Attitude Formation and Change

Attitude Formation and
change
• learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable or unfavorable
way toward a given object.
• “object” can be a
• product,
• brand,
• service,
• price,
• package,
• adver- tisement,
• promotional medium
• retailer selling the product,
• Attitudes are learned from direct experience with the product, word-
of-mouth, exposure to mass media, and other information sources
that consumers are exposed to.
• When a new product is introduced in a market that is unfamiliar with
it, the brand has to build an attitude toward both the category and
the brand.
Attitudes and Their Formation
• To illustrate, Nike or Reebok frequently study consumers’ attitudes

towards the functional and aesthetic design of athletic footwear.
• We analyse attitude towards advts. As well
• Consumers form new attitudes and also change existing attitudes
• Typically, only two or three prominent beliefs about a product play a
role in the formation of attitudes
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdtAcrxuNY8
• Attitude formation- Personal Experience
• Make them try the product.
• The Role of Personality Factors - individuals with a high need for
cognition (i.e., those who crave information and enjoy thinking)
• Attitudes Are Consistent with Behaviours – influence of situational
factors
• Attitudes Occur within Situations - Situations can cause consumers to
behave in ways seemingly inconsistent with their attitudes.
The Tri-component Attitude Model
• The cognitive component consists of a person’s cognitions, that is, the
knowledge and perceptions of the features of an attitude object that the
person acquired from direct experience with the attitude object and
information from various sources
• The affective component represents the consumer’s emotions and

feelings regarding the attitude object, which are considered evaluations,
because they capture his or her global assess- ment of the attitude object
(i.e., the extent to which the individual rates the attitude object as
“favorable” or “unfavorable,” “good” or “bad”).
• The conative component reflects the likelihood that an individual will
undertake a specific action or behave in a particular way with regard
to the attitude object. In consumer research, the conative component
is treated as an expression of the consumer’s intention to buy.
• Cognitive appeals
• Hero Honda created a memorable campaign with its “fill it, shut it,
forget it” to highlight its effective mileage.
• Activa (scooter) launched a campaign on its mileage and features.
• Kalyan Jewellers
• Horlicks has cognitive as well as affect
• Affect
• Onida TV - “Owners pride, Neighbour’s envy”
• Pleasure, -“self-reliance, independence, and non-conformist”

Altering Consumers’ Attitudes
There are two primary strategies for changing consumers’ attitudes:
• Changing an offering’s overall image

• Referring to specific product attributes.
• Changing Beliefs about Products
• Changing Brand Image
Changing Beliefs about Competing Brands
Multi-attribute Attitude Models
• consumers’ attitudes as functions of their assessments of the objects’

prominent attributes
• The attitude-toward-object model maintains that a consumer’s

evaluation of a product is a function of:
• The extent to which the product has (or lacks) each of a given set of
attributes.
• The importance of each of these attributes to the consumer.
• Adding an Attribute
• Adding a product or brand attribute means either adding an attribute
that previously was ignored or adding one that represents an
improvement or innovation
• Women Horlicks
Changing the Perceived Importance of Attributes

Some companies discover product attributes that most consumers pay
little or no attention to and feature them in ads.
Attitude-toward-behavior Model
• Individual’s attitude toward behaving or acting with respect to an

object, rather than merely the person’s attitude toward the object
itself.
• One might like Audi cars (i.e., positive attitude towards the object), but
not be ready or willing to buy an expensive Audi(i.e., a negative
attitude towards the behavior associated with the object)
Theory of Reasoned Action
• The researchers must measure the subjective norms as well.
• Subjective norms are the person’s feelings as to what relevant others

(e.g., family, friends, room- mates, co-workers) think of the action the
person contemplates.
Theory of Trying-to-Consume
• Outcome of a contemplated action (e.g., a purchase), stemming from a
positive attitude, is uncertain, but is still being pursued by the
consumer.
1. Personal impediments, “person trying to lose weight, but loves
cookies”.
2. 2. Environmental impediments, “ there are no low-calorie cookies
that taste good”
Attitude-toward-the-ad Model
• The feelings consumers form when they see and hear ads significantly
impact their attitudes towards the brands advertised.
• If consumer liked the ad then he is more likely to buy the product.
• Honda’s Jazz car launched itself with the affective appeal that
questions the seriousness of the individual (“Why so serious”). The
brand ended up offering a discount of `1.75 lakhs to sell of its stock.2
Changing the Motivational Functions of Attitudes
• Changing attitudes by appealing to consumers’ motivations is known

as the functional approach.
Attitudes are classified into four functions:
• The utilitarian function
• Ego-defensive function
• value-expressive function
• knowledge function.
• The utilitarian function stems from the belief that consumers’ attitudes
reflect the utilities that brands provide.
• The Ego-defensive Function
People form attitudes in order to protect themselves from sensing
doubt and to replace uncertainty with feelings of security and
confidence
The Value-expressive Function

• The value-expressive function maintains that attitudes reflect
consumers’ values and beliefs, and that marketers can create ads that
either support or refute these notions.
• The Knowledge Function
The knowledge function holds that people form attitudes because they
have a strong need to understand the characters of the people, events,
and objects they encounter. Therefore, many firms use ads cantered
upon the consumer’s “need to know.”
The Elaboration Likelihood Model
Attitude can be changed by either one of two different routes to

persuasion
• A central route – Result of Information processing – Objective
knowledge.
• A peripheral route - Result of interpreting the imagery presented in
the ad – Subjective Knowledge
The cognitive elaboration related to the processing of information
received via each route is different.
• The premise of this model is that consumers carefully evaluate the
merits and weaknesses of a given product when they consider the
purchase to be very relevant.
• Conversely, consumers engage in very limited information search and
evaluation (or little cognitive elaboration) when the purchase holds little
relevance or importance for them.
• Thus, for high-involvement purchases, the central route to persuasion—
which requires considered thought and cognitive processing—is likely to
be the most effective marketing strategy.
• For low-involvement purchases, the peripheral route to persuasion—
which requires relatively little thought and information processin is likely
to be effective
The Ideal Point Model (IPM)
• Explore the different dimensions associated with attitudes toward
existing brands.
• The formula for attribute A toward the brand can be applied as:
b
• n
• A =∑Wi(Li-Xi)
b i=1
• A brand can find out how close it is to the “ideal” brand.
• A value of “0” is ideal because at this point the brand is the ‘ideal’
brand.
• The higher the value of a brand, the further away it is from the “ideal”
perception of the brand.
• (the negative sign does not alter the value, as the objective of the
model is to measure the distance of a brand from the “ideal” brand.
[Wi (Li – Xi) is to be considered.]
• By introducing features that they are low on , attitude towards
product can be improved
• Secondary inducements like promotions need to be given in case of
peripheral route to persuasion
Cognitive Dissonance and Resolving Conflicting Attitudes
• Behavior sometimes precedes attitude formation

• Cognitive dissonance occurs when a consumer holds conflicting
thoughts about a belief or an attitude object.
• When cognitive dissonance occurs after a purchase, it is called post-
purchase dissonance.
• Attitude change is an outcome of an action or behaviour already
undertaken
Consumers can reduce their post-purchase dissonance in several ways:
• Rationalize their decisions.
• Seek advertisements that support their choices
• Try to “sell” friends on the positive features of the purchase made
• Look at satisfied owners for assurance
• “A study suggested that overly aggressive salespeople actually induce

dissonance because consumers feel that they were “pushed” to make the
purchases. Conversely, skilled salespeople can reduce dissonance by
providing information and reassurance, and even turn consumers into
loyal customers”
Resolving Conflicting Attitudes
(1) Not vote at all, although he has never missed voting;
(2) Vote for the Congress candidate, which was utterly unacceptable;
(3) Develop more positive attitudes about the BJP candidate and vote
for him.
Assigning Causality and Attribution
Theory
• How people “assign causality” (e.g., blame or credit) to events, on the
basis of either their own behavior or the behavior of others.
• Making inferences about one’s own or another’s behavior is an

important factor in understanding attitude formation and change.
Self-perception Attributions
• Self-perception attribution reflects the way people see themselves in the
causalities they form about prior behaviors and the attitudes they develop
thereafter.
• Internal
• External
• Defensive attribution, people generally accept (or take) credit for success
(internal attribution), but assign failure to others or outside events
(external attribution
Consumers need to perceive themselves as the reasons for their success
and reassure them that the advertised products will always make them
feel this way.
Attributions Toward Others - every time a person asks “why?” about a

statement or action of another or other persons (whether family
members, peers, salespeople, or marketers), attribution theory applies.
Attributions Toward Objects - why a product met or failed to meet their

expectations, they can attribute the product’s successful or
unsatisfactory performance to the product itself, to themselves, to
other people or situations, or to some combination of these factors.

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Attitude Formation and

• To illustrate, Nike or Reebok frequently study consumers’ attitudes

• The affective component represents the consumer’s emotions and

• Activa (scooter) launched a campaign on its mileage and features.

• Pleasure, -“self-reliance, independence, and non-conformist”

There are two primary strategies for changing consumers’ attitudes:

• Changing an offering’s overall image

• consumers’ attitudes as functions of their assessments of the objects’

• The attitude-toward-object model maintains that a consumer’s

Changing the Perceived Importance of Attributes

• Individual’s attitude toward behaving or acting with respect to an

• The researchers must measure the subjective norms as well.

• Subjective norms are the person’s feelings as to what relevant others

• If consumer liked the ad then he is more likely to buy the product.

• Changing attitudes by appealing to consumers’ motivations is known

The Value-expressive Function

Attitude can be changed by either one of two different routes to

• Behavior sometimes precedes attitude formation

• “A study suggested that overly aggressive salespeople actually induce

• Making inferences about one’s own or another’s behavior is an

Attributions Toward Others - every time a person asks “why?” about a

Attributions Toward Objects - why a product met or failed to meet their

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