Beyond the Purchase: Inside the Mind of the Consumer

This week in Consumer Behavior we covered the topic of attitudes, how attitudes are formed, the three components of an attitude, cognitive, affective, and behavioral, and lastly, how to influence attitudes using persuasion approaches. The topic that I most drew a liking to was how the use of the Elaboration Likelihood model can be used to persuade a consumer to ultimately create a favorable attitude towards a brand, and purchase their product.  Marketers can use emotional marketing strategies in their promotions to to gain sales and foster a favorable brand image towards consumers. Successful advertisers can use peripheral cues when conducting these campaigns to persuade consumers to change their attitudes about a brand and ultimately buy their product. ELM: An Example Dawn, the dish detergent company is a great example of using emotional marketing in combination with both routes of processing persuasive messages in the ELM model, the central route, and the periphe...

This week in Consumer Behavior we covered motivation, personality, and emotions as they pertain to consumer decision making. More specifically, I was most interested in how motivation plays a role in consumer behavior and marketing strategy in the advertising industry. Sex sells This is a classic motto for advertising agencies, and why sexuality is used so often in product advertising, especially on television, and in magazines. Sexuality in advertising is the use of provocative images, phrases, sounds, or messages used to arouse interest in a particular subject. Society purchases products because they have sexually stimulating imagery, or the advertisement triggers attraction to the product or service. This could be a beautiful women or handsome man to attract the attention of the audience, even though it may have nothing to do with the product or service being advertised. But why is sexuality used so often in advertising? Because it is proven to sell. Human’s are cognitively wir...

This week in Consumer Behavior we covered the topic of learning and memory. Diving deeper into this topic we explored our memory’s role in learning, including short-term and long-term memory, as well as the two paths to learning, conditioning or cognitive processing. The largest take away from our lectures that I grasped and took a liking to was human memory, and how brands can use schematic memory to influence consumers behaviors and perceptions around a brand. Why are Schemas Important? Schemas or schematic memory, sometimes called knowledge structures, are a pattern of associations around a particular concept. These associations are formed from within the long-term memory of a person. Marketers are specifically interested in semantic memory, and episodic memory, which make up LTM. Semantic memory is the basic knowledge and feelings an individual has about a concept, at a simple level, such as BMW being a “luxury car.” On the other hand, episodic memory is memory of a sequence o...