Chapter 5

Attention and Comprehension;

Attitudes and Intentions
 Introduction

First, we examine how consumers become exposed to

marketing information. Then we discuss attention
processes by which consumers select certain
information in the environment to be interpreted.
Finally, we examine the comprehension process by
which consumers construct meanings to represent this
information, organize them into knowledge structures
and store them in memory. We emphasize the reciprocal
interactions between attention and comprehension and
the knowledge, meanings, and beliefs in memory.
 Learning Objectives

After studying this module, you should be able to:

› Know the attention and comprehension processes
› Define attitudes towards objects
› Understand the intentions and behaviours
 Four important aspects of the
cognitive system
 Interpretation involves interactions between
knowledge in memory and information from the
environment.
 The activated knowledge influences how consumers
attend to information and comprehend its meaning.
 Four important aspects of the
cognitive system cont.
 Because their cognitive systems have a limited
capacity, consumers can consciously attend to and
comprehend only small amounts of information at a
time.
 Much attention and comprehension processing
occurs quickly and automatically with little or no
conscious awareness.
 Exposure to Information

Although not a part of cognition in a strict sense,

exposure to information is critical for consumers’
interpretation processes—no exposure, no
interpretation.
Consumers are exposed to information in the
environment, including marketing strategies, primarily
through their own behaviors.
Thus, we can distinguish between two types of exposure
to marketing information: purposive or intentional
exposure and random or accidental exposure.
 Two types of exposure to
marketing information
 Purposive or intentional exposure and;
 random or accidental exposure
 Intentional exposure

 Intentional exposure occurs when customers

purposefully search for information relevant to a
goal or problem they have. 
 Accidental exposure

 Accidental exposure occurs when customers

unexpectedly encounter marketing information in
their environments.
 SELECTIVE EXPOSURE TO
INFORMATION
 As the amount of marketing in the environment
increases, consumers become more adept at
avoiding exposure.
 Or consumers do not maintain accidental
exposure to marketing information. Such
behaviors result in selective exposure to
marketing information.
 Marketing Implication

 Because of the crucial importance of exposure,

marketers should develop specific strategies to
enhance the probability that consumers will be
exposed to their information and products.
 There are three ways to do this: facilitate
intentional exposure, maximize accidental
exposure, and maintain exposure.
 Facilitate intentional exposure
 In cases where consumer’s exposure to marketing
information is the result of intentional search,
marketers should facilitate intentional exposure by
making appropriate marketing information available
when and where the consumers want it.
 Maximize accidental exposure
 Obviously, marketers should try to place their
information in environmental settings that maximize
accidental exposure to the appropriate target groups
of consumers.
 Certain types of retail outlets such as convenience
stores, ice cream shops and fast food restaurants
should be placed in locations where accidental
exposure is high.
 Maintain exposure

 Other marketing strategies are intended to

maintain exposure once it has begun.
 Television advertisements, for instance, must
generate enough attention and interest so that the
consumer will maintain exposure for 30 seconds
rather than zap the ad, turn to a magazine, or
leave the room to go to the kitchen for a snack.
 One tactic is to use distinctive sounds in TV
commercials.
 ATTENTION PROCESS

 Once consumers are exposed to marketing

information, whether accidentally or through
their own intentional behaviors, the interpretation
processes of attention and comprehension begin.
 Attention

 Is focusing on information that is relevant to

important goals and values.
Comprehension:
 The cognitive processes involved in interpreting
and understanding concepts, events, objects, and
persons in the environment.
 COMPREHENSION

 Comprehension refers to the interpretation

processes by which consumers understand or
make sense of their own behaviors and relevant
aspects of their environment.
 Variations in Comprehension

 Automatic Processing
 Elaboration
 Memorability
 Automatic Processing
 Like attention, simple comprehension processes tend to
be automatic. For instance, most consumers around the
world who see a can of Coca-Cola or a McDonald's
restaurant immediately comprehend “Coke” or
McDonald’s”.
 We can think of the direct recognition of familiar products
as a simple comprehension process in that exposure to a
familiar object automatically activities its relevant
meanings from memory perhaps its name and other
associated knowledge. Thus the person “recognizes “the
object.
 Elaboration
 Comprehension processes also vary in their
extensiveness or elaboration. The degree of
elaboration during comprehension determines the
amount of knowledge or the number of meanings
produced as well as the complexity of the
interconnections between those meanings.
 Memorability

 Deeper comprehension processes create more

abstract, more self-relevant meanings that tend to
be remembered better (higher levels of recall and
recognition) than the more concrete meanings
created by comprehension processes.
 What Is an Attitude?

 Attitude has been a key concept in psychology

for more than a century and at least 100
definitions and 500 measures of attitude have
been proposed.
 Although the dominant approach to attitudes has
changed over the years, nearly all definitions of
attitude have one thing in common: They refer
to people’s evaluations.
 Attitudes toward What?

 Consumers attitudes are always toward

some concept. We are interested in two
broad types of concepts objects and
behaviors.