3: MEASURING THE AFFECTIVE RESPONSE

3
MEASURING THE AFFECTIVE RESPONSE
The content of this supplementary note links with the following chapters 9 (page 211), 16 (page 374)
What is the affective response? The affective response is evaluative; it is no longer based only on simple knowledge. It includes: Feelings Preferences Intentions Favourable or unfavourable judgements.

Several operational measures are also available to market analysts, with attitude as a central concept.

The evoked and consideration sets The brands that become alternatives to the buyer's choice decision are generally a small number, collectively called the evoked set. The size of the evoked set is at best a fraction of the brands that the buyer is aware of and a still smaller fraction of the total number of brands that are actually available in the market.

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The consideration set is the sub-set of brands known and/or tried, which have a non-zero probability to be selected by the buyer. The composition of the consideration set varies over time and as a function of the consumption situation. Figure Web 3.1 The Evoked and the Consideration Sets

Rejected Tried Brands ( ex post evaluation )

Neutral Repeat purchase Considered

One

Several Occasional purchase

Known
Brands (Evoked set) Untried Brands (ex ante evaluation) Unfitted

Existings Brands

Neutral

Considered Unknown Brands

The consideration set is more restrictive than the evoked set. As illustrated in Figure Web 3.1, a buyer can be familiar with a brand and even have experienced the brand, and at the same time have no intention to buy or to repurchase. To identify the consideration set, one has to know the brands considered as valid alternatives for the next purchase occasion. In the consumer goods sector, it is believed that the average number of known brands may vary between ten and twenty according to the class of products, whereas the average size of the consideration set is three to five brands (Jarvis and Wilcox, 1977). The notion of the consideration set is important; there is little chance that a brand will get adopted if it is not part of this set. It is in the producer's interest to know which brands or suppliers are on the short list of potential customers.

What is attitude? A central notion in affective response is the concept of attitude. A classical definition of attitude is the one given by Allport (1935): The mental process by which an individual on the basis of past experience and stored information organises his perceptions, beliefs and feelings about a particular object and orientates his future behaviour. In this definition, we find the three levels or components of market response:

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3: MEASURING THE AFFECTIVE RESPONSE

Attitude is based on a series of information about the object being evaluated, which is progressively stored by the individual (cognitive component). Attitude is oriented and reflects feelings, positive or negative, or evaluation regarding the object (affective component). Attitude is dynamic and is a predisposition to respond; as such, it has predictive value (behavioural component).

Psycho-sociologists (see Fishbein, 1967) also consider that attitude is persistent, although it can be modified; that it is structured, in the sense that it has internal consistency and is based on evaluative criteria; and that its intensity may vary widely or retain a state of neutrality. Experimental studies in this area have shown that although measures of attitude are not infallible, they predict actual behaviours reasonably well. To be more precise, the following facts are generally accepted: When buyers' attitudes towards a brand become more favourable, its use tends to grow and, conversely, an unfavourable attitude heralds its decline. Consumers' attitudes help explain market shares held by different brands (Assael and Day, 1968). As the number of competing products and brands increases, the firm needs to intervene to maintain and to reinforce favourable attitudes.

Since measures of attitude are likely to be taken before a purchasing decision, they are of great importance for market analysis because they enable diagnosis, control and prediction. Diagnosis: knowledge of a brand's strengths and weaknesses helps identify opportunities and/or threats facing a brand. Control: measures of attitudes taken before and after help evaluate the effectiveness of strategies aimed at changing the attitude towards the brand. Prediction: knowledge of attitudes helps predict the market response to a new or modified product, without having to rely on ex-post observations.

Given the importance of this notion, considerable attention has been given during the last twenty years to attitude measurement issues, not only in psycho-sociology research (Rosenberg, 1956 and Fishbein, 1967), but also in marketing research (Wilkie and Pessemier, 1973). The multi-attribute product concept defined in the Note 2: Measuring the cognitive response serves as the conceptual basis for modelling attitude. Two estimation procedures can be used for measuring a multi-attribute model: the compositional approach or the decompositional or non-compensatory approach. These two approaches will be examined successively.

The compositional multi-attribute model The multi-attribute product concept is defined in Note 2. Let us briefly review the basic ideas of this notion:

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3: MEASURING THE AFFECTIVE RESPONSE

Individuals perceive a brand or a product as bundle of attributes. Each individual does not necessarily attach the same importance to attributes. Individuals hold certain beliefs about the degree of presence of attributes in each brand that is evaluated. Individuals have a utility function for each attribute, associating the degree of expected satisfaction or utility with the degree of presence of the attribute in the object. Individuals' attitude is structured, i.e. based on processing the stored information.

The most widely used multi-attribute model is the model developed by Fishbein (1967) and by Bass and Tarlarzyk (1969) which can be formalised as follows:

Aij =
Where: Aij wjk xijk n

k =1

jk

xijk

= attitude of individual j about brand i = relative importance to individual j of attribute k = perceived degree of presence of attribute k in brand i by individual j (score) = number of determinant attributes (k=1 to n)

This formula is a weighted average of evaluation scores. To estimate this model, the market analyst needs an importance score for each attribute and an evaluation (or performance) score of the brand with respect to each attribute. A numerical example is given in Table Web 3.1., where six brands of laptop computer are evaluated according to five determinant attributes. Table Web 3.1 A Compositional Multi-attribute Model
Brands of laptop computer Brand A Brand B Brand C Brand D Brand E Brand F Importance Differentiation* Determinance**
*

CompactNess 6 7 5 7 8 9 0.30 1.41 0.25

Autonomy 8 8 9 8 8 2 0.25 2.56 0.38

Attributes Power Keyboard Screen 9 7 9 9 5 5 0.20 1.97 0.23 8 8 8 7 6 6 0.15 0.98 0.09 7 9 8 9 7 7 0.10 0.98 0.06

Overall score*** Mean Adjusted 7.50 7.60 7.55 7.85 7.00 5.80 1.00 1.00 7.68 7.58 7.86 7.95 7.08 5.07 1.00 1.00

Differentiation of a particular attribute is measured by the standard deviation of the scores on that attribute. ** Determinance is obtained by multiplying the importance score by the differentiation score and by standardising those products to have a sum equal to 1. *** The mean score is calculated using the importance scores, while the adjusted mean score is determined using the determinance scores.

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If the potential buyer evaluates brands in a linearly additive fashion, the selected laptop computer will not necessarily be the most compact nor the one with the most readable screen, the most powerful, the most convenient keyboard, etc. The selected computer, however, will be that which is globally best for this buyer, taking into account all of the relevant attributes and their relative importance. In this example, the model suggests that brand D will be preferred by the market.

Non-compensatory models of attitude In the previous example, we can verify that the Fishbein's model is compensatory, i.e. low points on an attribute are compensated by high points obtained for other attributes. In this model, the multiplicative relations between importance and performance, the summation over all attributes and the nature of the scores show that it is a linear compensatory attitude model. This fact allows high scores in some attributes to compensate for low ratings in others. This way of evaluating brands is not necessarily the most effective one can imagine, for example, that an individual may face an absolute constraint on a price level. In this kind of situation, evaluation is no longer compensatory because one criterion dominates. In Exhibit Web 3.1 the major non-compensatory models of attitude are defined. The most common observation is a two stage choice procedure. At the first stage, the potential buyer adopts a conjunctive model allowing him to eliminate products not satisfying his minimal requirements. At the second stage, the remaining products are subjected to compensatory evaluation or lexicographic ordering. Exhibit Web 3.1 Non-compensatory Decision and Attitude Models
DISJUNCTIVE MODEL Instead of setting minimum standards on different attributes and rejecting alternatives that do not meet all those minima, the buyer sets a high standard for one or few attributes and then considers buying only those brands meeting or exceeding the standards on these attributes only. CONJUNCTIVE MODEL The buyer has some minimum cut-off level in mind for each important attribute. He or she rejects alternatives that fall below the minimum on any one of those attributes. The buyer will favour the brand(s) that exceed the minimum requirements on all-important criteria. A high score on one attribute will not compensate for a below minimum level on another. LEXICOGRAPHIC MODEL In a lexicographic model, the buyer first ranks criteria or attributes in order of importance. Next, all brands or choice alternatives are compared on the most important attribute. If one brand scores higher on the most important criterion than any other brands, then it is chosen. If not (for example, if there is a tie between several brands), then the inferior brands are eliminated and comparisons are made among the tied brands using the second most important attribute. The procedure is continued until a final superior brand remains to be chosen or until no further brands can be eliminated.

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Measuring attribute determinance To empirically measure attitude, the attributes used as choice criteria by the target group must be identified. A distinction must be made between attribute salience, importance and determinance: Salience corresponds to the fact that the attribute is in the respondent's mind at a given moment. Importance reflects the value system of the individual. Determinance reflects the ability of a particular attribute to discriminate among alternative brands.

Thus, determinance refers to important attributes, which help differentiate among objects being evaluated. If an important attribute is equally represented in all competing brands, it clearly doesn't allow discrimination among them, and is not a determinant in the choice. So measuring determinance implies not only a measure of importance, but also a differentiation score, which is a measure of perceived difference between brands with respect to each attribute. Determinance is obtained by multiplying scores of importance and differentiation. Differentiation may be measured by a direct question about perceived differences between brands for each attribute using, for example, a scale of 1 (no difference) to 5 (great difference). A simpler method would be a measure of dispersion for differentiation score (such as standard deviation of evaluation scores), as illustrated in Table Web 3.1, above. This method would prevent rendering the task of respondents too demanding. Clearly, it is with respect to determinant attributes that it is interesting to situate different competing brands in the market. In the example of Table Web 3.1 global attitude scores are calculated first with the importance scores and then with the determinance scores. The model predicts that individual j will prefer computer D. But the ranking of computers B and C is modified when the determinance scores are used.

Bibliography
1. Allport G.W. (1935), Attitudes, in Murchison C.A. (ed.), A Handbook of Social Psychology, Clark University Press, Worcester, Ma., p.798-844. 2. Assael H. and Day G.S. (1968), Attitudes and Awareness, Predictors of Market Shares, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol.8, December, pp.10-17. 3. Bass F.M. and Tarlarzyck W.W. (1969), A Study of Attitude Theory and Brand Preferences, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol.9, pp.93-95. 4. Fishbein M. (1967), Attitudes and Prediction of Behavior, in : Fishbein M. (ed.), Readings in Attitude Theory and Measurement, New York, John Wiley and Sons, p.477-492. 5. Jarvis L.P. and Wilcox J.B. (1977), Evoked Set, Some Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evidence, in : Howard J.A., Consumer Behavior Applications of Theory, New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company

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3: MEASURING THE AFFECTIVE RESPONSE

6. Rosenberg M.J. (1956), Cognitive Structure and Attitudinal Affect, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol.53, pp.367-372. 7. Wilkie W.L. and Pessemier E.A. (1973), Issues in Marketing's Use of Multi-Attribute Attitude Models, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol.10, November, pp.428-441.

Market-Driven Management: Supplementary web resource material

Jean-Jacques Lambin, 2007 Published by Palgrave Macmillan