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Retail Business Environment

Notes 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.

Example: Different Pepsi commercials continue showing different settings and endorsers
but the punch line “yeh dil mange more” continues. The commercials of Fevi Kwik 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.
Figure 8.2: A Typical Learning Curve

Amount learned
y

Learning

x
Number of repetitions

If a message is not repeated, consumers tend to forget most of it rapidly and repetition becomes
necessary just to maintain consumers’ level of learning. Advertisers are convinced about the
importance of the principle of repetition. However, there is disagreement about how many
repetitions are really enough for the desired effect. A number of researchers consider three ad
exposures as the optimum number, known as three-hit theory.

Stimulus Generalisation

In his experiments, Pavlov also demonstrated that the dogs could learn to salivate on hearing
somewhat similar sound produced by jingling keys. This was the case of stimulus generalisation
in dogs. Stimulus generalisation occurs when two stimuli are seen as similar and the effects of
one, therefore, can be substituted for the effects of the other. This principle states that a new but
similar stimulus or stimulus situation will produce a response that is the same or similar as that
produced by the original stimulus. The more the new stimulus is like the conditioned stimulus,
the more probable it is that the new stimulus will produce the same conditioned response.
As an increasing numbers of new products are introduced in the market, consumers use stimulus
generalisation from past experience to put them in categories. Some local or regional marketers
make use of this principle generalisation by using nearly look-alike packaging for their products
so that they resemble some well-known brands in appearance. This practice can also be seen, for
example, in case of various brands of cooking oils prepared from sunflower or soybean, or
different brands of iodised table salt. Some companies follow a policy of stimulus generalisation
and some others avoid it.

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