Chapter 8

Motivation, Emotion, Mood, and

Involvement

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Chapter Spotlights
 How human needs motivate consumers to
buy
 What specific motives play a role in
marketplace behavior
 How marketers can elicit specific emotions to
sell products and services
 How moods affect consumption patterns
 How consumer involvement with products
and services changes the effects of marketing
information

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Consumer Motivation
 It is the drive to satisfy
needs and wants, both
physiological and
psychological, through the
purchase and use of
products and services.
 Stages (Exh. 8-2) of the
motivation process:
 Latent need
 Drive
 Want or desire
 Goal
 Behavior

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Behavioral Models of
Motivation
 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
 Motivation as a means of satisfying human needs
 Five types of needs:
 Physiological: food, water, sleep, exercise, sex
 Safety: security, shelter, normalcy in daily life
 Love and belongingness: affection and acceptance as part of a
family or group
 Esteem or status: respect from others; need to feel competent,
confident, important, and appreciated; self-respect
 Self-actualization: the need to realize one’s own potential, to
achieve dreams and ambitions; hunger for knowledge and
understanding; to do things for the sake of doing them
 Marketing implications

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Models (continued)
 Dichter’s major consumption motives
 1950 study regarding the consumer needs
motivating the purchase of Ivory soap
(P&G).
 He found a relation between the use of soap
and the need for spiritual purity
 12 key motivations lead to product purchase

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Models (continued)
 Sheth’s consumer motives
 Five dimensions of motivation concerning
products/services benefits
 Functional – utility or function performed
 Aesthetic/emotional – appearance or
attractiveness
 Social – status or esteem value
 Situational – unexpected benefit
 Curiosity – interest aroused

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Consumer Motivation and
Marketplace Behavior
 Influence on consumer decision making (Exh
8-6)
 Influence on consumer conflict resolution
 Approach-approach conflict – choosing between
two equally attractive options
 Approach-avoidance conflict – considering an
option that has both good and bad outcomes
 Avoidance-avoidance conflict – choosing between
two undesirable options

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Triggering Consumer Motives
 Encouraging need recognition
 Attempt to move consumer from actual
state to desired state
 Triggering motivation through need-
benefit segmentation
 Understand consumer benefits sought and
offer goods and services to deliver these
benefits to specific target segments

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Emotions
 Emotions are affective responses that
reflect the activation within the consumer
of beliefs that are deep-seated and value-
laden.
 Beliefs  emotions

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Emotions (continued)
 Experiencing emotions
 People purchase products and services to experience
certain emotional states or to achieve emotional goals
(emotional arousal)
 Emotions and consumer satisfaction: e.g. joy or
pleasant surprise yield satisfaction while distress
or anger yield dissatisfaction
 Emotions and communication: e.g. pleasure or
displeasure with ad yields similar attitudes toward
the ad and the product. Some ads are designed
to arouse specific emotions.

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

How Emotional States are
Induced
 People have little control over the
affective system
 Affective responses to environmental cues
are immediate and automatic (e.g. color)
 Some control is possible through our
behavior
 Advertising and emotions
 Anger
 Fear
 Humor
 Warmth

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Mood
 It is an affective state that is general and
pervasive
 Moods are much less intense than emotions
 Consumers are much less conscious of moods and
the effect of moods on marketplace behavior.
 Consumer moods are induced in three different
marketplace settings (Exh. 8 –12):
 Service encounters
 Point-of-Purchase stimuli
 Communications

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Effects of Moods
 On consumer recall
 Recall increases if mood at time of
encoding and retrieval match
 On consumer evaluation
 Negative mood  negative product or
service evaluation (and vice versa)
 On consumer behavior
 Positive mood increases giving, encourages
consumers to seek variety and their
willingness to try new things

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Inducing Positive Moods
 In service encounters
 Transaction mechanics
 Service personnel
 Physical setting
 In marketing
communications
 Media placement – medium is
part of the message
 Message aspects – claims,
emotional music, pictures, etc.

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Involvement
 A heightened state of awareness based on
importance that motivates consumers to seek
out, attend to, and think about product
information prior to purchase.
 Two types of involvement
 Situational – tied to a particular
situation/circumstance and specific product
 Enduring – tied to a product category; persistent
over time and across different situations

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Effects of Consumer
Involvement
 Information search
 High involvement  greater information search (more
shopping around)
 Information processing
 Depth of comprehension
 High involvement  deeper comprehension
 Extent of cognitive elaboration
 High involvement  more thinking
 Extent of external arousal
 High involvement  greater emotional arousal
 Information transmission
 High involvement  more frequent information transmission
(talking about products) to others

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Causes of Consumer
Involvement
 Personal factors
 Product’s image and needs it serves are congruent with a
consumer’s self-image, values and needs  high
involvement
 Product factors
 The greater the perceived risk the greater consumer
involvement
 The more alternatives there are to choose from, the greater
the involvement
 The higher the hedonic value of goods, the greater the
involvement
 The more socially visible a product is, the greater the
involvement

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Causes (continued)
 Situational factors
 Social pressure can significantly increase
involvement
 The imminence of the decision
heightens involvement
 Irrevocable purchase decisions heighten
enrollment

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Involvement-based Consumer
Behavior Models
 Low-involvement learning model
 Replacing old brand perceptions with new beliefs without

attitude change
 Learn (information)-Feel (attitude)-Do (behavior) hierarchy (See
Exhibit 8 – 14)
 High involvement/high thinking (Thinker): Learn-Feel-Do

 High involvement/high feeling (Feeler): Feel-Learn-Do

 Low involvement/low thinking (Doer): Do-Learn-Feel

 Low involvement/low feeling (Reactor): Do-Feel-Learn

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002

Models (continued)
 Level of message processing model
 Consumer attention to advertising is influenced by
the following four levels of involvement: pre-
attention, focal attention, comprehension, and
elaboration
 Product versus brand involvement model
 Brand loyalists
 Information seekers
 Routine brand buyers
 Brand switchers

Copyright Atomic Dog Publishing, 2002