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Unit 6: Consumer Learning
unconditioned and conditioned stimuli occurring together, the stronger the association between Notes
them will develop. Consumers can be conditioned to develop positive impressions and images
of brands through the associative process.
From classical conditioning emerge three basic concepts important for understanding consumer
behaviour: repetition, stimulus generalisation, and stimulus discrimination.
Repetition
People have a tendency to forget and one proven method of increasing retention of learning is
repetition. Repetition is believed to work by strengthening the bond of association and thus
slowing the process of forgetting. Learning follows a pattern which is known as learning curve.
In the Figure 6.2, ‘x’ axis shows the number of repetitions and ‘y’ axis represents the amount of
learning. In a typical case, the rate of learning is quite rapid in the early stages. In later stages, as
the amount learned accumulates, the rate of learning per repetition decreases. This shows that
there is a limit to the amount of repetition that will aid learning and beyond a limit, the
attention and, the rate of learning will decline.
According to Julian L Simon and John Arndt, ad repetition apparently leads to a curve similar to
the learning curve shown in Figure 6.2. In their specific situations, advertisers must determine
whether the general pattern shown by the learning curve actually fits their particular products.
For instance, it is quite possible that in case of low-involvement purchase situations fewer
exposures might be needed to register simple facts such as brand names or brand recognition. In
situations where the typical learning curve is appropriate, there are some important implications.
For example, an advertiser must be willing to repeat an ad message several times. It is due to
this reason that a brand name is often repeated a number of times in just one advertisement. For
repetitions beyond a point, the advertiser pays only for fractional increases in consumer learning.
Another implication is the effect known as advertising wear-out, which is the result of
overexposure because of much repetitive advertising leading to individuals’ boredom, disinterest
and decreased attention and retention of the message. According to David W Schumann, Richard
E Petty and D Scott Clemons, varying the ad message can decrease the advertising wear-out
effect. This can be accomplished by repeating the same message or theme in a variety of execution
formats. For example, different Pepsi commercials continue showing different settings and
endorsers but the punch line “yeh dil mange more” continues. The commercials of FeviQuick
continue with the theme “chutki mein chipkae” in different humorous settings. In this type of
advertising variation approach, there is no real change in message content of different
advertisements and for this reason some researchers have called it as cosmetic variation. When
the advertising content is changed in different versions of the same ad without any changes in
cosmetic features, this approach is called substantive variation. According to Curtis P Haugtvedt,
David W Schumann, Wendy L Schneier and Wendy L Warren, consumers exposed to ads with
substantive variation process more information about product attributes and the formed attitudes
are more resistant to change compared to ads with cosmetic variation.
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