Exam 1 (Marketing 420: Bates)

Consumer Behavior

the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behavior, and the environment by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives

Basic Consumption Process

need-->want-->exchange-->cost+benefits-->evaluation-->perceived value

Phenomena

aspects of the real world we are trying to understand

Disciplines

tools that researchers and practitioners use to help them better understand phenomena

Concept

bear meaning--> vital to the development of scientific knowledge
an abstract idea or mental symbol and is typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or with another symbol (can be concrete or abstract)

Definitive concept

concept that only has one meaning

Sensitizing concept

point in a particular direction but make an individual "sensitive" to an open-ended set of concerns or issues

Decontextualized concept

-holds up across contexts
-abstract
-theory
-thinking
-about the world

Long Decay

a concept that will stick with you and always pop up in your mind

Contextualized

-placed in a context
-concrete
-practice
-interacting/doing
-in the world

Short Decay

prompt a quick burst of recognition and then just as quickly fade in the mind

Research tradition

disciplines"
a particular perspective on how we should asses reality
---- consists of
theory
method
aim

Theory

explanation which may solve the problem

Method

ways of evaluating or testing explanations

Aim

problem researcher has chosen to solve

Cognitive tradition

environment (info source)-->cognition-->behavior
Voluntarism
gather information, process it, and then act on it
"when we perform a behavior it impacts the environment

Behavioral tradition

environment-->cognition-->behavior
determinism
the choice is already made for us, we just react to our environment. when the environment changes, behavior changes

Cultural tradition

cognition-->behavior-->environment
dialectical
reality is subjective, there is no such thing as truth

Positivist-modernism

single truth
rational world
quantifiable

Interpretivist

symbolic, subjective experiences
socially constructed truth
qualitative

Qualitative (interpretivist)

discovering new ideas, observation+interpretation
small in depth samples

Quantitative (post modernism)

confirmation, measure+test hypotheses, let data speak, statistical evidence

Reciprocal causation

the pattern of mutual or bi-directional causality between factors that occur over time

Sense making

human cognitive systems are designed to interpret abstract symbols

Cognitive processing model

environment--> interpretation process-->attention comprehension-->new knowledge meanings and beliefs-->integration process (attitudes/intentions decision making) --> behavior
attention is the most important element

Involvement

-enduring: values + identity
-situational: immediate social context causes involvement
the higher the level, the more time you spend on a decision and the more accustomed you are in information processing

Semiotics

the study of signs and symbols--> how meaning is constructed and understood

Signifier

a linguistic unit or pattern

Signified

the concept that is represented by a signifier

Code

ensemble of signifiers

Semiotic field

when code is combined with a cultural context then we have this

Referent

the real world object that we use when saying the signifier

Memory-- types of knowledge

general- the knowledge the consumer has about their environments and behaviors
(how the consumer interprets relevant information
-episodic: specific events or episodes
-semantic: culture we are living in

Procedural knowledge

knowledge the consumer have about how to do things

Structures of knowledge

associative networks: organize and link many types of knowledge together
nodes: bits of information thought that can be activated
links: how we connect meanings

Schema

contain episodic and general knowledge organized together with links

Scripts

organized networks of procedural knowledge that consumers engage in over and over again

Building brand identity

when a brand is placed in a semiotic field and over time they become associated with the code that defined this field

Marketing

a process that tries to influence the spreading of activation

Capacity limits

consumer cognitive systems are restricted in the number of meanings that can be activated and processed at the same time

Automatic processes

some actions become so familiar to us that we go through the motions almost without thinking about it

Cognitive

rational beliefs about product attribute and functional consequences

Denotation

direct literal meaning (this will be similar across all demographic groups)
"use value

Emotional

understanding product symbolism
how does the product make you feel

Connotation

indirect or symbolic cultural meanings (will vary across demographic groups)
"sign value

Exchange value

use value + sign value

Accretion

with additional experience, consumers add new meanings and beliefs to the knowledge structure

Tuning

sets of related meanings are combined to create larger, more abstract meanings

Restructuring

imposing new knowledge structures

Marketer's effect on learning

present simple informational claims about their products--> hope that consumers will accurately interpret the information and add this knowledge to their knowledge structure

Exposure

consumers see information in the environment and in their own behaviors
we see 3000-5000 messages a day

Factors affecting attention

memory, context, marketing stimuli

Factors affecting exposure

attention+ability to comprehend+motivation to comprehend+comprehension

intentional or purposive exposure

actively searching for information
-recall for high involvement consumption consumers who go out and seek information

accidental or random exposure

-the result of passive learning
-most exposure is random or semi-random events that occur as we move through our environments and "accidentally" come into contact with information

Marketing implications

facilitate intentional exposure
maximize accidental exposure

Attention

selecting info from a large scale and ignoring other information
(conscious, alert, aroused)

Preconscious attention

automatic processes, familiar concepts, low to moderate involvement

Focal attention

controlled processes, novel concepts without well learned memory representations
high importance/involvement

Memory

activated needs, goals, and values

Context

the social context
we may be more receptive to information depending on the current situation that we are in

Marketing strategies

strategies are designed to elicit attention processes from a target audience

Comprehension

the interpretation process by which consumers understand/make sense of their own behavior
(varies due to consumer's motivation and ability)

Ability to comprehend

meanings that are activated from memory largely determine the meanings that can be produced by comprehension process
(what you know now will determine what you learn in the future)

Motivation to comprehend

degree felt involvement determined the level of motivation

Factors influencing comprehension

time pressure, consumer affective states, distractions, the environment

Automatic processing

simple exposure to the stimulus automatically activated its meaning representation from memory

Controlled processing

when exposed to new, unfamiliar information, consumers must consciously try to interpret the meaning of the information
(reasoning, thinking, and the use of internalized knowledge structures)

Depth of comprehension

determined by ability and motivation

Shallow comprehension

processes product meaning at concrete levels which represent the physical (tangible) characteristics of the stimulus
-produces attribute or functional characteristics of the stimulus

Deep comprehension

process produces more abstract, subjective & self-relevant meanings that represent intangible (symbolic) aspects of the stimulus
(produces value or psychosocial consequence meanings)

Elaboration process

level of elaboration"= degree of complexity of the hierarchical associative network of knowledge structure
-requires more cognitive capacity+effort (controlled thinking)
-produces a greater number of meaning concepts organized in more complex knowledge s

Attitude

a person's overall evaluation of a concept.
overall evaluation is formed through the integration process.
someone's feeling toward
-an object or a place
-a behavior
-an event
-a person
can be positive, negative, neutral or ambivalent

Implicit attitude

attitude resulting from very short response time to stimuli

Explicit attitudes

attitude resulting from information processing, a "reasoned" feeling

Levels of Attitude Concepts

-product class
-product form
-brand
-moddel
-brand/model general situation
-brand/model specific situation

Brand equity

-involves a strong, positive brand attitude
-based on favorable meanings and beliefs
-accessible in memory
-creates a strong, favorable consumer-brand relationship

Attitude tracking studies

marketers can use measures of consumers' attitudes to indicate success of marketing strategies

Key proposition

overall attitude is a function of two factors
-strengths of the salient beliefs associated with the object
-evaluation of those beliefs

Salient beliefs

-activated beliefs
-many factors influence which beliefs about an object will be activated in a situation and thus become salient determinants of Attitude formation
-vary over time or situations for some products
-salient groups: family, co-workers, peers

Belief strength

-perceived probability of association between an object and its relative attributes
-affected by past consumer experiences
-number of salient beliefs about an attitude object unlikely to exceed seven to nine

Belief Evaluation

-reflects how favorably the consumer perceives that attribute
-not necessarily fixed over time or constant across different situations

Attitude-chage strategies

-adding a new salient belief about the attitude object
-changing the strength of already salient beliefs
-changing the evaluative aspect of an existing, strongly held belief
-making an existing favorable belief more salient

Marketing implications (attitudes toward behavior)

-situational context has powerful influences on consumers' behavioral intentions
-developing effective strategies (determine weather the A or SN component has the major influence on behavioral intentions)
-measures of consumers' intentions may not be perf

Theory of planned behavior

-what if the consumer evaluated the consequences of exercise as positive; and they, and they believed the relevant theories wanted them to exercise

Perceived behavioral control

people's ability to perform a given behavior
-it is assumed that perceived behavioral control is determined by the total set of accessible control beliefs, i.e, beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate or impede performance of the behavio