1. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Consumer response to communication programs

2. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Outline Communication objectives Attitudes and their measurement Attitude change and persuasion –The two routes to persuasion –Central-route approaches –Peripheral-route approaches

3. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Communication objectives Category need Brand awareness Brand attitude Brand purchase intention/purchase

4. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Attitudes definition: a tendency to evaluate people (e.g., a salesperson), objects (e.g., a product, an ad), or events (e.g., the purchase of a brand) with some degree of favorability or unfavorability; components of an attitude: –cognitive component: beliefs about the attitude concept; –affective component: feeling-based reactions toward the attitude concept; –conative component: overt behavioral responses or intentions to act;

5. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Measurement of attitudes Likert scaling: statements that are thought to reflect either a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the concept of interest are rated on agree- disagree scales (typically 5-point scales) and the ratings are then summated (after reverse-scoring negative items); semantic differential scaling: the attitude concept is rated on a series of bipolar adjective scales (typically 7-point scales) such as good-bad, favorable-unfavorable, or pleasant-unpleasant;

6. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Advertising is generally informative. __1____2____3____4____5__ stronglydisagreeneitheragreestrongly disagreeagree Most advertising insults my intelligence. __1____2____3____4____5__ stronglydisagreeneitheragreestrongly disagreeagree

7. Consumer Behavior Communication programs My attitude toward advertising can be best described as: Positive_1__2__3__4__5__6__7_Negative Unfavorable_1__2__3__4__5__6__7_Favorable Good_1__2__3__4__5__6__7_Bad

8. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Two routes to persuasion there are two routes to persuasion: –central route: people scrutinize the arguments in the message; –peripheral route: cues that are not based on a careful consideration of the true merits of the message can have persuasive impact; a person’s motivation and/or ability to engage in issue-relevant thinking determines the route: –when motivation and ability are high, attitudes change follows the central route; –when motivation and/or ability are low, attitude change occurs via the peripheral route;

9. Consumer Behavior Communication programs persuasive communication motivation to process ? ability to process ? nature of cognitive processing ? favorable thoughts predominate unfavorable thoughts predominate neither or neutral thoughts predominate central positive attitude change central negative attitude change yes no peripheral attitude shift peripheral cue present ? The two routes to attitude change yes

10. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Influences on persuasion variables can influence the extent and direction of attitude change by: serving as persuasive arguments (e.g., weak vs. strong arguments); serving as peripheral cues (e.g., source expertise or attractiveness, number of arguments); affecting the extent and direction of message elaboration (e.g., involvement as a determinant of motivation to process and distraction as a determinant of ability to process);

11. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Effects of the two routes to persuasion centrally changed attitudes are relatively enduring, resistant to counterpersuasion, and predictive of behavior; peripherally changed attitudes are more temporary, susceptible to counter- persuasion, and less predictive of behavior;

12. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Involvement and persuasion (Petty et al.) 160 Ss were exposed to 12 ads, one of which was the target ad for a fictitious product called the Edge razor; Ss were assigned to one of the 8 cells in a 2 (involvement: low or high) x 2 (argument quality: weak or strong) x 2 (peripheral cue: celebrity or noncelebrity status) factorial design; involvement was manipulated by promising Ss a gift of either a brand of disposable razors or a brand of toothpaste and by telling Ss that Edge razors would soon be introduced in their own city or test marketed in another part of the country; argument quality was manipulated by presenting five cogent (e.g., advanced honing method for unsurpassed sharpness) or five specious (e.g., floats in water with a minimum of rust) product claims in the ad; in the celebrity status condition, famous golf and tennis celebrities endorsed the product, in the noncelebrity status condition Bakersfield, CA, endorsed it; attitude toward the product and purchase intentions as the dependent variables;

13. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Involvement and persuasion (cont’d) attitudes: significant involvement x endorser and involvement x argument quality interactions; intentions: argument quality was a more important determinant of purchase intentions under high rather than low involvement; attitudes were better predictors of intentions under high involvement; atti- tude lowhigh involve- ment atti- tude lowhigh involve- ment celebrity noncelebrity strong arguments weak arguments

14. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Central-route persuasion: Fishbein’s expectancy-value model attitudes are a function of the strength of beliefs about the attitude concept and the evaluative aspect of those beliefs; A c =  b i e i components: number of salient beliefs (i=1,..., n) strength of each belief ( b i ) evaluative aspect of each belief (e i )

15. Consumer Behavior Communication programs My attitude toward Jif creamy peanut butter can be best described as: Unfavorable_____________________Favorable (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)

16. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Unlikely_____________________Likely (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7) Bad_____________________Good (-3)(-2)(-1)(0)(+1)(+2)(+3) Jif fatty fresh roasted peanut taste creamy

17. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Changing cognitive structure using the EV model add a new positive belief; increase the strength of an existing positive belief; increase the evaluation of a strongly held positive belief;

18. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Central-route persuasion: The cognitive response model people actively relate information contained in persuasive messages to extant knowledge stored in memory and generate idiosyncratic thoughts in response to the message (so- called cognitive responses); attitude change depends on  the extent of processing  the valence of thoughts

19. Consumer Behavior Communication programs The measurement of cognitive responses use of post-message thought listings to assess cognitive responses; when content analyzing subjects’ thought protocols, cognitive responses are often classified as support arguments, counter arguments, or source derogations;

20. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Peripheral-route persuasion source effects: credibility, attractiveness, and liking of the spokesperson; message effects: number of arguments, inferences based on brand name or product attributes, etc.; context effects: message repetition, program or editorial context, mood;

21. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Using classical (respondent) conditioning for peripheral persuasion UCS NS (CS to be) CS UCR CR elicits comes to elicit with I. II. III. paired

22. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Classical conditioning (cont’d) CS and UCS should be paired repeatedly and consistently; forward conditioning is better than backward conditioning; CC is more effective when the UCS and CS are novel, salient, and relevant or similar to each other (because associations are more easily formed);

23. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Music and pen choice (Gorn) one-minute extract of music from “Grease” as the positive UCS, one minute of atonal Indian classical music as the negative UCS; light blue and beige pens as originally neutral CS; Ss watched a slide of either a light blue or beige pen while hearing either liked or disliked music; as a reward for their participation in the study, Ss could choose either a light blue or beige pen; finally, Ss were asked why they had picked a pen with a particular color;

24. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Music and pen choice (cont’d) liked music disliked music choice of advertised pen choice of non- advertised pen 79%21% 30%70% effect of music on pen choice: 91% of the people who provided a reason for their choice mentioned color preference as their reason;

25. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Attitudes and behavior: The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein and Ajzen) where: B = behavior BI = behavioral intention A act = attitude toward the behavior SN = subjective norm w 1, w 2 = weights that reflect the relative influence of A act and SN B = f(BI) = w 1 A act + w 2 SN

26. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Aact: a person’s evaluation of performing the behavior A act =  b i e i components: outcomes or consequences of behavior (i=1,..., m) strength of behavioral beliefs (b i ) evaluative aspect of each outcome or consequence (e i ) SN: a person’s perceptions of the social pressures put on him or her to perform the behavior SN =  j MC j components: relevant referents for behavior (j=1,..., n) strength of normative beliefs (NB j ) motivation to comply (MC j ) Components of the TRA

27. Consumer Behavior Communication programs BI: a plan or an expectation to perform the behavior, which is a function of both personal and social factors; BI = w 1 A act + w 2 SN B: actual performance of the behavior B = f(BI) Components of the TRA (cont’d) Note: if a person does not have complete control over performance of the behavior, behavioral intentions and behavior may also be a function of the person’s perceived behavioral control (i.e., how easy or difficult performance of the behavior is thought to be);

28. Consumer 1Consumer 2Consumer 3 CU1020 2 BI 6 9 2 b1 5 7 2 b2 4 1 2 b3 3 2 2 e1 2 3 0 e2 0 1 e3 0 1 NB1 1 4 3 NB2 2 2 3 MC1 3 3 2 MC2 3 3 1 In-class exercise: Predicting coupon usage

29. Consumer Behavior Communication programs TRA applied to coupon usage (cont’d) A act SN BIB EV 1 EV 2 EV 3 NB 2 MC 2 NB 1 MC 1 NB 3 MC 3 -.08 b -.12 a.71 a.48 a.10 b.05.51 a.31 a.68 a Note: standardized path coefficients, with a p<.01, b p<.05 (one-tailed) rewards encumbrances inconveniences spouse family friends

30. Consumer Behavior Communication programs Conditions under which attitudes and intentions will predict behavior volitional control correspondence in level of specificity –action: single/multiple acts –target: concept at which action is directed –context: situational circumstance of action –time: when an action is to be performed stability of attitudes and intentions