OBJECTIVE 2 The ABC Model of Attitudes
Attitudes are more
When Subaru of America began work on a new marketing strat-
complex than they first
egy, the automaker discovered that even though most auto
appear.
buyers had heard of the brand, very few had strong emotional
connections to it. However, Subaru owners expressed strong
passion and even love for the brand. To ramp up this emotional connection for nonown-
ers, the new campaign targets people who are in three different stages of buying a car-
what Subaru calls the heart, the head, and the wallet. The heart stage focuses on the love
owners show for their cars; commercials share personal stories of their attachment. The
head-stage ads, in contrast, present the rational side of specific models as they emphasize
how the cars benefit their owners in terms of reliability, economy, and so on. Then, the
wallet ads deal with the financial details of actually buying a Subaru; these include special
offers from local dealers.
Like the Subaru campaign, an attitude has three components: affect, behavior, and
cognition. Affect describes how a consumer feels about an attitude object. Behavior re-
fers to his intentions to take action about it (but, as we will discuss at a later point, an
intention does not always result in an actual behavior). Cognition is what he believes to be
true about the attitude object. You can remember these three components of an attitude
as the ABC model of attitudes.
The ABC model emphasizes the interrelationships among knowing, feeling, and do-
ing. We can't determine consumers' attitudes toward a product if we just identify their
cognitions (beliefs) about it. For example, a researcher may find that shoppers “know" a
6
CHAPTER 7
Attitudes and Persuasion
251
particular camcorder has an 8:1 power zoom lens, auto focus, and a flying erase head, but
simply knowing this doesn't indicate whether they feel these attributes are good, bad, or
irrelevant, or whether they would actually buy the camcorder.
Hierarchies of Effects
Which comes first: knowing, feeling, or doing? It turns out that each element
may
lead
things off, depending on the situation. Attitude researchers developed the concept of a
hierarchy of effects to explain the relative impact of the three components. Each hier-
archy specifies that a fixed sequence of steps occurs en route to an attitude. Figure 7.1
summarizes these three different hierarchies.
The Standard Learning Hierarchy
Think→ Feel → Do: The standard learning hierarchy assumes that a person approaches
a product decision as a problem-solving process. First, she forms beliefs about a product
as she accumulates knowledge (beliefs) regarding relevant attributes. Next, she evalu-
ates these beliefs and forms a feeling about the product (affect).? Then she engages in
a relevant behavior, such as when she buys a product that offers the attributes she feels
good about. This hierarchy assumes that a consumer is highly involved when she makes
a purchase decision. She's motivated to seek out a lot of information, carefully weigh
alternatives, and come to a thoughtful decision.
er from
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The Low-Involvement Hierarchy
Do Feel Think: The low-involvement hierarchy of effects assumes that the con-
sumer initially doesn't have a strong preference for one brand over another; instead, she
acts on the basis of limited knowledge and forms an evaluation only after she has bought
the product. The attitude is likely to come about through behavioral learning, as good or
bad experiences reinforce her initial choice.
The possibility that consumers simply don't care enough about many decisions to
carefully assemble a set of product beliefs and then evaluate them is important. This
implies that all of our concern about influencing beliefs and carefully communicating
information about product attributes may often be wasted. Consumers aren't necessar-
ily going to pay attention anyway; they are more likely to respond to simple stimulus-
response connections when they make purchase decisions. For example, a consumer
who chooses among paper towels might remember that “Bounty is the quicker picker-
upper” rather than systematically comparing all the brands on the shelf. Get a life!
onfront
Standard Learning Hierarchy:
w
Behavior
ATTITUDE
Based on
cognitive
information
processing
Cognition
Affect
Low-Involvement Hierarchy:
Affect
ATTITUDE
Based on
behavioral
learning
processes
Behavior
Cognition
Experiential Hierarchy:
Cognition
ATTITUDE
Based on
hedonic
consumption
Behavior
Affect
Figure 7.1 HIERARCHIES OF EFFECTS
la
t
The notion of consumers' low involvement is a bitter pill for some marketers to swal-
low. Who wants to admit that what they market is not very important to the people who
buy it? A brand manager for, say, a brand of bubble gum or cat food may find it hard to be-
lieve that consumers don't put that much thought into purchasing her product, because
she herself spends many of her waking (and perhaps sleeping) hours thinking about it.
For marketers, the ironic silver lining to this low-involvement cloud is that under
these conditions, consumers are not motivated to process a lot of complex, brand-related
information. Instead, they will be swayed by principles of behavioral learning, such as
the simple responses that conditioned brand names or point-of-purchase displays elicit
(discussed in Chapter 3).
The Experiential Hierarchy
Feel Think Do: According to the experiential hierarchy of effects, we act on the
basis of our emotional reactions. The experiential perspective highlights the idea that
intangible product attributes, such as package design, advertising, brand names, and the
nature of the setting in which the experience occurs, can help shape our attitudes toward
a brand. We may base these reactions on hedonic motivations, such as whether using the
product is exciting (like the Nintendo Wii).
Even the emotions the communicator expresses have an impact. A smile is infec-
tious; in a process we term emotional contagion, messages that happy people deliver en-
hance our attitude toward the product. Numerous studies demonstrate that the mood a
person is in when she sees or hears a marketing message influences how she will process
CHAPTER 7
Attit
the ad, the likelihood that she will remember the information she sees, and how she will
feel about the advertised item and related products in the future.!
11
OBJECTIVE 3
How Do We Form Attitudes?
We form attitudes
in several ways.
We all have lots of attitudes, and we don't usually question how
we got them. Certainly, you're not born with the heartfelt con-
viction that, say, Pepsi is better than Coke, or that alternative music liberates the soul.
From where do these attitudes come?
We form an attitude in several different ways, depending on the particular hierarchy of
effects that operates. As we saw in Chapter 3, we may form an attitude toward a brand due to
classical conditioning: A marketer repeatedly pairs an attitude object such as the Pepsi name
with a catchy jingle (“You're in the Pepsi Generation”). Or we can form an attitude due to
instrumental conditioning: The marketer reinforces us when we consume the attitude object
(e.g., you take a swig of Pepsi and it quenches your thirst). Or this learning can result from a
very complex cognitive process. For example, a teenager may model the behavior of friends
and media endorsers, such as Beyoncé, who drink Pepsi because they believe that this will
allow them to fit in with the desirable lifestyle that Pepsi commercials portray.
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