CHAPTER 2: INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCES

2.5 Attitudes and Attitude Changes

WHAT ARE ATTITUDES?
 In a consumer behavior context, they are learned
predispositions to behave in a consistently favorable
or unfavorable way with respect to a given object
(e.g., people, places, products, services or events)
 Attitudes are not observable; thus attitude research
is important for marketers
ATTITUDES ARE LEARNED
 We are not born with attitudes
 Attitudes relative to purchase behavior are formed
as a result of
1. direct experience with the product
2. word-of-mouth
3. exposure to mass media advertising, the internet,
and direct marketing
 Attitudes are not synonymous with behavior
 Attitudes may result from behavior
ATTITUDES HAVE CONSISTENCY
 Attitudes are not permanent and can and do
change
 Once attitudes develop, they are not always easy
to change
 Often the goal of marketing is to change attitudes
about a product or company
 Circumstances sometimes preclude consistency
between attitudes and behavior
ATTITUDES OCCUR WITHIN A SITUATION
 How attitudes affect behavior depends on the
situation in which the behavior occurs
 Thus a specific situation may cause consumers to
behave in ways that are inconsistent with their
attitudes
 From a marketer’s perspective, it is important to
consider the situation in which the behavior
takes place, or one might misinterpret the
relationship between attitude and behavior
SOURCES OF ATTITUDES
 Three Major Influences on Attitude
Formation
1. Personal experience
2. Influence of family and friends
3. Exposure to direct marketing and mass-media
1. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
 The primary basis on which attitudes towards
goods and services are formed
 Free products, cents-off promotions, etc.

 Marketer’s goal is to get consumers to try a

product and, hopefully, develop a positive
attitude towards it
2. INFLUENCE OF FAMILY & FRIENDS
 Family and friends are a major influence on our
values, beliefs and attitudes
 We carry over into adulthood many of the
attitudes we developed as children
 Our peer and social groups also influence our
attitudes
3. DIRECT MARKETING & MASS MEDIA
 Direct marketers are able to use new
technologies to target smaller and smaller
market segments
 As a result, many solicitations are highly
personalized and have the capacity to create
favorable attitudes towards their products
 Television, radio, newspapers and magazines
provide marketers with unlimited opportunities
to create positive attitudes towards their
products
ATTITUDE COMPONENTS AND MANIFESTATIONS
THE FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
 Attitudes can be classified into four functions:
1. Utilitarian Function
2. Ego-defensive Function
3. Value-expressive Function
4. Knowledge Function
1. UTILITARIAN FUNCTION
 We have a favorable attitude towards a product
because it has been useful in the past
 Marketers may stress the utilitarian feature or
may suggest uses of the product that may not be
obvious
2. EGO-DEFENSIVE FUNCTION
 Products that we purchase to protect our self-
images, to replace our sense of insecurity with
personal confidence
3. VALUE-EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION
 We often express our personal values through the
brands we purchase and own
 Marketers often attempt to identify their brands
with these values
4. KNOWLEDGE FUNCTION
 Consumers generally have a strong need to know
and understand the people and things they come
in contact with
 Many product and brand positioning strategies
are based on an attempt to satisfy this “need to
know”
RELATION BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND
BEHAVIOR
 It is fair to say that attitudes at least sometimes
guide behavior
 Thus it is important for marketers to understand
the role of attitudes in purchase situations
STRUCTURAL MODELS OF ATTITUDES
 In order to understand the link between attitude
and behavior, psychologists have developed models
to help understand attitude
 The focus has been on specifying the composition of
an attitude to better explain or predict behavior.
 They have identified the following attitude models:
 The traditional/tricomponent model
 The multi-attribute model
 The theory of reasoned action (TORA)
TRADITIONAL/TRI-COMPONENT MODEL
1. COGNITIVE COMPONENT
 The knowledge and perceptions we have about the
object
 Based on personal experience with the object and
information from various sources (e.g., opinions of
others, ads, articles, etc.)
 This knowledge and perceptions commonly take the
form of beliefs
2. AFFECTIVE COMPONENT
 A consumer’s emotions or feelings about a
particular product or brand
 Generally a reaction to the cognitive aspect of the
attitude
 Our emotional state may amplify positive or
negative experiences, which then have an effect
on our attitude
3. BEHAVIORAL/CONATIVE COMPONENT
 Is concerned with the likelihood or tendency that a
consumer will undertake a specific action or behave in
a particular way regarding the attitude object
 Frequently treated as a consumer’s intention to buy
IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETING STRATEGY
 When marketers use the traditional model to
create or change attitudes, they use the various
components as follows:
1. At the cognitive level with information
2. At the affective level with emotionally toned
messages
3. At the behavioral level with incentives (samples,
coupons, rebates)
THE MULTI-ATTRIBUTE MODEL OF
ATTITUDES

 There are many variations on this model

 They include:
1. The attitude toward the object
model
2. The attitude toward the behavior
model
3. The theory of reasoned action
model
1. ATTITUDE TOWARD THE OBJECT MODEL
 Model is especially suitable for measuring
attitudes toward a product or service category or
specific brands
 Holds that a consumer’s attitude towards a
product or brands of a product is a function of the
presence (or absence), and an evaluation of,
certain product-specific beliefs or attributes
 Consumers generally have favorable attitudes
toward brands they believe have an adequate
level of attributes they evaluate as positive
 Consumers have negative attitudes toward
brands they feel do not have an adequate level of
desired attributes or have too many negative or
undesired attributes
2. ATTITUDE TOWARD BEHAVIOR MODEL
 A person’s attitude toward behaving or acting
with respect to an object, rather than toward the
object itself
 Not uncommon for consumers to have a positive
attitude toward an object but a negative attitude
toward purchasing it
3. THE THEORY OF REASONED ACTION
(TORA)

 According to this model, behavior is

determined by a person’s intention to behave
 To understand intention, we also need to
measure the subjective norms that influence
an individual’s intention to act
 A subjective norm can be measured directly
by assessing a consumer’s feelings as to what
relevant others (family, friends, co-workers)
would think of the action contemplated
ATTITUDE CHANGE
 Attitude change is an issue for every marketer
 New entrants into the market need to change the
attitude of consumers that support purchases
from market leaders
 Market leaders need to strengthen the positive
attitudes of their customers to retain their
market share
ATTITUDE CHANGE STRATEGIES
 Competitors can try to change the attitudes of
the market leaders’ customers in several ways:
1. Comparative advertising
2. Emphasizing brand attributes
3. Adding new attributes
4. Providing knowledge of alternatives
5. Changing the relative value of attributes
1. COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING
 Identifying a major competitor and explaining
why your product is superior in one or more ways

 http://nonemore.keenspace.com/souprivalry.ssf
2. EMPHASIZING BRAND ATTRIBUTES
 Identifies and highlights features of the product
that consumers may not be familiar with or that
may be new or innovative
3. ADDING ATTRIBUTES
 Can involve
 Stressing an attribute that has been ignored; or
 Adding an attribute that represents an improvement
or technological innovation
4. PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE OF
ALTERNATIVES OR CONSEQUENCES
 Providing consumers with evidence, facts or
figures enable them to make informed choices
between competing brands
5. CHANGING THE RELATIVE VALUE
OF ATTRIBUTES
 Often a market for a particular type of product is
divided so that different market segments are
offered different brands, each with different
features or benefits
 When this occurs, marketers have an opportunity
to persuade consumers to “cross over” to their
brand
 Summary of internal factor influences

Selective Exposure
Perception
Selective Retention Selective Exposure

Needs
Motivation Self-
Psychological Safety Social Esteem
Actualization

Stimulus Stimulus
Learning
Generalization Discrimination

Changing Changing
Beliefs & Adding
Beliefs about Importance of
Attitudes Attributes Beliefs
New Beliefs
35
End of the Chapter!