Beliefs and Attitudes

Attitude: Relatively consistent evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward an object or idea. •Liking or disliking things•Healthy food – eat chicken•Customers develop negative or positive attitude towards some products or places. •Difficult to change

Belief: A descriptive thought that a person holds about something•X hotels have the best facilities.•A particular airline has poor maintenance•A particular country has unhealthy food-handling standards

Consumer belief and attitude Beliefs are the knowledge and inferences that a consumer

has about products/brands and possible benefits derived from using them.

Beliefs result from cognitive learning.

Attribute importance springs from: A person’s assessment of the significance of an attribute. The amount of attention directed to it. A person’s self-concept, advertising, and the salience of

the attribute can influence the attention focused on it.

• Companies or Retailers mark up prices before putting them up on sale. -- Bargaining behavior

• Discounts offered by reputed companies are genuine reduction in prices.-- Wait for the discount announcement

• Celebrities are admired by their followers though they do not use the product they endorse. --Success of soaps and cosmetics

• Lower price generally means inferior quality. Higher priced brands are not superior in quality by the same degree of multiplier. --Positioning at a lower quality end, as done by Haier, Lenovo

• Shopping in a big departmental store saves money.--Big Bazaar, Subhiksha

• Packaged ready-to-eat food items marketed in India are generally not fresh.-- Limited success of MTR, ITC foods

Consumer feelings

• As part of “Advertising Experience”: Influence on viewers’ moods, attitudes, recall, affinity, Examples: Hamara Bajaj Campaign, Amul Butter—“Utterly, butterly delicious”

• As part of “Shopping Experience”: Influence of availability, “environment/ambience”Examples: Maruti service centers, Cafe’ Coffee Day, Brista coffee

• As part of “Consumption Experience”: Influence consumers’ consumption evaluationExamples: Vanilla Coke, Blue Pepsi, Asian Paints

Functions of attitudes

• Utilitarian function : Used to obtain rewards and avoid punishments

• Ego-defensive function : Self-protection Example: mouthwash

• Knowledge function : Simplifies decisions Example: Forming of loyalty to certain brands

• Value-expressive function : Expresses identity to others Example : Peter England shirts- ‘ the honest shirts’

Formation of attitude

Direct formation• Corresponds to the decision-making perspective and

cognitive learning.• Linked to the experiential perspective.• Classical conditioning/Associative learning: Positive

affect is attached to object–using a jingle.• Mere exposure—frequent exposure to stimulus

increases one’s desire for it.• Environmental forces Example: design of the physical

environment, cafes

Change in consumer attitude

• Changing beliefs :Comparative advertising Example: Sugar Free, Saffola oil (less cholesterol)

• Changing attribute importance :Identification of new, improved attributes Example: Washing powders, soaps

• Changing ideal points

Tri- component attitude model

cognition affection conation

• Cognitive component: this part consist of knowledge and perceptions that are acquired by a combination of direct experience with the attitude object and related information from various sources.

• Affective Component:A consumer’s emotions or feelings about a particular product or brand constitute the affective component of an attitude.

• The Conative component:It is concerned with the tendency or likelihood that an individual will undertake a specific action or behave in a particular way with regard to the attribute object.

Multi attitude model

Portrays consumer’s perception and assessment of the key attributes or belief held with regard to the particular attribute object.

The attitude towards object modelThe attitude towards behaviour modelThe theory of reasoned action model

Attitude towards ad model

Changing consumer attitude: changing belief

• Firms hope that changing beliefs about products will result in more favorable product attitudes and influence what consumers buy.

• If beliefs are false, they should be brought into harmony with reality and then stabilized and reinforced.

• If beliefs are accurate, it may be necessary to change the product.Comparative advertising can hurt beliefs about a competitive brand

• Changing an attribute’s importance is more difficult than changing a belief.

• Increasing attribute importance is desirable when the competitor’s brand is farther from the ideal point than your product.Firms may add a new attribute which necessitated NPD or product revision.

Changing consumer attitude : changing attitude importance

Changing Consumer Attitudes: Changing Ideal Points

• Altering consumers’ preferences for what the Ideal product should look like.

• It is far more difficult than any other approach in changing consumers, attitudes toward brand and product.