Attitudes & Intentions

Lecture 4 Instructor: Sarosh Waiz

ATTITUDE

Attitude

Attitude is a persons overall evaluation of a concept Evaluations are affective responses, usually at relatively low levels of intensity and arousal These evaluations can be created by both the affective and the cognitive systems.

Attitude

The affective system automatically produces affective responses including emotions, feelings, moods, and evaluations or attitudes as immediate, direct responses to certain stimuli. These favorable or unfavorable affective responses are generated without conscious, cognitive processing of information about the product. Then, through classical conditioning processes, these evaluations may become associated with a product or brand, thus creating an attitude.

Attitude

The cognitive processing model of consumer decision making shows that an overall evaluation is formed when consumers integrate (combine) knowledge, meanings, or beliefs about the attitude concept. The goal of this integration process is to analyze the personal relevance of the concept and determine whether it is favorable or unfavorable 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 they interpret in terms of its personal relevance.

Attitude

Once an attitude has been formed and stored in memory, consumers do not have to engage in another integration process to construct another attitude when they need to evaluate the concept again. Instead, the existing attitude can be activated from memory and used as a basis for interpreting new information. Taste tests are a good example of how activated attitudes can influence consumers judgments.

Taste tests usually are conducted blind (tasters are not told what brands they are tasting) to avoid activating brand attitudes that would bias their taste judgments.
Finally, an activated attitude can be integrated with other knowledge in decision making

Brief History of the Study of Attitude

Attitude

Whether a given attitude will affect interpretation or integration processes depends on its accessibility in memory or its probability of activation Many factors can influence the accessibility of attitudes, including salience or importance (more self-relevant attitudes are more easily activated), frequency of prior activation (attitudes that are activated more often are more accessible), and the strength of the association between a concept and its attitude (puppies tend to activate positive attitudes; 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 babies in ads for Michelin tires.

Attitude

Measuring Attitude

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

Consumers overall attitudes toward McDonalds french fries are indicated by the average of their ratings across the three evaluative scales. Attitudes can vary from negative (ratings of 3, 2, 1) through neutral (a rating of 0) to positive (ratings of 1, 2, or 3).

Attitude

Attitudes are not necessarily intense or extreme.

On the contrary, many consumers have essentially neutral evaluations (neither favorable nor unfavorable) toward relatively unimportant, non-involving concepts.
A neutral evaluation is still an attitude, however, although probably a weakly held one

Attitude Towards What?

Consumers attitudes are always toward some concept. We are interested in two broad types of concepts: objects and behaviors. Consumers can have attitudes toward various physical and social objects, including products, brands, models, stores, and people (salesperson at the electronics store), as well as aspects of marketing strategy (an ad for Wrigleys chewing gum). Consumers also can have attitudes toward intangible objects such as concepts and ideas (capitalism, a fair price for gasoline).

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

Levels of Attitude Concepts

Consumers can have quite distinct attitudes toward variations of the same general concept. For instance, Rich has a moderately positive attitude toward fastfood restaurants in general, but he has a highly favorable attitude toward one product form (hamburger restaurants). However, his attitude 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 an unpleasant 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 different attitudes toward different attitude concepts, marketers must be sure to measure the attitude concept at the level of specificity most relevant to the marketing problem of interest.

Levels of Attitude Concepts

Brand Equity

Brand attitude is a key aspect of brand equity. Brand equity concerns the value of the brand to the marketer and to the consumer. 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 Inn increased occupancy rates by 15 percent (a tangible indicator of the value of the Marriott brand).

From a consumer perspective, brand equity involves a strong, positive brand attitude (favorable evaluation of the brand) based on favorable meanings and beliefs that are accessible in memory (easily activated). These three factors create a strong, favorable consumerbrand

Brand Equity

Basically marketers can acquire brand equity in three ways: They can build it, borrow it, or buy it. Companies can build brand equity by ensuring that the brand actually delivers positive consequences and by consistently advertising these important consequences. Companies can borrow brand equity by extending a positive brand name to other products. For example, the Coca-Cola line now includes Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Coke, Cherry and Diet Cherry Coke, Coke BlaK, Coke Zero, and others. Finally, a company can buy brand equity by purchasing brands that already have equity.

COPY TESTING AS AN EXAMPLE OF ATTITUDE TRACKING

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 consciously considered at once. The activated beliefs are called salient beliefs .

Only the salient beliefs about an object (those that are activated at a particular time and in a specific context) create a persons attitude toward that object.
Thus, one key to understanding consumers attitudes is to identify and understand the underlying set of salient beliefs.

Attitudes towards Objects

Project Time
1. One Rupee Project

2. Event

THANK YOU