Consumer learning is a process that evolves and changes as consumers acquire knowledge from

experience, observation, and interactions with others and newly acquired knowledge affects future
behavior. It ranges from simple and often reflexive responses to marketing stimuli (such as
packaging, product colors, and promotional messages), to learning abstract concepts and making
decisions about purchasing complex and expensive products.

Though much learning is intentional (i.e., it is acquired as the result of a search for information), a
great deal of learning is incidental, acquired by accident or without much effort. For example, some
ads may induce learning—like the new products under a familiar brand name featured in the two
ads in Figure 5.1—without learning being deliberately sought, whereas other ads are sought out and
carefully read by consumers contemplating major purchases. Learning consists of four elements:
motives, cues, responses, and reinforcement.

Motives

Uncovering consumer motives is the primary objective of marketers, who seek to teach consumers
how they can fill their needs by buying certain products and brands. Unfilled needs lead to
motivation, which spurs learning. For example, men and women who want to take up bicycle riding
for fitness and recreation are motivated to learn all they can about bike riding and practice often.
They may seek information concerning the prices, quality, and characteristics of bicycles and learn
which bicycles are the best for the kind of riding that they do.

Cues

Cues are stimuli that direct motivated behavior. An advertisement for an exotic trip that includes
bike riding may serve as a cue for bike riders, who may suddenly “recognize” that they “need” a
vacation. The ad is the cue (or stimulus) that suggests a specific way to satisfy a salient motive. In
marketing, price, styling, packaging, advertising, and store displays are cues designed to persuade
consumers to fulfill their needs by buying specific products.

Responses

In the context of learning, response is an individual’s reaction to a drive or cue. Learning can occur
even when responses are not overt. The automobile manufacturer that provides consistent cues to a
consumer may not always succeed in stimulating a purchase. However, if the manufacturer succeeds
in forming a favorable image of a particular automobile model in the consumer’s mind, it is likely
that the consumer will consider that make or model when he or she is ready to buy a car.

Reinforcement

Reinforcement is the reward—the pleasure, enjoyment, and benefits—that the consumer receives
after buying and using a product or service. For the marketer, the challenge is to continue to provide
consumers with an ongoing positive product or service, thus reinforcing future purchases. To
illustrate, if a person visits a restaurant for the first time, likes the food, service, and ambience, and
also feels he or she received value for the money paid, that customer was reinforced and is likely to
dine at the restaurant again. If that person becomes a regular customer, the restaurant’s owner
should further reinforce the customer’s continued patronage by, for example, giving the customer a
free drink and recognizing the person by name upon arrival. Of course, the quality of the food and
service must be maintained, as they are the key elements reinforcing the customer’s continued
visits. In contrast, if a patron leaves a restaurant disappointed with the quality of the food or the
service or feels “ripped off,” reinforcement has not occurred. Because of the absence of
reinforcement, it is unlikely that the customer will visit the restaurant again.
Classical Conditioning

Behavioral learning is sometimes referred to as stimulus-response learning because it is based on

Classical conditioning is viewed as a “knee-jerk” (or automatic) response that builds up through
repeated exposure and reinforcement. For instance, if Tyler’s friends compliment him on his
expensive Prada boots, he is likely to save money to buy a pair of Prada sneakers.

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, developed the concept of classical conditioning. Pavlov
maintained that conditioned learning results when a stimulus that is paired with another stimulus
that elicits a known response produces the same response when used alone. Pavlov demonstrated
what he meant by “conditioned learning” in his studies with dogs. Genetically, dogs are always
hungry and highly motivated to eat. In his experiments, Pavlov sounded a bell and then immediately
applied a meat paste to the dogs’ tongues, which caused them to salivate. After a number of such
pairings, the dogs responded the same way—that is, they salivated—to the bell alone as they did to
the meat paste.

For several years during high school, you always watched your favorite TV sitcom—which begins
with the show’s musical theme—with your best friend and every night at 7:00 p.m. Then you and
your best friend went to different colleges. After you settled down in your new dorm, at 7:00 p.m.
you turned on the TV to watch your favorite sitcom and the show’s musical theme came on. You
immediately thought about your friend and felt sad about watching the show alone. Feeling sad
when you think about a best friend from whom you are now separated is a natural, human response
and is therefore an unconditioned stimulus (i.e., a stimulus that occurs naturally in response to given
circumstances). Furthermore, before you started watching the sitcom with your friend every night,
the show’s musical theme was a neutral stimulus that elicited neither behavior nor any feelings.
Later on, while watching the sitcom alone, the same music triggered a particular response—feeling
sad—so it has become a conditioned stimulus (i.e., a stimulus that became associated with a
particular event or feeling as a result of repetition). Feeling sad whenever you hear the music is a
conditioned response

Associative Learning

Contemporary behavioral scientists view classical conditioning as learning of associations among

The Role of Repetition

In advertising, repetition is the key to forming associations between brands and fulfillment of needs.
For example, having a healthy mouth and good oral hygiene are a human need (i.e., unconditioned
stimulus), which many consumers associate with the word “Crest.” Why? Because after more than
50 years of repetitive advertising and uncountable ads, upon hearing or seeing the name “Crest”
consumers think of a premium product for keeping their mouth and teeth healthy and protected
from bacteria, diseases, and deterioration. Crest is a conditioned stimulus and the consumers’
associations are conditioned responses
Repetition increases the strength of the association between two stimuli and slows down forgetting
this connection. However, the amount of repetition that aids retention is limited. Although
repetition beyond what is necessary for the initial learning aids retention, at some point an
individual becomes satiated with numerous exposures, and both attention and retention decline.
This effect is called advertising wear-out, and marketers reduce it by using different ads expressing
the same message or advertising theme

HSBC positions itself as “the world’s local bank.” An advertising campaign, entitled “Different
Values,” consisted of about 20 ads centered on the theme that “different values make the world a
richer place.

not everyone agrees on how much repetition is enough. Some marketing scholars believe that just
three exposures to an advertisement are needed: One to make consumers aware of the product, a
second to show consumers the relevance of the product, and a third to remind them of its benefits.
This exposure pattern is called the three-hit theory

Stimulus Generalization

According to classical conditioning theorists, learning depends not only on repetition but also on
individuals’ ability to “generalize.” Pavlov found, for example, that a dog could learn to salivate not
only to the sound of a bell, but also to similar sounds such as jangling keys or coins. Responding the
same way to slightly different stimuli is called stimulus generalization. Stimulus generalization
explains why some imitative me-too products succeed in the marketplace: Consumers confuse them
with the original product they have seen advertised. It also explains why manufacturers of private-
label brands try to make their packaging closely resemble that of the national brand leaders

Instrumental conditioning (or operant conditioning)

is based on the notion that learning occurs through a trial-and-error process, with habits formed as
a result of rewards received for certain responses or behaviors. Like classical conditioning,
instrumental conditioning requires a link between a stimulus and a response. However, in
instrumental conditioning, the stimulus that results in the most rewarded response is the one that is
learned. For example, after visiting stores, consumers know which stores carry the type of clothing
they prefer at prices they can afford to pay. Once they find a store that carries clothing that meets
their needs, they are likely to patronize it to the exclusion of other stores. Every time they purchase
a shirt or a sweater there that they really like, their store loyalty is rewarded (reinforced), and they
are likely to become repeat customers.

most learning occurs in environments where individuals are “rewarded” for choosing an appropriate
behavior. In consumer behavior terms, instrumental conditioning suggests that consumers learn by
means of a trial-and-error process in which some purchase behaviors result in more favorable
outcomes (i.e., rewards) than others. A favorable experience is the instrument of teaching the
individual to repeat a specific behavior.

Reinforcing Behavior Skinner distinguished between two types of reinforcement that influence the
likelihood that a response will be repeated. The first type, positive reinforcement, rewards a
particular behavior and thus strengthens the likelihood of a specific response during the same or
similar situation. For example, a child receives ice cream when passing an ice cream stand and
receives pleasure from eating it. Then, whenever he passes by the stand he asks for ice cream.
Negative reinforcement is the removal of an unpleasant stimulus and it strengthens the likelihood of
a given response during the same or similar circumstances. For example, a child has a cold and also
hates swallowing pills. Her mother convinces her to take Advil and her cold symptoms go away (i.e.,
the unpleasant stimulus is removed). Next time she has a cold, most likely the girl will readily agree
to swallow a pill, and might even ask specifically for an Advil. Therefore, marketers of headache
remedies use negative reinforcement when they illustrate the unpleasant symptoms of an
unrelieved headache, as do marketers of mouthwash when they show the loneliness suffered by
someone with bad breath.

Reinforcement Schedules

Product quality must be consistently high and satisfy customers every time they buy the product—
but additional rewards do not have to be offered during every transaction, because occasional
rewards often effectively reinforce consumers’ patronage. For example, airlines occasionally upgrade
a passenger at the gate; here, the possibility of receiving a reward is the reinforcement and incentive
for continued patronage. Psychologists have identified three reinforcement schedules: Continuous,
fixed ratio, and variable ratio. With continuous reinforcement, a reward is provided after each
transaction, such as a free after-dinner drink or fruit plate always served to regular patrons of a
restaurant. A fixed ratio reinforcement schedule provides reinforcement every nth time the product
or service is purchased (say, every third time). For example, a retailer may send a credit voucher to
account holders every three months, based on a percentage of the customer’s purchases during the
prior quarter. A variable ratio reinforcement schedule rewards consumers on a random basis.
Gambling casinos operate on the basis of variable ratios. People pour money into slot machines
(which are programmed to pay off on a variable ratio), hoping for the big win.

Shaping Reinforcement

performed before the desired consumer behavior actually takes place is called shaping. Shaping
increases the probability that certain desired consumer behavior will occur. For example, retailers
recognize that they must first attract customers to their stores before they can expect those
customers to do the bulk of their shopping there.

Massed versus Distributed Learning

As illustrated previously, timing has an important influence on consumer learning. Should a learning
schedule be spread out over a period of time, which is termed distributed learning, or should it be
“bunched up” all at once, which is called massed learning? The question is an important one for
advertisers planning a media schedule, because massed advertising produces more initial learning,
whereas a distributed schedule usually results in learning that persists longer. When advertisers
want an immediate impact (e.g., to introduce a new product or to counter a competitor’s blitz
campaign), they generally use a massed schedule to hasten consumer learning.

Observational learning (or modeling)

is the process through which individuals learn behavior by observing the behavior of others and the
consequences of such behavior. For this type of learning to occur, reinforcement must take place.
Advertisers recognize the importance of observational learning in selecting the models they feature
in advertisements, whether celebrities or unknowns. If a teenager sees an ad that depicts social
success as the outcome of using a certain brand of shampoo, she will want to buy it. If her brother
sees a commercial that shows a muscular young athlete eating Wheaties—“the breakfast of
champions”—he will want to eat it, too.

Sensory Store
The sensory store is the mental “space” in the human mind where sensory input lasts for just a
second or two. If it is not processed immediately, it is lost. All data come to us through our senses,
but the senses do not carry whole images, like a camera.

Short-Term Store

The short-term store is where information is processed and held for just a brief period. Anyone who
has ever looked up a number in a telephone book, only to forget it just before dialing, knows how
briefly information lasts in short-term storage.

Long-Term Store

The long-term store is the mental “space” where information is retained for extended periods of
time, in contrast to the short-term store, where information lasts only a few seconds.

Encoding

is the process by which we select a word or visual image to represent a perceived object. Marketers
help consumers encode brands by using brand symbols. Kellogg’s uses Tony the Tiger on its Frosted
Flakes; the Green Giant Company has its Jolly Green Giant. Dell Computer turns the e in its logo on
its side for quick name recognition, and Apple uses its stylish and distinctive insignia.

Retrieval

is the process by which people recover information from the long-term store; it is frequently
triggered by external cues. For example, when we see a product in the store or on TV, we
automatically retrieve the applicable information our brains have stored. If the brand is distinctive
and heavily advertised, or if we had a memorable experience using it, the retrieval will be quicker
than that for less sought-after brands. Some scientists used brain-imaging technologies, normally
used in medicine, to examine information retrieval. For example, when men looked at racy sports
cars, their reward centers were activated.