Module 2 Flashcards
Perceptual Process
- Sensation: Immediate response from sensory receptors (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch).
- Perception: How consumers select, organize, and interpret these sensations.
Define Sensation and Perception
Sensation: When your senses first pick up a stimulus. It’s about the raw information your body gets from a product.
Example: Smell of a perfume, feel of a fabric.
Perception: How your brain interprets and makes sense of that sensory information. Example: You may perceive a brand’s logo as luxurious or a product’s scent as refreshing based on experience or preference.
Sensory Marketing
- Sight
~ Color influences emotions. For example, blue = relaxing, green = calm.
~ Cultural differences impact color meanings (green = bad luck in China but good luck in Ireland).
~ Children and gender impact color preferences (bright colors preferred by kids; girls like pastel colors). - Smell
~ Scent marketing influences emotions and memories (Starbucks hides food smell for better coffee aroma).
~ Luxury hotels use specific scents matching their brand image (Auberge Resorts). - Sound
~ Music impacts behavior, such as faster tempo during boarding to increase pace or slower tempo to relax passengers.
~ In-store music needs to align with brand and consumer preferences (H&M vs. Tiffany). - Touch
~ Touch forms attachment, increasing purchase intent (Apple stores encourage product interaction). - Taste
~ Age, gender, geography, and culture affect food preferences (southern US likes fried chicken, New England likes clam chowder)
Exposure and Thresholds
Absolute Threshold: Minimum amount of stimulation detected.
Differential Threshold (JND): Minimum change in stimulus detected. Important for marketers to make changes that consumers notice (slight price increase or packaging changes).
Attention
~ Consumers filter and attend to a small portion of marketing stimuli due to overload (4,000 - 10,000 ads daily).
~ Selection factors include personal preferences and stimulus traits.
Interpretation
~ Interpretations are shaped by past experiences and expectations. For instance, a $7 Starbucks coffee seems better, even if identical to cheaper coffee, due to perceived value.
Perceptual Mapping
~ Helps marketers understand how consumers view brands and compare them to competitors (cruise line positioning).
Learning Theories
- Incidental Learning: Learning without intention, like humming a jingle.
- Behavioral vs. Cognitive Approaches:
~ Behavioral: Focus on observable behavior (conditioning).
~ Cognitive: Focus on knowledge acquisition and processing information.
Classical Conditioning
- Association: Marketing uses classical conditioning to link a product/brand to desired consumer responses (Royal’s kittens).
- Stimulus Generalization: Consumers respond similarly to similar stimuli (imitator brands with similar packaging).
- Stimulus Discrimination: Recognizing differences between similar stimuli
Instrumental Conditioning (Operant Conditioning)
Reinforcement and Punishment: Learning through rewards and punishments to influence behavior (loyalty programs).
Marketing Applications
~ Classical conditioning creates brand associations (familiar jingles or mascots).
~ Operant conditioning involves rewarding behaviors to encourage repeat purchase (discounts, loyalty points).
Motivation
Motivation is the internal force that drives individuals to take action, aiming to close the gap between their current state and their ideal state.
How Marketers Use Motivation
Marketers create psychological tension by highlighting the gap between where consumers are and where they want to be. They offer products or services as solutions to reduce this tension.
Types of Motivation Theories
- Drive Theory:
~ Focuses on biological needs (hunger, thirst).
~ Motivational strength is linked to the biological needs’ urgency (starving before a buffet). - Expectancy Theory:
~ Motivated by positive outcomes (rewards, compliments).
~ The strength of motivation depends on expected benefits like social status or self-esteem.
Motivational Direction
The direction of behavior, or what actions consumers take to satisfy their needs.
Types of Needs
- Biogenic Needs: Basic biological needs (food, water).
- Psychogenic Needs: Psychological desires (achievements, uniqueness, power).
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Higher needs (esteem, self-actualization) emerge only after lower needs (safety, physiological) are met.
- Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Needs:
~ Utilitarian Needs: Practical and functional (snow boots for warmth).
~ Hedonic Needs: Pleasure and enjoyment (stylish snow boots).
Motivational Conflicts
- Approach-Approach Conflict: Choosing between two equally desirable options (deciding between two vacation spots).
- Approach-Avoidance Conflict: Wanting something but fearing negative outcomes (wanting to visit Japan but fearing high costs).
- Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict: Choosing between two undesirable options (two airlines you dislike).
Marketing Solutions:
~ For approach-approach and avoidance-avoidance: Highlight benefits or additional drawbacks of alternatives.
~ For approach-avoidance: Minimize perceived negative consequences.
Consumer Involvement
Involvement refers to the relevance of a product or decision to the consumer’s needs and values.
Levels of Involvement
- Low Involvement: Consumers make quick, habitual decisions (everyday coffee purchase).
- High Involvement: Consumers invest time and effort to make the best choice (choosing a car).
Cognitive and Affective Involvement
- Cognitive: Driven by thinking, information processing (health supplements).
- Affective: Driven by feelings and emotions (perfume).
Product, Message-Response, and Purchase Situation Involvement
- Product Involvement: Interest in a specific product (customizable Coach bags).
- Message-Response Involvement: Involvement with the medium of communication (guerrilla marketing, interactive ads).
- Purchase Situation Involvement: Influence of buying context (buying a gift for a friend vs. buying for oneself).
Affect
Affect refers to emotions and feelings that influence consumer behaviour. It ranges from evaluations (basic feelings) to moods and emotions (intense, complex feelings).
How Marketers Use Affect
- Positive Affect: Marketers promote positive emotions through product benefits (IKEA ads showing happiness).
- Mood Congruency Effect: Positive moods lead to better product evaluations (scent marketing to improve moods).
- Negative Affect: Marketers use negative emotions to inspire positive actions (charity ads showing distress to motivate donations).
Self-Concept
Self-concept is the set of beliefs and evaluations a person holds about themselves. It includes aspects like physical appearance, personality, mental aptitude, and more.
Key Dimensions of Self-Concept
- Content: What you believe about yourself (intelligence, attractiveness).
- Intensity: How strongly you feel about your attributes.
- Positivity: Self-esteem, or how positive or negative you feel about yourself.
- Stability: How stable your self-concept is over time.
- Accuracy: How accurate your self-concept is compared to reality.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is the positivity of self-concept. It influences behavior and decision-making, especially in consumption.
Low Self-Esteem, High Self-Esteem, and Social Comparisons
- Low Self-Esteem: People with low self-esteem may seek products to build confidence or avoid failure, embarrassment, or rejection.
- High Self-Esteem: Confident consumers tend to be risk-takers and may seek products that reflect their individuality, such as custom or unique items.
- Social Comparisons: Consumers evaluate themselves by comparing to models in ads, which can either boost or lower self-esteem (Victoria’s Secret “The Perfect Body” campaign caused a backlash for promoting unrealistic beauty standards).
Multiple Selves
Consumers play different roles in different situations (student, parent, employee, friend) and these roles affect the products and services they choose.
Role-Related Consumption
Marketers target ads that trigger specific role identities to increase brand recall. For example, Nestle Pure Life uses “Mother Knows Best” to target mothers.
Contextual Marketing
Ads placed in situations relevant to a specific role can increase consumer engagement.
Consumption and Self-Concept
The products we buy can either reinforce or reflect our self-concept. For example, someone proud of their Canadian identity may prefer to buy from Canadian brands.
Consumption and Self-Concept Theories
- Symbolic Self-Completion Theory: Consumers use products to complete or fill gaps in their self-definition (teenage boys buy cars to assert their masculinity).
- Self-Image Congruence Model: Consumers choose products that align with their self-image or ideal self (people buy products that reflected their desired personality traits).
Gender Roles
Gender role orientation is the degree to which someone exhibits masculine or feminine traits.
~ Masculinity: assertiveness, dominance, independence, and competitiveness.
~ Femininity: empathy, sensitivity, compassion, and nurturing.
~ Androgyny: A mix of both masculine and feminine.
Body Image
Body image is a person’s subjective evaluation of their physical self. Body dissatisfaction can lead to negative emotional states, such as depression.
Psychographics
Psychographics describe consumers based on their psychological attributes such as personality, lifestyles, and values. It provides deeper insights into consumer behavior compared to demographic or behavioral segmentation.
Personality
Personality refers to a person’s unique psychological makeup, influencing how they respond to their environment and interact with others. It includes motivations, emotions, and behaviors.
Brand Personality
The set of human traits attributed to a brand, which helps define its image and appeal to consumers.
Lifestyles
Lifestyles represent patterns of consumption that reflect how individuals spend their time and money, shaped by their activities, interests, and opinions.
Values
Values are deeply held beliefs about what is good or bad, desirable, or undesirable. They guide consumer choices in buying, using, and disposing of products.
Psychographic Segmentation
This segmentation method uses psychological, sociological, and anthropological factors to group consumers. It goes beyond simple demographics to create more precise market segments.
