Consumer Behavior—How Humans Think, Feel, and Act in the Marketplace

CHAPTER 7

Consumer Attitudes

Knowing What to Want and What to Shun

INTRODUCTION

The story of OK soda (see sidebar) carries an important lesson for all students of marketing. It does not matter what a marketer says a product is or will do. What matters is what consumers come to think of it. The teen and youth of that time period did not think well of OK soda. And based on this opinion, they acted—tossing the brand into the dustbin of history. This fate is meted out to thousands of brands every year.

      Before we rush to gloat over our discerning how OK Soda idea was doomed to fail, let us remember it is hindsight not instant wisdom. Indeed, the OK soda briefly enjoyed a cult following, active even years after it was officially withdrawn. Fans reminisced in newsgroups at alt.fan.ok-soda and held onto unopened and opened soda cans as keepsake. You can find some unopened cans on eBay even today. There is no telling if the campaign wouldn’t have succeeded if continued longer, or in another place and time. A product’s success and failure alike depend on consumer attitudes, this is our point.

     At this very moment, thousands of marketers are pitching their products and services to millions of consumers around the world. Standing at consumers’ doors, on the telephone, at a business expo, in the mall, on eBay ’s auction Website, in TV and radio ads, at upscale boutiques of Florence and Madrid, and from thousands of trailer trucks at flea markets around the world. Are consumers listening to them? How are they reacting to this cacophony of slogans and promises, and to that visual parade of product images? Aside from these marketers of material goods, also soliciting the favorable opinion of consumers are charities, schools, tourist spots, casinos and nightclubs, films, TV shows, sports teams, and even presidential candidates. How do consumers come to form an opinion about these entities? What persuades them to embrace some of theses marketplace offerings while spurning others? And how can marketers win favorable consumer reactions to their offerings?

     This chapter is our answer to these questions. In this chapter, we explain the concept of attitude—the supreme precursor to all of our actions in the marketplace. We take you deep inside the mind of the consumer and witness the dynamic interplay of our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Here you will also meet TOVA, TORA, and TOTA—no, it is not the name of a new rendition of Depeche Mode’s 1981 album or some mountains in Afghanistan; these are, instead, the nicknames of three models of attitude.

     We also take a look at the motivational basis of attitudes, explaining the four functions that attitudes serve for us, and through examples we invite you to examine the motivations for some of your own deeply held attitudes—attitudes toward people (stereotypes), and attitudes toward products. Understanding these motivations can help you fashion your market offerings – advertising and all—to be consumer friendly. This chapter is a key, in other words, to getting consumers to have a good attitude toward your product offerings, and, consequently, to throw some dough your way. It is also a key to avoiding the fate of OK Soda. Read on.

Attitude—Do You Have It?

Do you have an attitude? Towards Eminem and his music? Towards the New England football team, The Patriots? Toward the TV show The Apprentice? Do you like or dislike them? And which subject do you like the most? And the least? What is your attitude toward this book? What do you think of the Budweiser commercials shown during the recent Superbowl? Do pop up ads on the Internet bother you? Which is your favorite drink – Coke or Pepsi or the Dew? And if OK Cola were introduced today, would you have had a more favorable reaction? All of  these questions are designed to elicit your attitude. So, just what is an attitude?

     In common parlance, when we refer to your attitude, we simply refer to your ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ of something, your opinion about something. If we like something, then our attitudes toward it are positive; if we dislike it, then our attitudes are negative. However, to understand fully the nature of attitudes, we need to examine a classic definition of attitudes, offered by psychologist Gordon Allport: Attitudes are learned predispositions to respond to an object in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way.[i]

This definition has several elements:

·        Attitudes are learned. That is, no one is born with them. You were not born with an attitude toward Eminem, The Patriots, Coke or Pepsi, for example, were you? Instead, you learned them during your time here on this earth. And how did you learn them? On the basis of some experience with or information about these things or persons;

·        They are targeted toward an object or a class of objects. If we ask you what is your attitude or what is your opinion, you will ask, opinion about what or attitude toward what? That “what” is the ‘object’ in our definition—attitude toward an object. And that object can be anything – a brand, a product, a company, a class, a movie, a presidential candidate, and even an idea (e.g., “the idea of ‘freedom of speech’). Thus, we hold different attitudes toward different objects.

·        Attitudes cause response. That is, they are the reason we respond, or act, in a certain way toward those objects. Thus, we drink Coke and avoid Pepsi (or the other way around) because of our attitudes toward Coke and Pepsi. And our attitudes toward Eminem and his music makes us buy or not buy his albums.

·        The response that attitudes cause is consistent. Thus, we don’t buy Eminem’s music today and avoid it tomorrow. And we don’t choose Coke today and Pepsi tomorrow (unless our attitudes toward each is equally favorable). Instead, we act toward a given object the same way over a period of time; i.e., consistently.

·        Attitude is a predisposition. By predisposition, we mean it is our “inclination.” Thus, it resides in our mind. We are predisposed to doing something or not doing something. Like we are predisposed (or inclined) to buy Eminem’s music and we are predisposed to drink Coke and not drink Pepsi.

 Predisposition—Pregnant with Meaning

This word, predisposition, is a wonderful word, pregnant with rich meaning. It is the key to the concept of attitude and to understanding the true nature of this concept. No other term can cut it as well. We could say, for example, that an attitude is your opinion about something, and broadly speaking we would be right, but opinion is what you think of something, that is all. It is not quite the same thing as predisposition. We could say attitude is your general evaluation of something—whether you view it as a good thing or a bad thing—and we would be approximately right. But the word evaluation does not quite capture it either. Predisposition—it means you have something in your mind—a thought, an opinion, an evaluation, a view, even a feeling—and,  that you are going to do something about it. You are going to act toward the object of your attitude. Predisposition makes you inclined to act. Thus, an attitude is our mental code to release some action toward something. It is an action in waiting.

Action in Waiting

This idea of attitudes as predisposition and predisposition as action in waiting is very useful to marketers. Marketers are interested, you see, in predicting consumers’ future actions or future behavior. A behavior is something we do; an attitude (predisposition) is something we have in our minds. So marketers use consumer attitudes to predict consumers’ behaviors. Thus, for example, if marketers knew that you had a positive attitude toward Eminem’s music, then they could predict that you would be likely to buy his music CDs. Marketers want to predict consumers’ behavior—specifically whether consumers will or will not buy a product, before they invest the money to make and market the product. For example, in 2003, an entrepreneurial publisher of Bibles conceived an idea about a book that would rewrite the Bible styled like a fashion magazine such as Seventeen and Vogue. But before investing a lot of money in producing the book, the publisher (Nelson Bibles) researched teen attitudes toward the concept of the proposed magazine. In focus group discussions with teenagers, the company found that the number one reason teens don't read the Bible is that it is, as teens put it, "too big and freaky looking."  So a fashion magazine format for the Holy Scriptures seemed like a perfect solution. The company published the book in October 2003, titled Revolve: The Complete New Testament.[ii] If the enthusiasm shown by consumers in their book reviews by consumers on Amazon.com is any indication, the book has been a huge success.[iii]

Remember, then, the key elements in the definition of attitude:

 (i) learned (ii) predisposition, (iii) toward an object (or a class of objects), (iv) to respond or act (toward that object and in a favorable or unfavorable way); (v) consistently.

      Review this definition a few times, so you don’t think of it as difficult. We want you to have a favorable attitude toward this definition. So that you will be predisposed to do more with it—which is what the rest of this chapter is filled with. Are you ready— oops, we mean, are you PREDISPOSED?

Excerpted from MYCBBook Chapter 7                                                                     Opinion? Write: opinion@mycbbook.com.)

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