CHAPTER 10

Consumer beliefs, feelings,

attitudes and intentions
Attitudes
Global evaluative judgments

Intentions
Subjective judgments by people about how they will
behave in the future

Beliefs
Subjective judgments about the relationship
between two or more things

Feelings
An affective state (e.g. current mood state) or
reaction (e.g. emotions experienced during product
consumption)
Relationships between
consumer beliefs, feelings,
attitudes and intentions
Consumer beliefs
A sampling of consumer beliefs
– If a deal seems to good to be true, it probably is.
– You can’t believe what most advertising says these days.
– Auto repair shops take advantage of women.
– People need less money to live on once they retire.
– It’s not safe to use credit cards on the Internet.
– Appliances today are not as durable as they were 20
years ago.
– Extended warranties are worth the money.
– You get what you pay for: lower price means lower
quality.
– Changing the oil in your car every three thousand miles
is a waste of money.
Consumer beliefs
Expectations
Brand distinctiveness
Inferential beliefs
Consumer confusion
Consumer expectations
Expectations are beliefs about the future

Consumers’ willingness to spend is influenced by

beliefs about their financial future
Brand distinctiveness
Why should a consumer
want to buy your brand
instead of the
competitor’s?
The desirability of
products having
something unique to
offer to their consumers
is also known as the
Unique Selling
Proposition (USP)
Inferential beliefs
Consumers use
information about one
thing to form beliefs about
something else
Beliefs are often inferred
when product information
is incomplete
Also undertaken when
consumers interpret
certain product attributes
as signals of product
quality, e.g. price-quality
inferential beliefs
Consumer confusion
Sometimes consumers do not know what to
believe due to many different reasons
– May arise due to conflicting information and
knowledge
– Mistaking one company’s product for the product of
another company
– Due to changes in a product’s position and image

Consumers respond to confusion by:

– Undertaking further information search
– Basing their decision on things that are perfectly
clear, e.g. price
– Deferring product purchase indefinitely
 Types of consumer feelings
Upbeat Negative Warm

Active Angry Affectionate

Adventurous Annoyed Calm
Alive Bad Concerned
Attractive Bored Contemplative
Confident Critical Emotional
Creative Defiant Hopeful
Elated Disgusted Kind
Energetic Fed-up Peaceful
Good Insulted Pensive
Happy Irritated Touched
Pleased Regretful Warm-hearted
Consumer feelings

Feelings as part of the advertising experience

Feelings as part of the shopping experience
Feelings as part of the consumption experience
Consumer feelings

Feelings as part of the advertising experience

– Feelings activated by the advertisement have the potential to
influence attitudes formed about the featured product
– The program in which advertising appears can induce
feelings and affect post-message attitudes
Consumer feelings

Feelings as part of the shopping experience

– The retail environment elicits different feelings in consumers
ultimately affecting their attitudes and behaviours in the store
– The shopping environment can evoke pleasure, arousal, or
dominance in consumers

Feelings as part of the consumption experience

– Some consumption experiences are liked primarily for the
feelings they induce
– Feelings during consumption will influence post-consumption
evaluations
– Consumers are more satisfied when product consumption
leads to positive feelings while avoiding negative ones
Consumer attitudes
Properties of attitudes:

– Valence: Whether the attitude is positive, negative or neutral

– Extremity: The intensity of liking or disliking
– Resistance: Degree to which the attitude is immune to
change
– Confidence: Belief that attitude is correct
– Accessibility: How easily the attitude can be retrieved from
memory
Types of attitudes
Attitude towards the object (Ao) represents the
evaluation of the attitude object
Attitude towards the advertisement (Aad) represents
the global evaluation of an advertisement
Attitude towards the behaviour (Ab)
represents the evaluation of performing a
particular behaviour involving the attitude
object
Preferences represent attitudes toward
one object in relation to another
Attitude toward the behaviour:
Buying a Dell personal computer would be:
Very good 1 2 3 4 5 Very bad
Very rewarding 1 2 3 4 5 Very punishing
Very wise 1 2 3 4 5 Very foolish

Attitude toward the object:

How much do you like/dislike Dell computers?
Like very much 1 2 3 4 5 Dislike very much

Preference:
Compared to Apple personal computers, how
much do you like Dell personal computers?
Like IBM much 1 2 3 4 5 Like Apple much
more than Apple more than IBM
The Fishbein Multiattribute
Attitude Model
n

Ao = Σ bi ei
i =1
Ao = attitude toward the object
bi = strength of the belief that object has attribute i
ei = evaluation of attribute i
n = number of salient or important attributes
The Fishbein Multiattribute
Attitude Model
Model proposes that attitude toward an object
is based on the summed set of beliefs about
the object’s attributes weighted by the
evaluation of these attributes
Attributes can be any product or brand
association
Consumer attitudes
Companies want
consumers to perceive
their products as:
– possessing desirable
attributes (when ei positive,
bi should be positive)
– not possessing
undesirable attributes
(when ei is negative, bi
should be negative)
The Ideal-Point Multiattribute
Attitude Model
n
AP = Σ Wi Ii - Xi
i =1

AP = attitude toward product

Wi = importance of attribute i
Ii = ideal performance on attribute i
Xi = belief about product’s actual performance on
attribute i
n = number of salient attributes
The Ideal-Point Multiattribute
Attitude Model
Consumers indicate
where they believe a
product is located on
scales representing the
various levels of salient
attributes
Also report where ideal
product would fall on
these scales
The closer the ideal and
actual ratings, the more
favorable the attitude
Benefits of using multiattribute
attitude models
Diagnostic power: examine why consumers like or
dislike products
Simultaneous importance-performance grid with
marketing implications for each cell
Can provide information for segmentation (based
on importance of product attributes)
Useful in new product development
Guidance in identifying attitude change strategies
Stimulus Importance-Performance Grid
Attribute Our Competitor’s Simultaneous
Importance Performance Performance Result

Poor Neglected Opportunity

POOR
Good Competitive Disadvantage
HIGH
Poor Competitive Advantage
GOOD
Good Head-to-head competition

Poor Null Opportunity

POOR
Good False Alarm
LOW
Poor False Advantage
GOOD
Good False Competition
Attitude change implications from
multiattribute attitude models
Three primary ways for changing consumer
attitudes:
– Change beliefs
– Change attribute importance
– Change ideal points
Changing consumer attitudes:
Changing beliefs
Firms hope that changing beliefs about products
will result in more favorable product attitudes and
influence what consumers buy
If beliefs are false, they need to be brought into
harmony with reality
If beliefs are accurate, it may be necessary to
change the product
Comparative advertising can hurt beliefs about a
competitive brand
Changing consumer attitudes:
Changing attribute importance
Changing an attribute’s importance is more difficult
than changing a belief
How is a brand perceived relative to ideal
performance?
Increasing attribute importance is desirable when
the competitor’s brand is farther from the ideal
point than your product
Firms may add a new attribute
Changing consumer attitudes:
Changing ideal points
Altering consumers’ preferences for what the ideal
product should look like
Estimating the attitudinal impact
of alternative changes
How expensive are the product modifications
required to change attitude?
Are they possible to accomplish?
How resistant to change are consumers?
What is the potential attitudinal payoff each change
might deliver?
Consumer intentions
Useful for firms when predicting how people will
act as consumers
– How much existing product should be produced to
meet demand?
– How much demand will there be for a new product?

Firms interested in many types of consumer

intentions
Types of intentions
Spending intentions
Purchase intentions
Repurchase intentions
Shopping intentions
Search intentions
Consumption intentions
Types of intentions
Spending intentions reflect how much money
consumers think they will spend

Will you spend at least $1,000 on Christmas gifts this year?

No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will

Purchase intentions represent what consumers

think they will buy

Will you buy a Mercedes-Benz automobile during the next

12 months?
No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will
Types of intentions
Repurchase intentions indicate whether
consumers anticipate buying the same product or
brand again

The next time you purchase coffee, will you buy the same
brand?
No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will

Shopping intentions capture where consumers

plan on making their product purchases

Will you shop at Wal*Mart during the next 30 days?

No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will

Types of intentions
Search intentions indicate consumers’ intentions
to engage in external search

The next time you need to be hospitalised, will you speak

to your doctor before choosing a hospital?
No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will

Consumption intentions represent consumers’

intentions to engage in a particular consumption
activity

Will you watch the next Super Bowl?

No chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely will

How firms can predict behaviour
Rely on past behaviour to predict future behaviour
Problems:
– Situations change (changes in market can cause
unpredictable changes in demand)
– Sales trends are sometimes erratic
– Past behaviours not available for new products or first-
time behaviours

Rely on consumers’ reported intentions

People often do what they intend
Constraints on predictive power
of intentions
Intentions can change
– Intend to do something and don’t
– Intend not to do something and do

Can’t control whether consumers act upon their

intentions
Can influence predictive accuracy
Intentions’ predictive accuracy strongly depends
on how they are measured
The more closely intention measures correspond
to the to-be-predicted behaviour, the greater the
predictive accuracy
Constraints on predictive power
of intentions
Measuring intentions may be less predictive of
future behaviour than measuring what they expect
to do
behavioural expectations: represent perceived
likelihood of performing a behaviour. (Although
smokers may intend to quit smoking, they may report more
moderate expectations due to past failures)
Accuracy of forecasts also depends on when
intentions are measured
How far into the future is being predicted?
Accuracy depends on the to-be-predicted
behaviour (behaviours repeated with regularity are
easier to predict)
Constraints on predictive power
of intentions
Volitional control: the degree to which a
behaviour can be performed at will
Existence of uncontrollable factors interfere with the
ability to do as intended
Perceived behavioural control: the person’s
belief about how easy it is to perform the behaviour
Consumer intentions: Other uses
Indicator of the possible effects of certain marketing
activities
Intentions may provide an informative indication of a
company’s likely success in retaining customers