Consumer Psychology - Intro and Brands

Question 1

Consumer psychology is the study of human ______ to product and ______ related information. This includes:

• Marketer initiated _______ (eg: ads, packaging, etc)
• consumer ______ (tv, magazines)
• word-of-______ from family/friends

Any organisation (including governments) that has a product or service to sell wants to understand ________. They want to describe, ______ and influence consumer _______. But also, consumer psychology wants to understand how consumption affects the ________ and people (eg: junk food ads to children? Bad PR for Coles due to plastic bags?)

Answer 1

responses
service

stimuli
media
mouth

consumers
predict
responses
environment

Question 2

Ernest Dichter studied the ______ meaning behind the consumption of various _____. eg: silk is feminine

Answer 2

symbolic

products

Question 3

What kind of techniques can consumer psychologists use?

Answer 3

Quantitative

• lab and field experiemnts
• surveys
• big data

Qualitative

• interviews
• observation
• focus groups

Question 4

A brand is a type of _____ manufactured by a particular company under a particular ______.

or

A ____, term, design ____ or any other feature that _____ one seller’s products as ______ from another’s.

In simple terms, a brand is a _______.

Answer 4

product
name

name
symbol
identifies
distinct

category

Question 5

Why do brands matter?

Answer 5

• they’re everywhere
• influence economic decisions
• influence perceptions (information processing - we categorise products and make inferences about them)
• –> informational value - heuristic for consumers that reduces risk - provide a valuable basis for inferences

Question 6

Describe the peanut butter study by Hoyer and Brown, 1990 and what it tells us about the influence of brand labels

Answer 6

• three brands of peanut butter
• -> one well-known and the other two not
• manipulated the quality of peanut butter in each of the jars - switched them around
• participants presented with 3 jars, selected one and tasted the peanut butter (5 trials)
• jar of the known peanut butter was almost always selected. Even when it had lower-quality peanut butter in it. It was still selected in subsequent trials.

Question 7

Coke vs Pepsi fMRI study - what happened with labelled vs unlabelled drinks?

Describe the pepsi challenge marketing campaign in 1975.

Answer 7

• no difference in taste - unlabelled. Preference associated with ventrolateral PFC.
  BUT when they were labelled - preference associated with dorsolateral PFC and hippocampus (related to memory, not taste sensations)
  –> again, huge influence of brands
• blind taste-tests of pepsi vs coke
• people predominantly said they preferred pepsi over coke, even though coke had more of the market share

Question 8

Brands are part of _______ life in consumer societies and ______ economic decisions. They allow us to ______ products and make ______ about them.

We consume brands because of:

• brand ______ (influenced by ______) and
• the brand satisfies our _________ needs

Brand awareness involves BOTH (1) _____ the brand AND (2) correctly _____ it with a particular ______ or ______.

Answer 8

everyday
influence
categorise
interences

awareness
logos
psychological

recognising
associating
product
service

Question 9

Logos

A way to enhance brand visability is through ______. These are powerful because they can be used to represent an _____ number of concepts. We can also perceive them ______ and effortlessly. However, a strong logo could be a double-edged sword due to ________, hence a ______ has to often be conducted. Eg: University of Sydney logo changes

Logos provide marketers with multiple _____ to increase brand awareness. And the mere _______ effect could result in you liking the brand more.

When used effectively, logos give brands ______ visibility. A huge success for any brand is that, eventually, the brand starts to advertise itself, through _____ ______ (eg: everyone wearing Nike shoes, Apple computers)

Answer 9

logos
infinite
quickly
habituation
refresh

ways
exposure

public
social validation

Question 10

Brands satisfy psychological needs

Another reason we consume a brand is to satisfy our psychological needs. Name the ones discussed in the lecture

Answer 10

• Self-definition, self-reflection, self-signalling
• uniqueness
• belonging
• effectance

Question 11

1. Brands and the self

James (1890) highlighted the link between consumption and the ___-______. We use belongings to ______ who we are. They can reflect _____, purpose and ______.

We can use brands to

1. _____ the self (I buy….because I see myself…)
2. _____ the self (I buy…to show others…)
3. _____ the self (Because I bought…I must care about….)

Answer 11

self-concept
express
values
personality

Reflect
Signal
Define

—> but which self are we talking of?

Question 12

1. Brands and the self

Brands personality is a set of _______ characteristics associated with a brand.

This is quite ______ over time, but influenced by the ______ (eg: Virgin is exciting compared to Qantas but not compared to Coke).

It’s aim is to create _______ between brands, although there is no _______ difference

Answer 12

human

stable
context

differentiation
objective

Question 13

1. Brands and the self

Name the 5 factor structure of brand personality and some associated brands. What is a criticism of this model?

Answer 13

Competence

• reliable and intelligent
• IBM

Ruggedness
- outdoorsy and tough
Harley Davidson

Excitement

• daring, imaginative and up-to-date
• Virgin

Sincerity

• Down-to-earth, honest and wholesome
• Hallmark

Sophistication

• upper-class and charming
• Mercedes

–> this is only for an American context

Question 14

1. Brands and the self

What 3 different selves can brands influence, or are influenced by?

Answer 14

Domains of the self:

• actual self - the way we are
• ought self - they way we think we should be
• ideal self - the way we aspire to be

Question 15

1. Brands and the self

The extent to which a consumer has incorporated a brand into their self-concept is called….

Answer 15

Self-brand connections

“this brand reflects who I am”
“I think this brand helps me become the type of person I want to be”
“I use this brand to communicate who I am to others”

Question 16

1. Brands and the self

We prefer brands whose personality is ______ to our own, and _____ products or brands that represent ______ identities/groups.
eg: men avoiding “ladies cut” steak

Answer 16

similar
avoid
undesired

Question 17

2. Brands and belonging

Humans have a fundamental need to _____, and we use brands as a way to achieve ______ in a group (eg: brand ______ such as Harley Davidson, or people lining up for the iphone, or Nike virtual community of runners)

Answer 17

belong
membership
communities

Question 18

3. Brands and uniqueness

People also have a need to be _____, but this is stronger in some cultures than others.

So brands can be used to _______ ourselves from other people. Those with a strong sense to be unique prefer products that are more ______.

Answer 18

unique
differentiate
distinct

Question 19

2. and 3.

How can we satisfy BOTH the need to be unique and belong?

Answer 19

• We can assimilate into a group on one dimension, but differentiate from the group on another.
• eg - all the group has a BMW, but you could buy an SUV instead of a sedan

Question 20

4. Brands and effectance

People have the need for effectance, that is, to successfully ______ with the _______. One way to do this is to exert ____ over objects and possessions.

Answer 20

interact
environment
control

Question 21

4. Brands and effectance

Give an example of brands and the need for effectance.

What does it more broadly illustrate? Describe the housewives cake mix study vs offal study to demonstrate this

Answer 21

Ikea effect…people like things they have built themselves.

It also illustrates the importance of consumer involvement.

Instant cake mixes to make life easier…but this was a little too easy. They were unsuccessful at first. So they were modified so you had to crack the egg and it felt like you were doing something.

Lewin’s (1947) research for the Department of Agriculture. Housewives that were involved in the task of thinking of ways to convince others to eat offal were more likely to serve it themselves (compared to groups just educated on the benefits of offal)

In some ways, if you put your labor into something you are willing to pay less for it BUT you then value it a lot more.

Question 22

Norton et al. 2012

• Build-aBear offers people the “opportunity” to construct their own teddy bears, charging customers a premium
• Farmers offer “haycations,” in which consumers pay to harvest the food they eat during their stay on a farm. Again, while such activities likely serve multiple motivations (Leonard, Belk, & Scammon, 2003),
• -> the notion that labor can increase people’s willingness to pay is an underlying theme.

EXP 1
In this first experiment, we establish the IKEA effect—
consumers’ increased valuation for goods they have assembled when compared to objectively similar goods not produced by the self—by comparing participants’ willingness-to-pay for products they had assembled themselves to identical pre-assembled products (a plain black IKEA storage box vs given the box to inspect)

EXP 2 and 3
Only in the build condition (LEGO), as predicted, were
participants’ bids for their own creation significantly higher than their bids for their partners’ creations.
BUT
Building and then “unbuilding” sets, however, caused this difference to become nonsignificant. This negative effect of destroying one’s labor is particularly notable given that Lego sets are designed to be assembled and taken apart, and participants could have quickly and easily reassembled their set had they bid enough to own it.

To further test the role of task completion in the impact of effort on valuation, in Experiment 3 we allowed some participants to build an IKEA box, while others were allowed to complete only half of the steps to complete the box. As predicted, builders bid significantly more for their boxes than incomplete builders. Thus, while both groups were given the chance to buy the identical product, those who were given the chance to complete their creation imbued it with significantly more value—and were willing to pay more than twice as much to keep it.

DISCUSSION
Adding to previous literature on effort justification, we
also show that successful completion is an essential component for the link between labor and liking to emerge; participants who built and then unbuilt their creations, or were not permitted to finish those creations, did not show an increase in
willingness-to-pay.

In addition, by using simple IKEA boxes and Lego sets that did not permit customization, we demonstrated
that the IKEA effect does not arise solely as a result of
participants’ idiosyncratic tailoring of their creations to their preferences.

The increase in liking that occurs due to effort (Aronson & Mills, 1959) coupled with the positive feelings of
effectance that accompany successful completion of tasks (Bandura, 1977) is an important driver of the increase in willingness to pay that we observe.
- positive affect
- emotional attachment
- self-assembly of products may allow people to both feel competent and display evidence of that competence

Answer 22

d