Chapter 3

Learning and Memory

Dr. Reem Hamdy

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 Learning Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
• It’s important for marketers to understand how
consumers learn about products and services.
• Conditioning results in learning.
• Learned associations can generalize to other things and
why this is important to marketers.

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 Learning Objectives (continued)
When you finish this chapter, you should understand
why:
• There is a difference between classical and
instrumental conditioning.
• We learn by observing others’ behavior.
• Memory systems work.

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 Learning Objectives (continued)
When you finish this chapter, you should understand
why:
• The other products we associate with an individual
product influences how we will remember it.
• Products help us to retrieve memories from our past.
• Marketers measure our memories about products and
ads.
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The Learning Process
• Learning: a relatively
permanent change in behavior
caused by experience
• Incidental learning: casual,
unintentional acquisition of
knowledge

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Learning process
Behaviour is both a non-observable
activity as well as overt or open
behaviour which can be observed.
Learning is relatively a permanent
change. Learning stresses our past
experience.

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 Behavioral Learning Theories
• Behavioral learning theories: assume that learning
takes place as the result of responses to external
events.

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 Types of Behavioral Learning Theories
Classical conditioning: a stimulus
that elicits a response is paired
with another stimulus that
initially does not elicit a
response on its own.

Instrumental conditioning (also,

operant conditioning): the
individual learns to perform
behaviors that produce positive
outcomes and to avoid those that
yield negative outcomes.
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 Classical Conditioning
• Ivan Pavlov rang bell and put meat powder into
dogs’ mouths; repeated until dogs salivated when
the bell rang
• Meat powder = UCS (natural reaction is drooling) (unconditioned
stimulus)
• Bell = CS (dogs learned to drool when bell rang) ( Conditioned
stimulus)
• Drooling = CR (conditioned Response)
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 Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is
paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its
own. Over time, the second stimulus causes a similar response because we
associate it with the first stimulus. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who
conducted research on digestion in animals, first demonstrated this
phenomenon in dogs.

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 Classical Conditioning
• He paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a
salivation response in dogs. The powder was an unconditioned stimulus
(UCS) because it was naturally capable of causing the response. Over time,
the bell became a conditioned stimulus (CS). The bell did not initially cause
salivation but the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder
and began to salivate at the sound of the bell only. The drooling of these
canine consumers because of a sound was a conditioned response (CR).

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Classical conditioning

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 Marketing Applications of conditional learning
1. Repetition
Repetition increases the speed of learning. If a TV commercial is
flashed a number of times, it will register more in the minds of
consumers. The exposure must carry important and interesting
information.

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 Marketing Applications of Repetition
• Repetition increases learning
• More exposures = increased brand awareness
• When exposure decreases, extinction occurs
• However, too MUCH exposure leads to advertising wear
out
• Example: Izod crocodile on clothes

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 Marketing Applications of
Stimulus Generalization
• Stimulus generalization: tendency for stimuli similar to a
conditioned stimulus to evoke similar, unconditioned
responses, to capitalize on consumer’s positive associations
with an existing brand or company name.

– Family branding - Product line extensions

– Licensing - Look-alike packaging

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• Family branding enables
products to capitalize on the
reputation of a company name.
Marketers can use product line

• product line extensions by

adding related products to an
established brand
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Licensing
Licensing allows companies to
rent well-known names

Look-alike packaging

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 Discussion
• Some advertisers use well-known songs to promote
their products. They often pay more for the song than
for original compositions. How do you react when one
of your favorite songs turns up in a commercial?
• Why do advertisers do this? How does this relate to
learning theory?
• If you worked for an ad agency, how would you select
songs for your clients?
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 Instrumental Conditioning
• Behaviors = positive outcomes or negative
outcomes
• Instrumental conditions occurs in one of these
ways:
– Positive reinforcement
– Negative reinforcement
– Punishment
– Extinction
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Figure 3.2 Instrumental Conditioning

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 Reinforcement Schedules in
Instrumental Conditioning
• Fixed-interval (seasonal sales)
• Variable-interval (secret shoppers)
• Fixed-ratio (grocery-shopping receipt programs)
• Variable-ratio (slot machines)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWshQ4DF30

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 Cognitive Learning Theories: Observational
Learning
• We watch others; we model behavior
• Conditions for modeling to occur:
– The consumer’s attention must be directed to the
appropriate model
– The consumer must remember what the model does and
says
– The consumer must convert information to action
– The consumer must be motivated to perform actions 3-25
Figure 3.3
The Observational Learning Process
• Modeling: imitating others’ behavior

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 Role of Memory in Learning
• Memory: acquiring information and storing it over time
so that it will be available when needed.
• Information-processing approach; Figure 3.4
– Mind = computer and data = input/output

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nIRsjYNftE 3-27
 How Information Gets Encoded
• Encode: mentally program meaning
• Types of meaning:
– Sensory meaning, such as the literal color or shape of a
package
– Semantic meaning: symbolic associations
• Episodic memories: relate to events that are personally
relevant
• Narrative: memories store information we acquire in
story form 3-28
Figure 3.5 The Memory Process

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 Figure 3.6
An Associative Networks for Perfumes

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 Activation models of memory
• These approaches are called activation models of memory. The more
effort it takes to process information, the more likely it is that
information will transfer into long-term memory.

• According to these activation models of memory, an incoming piece of

information gets stored in an associative network that contains many
bits of information. These storage units are knowledge structures –
like a complex spider web filled with pieces of data. Incoming
information gets put into nodes that connect to one another 3-31
 Spreading Activation
• As one node is activated, other nodes associated with
it also begin to be triggered
• Meaning types of associated nodes:
– Brand-specific
– Ad-specific
– Brand identification
– Product category
– Evaluative reactions
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 Levels of Knowledge
• Individual nodes = meaning concepts
• Two (or more) connected nodes = proposition (complex
meaning)
• Two or more propositions = schema
– We encode info that is consistent with an existing schema
more readily
– Service scripts
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 Retrieval for Purchase Decisions
• Retrieving information often requires appropriate
factors and cues:
– Physiological factors
– Situational factors
• Consumer attention; pioneering brand; descriptive brand names
• Viewing environment (continuous activity; commercial order in
sequence)
• Post experience advertising effects

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What Makes Us Forget?
• Appropriate factors/cues for
retrieval:
– State-dependent retrieval/ mood
congruence effect
– Familiarity
– Salience/von Restorff effect
– Visual memory versus verbal memory

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Measuring Memory for Marketing Stimuli
• Recognition versus recall
• Problems with memory measures
– Response biases
– Memory lapses
• Omitting
• Averaging
• Telescoping
– Illusion of truth effect
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 The Marketing Power of Nostalgia
• Marketers may resurrect
popular characters to
evoke fond memories of
the past
– Nostalgia
– Retro brand

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 Discussion

• What “retro brands” are targeted to you? Were these

brands that were once used by your parents?
• What newer brands focus on nostalgia, even though
they never existed before?

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 Chapter Summary
• Marketers need to know how consumers learn in order to
develop effective messages.
• Conditioning results in learning and learned associations can
generalize to other things.
• Learning can be accomplished through classical and
instrumental conditioning and through observing the behavior
of others.
• We use memory systems to store and retrieve information.

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 References
1. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 12th edition,
Michael R. Solomon

2. Consumer behavior and advertising

management, Matin Khan

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