (e.g., a product, an ad), or events (e.g., the purchase of a brand) with some degree of favorability or unfavorability;

components of an attitude:– cognitive component: beliefs about the attitude concept;– affective component: feeling-based reactions toward the

attitude concept;– conative component: overt behavioral responses or

intentions to act;


Measurement of attitudes• Likert scaling: statements that are thought to

reflect either a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the concept of interest are rated on agree-disagree scales (typically 5-point scales) and the ratings are then summated (after reverse-scoring negative items);

• semantic differential scaling: the attitude concept is rated on a series of bipolar adjective scales (typically 7-point scales) such as good-bad, favorable-unfavorable, or pleasant-unpleasant;


Advertising is generally informative.__1__ __2__ __3__ __4__ __5__strongly disagree neither agree stronglydisagree agree

Most advertising insults my intelligence.__1__ __2__ __3__ __4__ __5__strongly disagree neither agree stronglydisagree agree


My attitude toward advertising can be best described as:

Positive _1_ _2_ _3_ _4_ _5_ _6_ _7_ Negative

Unfavorable _1_ _2_ _3_ _4_ _5_ _6_ _7_ Favorable

Good _1_ _2_ _3_ _4_ _5_ _6_ _7_ Bad


Two routes to persuasion• there are two routes to persuasion:

– central route: people scrutinize the arguments in the message;

– peripheral route: cues that are not based on a careful consideration of the true merits of the message can have persuasive impact;

• a person’s motivation and/or ability to engage in issue-relevant thinking determines the route:– when motivation and ability are high, attitudes change

follows the central route; – when motivation and/or ability are low, attitude change

occurs via the peripheral route;


persuasivecommunication

motivationto process ?

abilityto process ?

nature of cognitive processing ?

favorablethoughts

predominate

unfavorablethoughts

predominate

neither orneutral thoughts

predominate

central positiveattitude change

central negativeattitude change

yes yes

no no

peripheralattitude shift

peripheralcue present ?

The two routes to attitude change

yes


Influences on persuasionvariables can influence the extent and direction of attitude change by:

• serving as persuasive arguments (e.g., weak vs. strong arguments);

• serving as peripheral cues (e.g., source expertise or attractiveness, number of arguments);

• affecting the extent and direction of message elaboration (e.g., involvement as a determinant of motivation to process and distraction as a determinant of ability to process);


Effects of the two routes to persuasion

• centrally changed attitudes are relatively enduring, resistant to counterpersuasion, and predictive of behavior;

• peripherally changed attitudes are more temporary, susceptible to counter-persuasion, and less predictive of behavior;


Involvement and persuasion(Petty et al.)

• 160 Ss were exposed to 12 ads, one of which was the target ad for a fictitious product called the Edge razor;

• Ss were assigned to one of the 8 cells in a 2 (involvement: low or high) x 2 (argument quality: weak or strong) x 2 (peripheral cue: celebrity or noncelebrity status) factorial design;

• involvement was manipulated by promising Ss a gift of either a brand of disposable razors or a brand of toothpaste and by telling Ss that Edge razors would soon be introduced in their own city or test marketed in another part of the country;

• argument quality was manipulated by presenting five cogent (e.g., advanced honing method for unsurpassed sharpness) or five specious (e.g., floats in water with a minimum of rust) product claims in the ad;

• in the celebrity status condition, famous golf and tennis celebrities endorsed the product, in the noncelebrity status condition Bakersfield, CA, endorsed it;

• attitude toward the product and purchase intentions as the dependent variables;


Involvement and persuasion (cont’d)

• attitudes: significant involvement x endorser and involvement x argument quality interactions;

• intentions: argument quality was a more important determinant of purchase intentions under high rather than low involvement; attitudes were better predictors of intentions under high involvement;

atti-tude

low high involve-ment

atti-tude

low high involve-ment

celebrity

noncelebrity

strong arguments

weak arguments


Central-route persuasion: Fishbein’s expectancy-value model

attitudes are a function of the strength of beliefs about the attitude concept and the evaluative aspect of those beliefs;

Ac = bi ei

components:• number of salient beliefs (i=1, ..., n)• strength of each belief ( bi )

• evaluative aspect of each belief (ei )


My attitude toward Jif creamy peanut butter can be best described as:

Unfavorable ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Favorable

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)


Unlikely ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Likely(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

Bad ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Good(-3) (-2) (-1) (0) (+1) (+2) (+3)

JifJif fattyfatty

fresh roastedfresh roastedpeanut tastepeanut taste

creamycreamy


Changing cognitive structure using the EV model

• add a new positive belief;

• increase the strength of an existing positive belief;

• increase the evaluation of a strongly held positive belief;


Central-route persuasion: The cognitive response model

• people actively relate information contained in persuasive messages to extant knowledge stored in memory and generate idiosyncratic thoughts in response to the message (so-called cognitive responses);

• attitude change depends on the extent of processing the valence of thoughts


The measurement of cognitive responses

• use of post-message thought listings to assess cognitive responses;

• when content analyzing subjects’ thought protocols, cognitive responses are often classified as support arguments, counter arguments, or source derogations;


Peripheral-route persuasion• source effects: credibility, attractiveness, and

liking of the spokesperson;

• message effects: number of arguments, inferences based on brand name or product attributes, etc.;

• context effects: message repetition, program or editorial context, mood;


Using classical (respondent) conditioning for peripheral persuasion

UCS

UCS

NS (CS to be)

CS

UCR

UCR

CR

elicits

elicits

comes to elicit

with

I.

II.

III.

paired


Classical conditioning (cont’d)

• CS and UCS should be paired repeatedly and consistently;

• forward conditioning is better than backward conditioning;

• CC is more effective when the UCS and CS are novel, salient, and relevant or similar to each other (because associations are more easily formed);


Music and pen choice (Gorn)• one-minute extract of music from “Grease” as the

positive UCS, one minute of atonal Indian classical music as the negative UCS; light blue and beige pens as originally neutral CS;

• Ss watched a slide of either a light blue or beige pen while hearing either liked or disliked music;

• as a reward for their participation in the study, Ss could choose either a light blue or beige pen;

• finally, Ss were asked why they had picked a pen with a particular color;


Music and pen choice (cont’d)

likedmusic

dislikedmusic

choice ofadvertised pen

choice of non-advertised pen

79% 21%

30% 70%

• effect of music on pen choice:

• 91% of the people who provided a reason for their choice mentioned color preference as their reason;


Attitudes and behavior:The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)

(Fishbein and Ajzen)

where: B = behaviorBI = behavioral intentionAact = attitude toward the behaviorSN = subjective normw1, w2 = weights that reflect the relative influence

of Aact and SN

B = f(BI) = w1 Aact + w2 SN


Aact: a person’s evaluation of performing the behavior

Aact = bi ei

components: • outcomes or consequences of behavior (i=1, ..., m)• strength of behavioral beliefs (bi)• evaluative aspect of each outcome or consequence (ei)

SN: a person’s perceptions of the social pressures put onhim or her to perform the behavior

SN = j MCj

components:• relevant referents for behavior (j=1, ..., n)• strength of normative beliefs (NBj)• motivation to comply (MCj)

Components of the TRA


BI: a plan or an expectation to perform the behavior , which is a

function of both personal and social factors;

BI = w1 Aact + w2 SN

B: actual performance of the behavior

B = f(BI)

Components of the TRA (cont’d)

Note: if a person does not have complete control over performance ofthe behavior, behavioral intentions and behavior may also be a functionof the person’s perceived behavioral control (i.e., how easy or difficultperformance of the behavior is thought to be);

Consumer 1 Consumer 2 Consumer 3

CU 10 20 2

BI 6 9 2

b1 5 7 2

b2 4 1 2

b3 3 2 2

e1 2 3 0

e2 0 1 -1

e3 0 1 -1

NB1 1 4 3

NB2 2 2 3

MC1 3 3 2

MC2 3 3 1

In-class exercise: Predicting coupon usage


TRA applied to coupon usage (cont’d)

Aact

SN

BI B

EV1

EV2

EV3

NB2MC2

NB1MC1

NB3MC3

-.08b

-.12a

.71a

.48a

.10b

.05

.51a

.31a

.68a

Note: standardized path coefficients,with a p<.01, b p<.05 (one-tailed)

rewards

encumbrances

inconveniences

spouse

family

friends


Conditions under which attitudes and intentions will predict behavior

• volitional control

• correspondence in level of specificity– action: single/multiple acts– target: concept at which action is directed– context: situational circumstance of action– time: when an action is to be performed

• stability of attitudes and intentions

Consumer Behavior Communication programs Consumer response to communication programs.

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