Global Institute of Management, Amritsar

Gurjeetpal Singh Sandhu

 Introduction
Consumer learning is a branch of consumer behavior
that focuses in the learning processes of consumers.
 This area has been of great interest to marketers
since this knowledge represents an important
opportunity to teach individuals in their role as
consumers.
By teaching them, marketers can ensure that their
products and services will be preferred over their
competitors.
In today’s competitive and ever-changing business
environment, it is more and more important for a
company and its brand(s) to be able to stand out from
the competitors, and to offer something genuinely
unique for the consumers.
In addition the increasingly growing volume and
spread of marketing and advertising is creating a big
challenge for the companies to either create
awareness of their new products or keep the interest
of consumers in their current products.
 Definition of Learning
From a psychological perspective, learning refers to a
relatively permanent change in behavior which comes
with experience.
From the marketing point of view, consumer learning
is the process by which individuals acquire the
purchase and consumption knowledge and experience
they apply to future related behavior.
 BEHAVIOURAL LEARNING
THEORIES
Solomon state that behavioral learning theories are
based on the assumption that learning takes place as
the result of responses to external events.
In turn, Schiffman refer to behavioral learning
theories as stimulus-response theories since they
primarily focus on the inputs and outcomes that
result in learning.
The behavioral approach sees the mind of the
individual as a “black box” emphasizing the
observable aspects of behavior.
Behavior theory of learning is represented by two
main learning theories:
Classical conditioning
Instrumental conditioning
 Classical conditioning
According to this theory both animal and humans are
relatively passive entities that could be taught certain
behaviors through repetition or conditioning
As a process, classical conditioning occurs when a
stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another
stimulus that initially does not elicit any response on
its own. In the course of time, the second stimulus
produces an equal response because it is associated
with the first stimulus
Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, was the first to
demonstrate this phenomenon in the behaviour of dogs
and proposed it as a general model on how learning occurs.
 Pavlov induced classical conditioning learning by pairing a
neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause
salivation response in dogs.
He squirted meat powder into their mouths. The powder
was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) because it was
naturally capable of causing the response.
 After many repetitions of the test, the bell became a
conditioned stimulus (CS).
This means that despite it did not initially cause salivation
after the repetitions the dog learned to associate the bell
with the meat powder.
Finally the ringing sound caused the salivation. The
response of the dog over the sound, now mentally linked to
the feeding time, is called conditioned response (CR)
(Solomon et al. 1999, 66).
 Applications of classical
conditioning
Nowadays, companies are concerned with the creation
and perpetuation of brand equity. This term refers to
certain attributes of the brand that result in customers'
personal commitment to the brand.
For the creation of brand equity companies strongly rely
on conditioned associations derived from learning theory.
It is mainly through advertising that companies intend to
teach customers. For teaching purposes there are many
communication channels that can be utilized, e.g. print-
ads, television, radio, or magazines.
However, According to Solomon et some channels are
preferred over others for conditioning.
Example: Renowned American cowboy man and the
cigarette, which are immediately related to Marlboro
brand. In some cases, companies have no need to
include their brand name in their ads since
consumers have learned so well to relate certain
elements to the brand
 Repetition
Enough exposure to the ad must be ensured for the
conditioning to occur. The associations between UCS and
CS require a certain number of exposures.
Theorists agree that about three exposures to the ad are
enough. More than three may be a waste of resources, and
in some cases it may have negative effects.
 When consumers have been exposed too much to an ad,
it loses effectiveness and finally the consumer will not pay
much attention to it. This is called marketing wear out.
It can be overcome by simple cosmetic variations while
keeping the same theme and message: using different
backgrounds, different spokespersons, different colors,
etc. These variations must be carefully made so that the
conditioning association does not alter dramatically
Conditioning and its disadvantages
In conditioning theory there is an unconditioned stimulus
(UCS) and a conditioned stimulus (CS).
The CS is usually the product or brand that marketers teach
consumers to recognize and prefer over others.
The UCS is the positive stimulus; usually something that makes
consumers feel good, and this must be presented previous to
the CS.
 The order is very important; after the consumer has got a good
feeling, the product or brand is presented as the way for the
fulfillment of this positive state.
For example, showing a soft drink and then playing the jingle is
not effective. Because order is fundamental in conditioning.
 Written media is not the best channel for the creation of
conditioning as marketers cannot control the sequence in
which stimuli are perceived. Usually radio- and television
advertising is preferred for conditioning consumers
 Stimulus Generalization
Stimulus generalization means the more similar two
stimuli are, the more likely a person is to respond to them
as if they were the same stimulus.
The associations between UCS and CS learned by
consumers can be extrapolated to other CS stimulus.
For example, a positive association that involves pleasant
feelings towards a product can be evoked by using another
product that looks alike.
This human psychological property of association and
extrapolation has been well exploited by marketers as well
as brand pirates.
The main application of stimulus generalization is that it
enables the projection of success of one product or brand
to others.
 Example
For example, a green traffic light tells the driver when
to drive on through an intersection. Not all green
lights have exactly the same green colors; yet, we
react to them in the exact same way.
Suppose you buy an IBM computer. If your
experience is rewarding, your response to computers
and IBM will be positively reinforced. Later on, when
you want to buy a printer, you may assume that
because IBM makes good computers, IBM also makes
good printers. In other words, you generalize your
response to similar stimuli.
 Example
This type of piracy has become popular, and can be
illustrated by the chemist's shop own-brand
mouthwash that looks like Listerin. The underlying
intention of copying the package is the increase of
sales by evoking a similar response in consumers who
assume that this product possesses the same good
characteristics of the original one. The main
application of stimulus generalization is that it
enables the projection of success of one product or
brand to others. The strategies based on stimulus
generalization include the following
A consumer who learns that Nestles' Crunch candy
bars taste good and therefore assumes that their new
Nestles' Nesquik chocolate drink will also taste good
has engaged in stimulus generalization. At some
point, stimulus generalization becomes dysfunctional
because less and less similar stimuli are still being
grouped together. At this point, consumers must
begin to be able to differentiate among the stimuli.
This process refers to stimulus discrimination, the
process of learning to respond differently to similar
but very distinct stimuli.
 Family branding
This strategy takes advantage of consumer's ability to
generalize positive brand associations from one product to
another, i.e. it uses the brand's good reputation to
introduce successfully new products
For example, BMW continuously adds new cars and
motorcycles under the BMW brand name to get customers
acceptance. Satisfied customers may assume that the
recently introduced products are as good as the previous
ones under the same brand. The final goal of a company is
to transform their brand name into an icon of quality; this
was discussed before under the name of brand equity
 Product line extensions
This strategy is very close to family branding, with the
only exception that the products added to the
established brand are related, but not completely
different.
For example, the well recognized fruit producer
company Dole has recently added different kinds of
juices to its product assortment. The idea is sound;
consumers may easily associate high quality and
freshness to the juices, since Dole has been providing
fruits since 1851.
 Licensing
 It is a marketing strategy where third party manufacturers produce under the
brand of a well recognized company.
 The brand is rented by those firms in order to attain acceptance from
consumers that trust in the high quality of the brand. Companies like Nike,
Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, and Disney use licensing as their business
strategy.
 In spite of the positive returns licensing has generated, it has a major
disadvantage: counterfeit products. These products use illegally the brand
name of a recognised company in order to increase their sales. Annually, the
affected companies lose huge amounts of money in sales, and what is worst;
their brand name loses credibility as consumers get disappointed due to low
quality of counterfeit products (Schiffman et al. 2008b, 218).
 Look-alike packaging: consumers easily relate the product's package to its
brand. This strong association is exploited by marketers of generic and
private-label brands who want to communicate to consumers that their
product is similar in quality to the original one (Solomon et al. 1999, 73).
 Stimulus Discrimination
In stimulus discrimination, the reverse is true.
Stimulus discrimination refers to a situation in which
we react differently to two or more stimuli.
Stimulus discrimination is when the organism learns
to make a response to a given stimulus, but avoids
making the same response to a similar stimulus
Keeping with traffic lights as an example, we would
push down on the accelerator when the light is green,
but put on the brakes when the light turns red. Unless
we are colorblind, we can clearly discriminate
between the two colors.

Stimulus Discrimination
It is opposite of stimulus generalization and results in selection of a
specific stimulus from among similar stimuli.(Positioning, Product
differentiation).
 Leader companies usually work with product discrimination strategies
in order to accomplish differentiation from their competitors while
follower companies usually adopt stimulus generalization strategies
copying market leaders.
 Manufacturers of well-established brands encourage their customers
to prefer their product over cheap copies; otherwise the results will
not be the expected weakening the leader company's created
conditioning associations.
 As the consumer buys the product imitation expecting to get the same
or close results to the original one he or she will be disappointed by
the clear differences in quality between products.
 This may have two effects; either the consumer buys again the
respected brand product or decides to give up the whole brand and
the imitation product altogether. For this reason, companies warn
their consumers against imitations.
 Consumers have the ability to discriminate between similar stimuli.
This is the basis for brand positioning which attempts to establish a
unique image for the brand in the minds of consumers resulting in
high degrees of commitment towards the brand . Because brand
positioning is costly and it takes time to achieve, market leaders are
vigilant concerning product imitations; look-alike packaging, ads, etc,
and they are ready to immediately take legal action against this type
of violations.
 Leader companies also try to differentiate their products from the
competition by adding different attributes that are meaningful to the
customers. However, the added attributes do not always offer any
special utility to the customer; in some cases marketers have been
able to successfully differentiate their products by adding irrelevant
attributes like color or a non-contributing ingredient. Moreover, the
companies that arrive first to the market have good chances of
becoming the market leaders as they have time to teach consumers to
differentiate their products as well as to associate their brand name
with their products.
 Rule of thumb
 The longer the time of learning, the greater the
product association and the more consumers will
discriminate . This means the more history we have
with a product, the more we, as consumers, will
discriminate.
 Instrumental Conditioning
Like Classical conditioning, Instrumental
conditioning requires a link between a stimulus and a
response.
 However, in instrumental conditioning, the stimulus
that result in the most satisfactory response is the one
that is learned.
Instrumental conditioning, occurs as the person
learns to perform behaviors that produce positive
outcomes and to avoid those that yield negative
outcomes
Operant Conditioning or Instrumental conditioning
is a concept developed by B.F Skinner based on the
principle of rewards and punishments.
This learning technique is used in behavior
modification, child discipline and even dog training.
It is the process in which a voluntary response is
strengthened or weakened, depending on its favorable
or unfavorable consequences.
 An individual learns to continue those behaviors that
are rewarded or reinforced and learns to discontinue
those behaviors that are punished.
 Experiments in Operant
Conditioning
Edward L. Thorndike was the forerunner of this
concept. He experimented on cats by putting them in
a cage that had a lever which opened the door.
Outside the cage was a plate of food. The cat
wandered around the cage and unintentionally
stepped on the lever and got its food. After a few
more trails, it automatically stepped on the lever to
get to its food. Hence, behavior had been learnt as the
action of stepping on the lever had been rewarded
with food.
Whereas in classical conditioning responses are
involuntary and quite simple, responses in
instrumental conditioning are made deliberately to
obtain something in exchange.
While classical conditioning is useful for explaining
how consumers learn simple behaviors, instrumental
conditioning is useful in explaining more complex
goal-directed behaviors.
While classical conditioning involves the close
pairing of two stimuli, operant conditioning occurs as
the result of a rewarding the individual after the
desired behaviour
there are three ways in which operant conditioning
can occur: positive reinforcement, negative
reinforcement, and punishment
Positive reinforcement refers to delivering a reward
after the desired behavior is performed encouraging
the learning of the appropriate response .
negative reinforcement, also strengthens responses so
that appropriate behavior is learned.
In punishment a response is followed by unpleasant
events which aim at teaching individuals to perform
the desired behaviour in order to avoid the negative
effects. The negative results previously mentioned
teach people not to repeat undesired behaviours
The negative results previously mentioned teach
people not to repeat undesired behaviours. Positive
and negative reinforcement strengthen the future
linkage between a response and an outcome because
of the pleasant experience. These specific ties may be
weakened under conditions of both punishment and
extinction
 Scheduling
A central factor in operant conditioning is the set of
schedules by which reinforcement is given for
appropriate behaviour. The schedules determine how
often reinforcement is delivered; it can be done
according to a fixed-interval, variable-interval, fixed-
ratio, or variable-ratio. Determining which one is the
most effective schedule for reinforcement is of high
importance for marketers since it is directly related to
the amount of resources and effort dedicated to
rewarding consumers with the objective of
conditioning the desired behaviours
in fixed-interval schedule reinforcement is delivered
after a specified period has passed. In such conditions,
individuals usually respond slowly immediately after
the reinforcement but their responses speed up as the
time for the next reinforcement approaches. In
variable-interval schedule reinforcement is delivered
after a period of time that varies around some
average. This means that people do not precisely
know when to expect reinforcement, thus responses
are therefore performed at a consistent rate
When reinforcement is delivered after a fixed number
of responses, the schedule is called fixed-ratio. This
schedule motivates people to continue performing the
same behaviour over and over again. In turn, variable-
ratio is when the person gets reinforced after a certain
number of responses, but the consumer does not
know how many responses are required. In this kind
of situations people tend to respond at very high and
steady rates. This type of conditioning is very effective
as the behaviour is very difficult to modify
 Applications of instrumental
conditioning
Instrumental conditioning states that the behavior of
people can be directed by rewarding or punishing the
person after a good or a bad action.
A good action calls for a prize, and a bad action calls
for punishment .
Businesses use this strategy to get the desired
behavior, always reinforcing the people for taking the
appropriate action
A car dealer encourages the buyer to make a purchase
by first inviting the customer to sit in the car he or
she is interested in. Then, the salesman suggests a test
drive, after which he promises to make a special price
discount on the purchase of the vehicle.
This example uncovers the fact that more interaction
is needed to deliver the required reinforcement in
instrumental conditioning in order to accomplish the
desired consumer behavior.
Usually a good product that satisfies the needs of
consumers is already a good reinforcement that shall
keep them buying more of the same product
However, in some cases, the positive experience of
using the product is not enough, and consumers must
be reinforced in other ways at the purchasing
moment or afterwards in order to achieve the desired
learning.
It all depends on the nature of the product and the
results the marketers are aiming at.
When purchasing, customers can be reinforced with
high quality service or other amenities. For example, a
beauty salon may offer to its customers a cup of coffee
or tea as well as free of charge phone calls while they
wait to be attended. Yet, it must be remembered that
despite the amenities these extra services are not
enough if the core product or service is bad in which
case clients are not likely to purchase the product or
service anyway.
Another example of reinforcement is that some hotels
reinforce their clients for coming back with small
amenities such as chocolate on the pillows or bottled
water in the dressing table.
 Reinforcement and Consumer-business
relationship
Reinforcement is a very important tool that helps in
the creation of personal connections between the
clients and the company. Clients that often encounter
positive reinforcement when purchasing a product or
service are more loyal than those receiving the product
or service itself as the only positive reinforcement.
Many companies by mistake assume that low prices
and diverse product lines are the factors that satisfy the
most consumers. Despite this belief, diverse studies
show that companies that create personal connections
along with low prices and diverse product lines are the
ones that better satisfy their customers
Relationship marketing refers to the development of a
close personalized relationship with customers that is
achieved by using non-product reinforcement.
This strategy is based on the little “details” delivered to
customers by the company.
A client is advised by the salesperson about a forthcoming
sale, or the “personal” banker gives off-the-desk
advisement to the client on how to invest in mutual funds.
These are good examples of positive reinforcement
resulting at first in a personal relationship between the
customer and the person in charge of delivering the
company’s product or service, where at the end the
company and the client are the benefited parts.
 Scheduling Reinforcement
Reinforcement implies the understanding of the
concept of scheduling: how often customers should
be reinforced; every time they buy, every two weeks,
or once a month? Scheduling must be addressed by
the companies because it is related to the effort and
resources devoted in rewarding customers. A bad
scheduling results in the waste of company’s financial
resources. In the other hand an optimal schedule may
result in a permanent increase in sales
Fixed-interval reinforcement is not very effective
because customers may hold off their purchases until
the time of reinforcement resulting in extra costs for
the company: many people wait until the end of winter
season to purchase their clothes for the coming winter.
 A more effective alternative is the variable-interval
reinforcement in which the reinforcement in delivered
in a random bases resulting in a higher rate of
customer purchases. This is typically encountered in
some restaurants, where dessert is randomly offered
for free to customers .
Consumers can be reinforced also in a ratio basis.
In fixed-ratio schedule consumers that buy a certain
product can collect coupons that come inside the package
that can be exchanged for a gift when a certain amount
has been collected. This is usually encountered, for
example, in Libero diapers, or in toilet paper packages.
The variable-ratio reinforcement is usually encountered in
products like lottery or money machines. Consumers
know that statistically the more they play the higher the
chances of winning, but they don‟t know how much they
must play to win
 Shaping of the customer
 Reinforcement requires interaction with the customer. It is not
possible to have this interaction unless the customer is present in the
store.
 In this case, it is said that reinforcement is applied first in order to
bring the customer to the company’s shop.
 Strategies like discounts to the first 100 clients are frequently used.
 New businesses also make huge openings with gifts and discount
opportunities to costumers that come to the stores.
 This idea of preliminary reinforcing (shaping) has a key role in
increasing the probabilities of customers doing their shopping once
they are in the store.
 Companies recognize this opportunity; although some may come only
for the promised gift, many shall stay to have a look around finally
purchasing something of interest
COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY
According to Solomon, cognitive learning occurs as
the result of mental processes.
In contrast to behavioral learning theories, cognitive
learning emphasizes the individual as a problem-
solver entity rather than just a “black box”
Instead of stressing the importance of repetition or
association of rewards with a specific response,
cognitive theorists emphasize the role of motivation
and mental processes in producing a desired
response.
 Observational learning
Observational learning is a type of cognitive learning
that occurs when individuals observe the actions of
others and note the reinforcement they receive for
their behaviors.
This type of learning is a very complex process; the
person needs to store his or her observations in
memory so that later this information helps them
guide their own behavior.
This process of imitating the behavior of others is
called modelling.
Steps for Modelling to Occur
Applications of cognitive learning
Cognitive learning is based on the idea that
individuals are problem-solvers; they always somehow
process the available information about products and
services in order to solve their problems, i.e. the
satisfaction of their needs
Cognitive learning involves many complex processes.
We primarily concentrate on the description of the
memory system and the involvement theory in order
to explain how cognitive learning actually takes place
Observational learning applications
Many of today’s advertisement take advantage of the
principles of observational learning in order to teach
consumers.
It is quite common to find commercials where the
main character is the object of reinforcement
 Example
In the case of AXE commercials we see that the young
man wearing the deodorant attracts many women.
 Consumers learn that by using this aroma it may also
have the same effect regarding the attraction of
women.
Observational learning has made the life of marketers
easier as they do not have to directly reinforce
customers in order to teach them.
 Memory applications
Marketers research memory because they want to put
information concerning their brand, products or
services into people’s minds; in other words,
marketers want to teach consumers.
As the teaching happens through media via
advertisement, i.e. magazine ads, television
commercials, or direct marketing, marketers have to
carefully design and implement these advertisements
for consumers to learn from them.
The difficulty lays in the fact that nowadays the world
is so full of advertisement; ads are seen everywhere
24/7, that it has become a background noise to which
people do not pay much attention any longer
Therefore, marketers are struggling with this problem
trying to get their adverts noticed as attention from
consumers‟ part is of vital importance for further
processing information of the ad
The problem of marketers does not end here; first,
their advertisement needs to be noticed, then they
must be designed so that they are easy to encode, and
last there must be a cue that helps consumers to
recall the main message delivered by marketers.
 Attention
The attention people pay to advertisement depends a
lot on the motivation that drives individuals to find
answers for their needs.
if the ad presents something of interest to the
individual, he or she will stop to pay attention.
Also, even though the ad does not offer answers to
consumers’ needs, individuals are likely to pay
attention if the ad has value by itself; meaning that
the information is presented in a surprising or funny
way that generates positive reactions and liking
As all the information that reach our senses is first
processed by our sensory memory, the individual
basically has one or two seconds to decide if it is of
interest or not. This happens very fast, but fortunately
our brain processing capacity is very high and in less
than two seconds it can tell whether the ad is worth
reading or not. As a consequence, some marketers
have left conventionalism to market their products in
more unorthodox ways hoping for more attention.
This phenomenon in the marketing world is known as
guerrilla marketing. The idea is to use unconventional
marketing strategies in non-traditional media in order
to get maximum attention.
 Encoding
After consumers’ attention is grabbed, the brain
needs to encode the information in order to store it in
the long-term memory.
The information input is encoded into a word or
picture that, from that moment on, will represent the
acquired information object.
marketers aim at helping the encoding process by
utilizing brand symbols that can be easily encoded.
 Example
Many recognized brands use these types of symbols:
Audi has the four circles, Mercedes-Benz has a star,
McDonalds has a yellow “M”.
 Retrieval
After the information has been encoded it will be
placed in the long-term memory for later use.
The information must be available when needed
otherwise one could say that there has been no
learning at all
For the information to be retrieved the right cues
must be present; if not, the person will not be able to
retrieve anything.
marketers are very active in providing the right cues
to bring back the positive things consumers have
learned about their brand and products
 Example
TV-commercials how easily a car is parked in a big
crowded city or how a car sorts out a difficult road in
order to bring up the benefits of the attributes of the
cars: the convenient small size and the high
performance handling respectively.
 Applications of involvement
Individuals engage in extensive information search
when the product is relevant for them and in little
search when the product is of minor importance.
The different ways marketers can advertise their
products.
If consumers are quite involved, the product should be
advertised stressing the high quality and performance.
If consumers are little involved, the product should be
advertised using peripheral routes of persuasion
focusing more on the form of the message rather than
the informational content