Consumer Behavior

Chapter 9 Part 2
Learning, Memory and product Positioning

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Recap Part 1
• Learning
• Perceptual System – Exposure and attention
• Short-term memory – interpretation and transfer
• Long-term memory – Storage and retrieval
• LTM = semantic memory + episodic memory
• Memory Structure – Schema
• Nodes + relationship (Schematic diagram)
• Learning types (high involvement situation vs low involvement
situation)

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Learning Under High and Low Involvement

Classical conditioning is the process of using an established

relationship between one stimulus (music) and response
(pleasant feelings) to bring about the learning of the same
response (pleasant feelings) to a different stimulus (the brand).

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 Operant Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Learning in which a voluntary
response is strengthened or
weakened, depending on its
favorable or unfavorable
consequences
• Operant means involving the
modification of behavior by the
reinforcing or inhibiting effect of its
own consequences.
• B.F. Skinner

Operant means involving the modification of behaviour by the

reinforcing or inhibiting effect of its own consequences. The
organism operates on its environment to produce a desirable result.
Operant conditioning is at work when we learn that toiling
industriously can bring about a raise or that studying hard results in
good grades.

Skinner was interested in how animals operate on their

environment, and how this operant behaviour is instrumental in
bringing about certain consequences, which then determine the
probability of that behaviour being repeated. Skinner’s study of
operant conditioning grew out of the earlier work of another
American, Edward Thorndike.
An individual learns to engage in specific behaviors (such as
being responsive to customers’ needs) in order to receive
certain consequences (such as a bonus). This type of learning
is called operant conditioning because individuals learn to
operate in their environment in a certain way to achieve certain
consequences.

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Learning Under High and Low Involvement

Operant conditioning (or instrumental learning) involves

rewarding desirable behaviors such as brand purchases
with a positive outcome that serves to reinforce the
behavior.

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Learning Under High and Low Involvement

Shaping Can Be Used in Operant Conditioning

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Operant conditioning is used by marketers.

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Learning Under High and Low Involvement

Cognitive Learning

1. Iconic Rote Learning

2. Vicarious Learning/Modeling

3. Analytical Reasoning

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Learning a concept or the association between two or more concepts in the absence
of conditioning is known as iconic rote learning. Notice the distinction from
conditioning in that there is neither an unconditioned stimulus (classical) nor a direct
reward or reinforcement (operant) involved. Also, it is important to point out that
unlike more complex forms of cognitive learning, iconic rote learning generally
involves considerably less cognitive effort and elaboration.23 A substantial amount of
low-involvement learning involves iconic rote learning. Numerous repetitions of a
simple message that occur as the consumer scans the environment may result in the
essence of the message being learned. Through iconic rote learning, consumers may
form beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of products without being aware
of the source of the information. When the need arises, a purchase may be made
based on those beliefs

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 Vicarious Learning or Modeling

It is not necessary for consumers to directly experience a reward or punishment to

learn. Instead, they can observe the outcomes of others’ behaviors and adjust their
own accordingly. This type of learning is common in both low- and high-involvement
situations. In a high-involvement situation, such as purchasing a new suit shortly after
taking a job, a consumer may deliberately observe the styles worn by others at work
or by role models from other environments, including advertisements. Many ads
encourage consumers to imagine the feelings and experience of using a product.
Such images not only enhance learning about the product, but may even influence
how the product is evaluated after an actual trial. A substantial amount of modeling
also occurs in low-involvement situations. Throughout the course of their lives,
people observe others using products and behaving in a great variety of situations.
Most of the time they pay little attention to these behaviors. However, over time they
learn that certain behaviors, and products, are appropriate in some situations and
others are not.

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 Analytical Reasoning
Individuals engage in creative
thinking to restructure and
recombine existing information as
well as new information to form new
associations and concepts.

Analogical reasoning is an inference

process that allows consumers to
use an existing knowledge base to
understand a new situation or
object.

The most complex form of cognitive learning is analytical reasoning. In reasoning,

individuals engage in creative thinking to restructure and recombine existing
information as well as new information to form new associations and concepts.
Information from a credible source that contradicts or challenges one’s existing
beliefs often will trigger reasoning

One form of analytical reasoning is the use of analogy. Analogical reasoning is an

inference process that allows consumers to use an existing knowledge base to
understand a new situation or object. That is, it allows consumers to use knowledge
about something they are familiar with to help them understand something they are
not familiar with. For example, if you have not tried or adopted an e-reader such as
the Kindle or Kobo, you may learn about it by

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 Learning to Generalize and
Differentiate
• Stimulus Discrimination

• Stimulus Generalization

Stimulus discrimination or differentiation refers to the process of learning to respond

differently to similar but distinct stimuli. This process is critical for marketers who
want consumers to perceive their brands as possessing unique and important
features compared with other brands.

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 Learning, Memory, and Retrieval
Marketers want consumers to learn and remember positive features, feelings, and behaviors associated
with their brands.
Likelihood of Forgetting and rate of forgetting

What happens when

consumers forget?

Conditioned Learning Cognitive Learning

Extinction Retrieval Failure
Desired response decays or Information that is available
dies out if not reinforced. in LTM cannot be retrieved.

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 Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

 Strength of Learning

 Memory Interference

 Response Environment

9-15

One factor is strength of learning. The stronger the original learning (e.g., of nodes
and links between nodes), the more likely relevant information will be retrieved when
required. Strength of learning is enhanced by six factors: importance, message
involvement, mood, reinforcement, repetition, and dual coding.

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 Learning, Memory, and Retrieval
Strength of Learning

Strength of learning is enhanced by six factors:

1. Importance
2. Message Involvement
3. Mood
4. Reinforcement
5. Repetition (Pulsing, advertising wear out)
6. Dual Coding

Importance refers to the value that consumers place on the information to be learned. Importance might be
driven by inherent interest in the product or brand, or by the need to make a decision in the near future. The
more important it is for the individual to learn a particular behavior or piece of information, the more effective
and efficient he or she becomes in the learning process. This is largely due to the greater elaborative activities
involved in fully processing and categorizing the material.
Message Involvement When a consumer is not motivated to learn the material, processing can be increased by
causing the person to become involved with the message itself. Self-referencing indicates that consumers are
relating brand information to themselves. The “self ” is a powerful memory schema, and integrating brand
information into this schema enhances learning and memory.
Mood A positive mood during the presentation of information such as brand names enhances learning. A
positive mood during the reception of information appears to enhance its relational elaboration—it is compared
with and evaluated against more categories. This produces a more complete and stronger set of linkages among a
variety of other brands and concepts, which in turn enhances retrieval (access to the information)
Reinforcement Anything that increases the likelihood that a given response will be repeated in the future is
considered reinforcement. While learning frequently occurs in the absence of reinforcement, reinforcement has a
significant impact on the speed at which learning occurs and the duration of its effect
A positive reinforcement is a pleasant or desired consequence
A negative reinforcement involves the removal or the avoidance of an
unpleasant consequence
Repetition enhances learning and memory by increasing the accessibility of information in memory or by
strengthening the associative linkages between concepts. Quite simply, the more times people are exposed to
information or engage in a behavior, the more likely they are to learn and remember i
Too much repetition can cause consumers to actively shut out the message, evaluate it negatively, or disregard it,
an effect called advertising wearout
Any time it is important to produce widespread knowledge of the
product rapidly, such as during a new-product introduction, frequent
(close together) repetitions should be used. This is referred to as pulsing
Dual Coding Consumers can store (code) information in different ways. Storing the same information in
different ways (dual coding) results in more internal pathways (associative links) for retrieving information. This in
turn can increase learning and memory.

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 Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

Memory interference occurs when consumers have difficulty retrieving a

specific piece of information because other related information in memory gets
in the way.
• Avoid competing ads
• Buy premium times
• Recency planning
• Strengthen initial learning
• Reduce similarity to competing ads
• Provide external retrieval cues

Sometimes consumers have difficulty retrieving a specific piece of information

because other related information in memory gets in the way. This effect is referred
to as memory interference.
Avoid Competing Advertising One strategy is to avoid having your ad appear in the
same set of ads (same pod in a TV format) as your competitors’. Some companies
actually pay a premium to ensure this exclusivity. Another strategy, called recency
planning, involves trying to plan advertising exposures so that they occur as close in
time to a consumer purchase occasion as possible. The idea behind this concept is
that reducing the time to purchase reduces the chances that an ad for a competing
brand will be seen prior to purchase
Strengthen Initial Learning Another strategy is to increase the strength of the initial
learning because stronger learning is less subject to memory interference. Evidence
for the value of this strategy comes from the fact that memory interference is less
pronounced in high-involvement contexts and for highly familiar brands

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