Chapter 4

Consumer response to marketing actions

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Chapter objectives

• Explain techniques that encourage consumers to act upon

marketing activities.
• Explain impulse buying and customer satisfaction as important
concepts.
• Apply cognitive dissonance theory to help explain how
consumers can respond after purchase.
• Explain involvement and discuss implications of levels of
involvement for consumer behaviour and for the relevance of
sequential models of response to marketing activity.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Sequential model of marketing

Post-purchase
Action
Attitude
Learning
Perception
Attention
Exposure

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Impulse buying

a sudden but powerful and persistent urge to buy a product

offering immediately with diminished regard to the
consequences of buying the offering (Rook, 1987)

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Four styles of impulse buying

Bayley and Nancarrow (1998)

• Accelerator Impulse

• Compensatory Impulse

• Breakthrough Impulse

• Blind Impulse

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Four forms of impulse buying

Stern (1962)

• Pure impulse buying

• Reminder impulse buying

• Suggestion impulse buy

• Planned impulse buy

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Airport impulse buying
Illustration
The holiday effect Consumer is going on a holiday with high levels of
excitement and more disposable income is at hand than
normal
The family effect Consumers think of buying gifts for family and friends
The guilt effect Business travellers buying for spouse and children to
compensate for the loss of family time due to business
travel
The reward effect Consumers’ self indulgence
The occasion effect Easter, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day,
Birthday
The exclusivity effect You can only buy certain products in specific travel
related environment such as airport
The effect of forgetting I forgot to bring my umbrella
The effect of confusion Information overload causing impulse buying
The effect of disposing I need to get rid of some left over foreign currency
G Crawford and T Melewar, ‘The importance of impulse purchasing behaviour in the international airport environment’, Journal of Consumer
Behaviour, 3:1 (2003), © John Wiley & Sons Limited. Reproduced with persmission.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Customer satisfaction

An attitude/feeling of a customer towards a product

or service after it has been used.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Cognitive dissonance

A kind of psychological tension resulting from

perceived inconsistencies in cognitions.
(Festinger 1957)

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Dissonance example

Take the example reported by Jones (1996)

concerning the missing ash-tray from his BMW.

The BMW dealer had forgotten to replace the ashtray

after a service, but a chance call to a Lexus dealer
resulted in them collecting the ashtray from BMW
and delivering it to Jones! Even though he had been
a loyal BMW owner for 12 years, this seemingly
minor incident over the ash-tray raised dissonance in
his mind. The Lexus dealer’s actions suggested to
him that there would be less dissonance if he were a
Lexus customer, so that’s what he became.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Dissonance reducing strategies in smoking

1. Change one’s behaviour Stop smoking

Change to smoking cigar or pipe

2. Distort the dissonant Refuse to accept cancer connection

information

3. Minimise the importance of the To say there is more chance of

issue death in a car crash

Ignore dissonant information and Seek social support

seek consonant information

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Unethical reassurances from marketers
Overcoming dissonance: healthy women smoke (seeking social support) and it’s good
for you! Using positive cognitions.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour © Rbert Opie. Reproduced by Permission

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

 Comparative advertising

Reproduced by permission of Bird’s Eye, a dicision of Unilever Plc. Illustrated by Anthony

Burrill.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Negative advertising

Photograph: Martin Evans

A seminal example of negative political advertising attempting to raise dissonance over the competing
political party. Perhaps unfortunately modern political campaigning seems to mostly ’knock’ the opposition
parties.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Reassurance

© Vauxhall Network Q.
Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour Reproduced by permission

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

 Involvement
Consumers can be involved with:

• A brand (e.g. Nokia).

• An Advertisement (e.g. print ad for Nokia).

• A Medium (e.g. the internet).

• A purchase decision (e.g. deciding between alternatives

when buying a mobile phone).

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Involvement

• Enduring Involvement
• Situational Involvement

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Involvement and hierarchy of effects (sequential)
models

High involvement Low involvement

Decision Making Sequential models Less evidence for
sequential models

Cognitive learning Passive learning

Habit Loyalty Inertia

Instrumental Classical Conditioning

conditioning

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Increasing involvement

Source: General Mills UK

This advertisement encourages emotional and physical involvement beyond

merely eating ice cream…try this for yourself at home
Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour
© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Routes to persuasion

High involvement leads to central route to persuasion,

which ‘views attitude change, resulting from a person’s
diligent consideration of information that she or he feels
is central to the true merits of a particular attitudinal
position’ (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann, 1983, p.135).
Low involvement leads to peripheral route to persuasion
whereby consumers pay limited attention to non-product
features and feelings. Here the information processing
is largely unconscious with no or very limited elaborative
activities.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 The FCB Grid

Involvement Motives

Think Feel

High Pension scheme Sports Car

Economy Car
Cosmetics
Low Washing and Soft Drinks
Cleaning Products
Burgers

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour Berger (1986)

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Involvement and Motivation

Type of motivation

Informational Transformational
(negative (positive motivations)
motivations)
Low-involvement Examples: aspirin, Examples: candy,
decision-making light beer, detergent, regular beer, fiction
novels

High-involvement Examples: Examples: vacations,

decision-making microwave oven, fashion clothing, cars
insurance, home
renovations

J R Rossiter, L Percy and R J Donovan, ‘A better advertising planning

grid’, Journal of Advertising Research, (1992). Reproduced with
permission from Cambridge University Press.

Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour

© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
 Summary
• Ways of encouraging consumers to ‘act’ and to respond positively after
purchase.
• Impulse buying is pervasive and characteristic feature of most of our
purchases.
• Customer satisfaction is a post-purchase attitude like feeling and is an
important theoretical as well as practical concept.
• Antecedents of customer satisfaction include expectations, disconfirmation
of expectations, performance, affect, equity and attributions whereas
complaining behaviour, negative word of mouth and repurchase intension
are outcomes of satisfaction.
• Cognitive dissonance can occur before purchase as well as after purchase
and marketing can help reduce dissonance.
• Consumers can become involved with product categories, brands,
advertisements, communication mediums and even purchase decisions.
Involvement reflects a consumer’s self-relevance and can be enduring,
situational and response driven.
Evans, Jamal, Foxall, Consumer Behaviour
© 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd