Groups, Reference Groups & Word-of-Mouth

Chapter 7: Groups and Reference Groups

• A group consists of two or more individuals sharing norms, values, beliefs, and interdependent behaviors through explicit or implicit relationships.
• A reference group's perspectives or values influence an individual's behavior.
• Classifying groups involves membership, social tie strength, contact type, and attraction.
• Brand communities enhance product ownership value and foster strong loyalty through continued product use.
• Reference group influence takes three forms: informational, normative (utilitarian), and identification (value-expressive).
• Reference group influence is higher when product usage is visible, relevant to the group, individual purchase confidence is low, commitment to the group is strong, and the item isn't a necessity.

Word-of-Mouth and Opinion Leaders

• Word-of-mouth is abbreviated as WOM.
• Opinion leaders are "go-to" individuals for specific information, filtering and interpreting it.
• Opinion leaders have in-depth knowledge and expertise in certain product categories.
• Opinion leaders are category-specific; they may seek opinions in other areas.
• WOM and opinion leadership occur when people seek or volunteer information.
• Market mavens are general market influencers providing extensive information on products and shopping venues.
• Technology and the internet have shaped market mavens.
• Advertising, product sampling, retailing/personal selling, and creating buzz generate WOM and encourage opinion leadership.
• Viral marketing is a "pass-it-along" online strategy using electronic communication to spread brand messages.
• Blogs serve as personalized journals for ongoing conversations.
• Innovation is a new idea, practice, or product perceived by an individual or group.
• New product spread is a group phenomenon, ranging from no change to radical change.
• Continuous innovation involves small behavioral changes unimportant to the customer.
• Dynamically continuous innovation needs a moderate behavior change.
• Discontinuous innovation needs major behavior changes.
• Adopter categories include innovators (high education, social interaction), early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

Chapter 8: Perception

• Perception involves stimuli exposure, attention, and interpretation.
• Perception: how stimuli are selected, organized, and interpreted.
• There are two types of exposure: selective and voluntary with highly selective nature of consumer exposure being a major concern for marketers.
• Attention is determined by stimulus, individual, and situational factors.
• Size, intensity, visuals, and movement are stimulus factors.
• Position affects attention EG. items are attractive in retail stores, such as end-caps and kiosks
• In the U.S., the top left portion of print ads tends to be high impact zones.
• Stimuli lead to perception then to meaning and making consumption decisions.
• Consumers focus more on stimuli contrasting their background due to expectation.
• Adaptation level theory = habituation to unchanging stimuli over time.
• Motivation and ability are individual factors.
• Clutter and program involvement are situational factors.
• Hemispheric lateralization refers to the brain's two sides performing activities.
• Rational thought is controlled by the left brain.
• Emotional impressions are produced by the right brain.
• Program involvement involves interest in content surrounding ads.
• Interpretation is a relative, subjective process with cognitive ("thinking") and affective ("emotional") aspects.
• Cognitive interpretation categorizes stimuli into existing meanings.
• Affective interpretation has emotional responses to stimuli, like ads.
• Individual characteristics of traits, learning and knowledge, as well as expectations all influence how a stimulus is interpreted.
• The meanings attributed to the natural world vary widely across cultures.
• Consumers learn about marketer-created stimuli such as brands and promotions through their experiences.
• Interpretations are often consistent with expectations; known brands are rated better than unknown ones.
• Changes include sensory discrimination and JND (Just Noticeable Difference).
• Quality signals and images are involved in consumer inferences.
• Linguistic consideration, branding strategies and logo design factor into brand name and logo development.
• High-impact zones in print ads are for U.S. readers.

Chapter 9: Learning and Memory

• Behavior is based on memory.
• Learning --> Memory --> Behavior --> Consumption
• The information processing system has 3 phases: Exposure, Attention, and Interpretation, the meaning (short-term memory)
• Learning: any change in the content of long-term memory
• Short-term memory (STM), or working memory, which is the portion of memory currently activated.
• STM is short-lived and has limited capacity.
• Consumers refresh information through maintenance rehearsal.
• Elaborative activities redefine or add memory elements.
• Long-term memory (LTM) is permanent information storage.
• It has two types: Semantic (knowledge and feelings) and Episodic (event sequences).
• LTM is stored in schemas and scripts.
• Memory revolves around association.
• Meaning and understanding are memory components.
• Knowledge and thinking are cognitive, feelings are affective, and all are semantic.
• Classical conditioning: more habitual, passive observation (no action)
• Operant conditioning consists of action to be rewarded.
• Classical conditioning links a stimulus (e.g., music) to a response (pleasant feelings), transferring the feeling to a different stimulus (the brand).
• Operant Conditioning: instrumental, uses rewards for behavior IE. brand purchases
• Iconic rote learning is association without conditioning.
• Vicarious learning/modeling observes behaviors.
• Analytical reasoning restructures information through reasoning.
• Marketers enhance positive associations with their brands.
• Conditioned learning extinction occurs when desired responses decay so there must be reinforcement.
• Cognitive learning retrieval failure happens when LTM information cannot be retrieved.
• Strength of learning is enhanced by importance, involvement, mood, reinforcement, repetition, and dual coding.
• Memory interference affects information retrieval.
• Common marketing interference is from competitive advertising.
• Decreasing competitive interference involves avoiding competing advertising, strengthening initial learning, reducing similarity to competing ads, and providing retrieval cues.
• Brand image refers to the schematic memory of a brand.
• Product positioning sets a brand image relative to competition, stressing usage situations.
• Perceptual mapping measures and develops a product's position.
• Product repositioning alters market perception by changing performance, feelings, usage contexts, or users.

Chapter 10: Motivation and Personality

• Motivation drives behavior, offering specific direction.
• Two motivation theories: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and McGuire's Psychological Motives, including cognitive/affective preservation and growth motives.
• The hierarchy of Needs: Self-actualization then Esteem followed by Love/belonging then Safety finally leading to Physiological
• Involvement is a motivational state based on perceived relevance.
• Consumer involvement boosts attention, processing, information, and WOM.
• Marketing strategies address motivational conflicts: Approach-Approach or a choice between two attractive alternatives, Approach-Avoidance or a choice with positive and negative consequences, and Avoidance-Avoidance or a choice of only undesirable outcomes.
• Personality: individual's response tendencies.
• Motivation energizes behavior, personality guides it.
• The Five-Factor Model is the most used, it identifies five basic traits formed by genetics and early learning.
• These traits include: Extroversion ,Instability, Agreeableness, Openness to experience, and Conscientiousness.
• Consumer ethnocentrism shows bias against foreign products.
• Need for Cognition (NFC) engages in and enjoys thinking.
• Consumers' need for uniqueness values being different.
• Brand image is the perception of a brand.
• Brand personality is personality a brand has.
• Emotion is a specific feeling, affect is liking/disliking.
• Emotions effect behaviour.
• Needs drive motivation along with arousal.
• Arousal and pleasure are aspects of emotion.
• Dominance and Emotional arousals are a product benefit.
• Gratitude is a desired consumer outcome.
• Emotion reduction is a product onefit.
• Regulatory fit theory: consumers react on motives set

Chapter 11: Attitudes

• An attitude is an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual, and cognitive processes.
• The way you see/feel about something=the attitude.
• Positive=consumption.
• Negative=no consumption.
• The ABC's of attitude are: Affective: emotions or feelings, Behavioral: intentions to purchase, and Cognitive: beliefs (thinking, meaning)
• Attitude Component Consistency includes: Lack of need, Lack of ability (financial), Failure to consider relative attitudes (competitors), and Attitude ambivalence (mixed feelings)
• There are feature beliefs and benefit beliefs.
• Features are objective, benefits are subjective.
• Affective components are feelings .
• Behavioral components are surveyed.
• Cognitive is features and benefits, beliefs, multi-attribute model.
• Rewards change behavioral intentions with conditioning.
• Persuasion: changing attitudes.
• The ELM Model or Elaborative likelihood model has 2 ways to persuade.
• Central = much stronger while Peripheral is the opposite.
• Central route = high involvement.
• While Peripheral route has low involvement.
• Attitudes formed centrally are stronger, more resistant, accessible, and predictive of behaviors.
• Peripheral Cues (PCs) influence persuasion with less involvement; Central Cues (CCs) need high involvement.
• PCs can sway HIGH INVOLVEMENT if central cues are similar/tradeoffs occur.
• Discrediting, Discounting, and Containment assist in resisting brand attacks.
• Appeal characteristics include: Fear, Humor, Comparative, and Emotional ones.
• Communication characteristics are: Source characteristics (who), Appeal (how), and Message structure (how)
• Value-expressive = image, utilitarian = features/benefits.
• Attribute Framing focuses on an attribute.
• Goal Framing stresses performing/not performing an act.

Chapter 12: Self-Concept and Lifestyle

• Ideal vs. actual self-concept: The gap is bridged with possessions.
• Without these, we cannot feel completed.
• Dimensions of a Consumer's Self-Concept includes: Private Self and Social Self.
• Independent self-concept: individualistic, egocentric.
• Interdependent self-concept: obedient, sociocentric.
• The extended self consists of possessions.
• A peak experience creates feelings of joy and self-fulfillment.
• Lifestyle is the outward expression of your self-concept.
• Lifestyle: the way a person lives or enacts her or his self-concept.
• Pschographics is way to measure lifestyle.
• Psychographics encompass attitudes, values, activities, interests, demographics, media patterns, and usage rate.
• Two specific lifestyle schemes are: Luxury sports cars and Technology, Technology is used to BRIDGE THE GAP, making it a LIFESTYLE
• General lifestyle schemes: The VALS system and Geo-Lifestyle Analysis (Claritas PRIZM)
• VALS is has a systematic classification of U.S. adults into eight distinct customer segments.
• Motivation = Needs.
• Consumer motivations: Motivation,Achievement Motivation, and Self-Expression Motivation.
• PRIZM organizes 68 segments based on social and life stage groups based on "urbanization”.