Consumer as a Learner and Decision Maker
What is the definition of incidental learning for consumers?
Incidental learning is learning process without having a prior knowledge. Consumers may learn about a brand via ads and marketing communication accidently or effortlessly.
What are the characteristics of learning?
1) Learning is a process in which people gain new knowledge and experiences through observation, reading, thinking, speaking, and discussion.
2) Learning creates positive or negative, but permanent, changes in behavior.
3) Learning is a system occuring with one's conscious effort or unconscious effort.
How do behavioral learning theories explain consumer behaviors?
What people are learning now will influence their purchasing habits in the future. Therefore, consumers try to avoid unpleasant situations and to encounter pleasant ones, leading to the development of learned behavioral behaviors in response to such stimuli.
How can classical conditioning be used to address the psychological needs of consumers? Explain with an example.
A political leader strikes a pose with a baby to the press to attract the potential voters' attention and establish an emotional bond with them. In this example, the method used by the political leader is classical conditioning. The political leader becomes the conditioned stimulus, and the baby is unconditioned stimulus. Voting to the leader's party or just increased sympathy to the leader can be defined as conditioned response.
What does advertising wear-out mean?
When consumers are overexposed to an advertising, they get bored of it and hence continue to pay less interest.
What is the major potential risk of product line extentions?
If the company's latest product fails to satisfy customers' strong expectations as a result of the current brand image impression, this dissatisfaction may undermine brand loyalty.
What strategies have companies developed today to ensure the persistency of positive reinforcement that consumers receive by buying a particular brand?
Companies try to condition consumers choosing their brands and continuing shopping by offering bonus points, coupons, special discounts, or gift tokens.
How can the negative reinforcement strategy be used in promoting a product?
By comparing the advertising product with the competitive product, the dissatisfaction and regret that the competitor product may cause can be emphasized.
According to Solomon (2018), which conditions are required for consumers to take someone as a model in observational learning process?
1. The consumer’s attention should be directed to a favourable model that they wish to
imitate for attractiveness, competence, status, or similarity.
2. The consumer should recall what the model says or does.
3. The consumer should turn this information into action.
4. The consumer should be encouraged to perform these actions.
What is the difference of cognitive learning process from behavioral learning process in terms of consumer behaviors?
In cognitive learning process, consumers are not inactive agents. They show purposeful and concsious learning by processing the situationswith the acquired knowledge. They do not have to experince the situation to develop a learning pattern.
What strategy should marketers follow to transfer information of a brand from long-term memory to short-term memory?
To overcome recalling problems experienced for information stored in the long-term memory for a long time, they should continue to advertise even if their brands are well-known. Marketing communication activities should be repeated at certain intervals on the basis of the intended purpose.
What are the stages of consumer purchase decision process?
1) Problem recognition
2) Information search
3) Alternative evaluation
4) Purchase
5) Postpurchase
What are the market characteristics that increase consumer's possibilities of maintaining external search before purchasing?
Number of alternatives, price range, store concentration, information availability provided through ads, websites, packaging, sales personnel, or experienced customers.
According to Solomon's (2018) study, what is the association between amount of information search and product knowledge?
As the amount of information search increases, product knowledge also increases up to an optimum level. However, after the consumers have product knowledge at a certain level, the amount of information they need decreases gradually.
What is the difference between inert set and inept set which are used by consumers while evaluating the alternative brands?
The inert set consists of brands that the consumer is familiar with but is mostly indifferent about. The inept set includes the brands that the consumer is familiar but has a negative attitude toward. Although the brands in the inept set have a potential to solve the consumer's problem, s/he is not willing to evaluate them as alternative.
What are the selection processes that consumers use while evaluating the qualities of products?
1) Affective choice
2) Attitude-based choice
3) Attribute-based choice
What strategies should companies use to market their products to consumers who do not know much about the product and have limited time to buy (attitude-based choice)?
Companies should benefit from reminder advertisements in order to make their products the first to come to mind and be positive and associate the product with catchy words.
What makes the store-based retail more preferrable than online shopping for some consumers?
Store-based retail makes consumers out of monotony, have fun, get information about new products and fashion trends, be physically active to reach the stores and products, socialize with others, and have opportunity to negotiate price.
In the postpurchase stage, how do consumers evaluate product performance?
Consumers evaluate product performance in two categories. The first category is instrumental performance. It is important for consumers to be satisfied with the product's functional and physical performance, which refers to the instrumental performance. The second category is symbolic performance of the product which corresponds to aesthetic and image-based evaluations of consumers. Consumer satisfaction requires a high-performance ratio with both instrumental and symbolic performance.
If a consumer is not satisfied with the product what strategies can s/he follow?
S/he may prefer taking no action or taking an action. By taking a passive action, s/he may just stop buying new products from the same store or using derogatory words about the brand. By taking an active action, s/he may convey his/her complaints to the store, manufacturer, or government and may seek his/her consumer rights in the legal platform.
Which criteria are required in extensive problem solving as a type of purchasing behavior? Why?
Evaluative criteria are established because consumers have limited information about the brands or products that are infrequently purchased and carry high risks to buyers, such as cars and computers. Therefore, they spend systematic and conscious efforts before purchasing.