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Comprehension, Memory, and Cognitive Learning

CHAPTER 4

PART 2

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Learning Outcomes

Identify factors that influence consumer comprehension.

Explain how knowledge, meaning, and value are inseparable, using the multiple store memory theory.

Understand how the mental associations that consumers develop are a key to learning.

Use the concept of associative networks to map relevant consumer knowledge.

Apply the cognitive schema concept in understanding how consumers react to products, brands, and marketing agents.

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Identify factors that influence consumer comprehension.

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Comprehension

Refers to the interpretation or understanding that a consumer develops about some attended stimulus in order to assign meaning.

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Exhibit 4.1: The Components of Consumer Information Processing

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Exhibit 4.2: Comprehension Depends on Multiple Factors

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Physical Characteristics of the Message

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Intensity

Colour

Font

Numbers

Spacing 4-7

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Intensity: Louder, brighter, larger message more likely to be understood. Color: Colors have meanings that influence comprehension. White suggests innocence and is associated with weddings in Western cultures. Font: The shape of the message can help or hinder comprehension! A fussy, frilly font would weaken a professional, business-like message. Numbers: Numbers can “mean” good or bad luck (varies from culture to culture), and imply “techiness” (especially when combined with letters). Spacing: Three 30-second ads viewed over several hours will be more effective than one 90-second ad.

Simplicity/Complexity

Simple phrases such as “fat free” often communicate more clearly than detailed information.

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Exhibit 4.3: Congruent or Incongruent Message Sequences?

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Incongruity often motivates deeper processing, thus aiding comprehension. The L’Oreal advertisement may be better comprehended in the second sequence, which includes unrelated advertisements. Incongruity may, however, decrease liking, particularly if the message is internally incongruent (e.g., the visual or the music does not match the verbal content). The marketer must make her decision based on the goals to be achieved (liking vs. comprehension).

Exhibit 4.4: The Figure and Ground Distinction

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Have you ever seen or heard an advertisement that you found extremely entertaining but afterward could not remember what the advertisement was for? Such ads are examples of the ground (the “background” story of the ad) becoming more prominent than the figure (the product being advertised).

Message Source Factors

Likeability

Expertise

Trustworthiness

Attractiveness

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Message source may be a celebrity spokesperson in a TV commercial, a friend recommending a product, or a salesperson in a store. Likeable sources are more appealing. •  How they feel about the animals in Telus commercials, or LeBron James advertising Samsung. •  Are we more likely to attend to, and comprehend, message from likeable sources. Attractiveness of the source affects our comprehension of the message. •  Are we are more likely to believe physically attractive people. Trustworthiness is our evaluation of the source’s honesty. •  If a celebrity seems to be endorsing a product just for monetary gain, are we unlikely to trust him! •  Expertise is the source’s knowledge of the subject. We are more likely to believe Sidney Crosby if he is recommending hockey skates than if he is selling financial advice.

Message Receiver Characteristics

•  Intelligence/Ability •  Prior Knowledge •  Involvement •  Familiarity/Habituation •  Expectations •  Physical Limits •  Brain Dominance

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Intelligence/Ability: Refers to general IQ, and to specific product knowledge. Prior Knowledge: It easier for a consumer to make meaning of new information. Involvement: Refers to the degree of personal relevance the product category has for the consumer. A highly involved consumer will have prior knowledge and will be motivated to understand new information. Familiarity/Habituation: Increases our liking of a product or brand, but may reduce our comprehension of a message that has become old and boring. When service is always good at our favourite restaurant, we stop noticing it. Expectations: Influences our understanding of a product. For example, a consumer opening a bottle of Coke expects to enjoy “her” favorite beverage and will interpret her experience accordingly. Place a Coke in a Pepsi bottle, and the experience may be quite different! Physical Limits: Not all consumers have the same level of hearing, vision, sense of smell, etc. Physical limitations may impact message comprehension. Brain Dominance: Individuals process information differently. Left-brain dominant consumers have stronger verbal processing, while right-brainers more effectively process visuals

Environmental Characteristics

•  Information Intensity / Framing /Timing

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Environment is the context in which a message is received. Information Intensity: A cluttered environment like a busy road lined by many billboards may reduce our ability to process the information from one specific billboard. Framing: A specific context may change our interpretation of a common stimulus. A loud “bang” that goes unnoticed by a city dweller used to street noise may make a nervous flyer jump in his seat aboard an airplane. Timing: The two seconds the consumer can devote to reading the billboard in example one may not be enough to process the message. But messages are also interpreted differently at different times of day or year. An ad for hot chocolate is much more appealing on a cold winter day.

Exhibit 4.5 An Illustration of Framing

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Negative framing, as illustrated in the first example, predisposes individuals to take more risks. The prospect of losing $200 is more likely to make us take the gamble!

Explain how knowledge, meaning, and value are

inseparable, using the multiple store memory theory.

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Multiple Store Theory of Memory

Views the memory process as utilizing three different storage areas within the human brain.

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Exhibit 4.6: The Multiple Store Approach to Memory

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Understand how the mental associations that consumers develop are a key to learning.

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Mental Processes Assisting Learning

Repetition Dual

Coding

Meaningful Encoding Chunking

These rely on making associations.

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Repetition is a strategy individuals may use in an attempt to learn something (place it in memory for later use). Dual coding helps the learning process by associating an item with a second stimulus. Linking a brand name consistently with a particular piece of music may help the consumer remember the brand by giving her two different ways to “access” it in memory (the brand itself, and the music). Meaningful encoding associates new information with knowledge already stored in long-term memory. Chunking groups stimuli by meaning. For example, a tagline about safety will help the consumer remember an ad that demonstrated airbags and help her associate the car brand with safety in the future.

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Exhibit 4.7: Dual Coding Illustrated

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The freshly cut wood scent of a pencil may help this consumer remember it later.

Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is a repository for all information that a person has encountered. •  Mental tagging helps consumers to retrieve knowledge. •  Rumination includes how a consumer remembers a memory, positively or negatively.

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Use the concept of associative networks to map relevant

consumer knowledge.

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Associative Network

A network of mental pathways linking knowledge within memory.

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To demonstrate an associative network linked to a brand: e.g., for Heineken beer it may be the green bottle, a premium price, “European sounding” name, sponsorship of soccer, etc.). A complete associative network visually illustrates how the brand name “Heineken” is placed in memory and knowledge, which may trigger its retrieval (watching a soccer match).

Apply the cognitive schema concept in understanding how consumers react to products, brands, and marketing agents.

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Cognitive Schemas

•  Schema—a type of associative network that works as a cognitive representation of a phenomenon that provides meaning to that entity.

•  Exemplar—a concept within a schema that is the single best representative of some category.

•  Prototype—characteristics more associated with a concept.

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Exhibit 4.9: The Knowledge for Snack Foods

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This associative network demonstrates the category schema for snacks. Strongly associating a new product with elements of this schema will aid consumer comprehension of it as a “snack.”

Exhibit 4.10: Category Exemplars

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Social Schemata

Omega has chosen to associate its brand with the

social schema of the sophisticated, suave,

dangerous James Bond.

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