Learning and memory
- 1. Consumer Behavior Learning and Memory
- 2. Objectives: 1. Understand how consumers learn about products and services. 2. Conditioning results in learning. 3. Learned associations with brands generalize to other products, and why this is important to marketers. 4. There is a difference between classical and instrumental conditioning, and both processes help consumers to learn about products. 5. learn about products by observing others' behavior.
- 3. 6. Our brains process information about brands to retain them in memory. 7. The other products we associate with an individual product influence how we will remember it. 8. Products help customers to retrieve memories from past. 9. Marketers measure memories about products and ads
- 4. Elements of learning: motivation of the learner; (reason or purpose for learning) the right stimulus (in the form of knowledge, skills, or attitudes) presented in an engaging and interactive manner (teaching) opportunities to test your learning (application of learning) feedback on the performance, including guidance for wrong responses and reinforcement of the right responses (feedback and reinforcement to complete the learning cycle) rewards for mastering the subject by passing a final exam (extrinsic rewards that improve motivation)
- 5. The Learning Process Learning: a relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience Incidental learning: casual, unintentional acquisition of knowledge 3-5
- 6. Behavioral Learning Theories: Is assume that learning takes place as the result of responses to external events.
- 8. Two major approaches of behavioral learning theories: Classical conditioning: occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own. Instrumental conditioning (operant conditioning): the individual learns to perform behaviors that produce positive outcomes and to avoid those that yield negative outcomes.
- 9. Classical Conditioning occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own. Dog food=unconditioned stimulus (natural reaction is drooling) Bell= conditioned stimulus (dogs learned to drool when bell rang) Drooling= conditioned response
- 10. Repetition increase the strength of stimulus-response associations and prevent the decay of these associations in memory. Repetition increases learning. More exposures = increased brand awareness When exposure decreases, extinction occurs However, too much exposure leads to advertising wear out
- 11. extinction occurs when the effects of prior conditioning diminish and finally disappear.
- 12. Stimulus Generalization refers to the tendency of stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar, conditioned responses. When the quality of the product turns out to be lower than that of the original brand, consumers may exhibit even more positive feelings toward the original. However, if they perceive the quality of the two competitors to be about equal, consumers may conclude that the price premium they pay for the original is not worth it.
- 13. Stimulus Discrimination occurs when a ucs does not follow a stimulus similar to a cs. Manufacturers of well established brands commonly urge consumers not to buy "cheap imitations" because the results will not be what they expect.
- 14. Marketing Applications of Conditioned Product Associations Advertisements often pair a product with a positive stimulus to create a desirable association. Various aspects of a marketing message, such as music, humor, or imagery, can affect conditioning. a marketer should present the conditioned stimulus prior to the unconditioned stimulus.
- 15. Marketing Applications of Stimulus Generalization The process of stimulus generalization often is central to branding and packaging decisions that try to capitalize on consumers' positive associations with an existing brand or company name. Strategies that marketers base on stimulus generalization include: Family branding. Product line extensions. Licensing. Look-alike packaging.
- 16. Instrumental Conditioning occurs when we learn to perform behaviors that produce positive outcomes and avoid those that yield negative outcomes. occurs in one of three ways: 1. positive reinforcement. 2. Negative reinforcement. 3. Punishment.
- 19. Instrumental Conditioning It’s important for marketers to determine the most effective reinforcement schedule to use. Several schedules are possible: Fixed-interval reinforcement. Variable-interval reinforcement. Fixed-ratio reinforcement. Variable-ratio reinforcement.
- 20. Marketing Applications of Instrumental Conditioning Principles Frequency marketing: is a popular technique that rewards regular purchasers with prizes that get better as they spend more.
- 21. Cognitive Learning Theory This perspective views people as problem solvers who actively use information from the world around them to master their environments. Supporters of this view also stress the role of creativity and insight during the learning process.
- 22. Observational Learning Observational learning: occurs when we watch the actions of others and note the reinforcements they receive for their behavior. Modeling (not the runway kind): is the process of imitating the behavior of others.
- 23. Observational Learning observational learning in the form of modeling to occur, the marketer must meet four conditions: 1. The consumer's attention must be directed to the appropriate model, whom, for reasons of attractiveness, competence, status, or similarity, he must want to emulate. 2. The consumer must remember what the model says or does. 3. The consumer must convert this information into actions. 4. The consumer must be motivated to perform these actions.
- 26. Memory: Memory is a process of acquiring information and storing it over time so that it will be available when we need it. Contemporary approaches to the study of memory employ an information-processing approach. They assume that the mind is in some ways like a computer THE MEMORY PROCESS:
- 27. How Our Brains Encode Information it's more likely that we'll retain incoming data when we associate it with other things already in memory. The way we encode, or mentally program, information helps to determine how our brains will store this information.
- 28. How Our Brains Encode Information Encode: mentally program meaning Types of Meaning sensory meaning: such as the literal color or shape of a package. Semantic meaning: refers to symbolic associations. Episodic memories: relate to events that are personally relevant. Narrative: memories store information we acquire in story form.
- 29. Memory Systems there are three distinct memory systems: sensory memory: stores the information we receive from our senses. short-term memory (STM): stores information for a limited period of time, and it has limited capacity. and long-term memory (LTM):is the system that allows us to retain information for a long period of time.
- 30. Spreading Activation spreading activation allows us to shift back and forth among levels of meaning. Meaning types of associated nodes: Brand-specific Ad-specific Brand identification Product category Evaluative reactions
- 31. Levels of Knowledge Individual nodes = meaning concepts Two (or more) connected nodes = proposition (complex meaning) Two or more propositions = schema We encode info that is consistent with an existing schema more readily Service scripts
- 32. How We Retrieve Memories When We Decide What to Buy Retrieval: is the process whereby we recover information from long- term memory Individual cognitive or physiological factors: are responsible for some of the differences in retrieval ability among people. Situational factors Consumer attention; pioneering brand. Viewing environment (continuous activity; commercial order in sequence) Post experience advertising effects
- 33. What Makes Us Forget? Appropriate factors for retrieval: State-dependent retrieval/ mood congruence effect Familiarity Salience/von Rest Orff effect Visual memory versus verbal memory
- 34. Products as Memory Markers Products help us to retrieve memories from our past.
- 35. How we measure consumers recall of marketing messages Recognition versus recall Problems with memory measures Response biases Memory lapses Omitting Averaging Telescoping Illusion of truth effect
- 36. Bittersweet Memories: The Marketing Power of Nostalgia Nostalgia: describes the bittersweet emotion that arises when we view the past with both sadness and longing. A retro brand: is an updated version of a brand from a prior historical period