Consumer Attitude Formation and Change

An attitude is a learned predisposition to behave in a constantly positive or negative way toward a given person, object, or event. Consumer attitude is a learned predisposition to behave in a constantly positive or negative way toward a product, brand, service, price, package, or advertisement. Consumers prefer the products and services toward which they have positive feelings, and marketers strive to develop positive attitudes in the minds of the people toward the brand and products. Developing favorable consumer attitudes toward the new products in order to attract consumers is a key marketing activity during the launching of new products. People neglect or reject unfamiliar products initially. To overcome this tendency and to establish a positive attitude, companies launch new products under established brand names.

Evaluating attitude:

Marketers do research on customer attitude by evaluating consumer attitude towards the brand, products, and services. Asking whether consumers like or dislike a product, or a service, marketing evaluates the attitudes. Evaluating consumers’ attitudes is helpful for marketing in the following ways:

To understand the level of acceptance of products.

To develop promotional strategies

To refine marketing segmentation and targeting tools

Learning Attitudes

The following factors influence the consumers’ attitude formation:

a. Personal Sources and Experiences: Personal experiences, family and friends, media, and social media strongly influence the formation of consumer attitudes. Consumers’ direct experiences by trying and evaluating have a vital role in attitude formation. Considering the importance of direct experience, coupons, free samples, and incentives to try new products are offered by marketers.

b. Personality Factors: The formation of attitudes is highly influenced by personality traits. For example, consumers with high cognitive skills develop a positive attitude towards products with high values only.

c. Situational Factors:  Situations influence the formation of attitude. Some particular events and circumstances influence individuals to make particular purchase decisions.

d. Promotional Communications: Consumers' attitude is formed through promotional messages. Marketers use promotional messages to develop positive attitudes toward new products and services under the same brand.

Tri-Component Attitude Model

Tri-Component Attitude Model is a model that describes t the structure of attitudes. According to this model, an attitude consists of three components.

1) Cognitive component:  It is an individual’s knowledge and perceptions of the features of the object. In the consumer context, the cognitive component is the knowledge of the consumer about the features of the product and the brand.

2) Affective component: It is an individual’s emotions and feelings regarding the attitude object. In the consumer context, the affective component is an individual’s emotions and feelings regarding the product and the brand.

3) Conative component:  It is the likelihood that an individual will behave in a particular way with regard to the attitude object. In the context of consumer behavior, it is the expression of the consumer’s intention to buy.

Measuring Attitude:

The attitude of an individual toward an object can be measured in the following ways:

a) Likert scale: This scale includes numbers corresponding to the level of “agreement” or “disagreement” with a series of statements about the studied object. The scale consists of an equal number of agreement/disagreement choices on either side of a neutral choice.

b) Semantic differential scale: This scale includes a series of bipolar adjectives (such as “good/bad,” or “like/dislike,””) with an odd-numbered (e.g., five- or seven-point) continuum.

Changing Consumer's Attitudes

There are two primary strategies for changing consumers’ attitudes:

a. Changing Beliefs about Products: The strategy focuses on changing the beliefs of consumers regarding the product in order to change attitudes by adding new features and specifications.  Marketers try to remind these changes to consumers consistently using the terms like “more” “better” or “best”.  Communication is repeated to overcome people’s natural resistance to changing established attitudes toward a product.

b. Changing Brand Image: The attitude and perception of consumers about a particular brand influence the performance of entire product lines under the brand. Repositioning of branding and rebranding are the activities to change the attitude of the consumers about the brand.