Attitudes

Topic 4

Agenda
Attitude - Definition
Models of attitudes
Fishbein Model
The ELM

Marketing Implications of Both

The Cognitive Response Model
Summary

Okay, so can anyone tell me

what attitude means?
In laymans terms
or technical terms?

Attitude - Definition
Attitude is a psychological tendency that is
expressed by evaluating a particular entity
with some degree of favour or disfavour
Eagly and Chaiken 1993

Thus, it is an evaluative judgment

How much you like/dislike

It is a tendency, rather than a disposition

It is enduring for a short time at least

The entity maybe a person, object, animal

or a brand

Attitude - Definition
Attitudes consist of 3 components - the
cognitive, affective and conative components
Cognitions reflect the knowledge and
thoughts about the attitude object
cognition has to do with head/intellect
Volvo is a safe car
Sundaram Finance is highly reliable

Affect refers to the emotions/mood evoked by

the attitude object
Affect refers to heart
Thus, Vicco Vajradanti cream evokes nostalgia

Attitude - Definition
Conative encompasses consumers
behaviour/actions towards the
attitude object
Also includes intention to buy
For example, you decide to use dental
floss

Models of Attitudes
Attitudes have been studied for a
long, long time
Social psychology is preoccupied with
attitudes
Why?
Why this attitude focus, anyone?

Models of Attitudes
Attitudes drive behaviour
If you want a particular behaviour,
shape attitudes
Also, war time in US contributed to
attitudes study
How to make soldiers attitudes positive
How to make them resistant to enemy
propaganda

Models of Attitudes
How to make the enemy susceptible
to our propaganda e.g. leaflets in
Iraq, Afghanistan

Models of Attitudes
Hence, plenty of theories and models
We focus on two main ones
The Theory of Reasoned Action
The Elaboration Likelihood Model

The Theory of Reasoned Action

Proposed By Ajzen and Fishbein in 1975
This theory stated that ones attitudes
influence behaviours by their influence on
intentions, which are decisions to act in a
particular way
B = BI = w1AB + w2SN
B= Behaviour; BI = Behavioural Intention;
AB = Attitude toward the behaviour; SN =
Subjective norm; W1, W2: empirical weights

The Theory of Reasoned Action

Beliefs that the
behavior leads to
certain outcomes
Evaluations of the
outcomes

Beliefs that specific

referents think I
should or should not
perform the behavior

Motivation to comply
with the specific
referents

Attitude toward
the behavior

Relative
importance of
attitudinal and
normative
components

Subjective norm

Intention

Behavior

The Theory of Reasoned Action

How is Attitude Toward Behaviour
shaped?
AB = Summation of biei
bi = subjective prob that the behaviour
leads to some consequence i
ei = evaluation of consequence i
What about subjective norms, then?

The Theory of Reasoned Action

SN is Summation of bjmj
bj = normative belief (subj prob) that
some referent j thinks one should
perform the behaviour
mj = motivation to comply with that
behaviour

The TORA - An Illustration

Will people donate blood?
What are some Mktg Implications?

The TORA - Mktg Implications

Can make a particular belief
stronger/weaker
Can add new beliefs
Can influence/reinforce subjective
norms
Can alter importance of the
beliefs/subjective norms
The main thing is that TORA
addresses behaviours

The ELM
The ELM was propounded by Petty
and Cacioppo in the 1980s
Both psychologists

Nature of cognitive processing

(initial attitude, argument quality, etc.)
Favorable
thoughts
predominate

Unfavorable
thoughts
predominate

Neither or neutral
predominate

The ELM
Central Route
Occurs when
Need for cognition is
high
Involvement is high
Motivation is high
Message Arguments
are present
i.e argument quality
is strong

Peripheral Route
Occurs when
Need for cognition
is low
Involvement low
Motivation low
Peripheral Cues are
present
Mktg Implications?

Marketing Implications - ELM

Try and heighten involvement
How?
For high involvement products, try
and give message arguments

Marketing Implications - ELM

Make it personally relevant
Think of Saffola
Made cooking oil category high
involvement by stressing on heart
problems
Use affective appeals
When something is fun, consumers
participate

Marketing Implications - ELM

For example, some airlines in China make the safety
drill fun!
IPL brought in new customers this way

Use celebrity advertisements

Film actors for PCs

Think Pepsi, Coke

Why advertise so much when consumers know what
they are?

Use fear appeals

Problem?
Solution?

Marketing Implications - ELM

Too much fear means blocking
communication
e.g. reading sports page when India
loses to Pakistan in cricket
Gory images means consumers do not
process them

Instead, use moderate fear appeals

And give solution
Eg. life insurance

Marketing Implications - ELM

The main thing is to strike a chord

E.g. Dettol fights germs

Complan says tall kids
Boost says secret of energy
2-minute noodles a great success
Taps into sensitivity of consumers

Should you buy RO/UV or Pureit type

of purifier?
How did they raise involvement?

Marketing Implications - ELM

San Francisco asks consumers to pay for
garbage by weight
Simple solution!
Garbage dropped 50%!

Marketing Implications - ELM

Keep customers engaged
IPL cricket attax cards for kids
Interaction in class students enjoy
Sunsilk Gang of girls kind of site is partly
for this
Drive them to social media like
Facebook, Twitter etc

Marketing Implications - ELM

Ritual marketing, festival marketing
all do this
Makes it relevant
Buy jewelry on Danteras, Akshaya Tritiya
Makes the consumer think am I missing
out?
Thus, even irrelevant products like cars,
durables report huge increase in sales

Marketing Implications - ELM

Enhance curiosity
Teaser campaigns

Creatively done campaigns stand out

and get the message home
E.g. the smoking ad we saw

But all in all, quite tough

More research is called for
Social problems like drinking, poor
health due to indifference

Marketing Implications - ELM

For high need for cognition people,
try and give message arguments
How to find out high need for
cognition people?
Those who read the Economist, for
example, or JMR or watch Financial
programmes on CNN

Marketing Implications - ELM

For low involvement people/products,
have peripheral cues like
Celebrity endorsers
Positive mood, touchy feely
feelings
Hence, most TV ads evoke emotion
Low involvement while watching ads,
even for high involvement products

Marketing Implications - ELM

For high involvement consumers, direct marketing is
good

You have their profile from databases

For very low involvement consumers, use display,
POP, merchandising
For very high involvement levels, advertising is
insufficient; personal selling is needed
Comparison ads: for which route?
Thus, has plenty of implications for marketing
communications
Key thing is one size does not fit all
Same communication strategy for all pleases no one

Attitude Change
Several times, existing attitudes need
to be changed
Any examples when?

Attitude Change
Repositioning a particular product, for
example
Tanishq would be an example
Marlboro another famous one do
you know when?
Also many policy issues can
smoking be rendered uncool?
How to change an existing attitude?

Attitude Change
Again, use the frameworks discussed
so far
Alter beliefs about the brand, if one
uses Fishbein
Else, work on subjective norms
Use the ELM framework

Summary
Attitudes are very important
Attitudes shape behaviour
Attitudes towards ad and brand are
very important
Companies try to shape these always