Consument en marketing – tussentoets 2 – H7 t/m H14
7.1 Problem recognition
Whether problem recognition, internal information search, and external information search proceed
sequentially, simultaneously, or in a different order, these three stages are useful in explaining the basic
processes that characterize consumer decision-making.
The consumer decision-making process begins with problem recognition. That is the perceived difference
between an ideal and an actual state. This is a critical stage, because it motivates the consumer to action.
The ideal state is the way that consumers would like a situation to be. The actual state is the real situation
as consumers perceive it now. Problem recognition occurs if consumers become aware of a discrepancy
between the actual state and the ideal state. Problem recognition relates to consumption and disposition
as well as acquisition. Because problem recognition stimulates many types of consumer decision-making, it
is important to understand what contributes to differences between the ideal and the actual states.
We rely our ideal state on simple expectations, usually based on past experience. The ideal state can also
be a function of our future goals or aspirations. Both expectations and aspirations are often stimulated by
our own personal motivations and by aspects of our own culture. Social class can exert an influence,
because many consumers want to be accepted by members of their class or to raise their social standing.
Finally, major changes in personal circumstances, can instigate new ideal states.
We rely our actual state on simple physical factors, but needs also play a critical role. Having a creative
mindset can play a role as well. Finally, external stimuli can suddenly change your perceptions of the actual
state.
Marketing implications
Marketing can help put consumers in a state of problem recognition and motivate them to start the
decision process. Marketers use two major techniques to try to stimulate problem recognition. First, they
can attempt to create a new ideal state. Second, they can try to encourage our dissatisfaction with the
actual state. Whether they create a new ideal state or stimulate dissatisfaction with the actual state,
marketers are more likely to have their offering chosen if they position it as the solution to the consumer’s
problem.
7.2 Internal search: searching for information from memory
The next step in the decision process is internal search. Consumers have stored in memory a variety of
information, feelings, and past experiences that can be recalled when making a decision. Because
consumers have limited capacity or ability to process information, consumers are likely to recall only a small
subset of stored information when they engage in internal search. Researchers know that the effort
consumers devote to internal search depends on their MAO to process information. Consumers can engage
in active internal search only if the information is stored in memory. Finally, consumers can recall
information from memory only if they have the opportunity to do so. Much of the research on the role of
internal search in consumer judgment and decision-making has focused on what is recalled. There are four
major types of information: brands, attributes, evaluations, and experiences.
Recall of brands
The set of brands that consumers recall from memory whenever problem recognition has been stimulated
is an important aspect of internal search. Rather than remembering all available brands in any given
situation, consumers tend to recall a subset of two to eight brands know as consideration or evoked set.
The consideration set consist of brand that are “top of mind”, or easy to remember. A small consideration
set is usually necessary because consumers’ ability to recall brand information decreases as the size of the
set increases. However, even if they do not recall the entire set from memory, stored information aids the
recognition process. Studies indicate that consideration sets vary in terms of their size, stability, variety, and
preference dispersion. That is the equality of preferences toward brands or products in the set. On more
familiar occasions and in more familiar locations, consumers have consideration sets that are less stable,
are larger in size, and have slightly more variety. Then, consumers tend to have stronger preferences for
one or two items in the consideration set. This phenomenon suggests that a company should enhance its
,product’s linkage with an occasion or situation familiar to consumers to increase the chance that the
product will be retrieved from memory as part of the consideration set. If consumers cannot recall brands
from memory to form a consideration set, the set will tend to be determined by external factors such as
the availability of products on the shelf or the suggestions of salespeople. There are 5 factors that increase
the possibility of consumers’ recalling a particular brand during internal search:
- Prototypicality: consumers recall brands more easily that are closest to the prototype or that
most resemble other category members.
- Brand familiarity: well-known brands are more easily recalled during internal search than
unfamiliar brands. As a result, companies need to repeat marketing communications continually
to keep brand awareness high and associations strong. Brand familiarity helps consumers
recognize which of the many brands in the store should be attended to and reduces
misidentification of brands.
- Goals and usage situations: consumers have goal-derived and usage-specific categories in
memory, and the activation of these categories will determine which brands they recall during
internal search.
- Brand preference: brands toward which the consumer has positive attitudes tend to be recalled
more easily and tend to be included in the consideration set more often than brands that evoke
negative attitudes.
- Retrieval cues: by strongly associating the brand with a retrieval cue, marketers can increase the
chance that the brand will be included in the consumers’ consideration set.
Recall of attributes
Often we cannot remember specific facts about a product or service because our memory of details
decreases of time. Thus, the attribute information we recall tends to be in summary or simplified form
rather in its original detail. Nevertheless, consumers can often recall some details when they engage in
internal search, and the recalled attribute information can strongly influence their brand choices. There are
5 factors that influence the recall of attribute information in the information search and decision-making
process:
- Accessibility or availability: information that is more accessible or available is the most likely to
be recalled and entered into the decision process. Marketers can make information more
accessible by repeatedly drawing attention to it.
- Diagnosticity: diagnostic information helps consumers distinguish objects from one another. If
all brands use the same price, the price is not diagnostic or useful. If prices vary, consumers can
distinguish among them, so the information is diagnostic. If information is both accessible and
diagnostic, it has a very strong influence in the decision-making process. Negative information
tends to be more diagnostic than positive or neutral information because the former is more
distinctive. Marketers should avoid associating their offerings with negative information,
because consumer tend to give negative information greater weight in decisions.
- Salience: consumers can recall very salient attributes even when their opportunity to process is
low. Also, price is a highly salient attribute for many consumers. By repeatedly calling attention
to an attribute in marketing messages, marketers can increase a product’s salience and its
impact on the decision. However, an attribute can be highly salient but not necessarily
diagnostic. For information to be recalled and entered into the decision, it must have attribute
determinance, which means the information is both salient and diagnostic.
- Vividness: vivid information is presented as concrete words, pictures, or instructions to image or
through word-of-mouth communication. Vivid information is easier to recall than less dramatic
information, but it only tends to influence judgment and decision-making when consumers have
not formed a strong prior evaluation, especially one that is negative.
- Goals: the consumer’s goals will determine which attribute is recalled from memory.
Recall of evaluations
Because our memory for specific details decays rapidly over time, we find overall evaluations or attitudes
easier to remember than specific attribute information. Evaluations are also more likely to be recalled by
,consumers who are actively evaluating the brand when they are exposed to relevant information. The
activity of seeing an ad and determining if you like the brand when you see the ad, is called online
processing. However, consumers do not have a brand-processing goal when they see or hear an ad. In such
cases they do not form an evaluation and are therefore better able to recall specific attribute information.
Moreover, consumers are more likely to use online processing in evaluating a family of brands when the
brands within that family have low variability and share many attributes.
Recall of experiences
Internal search can involve the recall of experiences from autobiographical memory in the form of specific
images and the effect associated with them. Like information in semantic memory, experiences that are
more vivid, salient, or frequent are the most likely to be recalled. Although advertising may affect how
accurately consumers can recall their product experiences, their recall of the product’s evaluations is not
necessarily affected.
In addition of being influenced by factors that affect what we recall, we all have processing biases that alter
the nature of internal search. These search biases can sometimes lead to the recall of information that
results in a less-than-optimal judgment or decision. Three biases have important implications for
marketing: confirmation bias, inhibition, and mood.
Marketing implications
Marketers often deliberately associate their products or services with common positive experiences or
images to increase their recall from consumers’ memory. Marketers should also monitor reviews posted
online and in social media for negative recall experiences. It is important for marketers to respond to
comments about negative experiences with speedy, satisfactory responses that are more salient.
Confirmation bias refers to our tendency to recall information that reinforces or confirms our overall beliefs
rather than contradicting them, thereby making our judgment or decision more positive than it should be.
This phenomenon is related to the concept of selective perception – we see what we want to see – and
occurs because we strive to maintain consistency in our views. When the confirmation bias is operating, we
are more likely to recall positive rather than negative information about favored brands. We may recall
moderately contradictory information because we had consciously thought about it when we first tried to
understand it. However, consumers tend to recall information than reinforces their overall beliefs.
Another internal search bias is associated with limitations in consumers’ processing capacity. All the
variables that influence the recall of certain attributes can actually lead to the inhibition of recall for other
diagnostic attributes. Inhibition can lead to a biased judgment or decision because consumers may
remember but still ignore important and useful information.
Consumers engaged in internal search are more likely to recall information, feelings, and experiences that
match their mood. Marketers use humor or attractive visuals to put consumers in a good mood, which
recalls the positive attribute information.
Marketing implications
From a marketing perspective, confirmation bias presents a real problem when consumers search internally
for only positive information about the competition. One way marketers attack this problem is to draw
attention to negative aspects of competitive brands through comparative advertising. Inhibition is an
important aspect of internal search for two reasons. First, consumers may not always consider key aspects
of a brand when making a decision because they recall other, more accessible attributes instead. Marketers
can sometimes offset the effect of their brand’s disadvantages and/or their competitors’ advantages by
drawing attention to more vivid or accessible attributes.
7.3 External search: Searching for information from the environment
Sometimes information may be missing or some uncertainty may surround the recalled information. Then
consumers engage in an external search of outside resources. Consumers use external search to collect
additional information about which brands are available as well as about the attributes and benefits
associated with brands in the consideration set. Two types of external search are prepurchase search and
ongoing search. Prepurchase search occurs in response to the activation of problem recognition. Online
, prepurchase search is so commonplace that may companies coordinate brand-oriented ads on Facebook
and Instagram to build traffic to the company website. Ongoing search occurs on a regular and continual
basis, even when problem recognition has not been activated. There are 5 key aspects of the external
search process: the source of information, the extent of external search, the content of the external search,
search typologies, and the process or order of the search.
The source of information
For either prepurchase or ongoing search, consumers can acquire information from a number of external
sources:
- Retailer search: visits or calls to stores or dealers, including the examination of package
information or pamphlets about brands.
- Media and social media search: information from advertising, online ads, manufacturer-
sponsored websites and forums.
- Interpersonal search: advice from friends and relatives, whether sought in person, or in other
way.
- Independent search: contact with independent sources of information, such as books.
- Experiential search: using product samples or product/service trials.
Traditionally, retailer and media searches, followed by experiential search, have been the most frequently
used forms of search. However, recently Internet search has become more dominant. These increase when
a consumer’s involvement is higher and knowledge is lower. Consumers increase their use of interpersonal
sources as their brand knowledge decreases. When consumers believe that their purchase and
consumption of certain items will be judged by others, they tend to seek out interpersonal sources. But
when consumers have a long-term relationship with a trusted professional expert, they are less likely to
seek a second opinion. Experiential search is also critical for hedonic products and services. Cultural
characteristics play a role in external search, as well. Consumers who are members of subcultural groups
and not culturally assimilated – fully integrated into the surrounding culture – tend to conduct a wider
search of external sources. And they are more likely to search for information among media
advertisements. Although independent search tends to increase as available time increases, time spent on
this type of search is generally quite minimal.
Consumers can use the Internet to get information from all types of sources. Speed, user control, and two-
way communication capability are key elements of website interactivity for conducting online searches.
Consumers report higher satisfaction and stronger buying intentions when searching and shopping on sites
that use an avatar to deliver information. The company’s website must be carefully designed in terms of
four key dimensions – informativeness, entertainment, social presence, and sensory appeal – but the
importance of each dimension depends on the nature of the product or brand. Consumers also frequently
switch between mobile and more fixed devices, and when this occurs, purchase rates increase, particularly
