Reflection lectures MCB30306
Week 1 - Lecture 2
Exam questions
Early 1:
| Choosing the value is part of tactical marketing
|| Providing the value is part of strategic marketing
A) | and || are true
B) | is true and || is false
C) | is false and || is true
D) | and || are false - First one is about strategic marketing. Second one tactical marketing. So it is
the other way around.
Early 2: Consumers' needs can be characterized as either 'need-driven' or 'product-driven'. Explain
the difference between both concepts.
● In need-driven methods, participants are asked to reveal their internal needs, without being
exposed to (pictures) of products. Example: consumer is hungry, so buying some food.
● Product-driven methods confront consumers with products as cues to start the
identification of needs and wants. Example: we see something and it activates the needs. So
this is more a bottom-up process. Ben & Jerry’s advertisement.
Early 3: Give a definition of "laddering" mentioned in the article: Consumer research in the early
stages of new product development: a critical review of methods and techniques.
Laddering= is a personal interviewing technique used to understand consumers’ knowledge
structure regarding a particular product (category). A means-end chain is a knowledge structure that
links a consumer’s knowledge about product attributes with their knowledge about consequences
and values.
- Why would we do that? → linking product knowledge (what they see in products etc.) to the
left hand side (consumer) link that to consumer relevance. The thing that links it are the
constructs in the laddering. Physical world (packaging etc.), attribute perception (what you
see about the product). What does the product to you: in laddering you try to understand
how people infer benefits / quality attributes from the features that they recognize in a
product. Unique attribute perceptions.
- Product knowledge → benefit delivery → goal fulfilment
- Understand associations they have in the brain to link it to their value fulfilment.
- Product driven: start with the product, identify those needs, (taste, etc). bottom-up from the
product. Start at the product side (seen as the means)
- Need driven: what they do to fulfil the need. Start at the consumer side (end). Consumer
satisfaction is seen as an end.
Late 1: Which consumer research method has the personal construct theory as theoretical basis
from the article of van Kleef, van Trijp & Luning (2005)? Explain this method.
Kelly’s repertory grid (laddering) is a personal interviewing technique used to elicit the constructs by
which consumers structure and interpret a product category. Constructs (e.g., attributes of products)
,are elicited by repeatedly confronting a respondent with triads of products drawn from a large set
and asking which two products are alike and different from a third.
- Why would you do that? → understand the distinction / meaningfulness, try to find the
contrast that people see between products. Factor analysis / perceptual mapping - relevant
attributes to start your data collection from.
Late 2: In factor analysis there are loadings and scores. What is the difference between these two?
● Factor scores= If a person scores high on V1 variable, they also must score high on variable
Vk because they are correlated (they are in the same box). With the strong correlations
between variables, you can group the variables in factors (yellow matrix). These are called
the factor scores. This is how the individuals score on the factors rather than the
items/variables. So, you are grouping the variables with high correlations.
● Factor Loadings= the correlations between the factors and the variables (items) → the link
between factors and variables. Green matrix: how people score on attributes and on factors.
Late 3: Name and explain 3 criteria that need to be satisfied for product differentiation to be
meaningful mentioned in Van Trijp, H.C.M. and M.T.G. Meulenberg (1996). Marketing and
consumer behaviour with respect to foods.
It has to be distinctive, differentiated from the other product, meaningful.
Being relevant to the consumer (add value, need satisfaction).
It can not be easily copied. Otherwise your competitive advantage is very short.
Week 1 - Lecture 3
Exam questions
Early 4: Difference between descriptive beliefs, informational beliefs and inferential beliefs
● Descriptive beliefs are all those beliefs that result from direct observation of the
characteristics of the product.
● In informational beliefs quality attributes can be formed by accepting information about the
quality attributes provided by some outside source (friends, advertisements, consumer
magazines)
● Inferential beliefs are beliefs about the object not explicit in the environmental information.
Inferential beliefs are based on prior beliefs.
- How do you know if a car seat sits comfortably? How do you form that belief? You can go for
a test drive. Experience it - descriptive beliefs: less important here. Own experience vs. car
magazine: How would you weigh this upon each other? Depends on the type of attributes /
type of beliefs that you need to make an inference about.
- What is the difference between credence attributes and experience attributes?
- Credence attributes are ones that are difficult to verify even after use (internet)
Knowledge that you acquire from informational belief formation, people tell you how
healthy something is.
, From personal experience never be able to verify information as organic / animal friendly.
Quality perception model. Only verify if you believe the information.
If you form a quality expectation you rely on these cues. You have to think about the color
of the meat (all the cues). Use to make a quality expectation. As a prediction of the quality of
the product.
Quality experience: update learning process easily. If you can go to the fruit store and you
can taste it - you know how nice these apples are before you buy it. You can immediately
verify quality expectations with experience.
Crucial. Early 5: Explain the difference between quality cues and quality attributes
● Quality cues are defined as “informational stimuli that are, according to the consumer,
related to the quality of the product, and can be ascertained by the consumer through the
senses prior to consumption”.
- Example: sustainability label - people say it is sustainable: but that is an attribute. In
between this is the informational belief formation process that you have. In your
brain you have linked the cue (label) to the attribute (sustainability level) but they
are different things.
- The quality cues are much more visible to the physical world.
● Quality attributes are the functional and psychosocial benefits or consequences provided by
the product. They represent what the product is perceived as doing or providing for the
consumer. Quality attributes are unobservable prior to consumption. The quality attribute is
the quality of the product.
- Example: taste, freshness
- Think about the attributes about utility generating benefits: the color red of an apple
doesn’t give you the utility, but it is the inference you make about the taste. Taste is
the attribute. That sequence: red color - signals - utility benefit (something that it
does for you) that makes it a quality attribute.
- The process where you translate what is it going to do for me? Think for yourself:
talking about the cue or the links in my brain? When you make the distinction
between cues and attributes.
● Quality cues are what the consumer observes, and quality attributes are what the consumer
wants.
Early 6: The conceptual model of the quality perception process describes how cues in the
environment can lead to perceived quality by the consumer. In this process, there are two cue
beliefs and two attribute beliefs. Give an example of each of the four types of beliefs and how do
they relate to each other? Also mention the two factors that influence the quality perception
process.
● Experience attribute beliefs
● Credence attribute beliefs
● Intrinsic cues - part of the physical product and cannot be changed without also changing
the physical product itself. The color or smell of the product is an example of an intrinsic
quality cue
● Extrinsic cues - can be altered without changing the objective attributes of the product. The
label attached to the product is an example of an extrinsic cue
, A country of origin label, is it an intrinsic or an extrinsic cue: it is an extrinsic cue.
The price is an extrinsic cue to many people (what can you expect from the product): you are free to
change the price irrespective to what the product is.
You put less evidence on it, because you know it can tell you something about the product but it can
also manipulate it: you can manipulate the packaging of the product. Many of the marketing cues
are extrinsic cues.
Intrinsic cues: amount of fat in a steak, you cannot change. If you want to reduce: you will have to
change your production process. Intrinsic cues closer to reality.
There is not a one to one relation. It is really the interaction between the two.
Late 4: Is it possible that there are mismatches between ques and subcategories? Name a
mismatch between the two and explain what both terms mean.
Niet beantwoord in reflection.
Late 5: Which key issue in perception can be linked to the perceived phenomenon? (Nice question)
The key issue in perception research is the link between ‘what is’ and ‘what is perceived’. It is the
relation between a phenomenon and perceptual cues is between ‘what is’ and ‘what can be
observed’. The relation between cues and response is between ‘what can be observed’ and ‘what is
observed’ or between ‘what is observed’ and ‘how one (re)acts’. The picture you have in your brain
is not the same picture in the outside world.
- We think we know everything. We know nothing. We can only make inferences. Whole idea
is that we think from the perspective of separation on what is there outside, and what we
reconstruct in our brain. Actual world things are identical, the brain reconstructs it. Not fully
accurate. The picture you have in your brain is not the picture in the outside world. You have
to make a best guess of what is out there. You do that by focusing your attention on specific
features of that object /phenomenon you are looking at. Brain has the huge task of
reconstructing this in a coherent view. Perception occurs in your brain, not the outside
world.
- Crucial question is how accurate is your brain in reconstructing reality? Brunswik model.
- Deconstruct reality in cues that you can give meaning to. Brain is going to put that all
together.
Could be an EXAM question! Late 6: Give an example of a choice that is more based on the
inferential belief (formation) than on the informational belief (formation). According to the article
of Steenkamp (conceptual model of the quality perception process)
● An informational belief formation is more a choice based on information you heard from
someone else / that you have read (third party).
- Example: reviews of a phone you read before you order it. Brain links a cue to an inference -
phone and camera quality. Cool Blues best choice: what happens is that when cool blue
recommends their choice, they label it. You use it as an informational belief process “I don’t
know, but I think Cool Blue knows it” and you don’t necessarily decode all the information.
- Example: Nutrition label, Schijf van 5 product. You have no idea, but this informational link
helps you to make a decision.
● Inferential belief formation is more a choice based on your own past experiences, your own
brain. Inferences that you make in your brain.
