Attitudes & Intentions

7/31/2019 Attitudes & Intentions

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Attitudes & IntentionsLecture 4

Instructor: Sarosh Waiz


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ATTITUDE


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Attitude

Attitude is a persons overall evaluation of a concept

Evaluations are affective responses, usually at relatively lowlevels of intensity and arousal

These evaluations can be created by both the affective andthe cognitive systems.


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Attitude

The affective system automatically produces affective responsesincluding emotions, feelings, moods, and evaluations or attitudesas immediate, direct responses to certain stimuli.

These favorable or unfavorable affective responses are generated

without conscious, cognitive processing of information about theproduct.

Then, through classical conditioning processes, these evaluationsmay become associated with a product or brand, thus creating anattitude.


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Attitude

The cognitive processing model of consumer decision making showsthat an overall evaluation is formed when consumers integrate(combine) knowledge, meanings, or beliefs about the attitudeconcept.

The goal of this integration process is to analyze the personalrelevance of the concept and determine whether it is favorable orunfavorable

What does this concept have to do with me? Is this a good or bad

thing for me? Do I like or dislike this concept?

We assume consumers form an attitude toward each concept theyinterpret in terms of its personal relevance.


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Attitude

Once an attitude has been formed and stored in memory,consumers do not have to engage in another integration process toconstruct another attitude when they need to evaluate the conceptagain.

Instead, the existing attitude can be activated from memory andused as a basis for interpreting new information.

Taste tests are a good example of how activated attitudes caninfluence consumers judgments.

Taste tests usually are conducted blind (tasters are not told whatbrands they are tasting) to avoid activating brand attitudes thatwould bias their taste judgments.

Finally, an activated attitude can be integrated with other knowledgein decision making


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Brief History of the Study ofAttitude


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Attitude

Whether a given attitude will affect interpretation or integrationprocesses depends on its accessibility in memory or itsprobability of activation

Many factors can influence the accessibility of attitudes, including

salience or importance (more self-relevant attitudes are more easilyactivated), frequency of prior activation (attitudes that are activatedmore often are more accessible), and the strength of the associationbetween a concept and its attitude (puppies tend to activate positiveattitudes; zebras usually do not activate an attitude).

Marketers sometimes use cues to prime (partially activate) an

attitude that is relevant to their strategies; consider the cute babiesin ads for Michelin tires.


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Attitude


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Measuring Attitude

Attitudes can be measured simply and directly by asking consumersto evaluate the concept of interest. For instance, marketingresearchers might ask consumers to indicate their attitudes towardMcDonalds french fries on three evaluative scales:

Consumers overall attitudes toward McDonalds french fries are

indicated by the average of their ratings across the three evaluativescales.

Attitudes can vary from negative (ratings of 3, 2, 1) through neutral(a rating of 0) to positive (ratings of1, 2, or 3).


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Attitude

Attitudes are not necessarily intense or extreme.

On the contrary, many consumers have essentially neutralevaluations (neither favorable nor unfavorable) toward relativelyunimportant, non-involving concepts.

A neutral evaluation is still an attitude, however, although probably aweakly held one


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Attitude Towards What?

Consumers attitudes are always toward some concept. We areinterested in two broad types of concepts: objects and behaviors.

Consumers can have attitudes toward various physical and socialobjects, including products, brands, models, stores, and people

(salesperson at the electronics store), as well as aspects ofmarketing strategy (an ad for Wrigleys chewing gum).

Consumers also can have attitudes toward intangible objects suchas concepts and ideas (capitalism, a fair price for gasoline).

Consumers also can have attitudes toward their own behaviors oractions ( A act indicates attitude toward the act, action, or behavior),including their past actions (Why did I buy that sweater?) and futurebehaviors (Im going to the mall tomorrow afternoon).


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Levels of Attitude Concepts

Consumers can have quite distinct attitudes toward variations of thesame general concept.

For instance, Rich has a moderately positive attitude toward fast-food restaurants in general, but he has a highly favorable attitude

toward one product form (hamburger restaurants). However, hisattitude toward McDonalds, a specific brand of hamburger

restaurant, is only slightly favorable (he likes Burger King better).Finally, his attitude toward a particular modelthe McDonalds on

the corner of Grant and Mainis somewhat negative (he had anunpleasant meal there).

Note that although the same McDonalds object is present in each

of these concepts, Richs attitude toward that McDonalds is different

in the two situations. Because consumers are likely to have differentattitudes toward different attitude concepts, marketers must be sure

to measure the attitude concept at the level of specificity mostrelevant to the marketing problem of interest.


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Levels of Attitude Concepts


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Brand Equity

Brand attitude is a key aspect of brand equity. Brand equityconcerns the value of the brand to the marketer and to theconsumer.

From the marketers perspective, brand equity implies greater

profits, more cash flow, and greater market share.

For instance, Marriott estimated that adding its name to Fairfield Innincreased occupancy rates by 15 percent (a tangible indicator of thevalue of the Marriott brand).

From a consumer perspective, brand equity involves a strong,positive brandattitude (favorable evaluation of the brand) based on

favorable meanings and beliefsthat are accessible in memory(easily activated).

These three factors create a strong, favorable consumerbrand


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Brand Equity

Basically marketers can acquire brand equity in three ways: Theycan build it, borrow it, or buy it.

Companies can build brand equity by ensuring that the brandactually delivers positive consequences and by consistently

advertising these important consequences.

Companies can borrow brand equity by extending a positive brandname to other products. For example, the Coca-Cola line nowincludes Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Coke, Cherryand Diet Cherry Coke, Coke BlaK, Coke Zero, and others.

Finally, a company can buy brand equity by purchasing brands thatalready have equity.


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COPY TESTING AS ANEXAMPLE OF ATTITUDETRACKING


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Attitudes towards Objects

Salient Beliefs Through their varied experiences, consumers acquire many beliefs

about products, brands, and other objects in their environment.

These beliefs constitute an associative network of linked meanings

stored in memory. Because peoples cognitive capacity is limited,only a few of these beliefs can be activated and consciouslyconsidered at once.

The activated beliefs are called salient beliefs .

Only the salient beliefs about an object (those that are activated at aparticular time and in a specific context) create a persons attitude

toward that object.

Thus, one key to understanding consumers attitudes is to identifyand understand the underlying set of salient beliefs.


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Attitudes towards Objects


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Project Time

1. One Rupee Project

2. Event


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THANK YOU

Documents

Attitudes & Intentions