Dear Marketing and Consumer Behavior Professor:
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In this Newsletter, third in our CB Stories Series, we bring you a short consumer story, a crossword, and a couple of glimpses, all courtesy of: MYCBBook—the World’s Second Most Interesting Book on Consumer Behavior We hope you will enjoy them. |
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Extreme Fandom In 2005, a man named Eric James Torpy of Oklahoma City received a 30-year jail sentence. He requested that his jail term be extended by three years. Reason: Larry Bird's jersey # is 33. His request was granted. |
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We have designed for you a Crossword puzzle. As far as we know, this is the world's first Crossword puzzle on Consumer Behavior. Enjoy it. (And spread the joy!) Go >> |
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You Ask: This is the World's Second Most Fascinating CB Book, eh? Show me a student-engaging para.
Sure, here is one: |
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Stimulus Generalization The Art of Not Having to Learn All the Time Consider the child who burned his hand by touching a yellow light bulb; he would never touch a yellow light bulb again, for he has learned that a glowing yellow ball-shaped object is painful to touch. In fact, he would most likely also learn that he shouldn’t touch a white, red, or blue light bulb either—or, for that matter, anything that glows, even if it is not hot. This is a good thing; otherwise the poor child would have to learn a new response to each new object and never have any time to play. Likewise, as consumers, we don’t have to learn to respond anew every time we encounter a new stimulus. We quickly and instinctively repeat the response we have made in the past to other similar stimuli. .... This happens because humans learn to see the similarities even when two things are not exactly identical. Psychologists call this process stimulus generalization—a process wherein a consumer extends a learned response for one stimulus to other similar stimuli. |
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You say: Ok, now show me a thought-provoking para. Well, let us try this: |
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On Consumer Learning (or A Meta Lesson for Marketers on Consumer Learning) Learners—that is us. We are constantly learning something. Without learning, our progress as a person would simply stop. Try listing everything you have learned over the past 20 years, or even 10 years. Can you visualize your life today, as a human, if today you knew only as much as you knew 20 (or even 10) years ago? More to the point, can you visualize your life as a consumer if today you knew about the marketplace only what you knew at age 10 or even 15? Learning empowers you, in life and in the marketplace. All learning is, in essence, learning the association. Association between two stimuli (classical conditioning), between an act and a reward (instrumental conditioning), between an act and what that act will make you like (role modeling), and between an object and its name e.g., simple brand name awareness (simple cognitive learning) or between an object and a property or consequence, e.g., a brand claim (cognitive learning). These associations occur in our physical and social worlds, some created by nature, some by society at large, and not an insignificant number of them by marketers. As a marketer, you pair your brand with a celebrity; pair it with certain lifestyle depictions; pair it with an upscale, trendy store; pair it with certain product benefits; with certain emotions; certain consumer values and aspirations. But you can’t “manufacture” them in your image, in isolation with the pairings (associations) consumers have learned in their world-at-large. You can’t put together a pairing of just any two entities you desire to be associated in the consumer mind, and say “Viola! The consumer will have learned (i.e., accepted) that association.” Consumers will accept only those pairings (associations) they find intuitively sensible. And, in one way or another, rewarding. As a marketer, LEARN THAT! (Source: MyCBBook, Chapter 4, section titled Last Word) Have opinion? Please write: OpinionATopenmentis.com |
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I. m. p. o. r. t. a. n. t. L. i. n. k. s. Request A Review Copy Reviews Brief Contents Instructor's Resources Data Set Book Info for Professors Auto-customized Preface Last Last Word
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Happy reading!
www.openmentis.com OM —Open Mentis |