Summary of 'The psychology of Advertising' written and donated to WorldSupporter in 2013-2014.

Chapter D. Consumers' development of judgments and feelings about products

What is an attitude? A matter of contention

Defining the concept

Attitudes are evaluative responses. They are directed towards some attitude object and are based on three classes of information: cognitive, affective/emotional, and behavioural. Attitude objects may be abstract (e.g. materialism) or concrete (e.g. Audi) and may be individuals (David Beckham) or categories (candy). One might infer one’s brand attitude from the frequency with which one has recently used the brand.

The major point of contention is whether attitudes should be defined as a predisposition to evaluate an attitude object in a particular way or as the evaluative response itself. Attitude = a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of (dis)favour. Cognitive evaluative responses = the beliefs people hold about the attitude object. Affective evaluative responses = the feelings, moods and emotions people experience when confronted with the attitude object. Behavioural evaluative responses = the intention to act or the overt actions people perform in relation to an attitude object.

Implicit and explicit attitudes: challenging the unity of the attitude concept

Implicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is typically not aware and which influence (re)actions over which the individual has little/no control.

Explicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is consciously aware. Can be expressed using self-report measures.

Affective priming method = individuals are presented on each trial with a prime and afterwards they are presented with positive/negative adjectives. Then they are asked to decide as fast as possible whether the adjective was positive or negative. The time it takes people to make this judgement is the independent measure.

Implicit Association Test (IAT) = assesses the strength of an association between two concepts with positive and negative evaluations. The response delays are derived from the participants’ use of two response keys which have been assigned a dual meaning.

Modern advertising faces a discrepancy between explicit and implicit consumer responses.

Not many consumers are willing to admit that they are often heavily influenced by advertising in their shopping behaviour and thus, scales designed to tap the persuasive influence of advertising often reveal a sceptic and resistant consumer. More implicit measures are needed to reveal advertising’s impact on consumer perceptions and behaviour. Wilson et al. explained this by suggesting that persuasive advocacies (like advertising) or new experiences might result in the creation of a new, second attitude without replacing the old one. Dual attitudes = different evaluations of the same attitude object, one on an automatic, implicit level, and one on a controlled, explicit level. Example: people who went often to McDonald’s in their childhood (positive attitude) now never go anymore because they found out it is unhealthy (negative attitude).

Are attitudes stable or context-dependent?

There is empirical evidence for both stability and malleability of attitudes. Attitudes can change with changing context and can be placed on a continuum of strength. This ranges from issues which are novel or irrelevant (weak), to issues which are familiar and important (strong). Through heavy advertising, initially unfamiliar brands can become highly accessible in consumers’ minds.

Attitudes = the categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension (Zanna & Rempel definition).

How do we form attitudes?

Attitudes derive from cognitive, evaluative/affective and behavioural information. Two criteria will be used to distinguish between processes of attitude formation and attitude change. Attitude formation is involved when the issue or object is new and unfamiliar. It is based on low effort cognitive processes that require little cognitive elaboration such as evaluative conditioning or heuristic processing. These processes will be discussed.

The formation of cognitively based evaluative responses

Beliefs about an attitude object are based on information individuals have gathered about the object. They can derive this information indirectly, or from personal experience. Brand-quality-, country-, and price-quality heuristics may also be used to predict quality.

Direct experience results in more information than indirect experience, and attitudes based on direct experience are held with more confidence, are more stable over time, are more accessible in memory, and are more predictive of future behaviour.

Fazio et al.: attitudes derived from direct experience are more accessible in memory than attitudes based on indirect experience are responsible for their greater impact on behaviour.

Doll and Ajzen: it is the greater temporal stability of experience-based attitudes rather than their accessibility that is responsible for the difference in attitudes. The more a person’s expectations prove to be consistent with the actual experience, the better the attitude will predict actual behaviour. Greater attitude accessibility and stability are independently responsible for the fact that experience-based attitudes are better predictors of behaviour than attitudes based on indirect experience. Therefore it is important to use marketing tools that promote direct experience (e.g. free samples) in addition to classic advertising.

If there is a dramatic change in context, the advantage of experience-based attitudes may be lost. Also the expertise and the trustworthiness of the source of the information has an influence on the impact of direct and indirect experience.

People often rely on heuristics to form attitudes, based on their own experience, culture, or on advertisements. Stereotype = belief about the attributes of members of an outgroup. Prejudice = the impact of stereotypes on people’s judgements of, and behaviour towards, members of an outgroup. This is considered bad.

The most often used heuristic cues in consumer behaviour are brand names, country of origin and price. Brand image = the beliefs, feelings, and evaluations triggered by a brand name. Brand images are strongly influenced by advertising. A brand associated with high quality can improve product ratings.

The country of origin is important when buying food, because consumers believe that ethnic food products are likely to be better if they come from the country from which the food originated. As for the price-quality heuristic, people expect that expensive is good. In the service industry, duration is an important heuristic: higher quality is inferred when service duration increases, especially in relation to price (when the duration:price ratio increases).

The formation of evaluative responses based on affective or emotional experience

Three pathways to the acquisition of evaluative responses based on affective or emotional experience are:

• Initially neutral stimuli can acquire positive valence through repeated exposure (mere exposure), or
• through association with events that already have positive or negative valence (classical/evaluative conditioning).
• Individuals may use the affect evoked by the stimulus or the stimulus context as information about this object (affect-as-information).

Mere exposure = attitudes towards stimuli become more positive with increasing frequency of exposure. Advertising wear-in = an advertisement’s impact only increases after an ‘incubation period’ of several exposures where effects are absent/minimal. Explanation for the ‘exposure effect’: frequency of exposure increases perceptual fluency; the ease with which information is processed. Repeated exposure results in a representation of the stimulus in memory. When the stimulus is encountered again, this representation will make it easier to encode and process the stimulus. The increased ease of processing is pleasant and positively affects the evaluation of the stimulus (hedonic fluency).

Classical and evaluative conditioning

Pavlovian/classical conditioning = a neutral stimulus that is initially incapable of eliciting a particular response (conditioned stimulus, CS), gradually acquires the ability to do so through repeated association with a stimulus that already evokes this response (unconditioned stimulus, US). Strategies based on this conditioning are used in advertising. Products are displayed in pleasing contexts with little relation to the product function, or linked to supermodels for example. It is assumed that the positive mood resulting from a pleasing context will be transferred to the product.

Evaluative conditioning effects can result from different processes:

• Misattribution = the evaluation triggered by the US is mistakenly attributed to the CS. Then the CS acquires the valence that was originally associated with the US. There is no awareness of the association between the CS and US.
• CS-US pairings might produce evaluative conditioning effects by causing individuals to form specific beliefs about the CS, e.g. linking a pizza brand to a race car, leading to consumers believing that the pizza will be delivered fast. This process involves inferential belief-formation resulting from a misattribution of some aspect of the meaning of the US to the CS.

Affect-as-information hypothesis = feelings may sometimes influence evaluations through feeling-based inferences rather than through repeated association with the stimulus. Individuals infer their attitude from their present mood state.

The formation of evaluations based on behavioural information

Besides behaviour as a direct experience, there are two other ways evaluations can be influenced by past behaviour, namely self-perception and reinforcement.

Reinforcement = when the interviewer responds with ‘good’ every time a participant agrees with a positive attitude statement, the participant will end up showing a more positive attitude towards the issue than one who has been reinforced with negative direction.

New and unfamiliar brands may particularly benefit from self-perception processes brought about by the direct experience marketing tools mentioned before. Example: people expressing more positive attitudes towards being religious after completing questionnaires designed to increase the salience of pro-religious behaviour.

How attitudes are structured

Attitudes are evaluations of an object which are based on cognitive, affective, and behavioural information. Not all attitudes have strong cognitive, affective and behavioural components. They might have only one or two. Now we will focus on the relationship between beliefs about an attitude object and the evaluation of this object. Attitude structure affects the durability of attitudes, their stability, their resistance to influence and their impact on behaviour.

Expectancy-value models = conceptualize beliefs as the sum of the expected values attributed to the attitude object. Beliefs consist of:

• Expectancy component = reflects the individual’s confidence that the attitude object possesses the attributes they associate with it. The more instrumental an attitude object is perceived to be in helping the attainment of positive values or goals and blocking the attainment of negative values or goals, the more positively the consumer will evaluate the object.
• Value component = the value a consumer attaches to the characteristics of an object.

Fishbein’s model assumes that people’s attitudes towards a brand are completely determined by the information they possess about the product attributes, or the beliefs that are salient at the time the express their attitude (information integration theory).

Rosenberg’s model is a consistency theory = makes the assumption that individuals try to achieve consistency between their evaluations and their beliefs.

Both models predict that changing people’s beliefs results in attitude change, but only Rosenberg makes the additional prediction that changing people’s evaluation of the attitude object should result in changes in their beliefs about the object.

Dual Mediation Hypothesis = the attitude towards advertisements influences brand attitudes through two pathways: indirectly via brand cognitions, and directly via evaluative conditioning. Exposure to the advertisement elicits the expectations that use of the brand will have a number of positive consequences. This positive affect is transferred to the brand through processes of evaluative conditioning. The liking for the advertisement will rub off on the product.

Attitude functions: why people hold attitudes

Categorization and attitude formation are the basic processes that enable consumer to bring order into the chaos of an overload of stimuli. Attitude functions:

• Knowledge function: they help us organizing and structuring our environment to interpret and make sense of otherwise chaotic perceptions.
• Instrumental function: they help us maximizing our rewards and minimize penalties in interactions with our physical and social environment.
• Utilitarian function: they help us to approach those stimuli, which in the past have been associated with positive reinforcements, and avoid those that have resulted in punishments.
• Object-appraisal function: the instrumental and utilitarian function combined: because attitudes are a categorization of stimuli along an evaluative dimension, every attitude can be assumed to serve the object appraisal function.
• Value-expressive function: they help reflect values that are central to our self-concept.
• Social identity function: they might help us to maintain relationships with important groups.
• Ego-defensive function: they help us protect our self-esteem by avoiding having to acknowledge harsh truths about ourselves or about threats from our environment.

Research on the functional approach to advertising has used one of these approaches:

• Individual difference approach = focuses on self-monitoring. Self-monitoring scale = differences between individuals’ scores distinguish people for whom image aspects of a product are particularly important from those for whom these aspects are less important. High self-monitors tend to be concerned about the image they project to others so behave themselves different in various situations. Low self-monitors behave more consistently.
• Object-based/functional approach = assumes that:
  • Some objects are reliably associated with one particular attitude function;
  • Persuasive appeals about these objects are likely to have the greatest impact if they match the function served by these objects.

To be successful in changing a person’s attitude, we must know why he holds that particular attitude and tailor the advertising message accordingly.

Attitude strength

Attitude strength = links aspects of attitude structure and attitude function. Stronger attitudes are characterized by:

• Higher stability over time;
• Greater impact on behaviour;
• Greater influence on information processing;
• Greater resistance to persuasion.

Determinants of attitude strength are accessibility, importance, knowledge, certainty, ambivalence, and evaluative-cognitive consistency.

Accessibility

Cognitive accessibility = how easily or quickly the attitude can be retrieved from memory. The faster the attitude can be retrieved from memory, the stronger the association between the representation of the attitude object and the evaluation. Brand awareness = the ease with which consumers can recall or recognize the brand.

Highly accessible attitudes are more predictive of behaviour than attitudes of low accessibility. They are also more resistant to social influence.

Attitude importance = usually measured by asking people how important an attitude object is to them personally, how deeply they care about it, and how concerned they are about it. The relevance of the attitude to cherished values of the individual, the relevance to self-interest, and the perceived relevance of an issue for the interests of important reference groups are important determinants of attitude importance.

Knowledge = about an attitude object is only moderately positively related to its importance. Individuals with a lot of knowledge should be better able to evaluate the validity of arguments about that issue than individuals with little knowledge. Therefore well-informed persons should be more influenced by strong arguments, while uninformed people are more influenced by heuristic cues.

Attitude certainty = confidence individuals have in the validity or correctness of their own attitude. It is possible to hold a neutral attitude with a high degree of certainty.

Ambivalence = a state in which an individual gives an attitude object equivalently strong positive or negative evaluation, i.e. both likes and dislikes the object. Strategies to assess this are measuring ambivalence as an experienced state or as structural ambivalence (= calculated from evaluations). Attitude objects associated with greater structural ambivalence are less cognitively accessible than attitude objects associated with less ambivalence. Ambivalent attitudes are less predictive of behaviour and less resistant to social influence than non-ambivalent attitudes.

Evaluative-cognitive consistency = the consistency between people’s attitudes towards an attitude object and the evaluative implications of their beliefs about the object. More consistent attitudes are more resistant to social influence than attitudes of low consistency.

Attitude strength and the context dependence of attitudinal judgements

Attitude strength is suggested to be the moderating variable responsible for the conflicting evidence on the context stability of attitudes.

Chapter E. Changing consumer attitudes with advertising

This chapter presents theories of persuasion = any change in beliefs and attitudes that results from exposure to a communication.

Stage 1. Theories which assume that persuasion involves the learning of persuasive arguments contained in a communication

The Yale reinforcement approach

Yale reinforcement approach = assumes that exposure to a  persuasive communication which successfully induces the individual to accept a new opinion forms a learning experience in which a new verbal habit is acquired. Receivers of a persuasive message will only accept the recommended attitudinal response if the incentives associated with this response are greater than those associated with their current position.

Lasswell: in order to understand persuasion you must know who says what to whom with what effect.

Source effect = the impact of the source of a communication on persuasion. Attribution of a communication to either a prestigious or a non-prestigious source influences the target’s evaluation of the communication.

Defensive avoidance = a strong fear appeal is so threatening that it is more effective for receivers to reduce fear by rejecting the appeal as alarmist rather than accepting the recommendation. However, later studies show that recipients’ willingness to accept a recommendation increases when the fear appeal increases in strength.

The information processing model of McGuire

McGuire’s information processing model = there are different stages involved in the processing of persuasive communications, and that determinants of persuasion can have different impacts at these five stages of persuasion:

1. Attention
2. Comprehension
3. Acceptance
4. Retention
5. Behaviour

The receiver must go through each of the above stages if the communication is to have an ultimate persuasive impact. Each stage depends on the occurrence of the previous one. It is assumed that a consumer has to go through every stage systematically in order to be persuaded. There are, however, many ways by which messages can have an influence, even without having been carefully processed. Processing becomes more important when the product becomes more complex and expensive.

McGuire suggests that determinants of persuasion can have different effects at different stages of the persuasion process. He uses only the reception and the acceptance of the message as stages for this. The more intelligent a person is, the more likely it is that he understands the message. However, he is then also more likely to be critical and therefore less likely to accept everything he hears/reads.

Stage 2. The cognitive response model

Cognitive response model = stresses the importance of the thoughts individuals generate (and rehearse and learn) in response to a persuasive communication (i.e. cognitive responses). The passive listener (McGuire model) is replaced by an active thinker who engages in a silent discussion with the communicator and argues for or against the arguments contained in a communication.

Listeners are active participants, who relate the communication to their personal knowledge by elaborating the message arguments and considering information that is not contained in the communication to generate thoughts for or against the arguments presented. The cognitive responses to these arguments determine the impact of persuasive communication on attitudes.

Thought-listening technique = subjects are asked to list all the thoughts or ideas they have while listening to the communication. Relevant thoughts are categorized into those who are favourable and those who are unfavourable to the communication. An index is used to assess the extent to which cognitive responses mediate the impact of the communication on attitudes.

If you think about a persuasive communication and scrutinize the arguments contained in the message, you will discover inconsistencies and therefore be reluctant to accept the recommendation. This is only the case if there are weaknesses and inconsistencies in the communication. Positive cognitive responses = thinking about strong and well-reasoned arguments produces favourable thoughts which enhance persuasion. Persuasion depends on both the extent to which recipients engage in message relevant thoughts, and the favourability of those thoughts.

Increasing message-relevant thinking should increase persuasion for strongly argued messages that mainly elicit favourable thoughts. For weakly argued messages that elicit mainly unfavourable thoughts, increasing message relevant thinking should decrease persuasion:

Stage 3. Dual process theories of persuasion

Dual process theories of persuasion = an extension of the cognitive response model:

• In contrast to the cognitive response model, which assumes that attitude change is always mediated by argument relevant thinking, even if the extent to which recipients think about arguments may be minimal, dual process models acknowledge that recipients may sometimes take short cuts and accept/reject the position recommended by the communicator without thinking about message arguments.
• Dual process theories specify the factors determining the intensity of message processing and thus the conditions under which attitude change will be mediated by message-relevant thinking.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) will be integrated into one framework.

Dual process theories distinguish two routes to persuasion, which form the endpoints on a continuum of processing intensity:

• Central route to persuasion = taken when recipients carefully and thoughtfully consider the arguments presented in support of a position = systematic processing.
• Peripheral route to persuasion = reflects the fact that people often change their attitudes without thinking about the arguments contained in a communication but for example because of a recommendation or because the issue is not important to them = heuristic processing.

The ELM subsumes the whole range of mechanisms which cause persuasion in the absence of argument scrutiny under the peripheral route, while the HSM only considers one low effort process, namely heuristic processing = the use of simple decision rules in deciding on whether to accept or reject a persuasive communication. The HSM position is adopted and heuristic processing is considered the low effort endpoint of the continuum of processing intensity.

Dual process theories distinguish between two types of qualitatively different information which recipients use when trying to decide whether to accept/reject the communication: the arguments contained in the communication and heuristic cues. The intensity of processing is determined by recipients’ processing ability and motivation: when recipients are unmotivated/unable to engage in systematic processing, they use heuristic cues. When they are motivated and able, they will engage in argument scrutiny. Heuristic cues are easier to process, while message arguments provide more reliable information.

Multiple-role assumption = the two modes of processing (heuristic and systematic) may co-occur, if systematic processing of arguments does not allow one to arrive at a clear-cut conclusion, because the arguments in the communication are ambiguous. Depending on the level of processing motivation, the attributes of the endorser of a product can be used as a heuristic cue to influence attitudes towards a product, but they can also serve as an argument.

Two other processing motives besides that recipients want to form an accurate view on the communicated issue, are:

• Defence motivation = we are not always unbiased listeners because we may have a strong preference for a particular position. For example: we prefer to see ourselves as smart instead of dumb.
• Impression motivation = the desire to express attitudes that are socially acceptable.

These motives can be both heuristic and systematic. Under defence motivation, people will use heuristics selectively to support their preferred position or, when processing systematically, attend more to arguments supporting their position than to opposing ones. Impression-motivated heuristic processing involves the use of simple rules to guide one’s selection of socially acceptable attitude positions. In systematic processing the same goal is reached through evaluating the available evidence in terms of their social acceptability.

Assessing the intensity of processing

The thought-listing technique can be used to assess the extent to which attitude change is based on systematic processing. If attitude change is due to systematic processing:

• then recipients should have generated some thoughts favourable to the position advocated by the communicator, and
• the relative (un)favourability of these thoughts should be correlated with the amount of attitude change.
• A favourability index should act as a mediator of the impact of the manipulated variables on attitude change with systematic but not under heuristic processing.

Processing ability, processing intensity and attitude change

Unless a person has knowledge of the product class in which he wants to buy something, being intelligent or having a classic education will be of little use.

The impact of working knowledge on processing ability

The amount of working knowledge an individual possesses in a certain area is the most important personal factor influencing processing ability. People without a lot of knowledge will be less able to critically evaluate the incoming information from an advertisement than more knowledgeable people. A low processing intensity message length acts as heuristic cue with longer messages considered more valid than shorter ones.

The most knowledgeable people are influenced by the arguments contained in a message, while the least knowledgeable are influenced by the heuristic cue of the message length. If arguments do not allow to draw clear conclusions, people will rely on heuristic cues even under high processing intensity.

The impact of distraction on processing ability

Distraction is the most powerful environmental factor that can influence an individual’s ability to process information. The impact of distraction on the extent to which people are influenced by a persuasive communication depends on the quality of the arguments presented. Distraction increases attitude change with weak arguments and decreases vice versa.

The impact of message repetition on processing ability

Repetition of arguments provides recipients with opportunity to think about and elaborate the message. With strong arguments, greater elaboration results in an increase of favourable thoughts and a decrease of counterarguments, leading to increased acceptance of the message. When message repetition further increases, people get bored, which motivates them to attack the argumentation.

If the positive impact of a small number of repetitions is due to the fact that repetitions provide increased opportunity to favourably elaborate the strong arguments, then repetition results in an immediate decrease of attitude with weak arguments. A lowering of processing motivation results in a decrease in recipients’ willingness to elaborate message arguments. Then boredom sets in earlier at a smaller number of repetitions.

Cosmetic variation = non-substantive features of an advertisement that are not essential in evaluating the product are altered in order to avoid/delay boredom.

Substantive variation = a change in message content, e.g. in the type of arguments made in order to avoid/delay boredom.

Once processing intensity increases, cosmetic variation will be ineffective and only substantive variation will reduce boredom/tedium. Frequency of exposure to advertisements is likely to have increased perceptual fluency which results in greater liking.

Processing motivation, processing intensity and attitude

Personal relevance as motivator

Personal relevance = the importance of an outcome for the individual, and the major variable that affects processing motivation. Most people are, for example, not interested in refrigerator ads, until they are in need of one.

Some refuse to gain knowledge about the product because of lack of time or incapability of understanding the information (ability factors) and just buy the product recommended in the store. Others critically read advertisements and test reports, and based on those, develop favourable attitudes towards a product or brand. Only when recipients of information are motivated, does argument quality influence the amount of attitude change.

Source expertise influences attitudes only under low involvement conditions, with more attitude change when arguments are attributed to a high status source.

In case there is a celebrity endorser in an ad, low involved consumers use the status of this endorser as a heuristic cue, while highly involved consumers still focus on argument quality. Physical attractiveness of the endorser works for both low involved consumers (heuristic cue) and highly involved consumers (as visual evidence for the effectiveness of the product).

Source congruity = the match between cognitively accessible endorser associations and attributes associated with the brand. This becomes important under high processing intensity.

Fear as a motivator

Advertisements for products like hygiene products and medication often point out that they protect consumers from unpleasant health impairment. First they warn them of some threat, then they recommended how consumers can protect themselves against it (i.e. by buying the advertised product). This is based on the assumption that the more you scare people about possible harm, the more they will be willing to buy something that prevents it.

Yale’s drive-reduction model: higher fear should result in more persuasion, but only if the recommended action is perceived as effective in averting danger.

Leventhal’s parallel response model: a threat is cognitively evaluated and this appraisal can give rise to two parallel/independent responses: danger control and fear control. Danger control = the decision to act as well as actions taken to reduce the danger. Fear control = actions taken to control emotional responses, and strategies to reduce fear. If a recommendation seems effective in averting a threat, individuals will engage in danger control. If it appears ineffective, they will mainly focus on fear control.

Stage model of processing of fear-arousing communication: the important determinants of the intensity of processing are the perceived severity of a health threat and personal vulnerability. If both are low, individuals will rely on heuristic processing. If the threat is severe, they will systematically process information about the threat, even if they do not feel vulnerable. When the threat is severe AND the individual feels vulnerable, he/she will be motivated to engage in (defensive) systematic processing. The defence motivation will lead to a positive bias in the processing of the recommended action and will heighten the motivation to engage in the protective action regardless of the quality of the argumentation.

Individual differences in processing motivation

The extent to which people think about message arguments are also affected by individual differences. Need for cognition = the extent to which individuals engage and enjoy effortful cognitive activity. Argument quality has a higher impact on attitudes of people who are high rather than low in need for cognition. Need for cognitive closure = the desire for a definite answer on some topic, any answer as opposed to confusion and ambiguity.

If heuristic cues are available, people with a high need for closure will form their attitudes based on those. People low on need for closure will rely more on arguments.

Processing intensity and stability of change

Attitude change caused by systematic processing is more persistent than change caused by heuristic processing. High levels of issue-relevant cognitive activity are likely to require frequent accessing of one’s attitude towards the issue targeted by the persuasive attempt. Effects: it results in better recall of one’s cognitive responses to the message, and it increases the number of linkages between an attitude and the structure of beliefs in which it is embedded, making the structure internally more consistent and more resistant to counterarguments.

Substantive variation in ad repetition does not only avoid boredom, but also increases the resistance of individuals against the negative impact of counterarguments.

Stage 4. Persuasion by a single route: the unimodel

The unimodel suggests that arguments and heuristic cues are functionally equivalent in constituting two separate content categories of evidence for drawing conclusions from persuasive communications.

Persuasion can be characterized as a singular process of drawing conclusions from available evidence. It doesn’t matter if this evidence if contained in an argument or comes from a heuristic cue. Heuristic cues are as valid as arguments.

Stage 5. Lowering resistance to advertising

Consumers often try to avoid advertisements, and even if they are exposed, their awareness of persuasive intent might increase their resistance and decrease the message’s impact. Persuasion knowledge = the theories consumers have developed about the motives, strategies and tactics of marketers as well their beliefs in their ability to resist these tactics. The focus will be one the impact of the attribution of intention to persuade. The perception of a communicator’s intention to persuade increases resistance in recipients of a message.

When consumers expect to be exposed to counter attitudinal arguments, they will be motivated to access the reasons that support their own position and use these arguments to counter the persuasive communication. When consumers are only warned about persuasive intent without providing information about the direction of the arguments, they are immediately resistant.

Psychological reactance = a motivational state that can be triggered by the perceived threat to one’s attitudinal freedom implied by a social influence attempt. This motivates individuals to re-establish their freedom, e.g. by resisting the influence attempt.

Discounting cue = decreases the impact of the arguments contained in an advertisement.

Sleeper effect = the phenomenon that the impact of a message increases over time, because after some delay, recipients of an otherwise influential message might recall the message but not longer remember the source.

Two-sided advertisements

Two-sided advertisements mention both positive and negative features of a product. They appear as more honest, and stand out from other advertisements. In the optimal case, only the negative attributes which are trivial or of which the consumer is already aware are mentioned. Hereby serious product deficiencies must be avoided, while admitting utterly trivial deficiencies may be too obvious.

Product placement

Product placement = the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming. Example: James Bond driving a BMW in the movies. Product placement can be categorized according to two dimensions:

• Modality = whether the brand name is only seen or also mentioned;
• Centrality = the relevance of the product use to the plot. This has three levels:
  1. Background = when the product is shown/mentioned in a scene but not used by any of the main characters;
  2. More central is the situation where the product is used by one of the main characters but in a way that has no particular relevance to the story.
  3. Most central is the situation when the product plays a role in the story.

Centrality influences explicit memory: products placed prominently in a movie have a larger impact on recall and recognition than products that are placed subtly in the background. Implicit measures are not affected by the level of placement, although centrality does have a significant impact. Attitudes towards the brand used by the main character are more positive than when the brand is only shown in the background. Disliked characters and product placement that is too obvious, lead to negative results.

Shopping

Sponsorship = a technique by which a commercial organization financially supports an entity (event, team, person, cause, etc.) in order to associate the organization’s name with this entity in the media and to use it for advertising purposes.

Programme sponsorship = the advertiser assumes the total financial responsibility for the production of the programme and provides the commercials that are shown.

Event sponsorship = a company contributes to the costs of an event in order to be allowed to link its brand name to it. Advantages can be increased brand awareness, positive feelings and familiarity. When the event is liked, positive associations are transferred to the brand. Congruent sponsorships (e.g. a sports brand sponsoring a soccer event) are better remembered than incongruent ones (e.g. a brewery sponsoring a soccer event).

Chapter F. The effect of advertising on consumer buying behaviour

Although attitudes are important determinants of consumer behaviour, there are other things that are important as well, such as social norms and perceived behavioural control.

The attitude-behaviour relationship: a brief history

Human behaviour is guided by social attitudes. In the past, many researchers were not able to find a relationship between measures of verbal attitudes and observations of actual behaviour.

Principle of compatibility (Ajzen and Fishbein) = it is important when attitudes are related to behaviour, not whether. Measures of attitudes are only related to measures of behaviour if both constructs are assessed at the same level of generality. A specific action is always performed with respect to a given target in a given context and at a given point in time. One needs to make a behavioural index that aggregates across a representative variety of prejudicial actions, performed in a representative range of contexts, across a representative range of times.

Predicting specific behaviour: the reasoned action approach

Attitudes towards a certain type of behaviour result from the likelihood with which one expects that behaviour to lead to certain outcomes, with each outcome weighted by the value the individual attaches to that outcome. Attitudes are good predictors of behaviour, but behaviour is also influenced by social norms and environmental factors constraining the ability to engage in this behaviour. Two theories predict behaviour intentions and assume that the impact of attitudes/other components on behaviour is mediated by the intention to perform that behaviour.

Theory of reasoned action = the intention to perform a specific behaviour is determined by a person’s attitude towards that behaviour and by:

• Subjective norms:
  • Normative beliefs = your beliefs about how people who are important to you expect you to behave;
  • Control beliefs = lack of time, money, resources, etc.;
  • Motivation to comply = wanting to do what others want you to do.
• Perceived behavioural control = the extent to which performing a given behaviour is under the control of the individual.

Theory of planned behaviour = perceived behavioural control affects behaviour indirectly through intentions, but can also have a direct link to behaviour, which is not mediated by intentions. Perceived behavioural control has a causal influence on intention. The direct link from perceived behavioural control to behaviour is more predictive in nature.

Narrowing the intention-behaviour gap: forming implementation intentions

Behavioural intention: I intend to do X.

Implementation intention: I intend to do X in situation Y.S

People may fail to act on their intentions because they simply forget to act when the opportunity arises. Mental representation of context cues becomes activated when the time and context in which the behaviour should be performed are specified. The formation of an implementation intention will create/strengthen the association between the situational cues and the response that is needed for obtaining the goal. Then the formation of an implementation intention increases the probability that the action intention will be remembered when the specified situation/context arises.

How to resist a temptation: you first have to identify situations in which the risk of yielding to the temptation is high, then think of a coping response that can be effective in helping you to resist, and then cognitively rehearse linking the coping response to the situation.

Implications for advertising

How to design strong and effective argumentations:

Step 1: Decide what exactly you want to influence with the advertisement/commercial. Do you want to improve brand awareness or persuade people to buy a particular product? In the latter case, Fishbein’s and Ajzen’s techniques should be used. It doesn’t make sense to persuade people of a product’s qualities if they are unlikely to buy it because of subjective norms or perceived behavioural control.

Step 2: The specific beliefs which determine the targeted behaviour must be identified, because they are likely to strongly influence the purchase decision.

Step 3: Potential customers must not only be persuaded to buy the product, but also to form an implementation intention, when and where to buy it. Then it is more likely that they will actually make the purchase.

Beyond reasons and plans: the automatic instigation of behaviour

According to the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control result in the formation of behavioural intention. This is the most direct cause of behaviour. Automatic processes = processes that occur without intention, effort or awareness and that do not interfere with other concurrent cognitive processes. One’s social and physical environment can influence behaviour without him being aware of being influenced.

The theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour assume that although people are guided by relevant attitudes, subjective norms and control beliefs in forming behavioural intentions, the activation of beliefs can be automatic and unconscious. However, since intentions involve some kind of planning, they are likely to be conscious of the process of intention creation.

Automatic and deliberate influence of attitudes

Implicit attitudes reflect people’s automatic responses, while explicit attitudes reflect cognitively controlled processes. Although attitude measures often converge (come together), under certain conditions they diverge. These conditions exist in the area of prejudice and self-regulation (e.g. liking chocolate, but not eating it because you are on a diet). It is expected that implicit measures predict behaviour better when individuals are unmotivated/unable to exert control, and explicit measures vice versa.

Automatic and deliberate influence of social norms

Intention should mediate the influence of subjective norms on behaviour (according to reasoned action and planned behaviour). It has been suggested that social norms might guide behaviour when people are being aware of their influence. Norms = if-then rules that state that in certain situations individuals should behave in certain ways (e.g. being quiet in a library).

Automatic and deliberate influence of goals

Goal-directed behaviour can be triggered by cues in the environment without an intention having been formed. Goals = actions/outcomes towards which individuals hold positive attitudes. For it to motivate striving for it, there must be a discrepancy between the actual and desired state, and the consumer must perceive the goal as attainable. Unconscious goals are determined by attitudes, norms and perceived behavioural control to the same extent as conscious ones.

Goals, habits and behaviour

People normally have a choice from various means to reach a certain goal. This poses a challenge to the cognitive resources. For goals to be automatically implemented, the selection of the relevant means to reach it needs to be routine. Habits = learned sequences of acts that have become automatic responses to specific cues and are functional in obtaining certain goals. Behaviour becomes habitual if it is performed frequently, regularly and under stable conditions.

Goal-dependent automaticity = well-learnt habitual behaviours like driving and dancing. Starting this behaviour involves an intention, but once the process has been initiated, the rest follows automatically. This kind of behaviour is hard to change.

Behaviour that is performed regularly and under stable conditions is better predicted by past behaviour under the same conditions than by intentions. Intentions predict infrequent behaviour under varying conditions better.

If habits are cognitively represented as links between goals and actions that are instrumental for reaching these goals, then forming implementation intentions should occur through the same processes as the formation of habits. A mental link between a situational cue and a specific action is created. With habits, the association is learnt through repeated behaviour, while with implementation intentions, the association is learnt through repeated mental simulation of performing the action in that specific situation.

Once a particular choice has become habitual, people are often not interested in alternatives anymore. Frequency marketing = awarding repeat buying through special benefits. Cognitive lock-in = when consumers have developed a particular skill in using a service, store, or product and switching to another would engender extra effort and time.

Implications for advertising: the return of the hidden persuaders

Subliminal advertising = advertising that uses messages (embedded in a film or television report) that are presented so briefly that viewers remain unaware that they have been exposed to advertising. Example: showing the McDonald’s logo for 0.5 second during a TV show. This kind of advertising is very manipulative and banned from several countries. Also, its effects haven’t been proved significant.

Transfer appropriate processing = a task like reading a sentence requires a set of sensory-perceptual or conceptual operations and engaging in these operations has the same effect as practising a skill. It increases the efficiency with which this skill can be re-enacted at a later time. Remembering is less considered a process by which the individual accesses some remainder of the studied information in memory than as a re-performance of an earlier act. The more there is similarity/overlap between the analytical processes engaged in during the learning and retrieval phase, the better will be the performance on a memory task.

Chapter G. Convincing consumers to accept request without changing their personal attitudes

Because many advertising messages are not aimed at informing or persuading but at seeking the response of compliance with a sales request, a typical playing field for the forces of social influence is direct response advertising (e.g. mail-order catalogues, tele-sales programmes, and sales promotion actions). Also, in-store promotions and point-of-purchase demonstrations can induce a direct consumer response, namely buying the product. Direct response advertising includes all the messages aimed at getting the consumer to directly response by making a purchase/accepting an offer.

Various social influences are employed in such situations. Compliance = the overt behavioural acquiescence response when a specific door salesman addresses a consumer in a face-to-face context. It can also be more indirect (e.g. an ad or catalogue that asks for quick response because the offer doesn’t last long). Cialdini et al. have identified six principles of social influence:

1. Reciprocity
2. Commitment and consistency
3. Social validation
4. Liking
5. Authority
6. Scarcity
7. Confusion principle (added by the authors).

Social influence and compliance without pressure

With conventional advertising, consumers are exposed some time before they find themselves in a situation where they can actually buy the product. The tactics used to foster compliance are frequently temporally and spatially close to that situation. The principles of social influence typically function to foster purchase (facilitation), but do not affect any of the other advertising objectives like improving brand awareness. They affect singular behaviour and are less effective in influencing longer-term behaviour like repeat buying.

Automaticity is the key of compliance techniques; the response must be mindless. Click-whirr response = a fixed action pattern, which unfolds more of less invariantly when suitable environmental stimuli are present in the influence context.

‘Click’ is the stimulus that prompts the behavioural response, and whirr is the actual unfolding of that response. Like automatic responses, click-whirr responses are fast, effortless, spontaneous, stable across situations, partly inherited, and frequently triggered by emotions. They are also performed routinely and outside conscious awareness. Their effectiveness relies on ‘mindlessness’ of the consumer.

Scripts = predetermined, stereotyped sequences of action that define a well-known situation. These are used by consumers to not having to think how to behave in certain situations. People need action rules that specify the actions that need to be initiated when cues in the environment signal that a certain script is appropriate. Least effort principle = when people only behave in a mindless manner if there is no sufficient reason to invest into mindful behaviour. Besides scripts, people also use cognitive heuristics to simplify complex decisions.

Sufficiency principle = the tendency to strike a balance between minimizing cognitive effort and satisfying motivational concerns. Script following and using heuristics are not completely unconscious processes, because they require conscious processing and awareness at some stage (conscious direction of the script to further cues and choosing certain heuristics consciously to base the behaviour on).

1. The principle of reciprocity

Principle of reciprocity = the motivation to return a favour: we should do to others what they do to us, both positively and negatively.

Door-in-the-face (DITF) technique = a sequence of rejection-then-moderation. A large request is followed by a more moderate target request. The fact that the influence agent makes a concession by slimming down the request, evokes the need to make a concession and to comply.

That’s-not-all (TNA) technique = an initial request is followed by a second request that is made more desirable. Consumer interpret the second request as a favour and are more willing to comply. There are two forms:

• Reduced cost form: the opening bargain is improved by a decrease in the price of the offer.
• Added value form: uses a fixed price, and instead adds desirable attributes/incentives to the initial offer.

In case of small requests, the costs of refusal often outweigh those of compliance. Therefore, it is often not necessary to use a scripted technique but all you have to do is ask. Consumers are also often willing to return a favour (e.g. a cash request, coupon, etc.). An important function of sampling is inducing such favourable behaviour. When consumers accept a free sample, they may feel in debt and thus purchase the product to return the favour of receiving the sample.

2. The principle of commitment/consistency

Commitment/consistency principle = the tendency to respond consistently/in line with previous behaviour. Shopping momentum effect = the tendency to engage in repeated acts of purchasing after an initial and unrelated act of buying. Once a person has given in to the temptation to buy, he will continue to do so. This principle is most effective when commitment is actively, publicly, with effort and freely chosen.

Foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique = compliance with an initial, small request increases the likelihood of compliance with a second, larger request, because the initial act of compliance triggers the principle of consistency. To comply with the second request, people often have to do more than just accept the first one, e.g. signing a petition or placing a sign in their yard. It is thus not the act of initial agreement that results in compliance, but how much effort is required to accomplish the first request. Self-perception theory = the consumer wishes to respond in such a way that his belief system remains consistent. Once he concludes he is ‘the kind of person that accepts these requests’ after the initial one,  he is more likely to accept the second one as well.

Lowball technique = soliciting commitment from customers with a particularly seductive offer and then changing the deal for the worse. Commitment sets in when the initial offer is presented. Example: hooking a customer with a car with all kinds of extras, and then saying that there has been made a mistake and that the extras are excluded from the price offered. Because the customer is already hooked, he is likely to still buy the car, although he has to pay much more than he initially assumed.

When consumers receive a free sample, the act of actually using the product generates a set of newly formed associations and cognitions. These cognitions are a powerful predictor of future behaviour. Product trials through sampling thus trigger both the principle of reciprocity and commitment.

3. The principle of social validation

Social validation principle = turning an eye to others to assess the merits of some object, issue or offer. It is used to suggest that others like what is presented, which convinces the target consumer that the offer can be trusted to be of value. This is very effective in ambiguous and uncertain situations and with experience (can only be found out during consumption) and credence attributes (difficult/impossible to ascertain, e.g. a professional’s advice).

Reference group = a person or group of people that significantly influences an individual’s behaviour. Communicates standards, norms, beliefs and values that are shared by others and thus can serve as a benchmark. Primary groups (e.g. friends and family) are more influential than secondary groups (e.g. trade unions) because they are small and enable face-to-face interaction. Membership groups = the groups one currently belongs to, aspirational groups = groups whose lifestyles, values, or norms one would like to have, and negative reference groups = groups to which the target consumers would not like to belong.

Image-conscious consumers are high self-monitors and are sensitive and responsive to normative social cues. Normative information is more effective on collectivists compared to individualists.

The ambivalence and uncertainty due to the attributes of the advertised product can be further moderated by psychological make-up of the consumer. Strong accuracy and impression motivations are likely to increase the impact of social proof on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour.

When a consumer has a strong need to hold accurate opinions and values, and has the desire to hold attitudes and display behaviour that will satisfy salient social goals, social proof will have a large impact.

Values and Life-Style Typology (VALS) = claims to identify various groups of consumers along two axes, based on the availability of resources like income and intelligence, and three types of orientation: principle, status and action orientation. Principle-oriented consumers tend to act on the basis of their own beliefs and values and are not very sensitive to group influence. Status-oriented people have a strong impression motivation and therefore act based on others’ beliefs and values. Action-oriented individuals are physically and socially active.

1. Actualizers = have the most resources and achieved a balance between the three orientations.
2. Fulfillers = tend to be principle-oriented, having more resources at their disposal than believers.
3. Believers = tend to be principle-oriented.
4. Achievers = aim to impress others, more successfully than strivers because they have more resources.
5. Strivers = aim to impress others.
6. Experiencers = impulsive, young, sensation-seekers with abundant resources.
7. Makers = action-oriented like experiencers, but with fewer resources, thereby forced to focus energy on attaining self-sufficiency.
8. Strugglers = tend to be older, lack resources and are focused on survival.

4. The principle of liking

The liking principle = we are more likely to comply with the requests of someone we like than someone we dislike/feel neutral towards. Various factors influence liking in social influence situations. Familiarity is an important one: as the target consumer is exposed more frequently to the influence, familiarity increases and a positive attitude (liking) develops. Perhaps the most powerful influence sources are friends and family, because the warm feelings a person has for them, are transferred to the product. This is for example used when companies ask their current customers to bring in their friends.

Another important factor influencing liking is physical attractiveness. Attractive people are considered not only beautiful, but also honest, kind, intelligent, persuasive and sociable (attractiveness halo). A third factor is similarity: people tend to like people who are like them, because they often like themselves. Name-letter effect = liking products, streets, and career choice that share the same letters as your own name. In commercials, you often see quite ‘general’ people who are easy to associate with, in order to increase liking. Also simple gestures like a gentle touch or remembering the customer’s name can increase liking.

The fourth factor influencing liking is ingratiation. People tend to like those who flatter them, fuelled by their vanity. If you compliment a potential customer, it is more likely that he will comply with your request. The fifth, and last factor is bringing good news. When you bring positive news to someone, they are more likely to like you. The reverse is true for negative news.

5. The principle of authority

Authority = the power to influence others into behaving in a certain way either through coercion or with the aid of status and position related symbols. It often comes with social dominance, conveyed through titles, clothing, or products like jewellery or expensive cars that impress others and communicate a high status. Brand can have status as well: the mere presence of brands with specific salient attributes is sufficient to affect nonverbal hierarchisation behaviour, without the brand playing a significant role in the interaction of the people involved. Example: a man driving a Mercedes is considered more competent than one driving a Daihatsu, although the kind of car he is driving may have nothing to do with his area of expertise.

The most famous study regarding authority was done by Milgram. Participants had to act as a teacher who was obliged to give his student (an actor) an electronic shock when he answered a question wrongly. Every additional error made, meant a more intense shock. While motivated by the experimenter to go through, most teachers were willing to go to the point where the shock would have been lethal. Under the power/authority of the experimenter, most participants continued, while they had the option to walk out of the experiment. This indicates how strongly authority can affect a person’s behaviour.

6. The principle of scarcity

Consumers value goods that are scarce (rare, difficult to obtain, in short supply). Luxury brands often use scarcity as part of their strategy. The scarcity principle is also often used for special, ‘limited’ offers that only last for a set period of time. Its heuristic function: consumers think that high value objects are harder to obtain than less valuable ones. This influences their behaviour under conditions of mindlessness.

Commodity theory: limiting the product availability should enhance its desirability not because scarcity acts as a heuristic cue, but because increased scarcity instigates a tendency to form more extreme attitudes. This is the result of enhanced thinking about the merits of the product due to scarcity.

Dual process theories of persuasion: scarcity motivates more extensive systematic/central route processing. It functions as a heuristic cue, it increases the favourability of attitudes regardless of the arguments’ quality. If it prompts more extensive processing, it will increase persuasion when arguments are strong and compelling, but decrease it when arguments are weak.

Reactance theory: if availability is reduced, we feel that we lose the freedom to choose. This prompts a strong motivation to restore freedom.

7. The principle of confusion

When consumers are slightly confused, they may be more prone to comply with sales requests. Disrupt-then-Reframe (DTR) technique = characterized by a small ‘twist’/odd element, in a typical scripted request. The ‘disruption’ is followed by a persuasive phrase that concludes the script, the ‘reframe’ (e.g. “it’s an amazing deal”). This interferes with the consumer’s  ability to actively self regulate his behaviour by distracting him. It works because it directly drains his battery of resources (energy) and because it disrupts/derails his trail of negative thoughts (counterarguments). That way it distracts him and hinders his self-regulation. The persuasive message is then used to base the evaluation on.

Example: “Now is your chance to try your luck for 350 cents (disruption/odd element) a week… that’s € 3,50. It’s a bargain (reframe)!”

Mindlessness revisited: the limited-resource account

The origins of mindlessness (why people fall back on heuristics) are multiple decision moments, or sequential requests. Sequential request techniques like the foot-in-the-door technique trigger the self-regulatory resource depletion = processes involving active self-regulation, require resources that are finite: the active self can thus become depleted (out of energy).

The two-stage model:

1. The initial request or series of requests is presented to the target. Complying with these requests results in self-regulatory resource depletion, thereby producing mindlessness.
2. Self-regulatory resource depletion fosters the use of heuristics that encourage yielding to the target request: the target is more likely to comply.