exercise 2
mely1999
MARChapter8.pptx
Chapter 8: attitudes and persuasive communications
Dr. Jennifer Houston Mar4503
The power of attitudes
Consumers have attitudes toward a wide range of attitude objects, from product-specific behaviors to more general, consumption-related behaviors
The functional theory of attitudes explains how attitudes facilitate social behavior because they serve some function for the person
Utilitarian function – basic principles of reward and punishment
Value-expressive function – relate to consumers self-concept
Ego-defensive function – protecting ourself from external threats or internal feelings
Knowledge function – when a person is in an ambiguous situation
Within the context of consumer behavior, an attitude is a lasting , general evaluation of people (including oneself), objects, advertisements, or issues
We call anything toward which one has an attitude and attitude object
The Abc model of attitudes
There are three components of attitudes (the ABC Model):
Affect – how a consumer feels about an object
Behavior – the actions a consumer takes towards a product
Cognition – what the consumer believes is true about the product
Hierarchy of effects
The high involvement hierarchy: think -> feel -> do
Assumes that a person approaches a product decision as a problem-solving process
The low-involvement hierarchy: think -> do -> feel
Assumes that the consumer initially doesn’t have a strong preference for one brand over another, and forms and evaluation after they have bought the product
The experiential hierarchy: feel -> do -> think
Assumes that we act based on our emotional reactions
Emotional contagion: massages that happy people deliver enhances our attitude toward the product
Attitude researchers developed the concept of a hierarchy of effects to explain the relative impact of the three components
Each hierarchy specifies that a fixed sequence of steps occur to develop an attitude
How do we form attitudes
Examples of commitment (low, middle, and high):
Compliance: we form an attitude because it helps us to gain rewards of avoid punishment
Superficial, and susceptible to change based on availability or social monitoring
Identification: we form an attitude to conform to another person’s or group’s expectations
Internalization: a high level of involvement when deep-seated attitudes become part of our value system
It’s important to distinguish among types of attitudes because not all form in the same way
Consumers vary in their commitment to an attitude, and the degree of commitment relates to their level of involvement with the attitude objects
How do we form attitudes
The consistency principle: we value harmony among our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and a need to maintain uniformity among these elements motivates us
The self-perception theory: assumes that we observe our own behavior to determine just what our attitudes are, much as we assume that we know what another person’s attitude is when we watch what they do
Foot-in-the-door technique
It’s important to distinguish among types of attitudes because not all form in the same way
Consumers vary in their commitment to an attitude, and the degree of commitment relates to their level of involvement with the attitude objects
How do we form attitudes
The balance theory: considers how people perceive relations among different attitude objects, and how they alter their attitudes so that these remain consistent or balanced
Relations among three elements, in attitude structure triads
Each triad contains (1) a person and their perceptions of (2) an attitude object and (3) some other person of object
Celebrity endorsements can be used to try and transfer the positive sentiment about the endorser to the product
It’s important to distinguish among types of attitudes because not all form in the same way
Consumers vary in their commitment to an attitude, and the degree of commitment relates to their level of involvement with the attitude objects
Attitude models
Attitude models specify the different elements that might work together to influence people's evaluations of attitude objects
Because attitudes are so complex, marketing researchers may use multiattribute attitude models to understand them
Attitudes are characteristics of the attitude object
Beliefs are cognitions about the specific attitude object
Importance weights reflect the priority of an attribute to the consumer
The most influential multiattribute model is the Fishbein Model
Salient beliefs people have about an attitude object
Object-attribute linkages/probability that a particular object has an important attribute
Evaluation of each of the important attributes
Marketing applications of the multiattribute model
Capitalize on relative advantages
Strengthen perceived product/attribute linkages
If advertisers want to equate their brand with certain attributes, they can address the attribute and stress a specific quality to consumer in their advertising campaigns
Add or emphasize a unique attribute
Influence competitors’ ratings
Use comparative advertising strategies
How might you use data from the multiattribute model to improve your brand image?
Do attitudes predict behavior?
Attitudes possess both direction and strength – a person may like or dislike an attitude object with varying degrees of confidence or conviction
There can be discrepancies between someone’s intentions and their actual behaviors
What we think someone wants us to do may override our own preferences – normative influence can result in contradictions between what we say and what we do when the moment of truth arrives
Subjective norms are what we believe others think we should do
The new model also added a measure of attitude toward the act of buying rather than only the attitude toward the product itself
Researchers have updated the Fishbein Model to improve its predictive ability
This newer version is the theory of reasoned action
This model contains several important additions to the original, and does a better job of prediction
Obstacles to predicting behavior
The model tries to predict actual behavior, not the outcomes of behavior some studies assess
Some outcomes are beyond our control
The basic assumption that behavior is intentional may be invalid in a variety of bases
Measures of attitude often do not really correspond to the behavior the are supposed to predict
There are similar problems with the timeframe of the attitude measure – the longer the time between the attitude measurement and the behavior, the weaker the relationship
We form stronger and more predictive attitudes through direct, personal experience with an attitude object than we form indirectly through advertising
Attitude accessibility perspective
Despite improvements to the Fishbein Model, problems arise when researchers misapply it
There are several obstacles to prediction that researchers might encounter
Obstacles to predicting behavior
The model predicts the performance of a voluntary act which may not be the same across cultures
The relative impact of subjective norms may vary across culture
The model measures behavioral intentions and thus presupposes that consumers are actively thinking ahead and planning future behaviors
A consumer who forms an intention implicitly claims that they are in control of their actions, which isn’t a common belief in some cultures
Despite improvements to the Fishbein Model, problems arise when researchers misapply it
There are several obstacles to prediction that researchers might encounter
Persuasion: how do marketers change attitudes?
Reciprocity – we’re more likely to give if we first receive
Scarcity – things are more attractive when they aren’t available
Authority – we believe in authoritative sources more than we believe in ones with less authority
Consistency – we try not to contradict ourselves
Liking – we agree with those we like or admire
Consensus – we consider what others do before we decide what to do
Persuasion is an active attempt to change attitudes
The elements of communication
Marketers traditionally rely on the communications model which specifies the elements marketers need to control to communicate with their customers
Important components of the model are the source, the message itself, the medium used to transmit, the interpretation of the receivers, and feedback
An updated view: interactive communication
The traditional communications model is not entirely wrong, but it also doesn’t tell the whole story – especially in todays dynamic world of interactivity
The source
Source credibility refers to a communicator’s expertise, objectivity, or trustworthiness
This dimension relates to a consumer’s belief that this person is competent and can provide necessary info used in our evaluative process in buying products
Source attractiveness refers to the social value recipients attribute to a communicator
Celebrities and nonhuman endorsers can be used as strategies to increase the attractiveness of a product
Regardless of whether we receive a message by snail mail, email, or text message, messages will affect us differently depending on the context of how we receive it and who we receive it from
The source
There are several important concepts relating to our evaluation of a source:
Disclaimers – information we receive about a product during advertising (if spoken faster, we find it more credible)
Fake news – hoaxes spread by hackers or other outsiders
Sock puppeting – a company executive or other biased source who poses as someone else and promotes the org
Astroturfing – when a company attempts to write fake positive refives of its products
Regardless of whether we receive a message by snail mail, email, or text message, messages will affect us differently depending on the context of how we receive it and who we receive it from
The source
There are several important concepts relating to our evaluation of a source:
Paid influencer programs – types of sock puppeting that involve influential sources hyping up a product
Sleeper effect – when people forget about the negative sources of information
Native advertising – digital messages designed to blend into the editorial content of the publications in which they appear
Knowledge and reporting bias
Shared endorsements
Regardless of whether we receive a message by snail mail, email, or text message, messages will affect us differently depending on the context of how we receive it and who we receive it from
The message
A marketer faces some crucial issues when they create a message
Do we use pictures or words?
Do we repeat the message?
How do we structure the argument?
Refutational arguments
Should we compare our product to our competitors?
Comparative advertising
Subtle aspects of the way a source delivers a message can influence our interpretation of what they say
Even the layout in a print ad sends a message about how the consumer should relate to the advertised item
New message formats: the social media revolution
One product of the social media revolution is reality engineering, where marketer's appropriate elements of popular culture and use them as promotional vehicles
Another tactic is product placement – inserting real products in fictional movies, TV shows, books, and plays
Advergaming allows marketers to insert interactive advertisements in online games to target certain types of consumers
Types of message appeals
Emotional vs. rational appeals – appealing to the head vs. the heart
Sex appeals – using “sex sells” to your advantage Humor appeals – using funny advertisements to get attention
Fear appeals – emphasizing the negative consequences that can occur if you don’t change a behavior or attitude
The message as an art form
Most ads take the form of an allegory, which is a story about an abstract trait or concept that advertisers tell in the context of a person, animal vegetable, or object
Ads can use metaphors or similes to compare and contrast products
Resonance is another type of literary device advertisers use frequently to combine a play on words with a relevant picture
The source vs. the message
The Elaborative Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion assumes that, under conditions of high involvement, we take the central rout to persuasion Under conditions of low involvement, we take a peripheral route instead
The source vs. the message
The central route relates to the augments the marketer presents and how consumers generate cognitive responses to this content
We take the peripheral route when we’re not really motivated to think about the marketer’s arguments (paradox of low involvement)
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