CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

MODULE NO. 3

A.
Topic LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Discuss why marketers are concerned about
consumers ’exposure to marketing stimuli
and what tactics they use to enhance
exposure.
From Exposure to  Explain the characteristics of attention and
Comprehension how marketers can try to attract and sustain
consumers’ attention to products and
marketing messages.
 Describe the major senses that are part of
perception and outline why marketers are
concerned about consumers’ sensory
perceptions.

B. DISCUSSION

Exposure and Consumer Behavior

Before an ad, a tweet, a product sample, or a store display can affect consumers, they must be exposed
to it. Exposure means coming into physical contact with a stimulus. Marketing stimuli contain
information about products or brands and other offerings communicated by either the marketer (via
ads, Facebook messages, salespeople, brand symbols, packages, prices, and so on) or by non
marketing sources (e.g., news media, word of mouth, and consumer reviews of a product).
Consumers can be exposed to marketing stimuli at any stage of the decision-making process. To
some extent, they can select what they will be exposed to and avoid other stimuli, as you know from
your own experience. Because exposure is critical to influencing consumers’ thoughts and feelings,
marketers want consumers to be exposed to stimuli that portray their offerings in a favorable light
or at a time when consumers may be interested in such products.

Factors Influencing Exposure

The position of an ad within a medium can affect exposure. Consumers’ exposure to magazine ads
is greatest when they appear on inside cover (next to the table of contents) or on the back cover
because the ads are in view whenever the magazine is placed face down. Also, consumers are most
likely to be exposed to ads placed next to articles or within TV programs that interest them. Exposure
to commercials is greatest when they air at the beginning or end of a commercial break within a
program, because consumers are still involved in the program or are waiting for the program to
resume. Some advertisers sponsor commercial-free TV programs in which the company gets product
placement within the show or airs a single ad before or after the show.

Moreover, product distribution and shelf placement affect consumers’ exposure to brands and
packages. The more stores carrying the product or brand, the greater the likelihood that consumers
will encounter it. Likewise, the product’s location or the amount of shelf space allocated to it can
increase exposure to a product. Products displayed at the end of an aisle or placed from waist to
eye level gets more exposure than those in other positions. Sales of some products increase because
of their higher exposure in displays at checkout counters in supermarkets, automotive stores, and
restaurants.

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Selective Exposure
While marketers can work very hard to affect consumers’ exposure to certain products and brands,
ultimately consumers are the ones who control their exposure to marketing stimuli. In other words,
consumers can and do actively seek out certain stimuli and avoid or resist others. One reason
consumers want to avoid ads is that they are exposed to so many that they cannot possibly process
them all. Consumers avoid ads for product categories they do not use (indicating that the ads are
irrelevant to them); they also tend to avoid ads they have seen before because they know what these
ads will say. When consumers avoid stimuli they find distracting such as online ads located near
content they want to focus on they are likely to form negative attitudes toward those brands.

Attention and Consumer Behavior

While exposure reflects whether consumers encounter a stimulus, attention reflects how much
mental activity they devote to it. A certain amount of attention is necessary for information to be
perceived—for it to activate people’s senses. After consumers perceive information, they may pay
more attention to it and continue with the higher-order processing activities discussed in the next
few modules. Thus, attention enables consumers to learn more efficiently from their exposure to
marketing stimuli and make more informed decisions.

Characteristics of Attention
 Attention Is Limited
Attention is limited. Consumers cannot possibly attend to all stimuli in the environment, even
if they would want to see everything. However, consumers can attend to multiple stimuli (such as
products on store shelves) only if processing them is relatively automatic, well-practiced, and
effortless. When trying to learn a new skill, for instance, like playing an instrument or ordering
books online, you need to pay close attention to each specific activity. With practice, you integrate
sequences of activities and your attention is freed up for other things.
 Attention Is Selective
Because attention is limited, consumers need to select what to pay attention to and simultaneously
what not to pay attention to. Being surrounded by a potentially overwhelming number of stimuli, you
pay less attention to things you have seen many times before. Attention can also be affected by goals:
If you look at a package with the goal of learning how to use the product, you may be more
likely to read the directions than to read about its ingredients.
 Attention Can Be Divided
You can divide our attentional resources, allocating some attention to one task and some to another.
At the same time, you can become distracted when one stimulus draws attention from another; if
you are distracted from an ad, you devote less attention to it.

Although consumers can process general information (such as logos and brand names) pre attentively,
specific information (such as about ingredients and directions for use) will have more impact when
consumers devote full attention to it. Unfortunately, a marketing stimulus competes with many other
stimuli for attention, and consumers may have limited motivation and opportunity to attend to
marketing stimuli. Consequently, marketers often take steps to attract consumers’ attention by making
the stimulus (1) personally relevant, (2) pleasant, (3) surprising, and/or (4) easy to process. They
can use various research methods to gauge consumers’ attention to ads, packages, and
products.
1. Make stimuli personally relevant. Stimuli are personally relevant when they appeal to
our needs, values, emotions, or goals.31 If you are hungry, for example, you are more likely to pay
attention to food ads and packages. Products such as candy bars may make use of this by appealing to
the need for energy to keep going, or the need for “a break” between tasks. A second way is to show
sources similar to the target audience, such as “typical consumers” in an ad. A third way to increase
personal relevance is by using.
2. Make stimuli pleasant. Because people tend to approach things that are inherently

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pleasant, marketers can increase consumers’ attention to marketing stimuli by:
 Using attractive models. Ads containing attractive models have a higher probability of being
noticed because the models arouse positive feelings or basic sexual attraction.Clearly, individual
and cultural differences influence opinions about what is attractive.
 Using music. Familiar songs and popular entertainers can attract us in pleasant ways.Chevrolet
has run commercials featuring the cast of the TV show Glee singing a jingle from the company’s
past, “See the USA in Your Chevrolet.” The promotions manager explains that the firm is “trying
to have the Glee fan become the Chevrolet fan.”
3. Make stimuli surprising. Consumers are likely to process a stimulus when it is
surprising by:
 Using novelty. We are more likely to notice any marketing stimulus (an ad, package, or brand
name) that is new or unique, because it stands out relative to other stimuli. When QR (quick response)
codes were new and novel, ads and labels with the boxy codes attracted attention.Although novel
stimuli attract attention, we do not always like them better. For example, we may dislike food with a
taste unlike that of foods we usually eat. Thus, the factors that make a stimulus novel may not be the
same factors that make it likable.
 Using a puzzle. Visual rhymes, antitheses, metaphors, and puns are puzzles that attract
attention in ads, because they require resolution. To understand puns and metaphors, a shared cultural
background is needed, which makes it hard to use them in multinational campaigns American
consumers may not readily understand ads developed in other countries. Although ads that use a
puzzle may capture and hold attention, it is important that consumers can solve it to prevent
boomerang effects.
4. Make stimuli easy to process. Marketers can enhance attention by boosting
consumers’ ability to process the stimuli. Four characteristics make a stimulus easy to process:
 Prominent stimuli. Prominent stimuli stand out relative to the environment because of their
intensity. The size or length of the stimulus can affect its prominence. For example, consumers are
more likely to notice larger or longer ads than smaller or shorter ones. Increasing the amount of space
devoted to text within an ad increases the viewers’ attention to the entire message; making ads less
cluttered focuses attention on the brand, price, and promotion aspects of the message. Movement
also increases prominence, which is why attention tends to be enhanced when a commercial uses
dynamic, fast-paced action. Movement attracts attention even in the visual periphery, which is why
Web ads often make use of it. Also, when choosing among competing products, consumers tend to
buy products in packages that appear to be taller than others. Even the ratio of the dimensions of
rectangular products or packages can subtly affect consumer preferences.
 Concrete stimuli. Stimuli are easier to process if they are concrete rather than abstract.
Concreteness is defined as the extent to which we can imagine a stimulus. Notice how easily you can
develop images of the concrete words compared with your response to the abstract words.
Concreteness applies to brand names as well.
 Amount of competing stimuli. A stimulus is easier to process when few things surround
it to compete for your attention. You are more likely to notice a billboard when driving down a
deserted rural highway than when in a congested, sign-filled city, just as you are more likely to notice
a brand name in a visually simple ad than in one that is visually cluttered. Companies seek moments
and locations where competition for attention with their stimuli is limited.
 Contrast with competing stimuli. Contrast captures attention. Color newspaper ads
stand out because they are surrounded by black and white, just as black-and-white
TV ads stand out during TV shows broadcast in color. For contrast, some winemakers put images of
unusual animals on their labels to help bottles stand out on the shelf. In a study on retail advertising, it
was found that attention was highest when an ad differed from the other ads, and when these other ads
were very similar to each other.
Perception and Consumer Behavior
After you have been exposed to a stimulus and have devoted at least some attention to it, you are in

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a position to perceive it. Perception is the process of determining the properties of stimuli using one or
more of your five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. For instance, consumers judge how
much soft drink a can will contain based on its width and height, how much food a plate contains
based on the size of the plate, which car will drive fastest based on the color (red or green) and the
engine’s sound (low pitched or high pitched), which fabric softener will make clothes softest based on
its smell and color, and so on. Consumers constantly and mostly automatically determine such
properties of marketing stimuli using their senses and knowledge of the world. Some of these
perceptions are about physical properties such as the size, color, pitch, loudness, smell, and softness
of stimuli, while others are meanings associated with these properties.

Perceiving Through Vision

 Size and shape. Consumers perceive that packages in eye-catching shapes contain more of
a product. When product or package size is changed, consumers are less sensitive when
the change involves only one dimension (height or length or width) than when the change
involves all three dimensions. Thus, consumers may “supersize” their order when a product
is enlarged along only one dimension, but “downsize” when the product is enlarged along all
dimensions, a change more easily perceived.
 Lettering. The size and style of the lettering on a product or in an ad can attract attention and
support brand recognition and image. The distinctive Coca-Cola script, for instance, is not
only eye-catching but also is instantly identified with the soft-drink brand.
 Image location on package. Where product images are located on a package can influence
consumers’ perceptions and preferences. Images located near the package top, on the left side, or at
top-left add to the perception of a product as “lighter.” On packages of products where “lighter” is
perceived positively such as healthy snacks the images should be placed in these “lighter” locations.
 Color. Color is a crucial factor in visual perception. A color can be described according to hue,
saturation, and lightness. Hue is the pigment contained in the color. Colors can be classified
into two broad categories of hues: warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow and cool colors
such as green, blue, and violet. Saturation (also called chroma) refers to the richness of the
color, leading to distinctions such as pale pink or deep, rich pink. Lightness refers to the depth
of tone in the color. A saturated pink could have a lot of lightness (a fluorescent pink) or a lot
of darkness (a mauve).
 Effects of color on physiological responses and moods. Color can influence our physiological
responses and moods: Warm colors generally encourage activity and excitement, whereas cool
colors are more soothing and relaxing. Thus, cool colors are more appropriate in places such
as spas or doctors’ offices, where it is desirable for consumers to feel calm or to spend time
making decisions. Warm colors are more appropriate in environments such as health clubs
and fast-food restaurants, where high levels of activity are desirable.

Perceiving Through Hearing

Sound represents another form of sensory input. Perception of sounds depends on its intensity.
Consumers are more likely to notice loud music or voices and stark noises. When the announcer
in a radio or TV ad speaks more quickly, the faster pace disrupts consumers’ processing of the
information; a low-pitched voice speaking syllables at a faster-than-normal rate induces more
positive ad and brand attitudes. When a company uses one person to speak the voice-over lines during
many of its ads or plays the same jingle in many commercials, consumers associate those sounds with
the product or brand. McDonald’s and other firms consciously seek to define a certain sonic identity
using certain music or sounds to identify a brand.

Perceiving Through Taste

Food and beverage marketers must stress taste perceptions in their marketing stimuli. For example,
the major challenge for marketers of low-calorie and low-fat products is to provide healthier foods

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that still taste good and that are perceived as such. Yet what tastes good to one person may not taste
good to another, and consumers from different cultural backgrounds may have different taste
preferences. Interestingly, tasting or sampling a product is the in-store marketing tactic that most
influences consumer purchasing, even though stand-alone, in-store displays perceived through
vision is the marketing tactic that shoppers notice the most.

Perceiving Through Smell

If you were blindfolded, you (like most consumers) would probably have a hard time identifying
many supermarket items based on smell. However, consumers also differ in their ability to label
odors. Compared with younger consumers, the elderly has a harder time identifying smells, and
men in general are worse at the task than are women. Marketers are concerned with the effects of
smell on consumer responses, product trial, liking, and buying.

Perceiving Through Touch

Although individual preferences vary, touch (both what we touch with our fingers and the way things
feel as they come in contact with our skin) is an important aspect of many offerings. Consumers like
some products because of their feel. Some consumers buy skin creams and baby products for their
soothing effect on the skin. In fact, consumers who have a high need for touch tend to like products
that provide this opportunity. When considering products with material properties, such as clothing or
carpeting, consumers prefer goods they can touch in stores more than products they only see and read
about online or in catalogs.

Comprehension and Consumer Behavior

So far, you have been exposed to a marketing stimulus, focused your attention on it, and used your
senses to perceive it. Now, you have to identify what it is and understand the message it conveys.
These are the two critical elements in comprehension, which is the process of extracting higher order
meaning from what we have perceived in the context of what we already know. Sometimes
it is immediately clear that a stimulus to which you are exposed is an ad for a car brand, but the
message the car brand wants to convey may be less clear. In that case, the message comprehension is
challenged. But increasingly, it may be hard to identify whether the stimulus that you are exposed to
is an ad or something else, which represents a challenge of source identification?

Source Identification
Source identification is the process of determining what the stimulus that we have detected actually is.
In the next module explains in more detail how you use categorization processes to quickly
accomplish this identification. Imagine opening a magazine and quickly looking at a page. Source
identification is the rapid, perhaps automatic process of determining what the page contains. Is it
an ad, or something else? If it is an ad, what brand or product is being advertised? Research shows
that consumers are very good at identifying the products and brands in ads—when the ads are typical
for the category. In fact, after only 100 milliseconds (just a brief, single glance) consumers already
know that something is an ad rather than editorial information (such as an article). And if the ad is
typical, they know which product category and even which brand is being advertised. Ads that are
atypical for the product category require more than a single glance to communicate what they are for,
which is why marketers try to retain consumers’ attention long enough to allow for source
identification.
Because of techniques such as product placement (arranging for a product to be shown in a
movie, TV show, or digital game), it is not always easy to know whether something is really a
marketing message. Blurring of the lines occurs in other media, as well. Is that magazine article
actually an advertorial (advertising that takes the form of editorial content) or a story unconnected
with a sponsor? Is that TV program an infomercial (a long-form commercial sponsored by a marketer)
or a news story about a product or brand? Commercial stimuli try to look noncommercial because that
may increase their credibility although that compromises source identification by consumers.

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Message Comprehension
Once you have identified the source as a marketing message and determined what product or brand
is involved, you can start to comprehend its message make sense out of it on a number of levels.
In particular, marketers are concerned with (1) objective and subjective comprehension of messages;
(2) the possibility of miscomprehension; (3) the effect of motivation, attitude, and opportunity on
comprehension; and (4) the effect of culture.
 Objective and Subjective Comprehension
Objective comprehension refers to whether the meaning that consumers take from a message is
consistent with what the message actually stated. Subjective comprehension is the different or
additional meaning consumers attach to the message, whether or not these meanings were intended.
Whereas objective comprehension reflects whether you accurately understand what a sender intended
to communicate, subjective comprehension reflects what you understand, accurate or not. Marketing
mix elements such as price and advertising have a powerful influence on what you think a message is
saying. You may infer that a dental gum is as powerful at whitening teeth as whitening toothpastes
because the package art has white sparkles, the model in the ad has very white teeth, and the package
displays phrases like “whitening agent.” Yet the product may not be an effective whitening agent,
and the words on the package may not actually say that it is.
 Miscomprehension
Miscomprehension occurs when consumers inaccurately construe the meaning contained in a
message. Several studies have found a surprisingly high level of miscomprehension of TV and
magazine ads. The estimated rate of objective comprehension was only about 70 percent for TV ads
and 65 percent for print ads. Moreover, the rates of miscomprehension for directly asserted
information and implied information were fairly equal, as were miscomprehension rates for
programming, editorial material, and advertising.
 Effect of MAO
Consumers may not comprehend a marketing message when they have low motivation and limited
opportunity to process it, when the message is complex or shown for only a few seconds, or when the
message is viewed only once or twice. Experts are better able to comprehend information about a
highly innovative product when prompted by marketing messages that help them make the
connections and tap existing knowledge in more than one category. Regarding ability, one study
found that although consumers want to see nutritional information on packaging (implying high
motivation to process it), most do not comprehend it once they have read it. Still, comprehension may
improve with expertise and ability, which is the reason that adults often better comprehend the finer
points of a message than young children do.
 Effect of the Culture
Consumers in low-context cultures such as those in North America and northern Europe generally
separate the words and meanings of a communication from the context in which the message
appears. In these cultures, consumers place more emphasis on what is said than on the surrounding
visuals. But in high-context cultures (such as many in Asia), much of a message’s meaning is
implied indirectly and communicated nonverbally rather than stated explicitly through words. The
message sender’s characteristics, such as social class, values, and age, also play an important role in
message interpretation. Language differences further raise the possibility of miscomprehension, as
does the meaning that consumers in different cultures attach to words.116 For example, in the
United Kingdom, a billion is “a million million,” whereas in the United States, a billion means “a
thousand million.
REFERENCE: Hoyer, W. D., MacInnis, D. J., & Pieters, R. (2012). Consumer Behavior (6th ed.).
Cengage Learning.

Prepared by: RODEL P. LENON, MBA, LPT.

Instructor

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 Consumer Behavior
EVALUATION. 3

NAME: _____________________________________________
YR/SEC:_____________________________________________
How Under Armour Gets Noticed
The Nike swoosh may be one of the most recognized logos in the world of sports, but the Under
Armour logo (an interlocking U and A) is increasingly in the spotlight as the company gets noticed on
and off the field. Founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, once a member of the University of Maryland’s
football team, UnderArmour designs apparel and gear to help athletes feel and do their best in hot or
cold weather, in sports arenas or on the track. How can a latecomer to a fast growing industry
dominated by global giants such as Nike get noticed?
A little-known brand name was only one of Under Armour’s early challenges. Another was that many
of its first products (such as undershirts that wick away moisture) were not actually visible to
onlookers. Incontrast, the logos of competing brands were visible and often prominent on athletic
shoes, shirts, and caps. So the company initially positioned itself as “a brand for the next generation
of athletes.” Whereas Nike was sponsoring well-known, established athletes, Under Armour’s
sponsorships went to up-and-comers known for their dedication and athleticism. Its first endorsement
deal was with a Dallas Cowboys football player who had been at University of Maryland with Under
Armour’s founder. More recently, the company’s performance apparel has been spotted on endorsers
such as Heather Mitts (soccer), Cam Newtown (football), and Derrick Williams (basketball). As its
sponsored athletes do well, and their teams win games and even championships, Under Armour’s
brand gains attention and visibility. Although not every rising star becomes a sports legend, the brand
still gets exposure as these athletes receive media coverage, become established in their sports, and
appear in Under Armour ads. Now that the company rings up more than $1 billion in yearly revenue
from the sale of clothing, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and children, it can also afford
some high-profile deals, such as being endorsed by Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. The Under
Armour website features the brand mission—“Make all athletes better”—and puts its “Universal
guarantee of performance” in a conspicuous position, offering a full refund if customers are ever
dissatisfied with a product for any reason. The diversity of models and athletes on the Under Armour
site and in its ads, often shown participating in a sport, invites a broad range of consumers to identify
with the brand. The close ties between Under Armour and the University of Maryland have led to
additional opportunities for brand and product exposure. To grab attention and sell more team
merchandise, college and professional football teams are switching to more fashionable uniforms and
gear, with flashier colors and styles.
As part of this trend, Under Armour has designed 32 different items for football players at the
University of Maryland to wear. Fans, competing teams, and the media can’t help but notice the eye-
catching combinations of shirts, pants, and helmets worn by team members on different days—with
Under Armour’s now-familiar logo on each item. What’s ahead for Under Armour? The company is
expanding into Europe and beyond, relying on distribution and marketing communications to reach
more consumers, both casual and serious athletes. It is using social media such as YouTube, Twitter,
and Facebook to engage consumers, showcase its sports endorsers,and increase brand and product
visibility. Just as important, new products are in the pipeline, along with new technology that enhances
Under Armour’s differentiation.
Case Questions
1. What is Under Armour doing to make its brand personally relevant, surprising, and easy to process?
2. Why would Under Armour want to be sure that consumers can clearly see different models as
well as its mission and guarantee on the brand’s website?