CHAPTER 09

Learning,
Memory, and
Product
Positioning
 LEARNING

is the change in the content or organization of long term

memory or behavior and is the result of information
processing.

Exposure Memory

ST LT
Information processing Memory Memory
stage Attention

Interpretation Consumer Behavior

The Nature of Learning and Memory

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MEMORY’S ROLE IN LEARNING

Short term memory Long term memory

(STM: working (LTM)
memory)
The portion of the
The portion of the memory that is
memory that is devoted to
currently activated permanent storage
or in use. of information.

Existing price Reference

Soda Price
 SHORT TERM MEMORY
Characteristics of STM:
STM is Short Lived
• Consumers must constantly refresh information through maintenance
rehearsal or it will be lost.
STM has Limited Capacity
• Consumers can only hold so much information in current memory.
• The capacity of STM is thought to be in the range of five to nine bits of
information.
• Organizing individual items into groups of related items that can be processed
as a single unit is called chunking .
Elaborative Activities Occur in STM
• Elaborative activities are the use of previously stored experiences, values,
attitudes, beliefs, and feelings to interpret and evaluate information in working
memory as well as to add relevant previously stored information.
• It can involve both concepts and imagery.
• Concepts are abstractions of reality that capture the meaning of an item in terms of other
concepts. They are similar to a dictionary definition of a word.
• Imagery involves concrete sensory representations of ideas, feelings, and objects. It permits
a direct recovery of aspects of past experiences. (use of pictures)
 LONG TERM MEMORY
LTM is viewed as an unlimited, permanent storage. It can store numerous
types of information, such as concepts, decision rules, processes, and
affective (emotional) states.
Marketers are particularly interested in (type of information)
• semantic memory, which is the basic knowledge and feelings an
individual has about a concept. It represents the person’s understanding of
an object or event at its simplest level. ((Lexus categorized as “a luxury
car.)
• Episodic memory. This is the memory of a sequence of events in which a
person participated. (first date, graduation, …..). They often elicit imagery
and feelings.
• Marketers frequently attempt to evoke episodic memories either because their brand
was involved in them or to associate the positive feelings they geneate with the
brand.
• Flashbulb memories are a special type of episodic memory. Flashbulb memory is
acute memory for the circumstances surrounding a surprising and novel event
 HOW IS LTM ORGANIZED:

1) Schema
• Any piece of incoming information acquires meaning by
becoming associated with other concepts and episodes. A
pattern of such associations around a concept is called a
Schema.
• These concepts can be: Product characteristics, usage situations,
episodes, affective reactions, a brand name.
• The source of some of the schema is personal experience, but
other aspects may be completely or partially based on marketing
activities
• concepts, events, and feelings are stored in nodes within memory.
• Each of these is associated either directly or indirectly with product.
Associative links connect various concepts to form the complete
meaning assigned to an item"
AN EXAMPLE OF A SCHEMA
 HOW IS LTM ORGANIZED:
2) Scripts
Memory of how an action sequence should occur.
• Marketers and public policy makers want consumers to develop scripts for appropriate product,
acquisition, use and disposal behavior.
• Scripts are necessary for consumers to shop effectively. One of the difficulties new forms
of retailing have is teaching consumers the appropriate script for acquiring items in a new
manner.
• Green marketing efforts relate in part to teaching consumers appropriate scripts for
disposal that include recycling.

Retrieval from LTM

• The likelihood and ease with which information can be recalled from LTM is termed
accessibility.
• Thus, accessibility can be enhanced by rehearsal, repetition, and elaboration.
• Finally, retrieval may involve explicit or implicit memories.
• explicit memory, which is characterized by the conscious recollection of an exposure
event.
• implicit memory involves the nonconscious retrieval of previously encountered stimuli.
It is a sense of familiarity, a feeling, or a set of beliefs about an item without conscious
awareness of when and how they were acquired.
LEARNING UNDER AND HIGH AND LOW
INVOLVEMENT

A High-involvement A Low-involvement
learning situation is one learning situation is one
in which the consumer in which the consumer
is motivated to process has little or no
or learn the material. motivation to process
or learn the material.

•In which context does most learning occur?

•Why are these difference important?
LEARNING UNDER HIGH AND LOW
INVOLVEMENT
 TWO LEARNING APPROACHES
Conditioning versus Cognitive Learning theories

Conditioning is a set of procedures that marketers can

use to increase the chances that an association
between two stimuli is formed or learned.
Three are two forms of conditional learning:
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Classical conditioning is the process of using an established

relationship between one stimulus (music) and response (pleasant
feelings) to bring about the learning of the same response
(pleasant feelings) to a different stimulus (the brand).
We now associate
this product with
strength.
 OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning (or instrumental learning) involves

rewarding desirable behaviors such as brand purchases with a
positive outcome that serves to reinforce the behavior.
Examples:
•Direct mail or personal contact after a sale that congratulates the purchaser for making a wise
purchase.
• Giving extra reinforcement for purchasing, such as rebates, or discount coupons.
• Giving free product samples or introductory coupons to encourage product trial (shaping).
• Making store interiors, shopping malls, or downtown areas pleasant places to shop (reinforcing)
by providing entertainment, controlled temperature, exciting displays, and so forth."
AN EXAMPLE OF OPERANT CONDITIONING
 COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

Cognitive learning encompasses all the mental activities of

humans as they work to solve problems or cope with
situations. ”Thinking”
• It related to our ability to:
• Reason
• Solve problems
• Learn relationships

without direct experience or reinforcement.

 COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

1) Iconic Rote Learning

Iconic Rote Learning - Learning a concept or the
association between two or more concepts in the
absence of conditioning is known as iconic rote
learning.

In iconic rote learning there is neither an:

• unconditioned stimulus (classical)
• nor a direct reward or reinforcement

What is critical for iconic rote learning to work?

 COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

2) Vicarious Learning
Vicarious learning or modeling can include observing the
outcomes of others’ behaviors and adjusting their own
accordingly.
In addition, they can use imagery to anticipate the outcome of
various courses of action.
This type of learning is common in both low- and high-
involvement situation.
 COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES – 3)
ANALYTICAL LEARNING

Analytical reasoning is the most complex form

of cognitive learning.
learning
• Individuals engage in creative thinking to restructure
and recombine existing information as well as new
information to form new associations and concepts.
• Information from a credible source that contradicts or
challenges one’s existing beliefs will often trigger
reasoning.
• Analogical reasoning allows consumers to use an
existing knowledge base to understand a new situation
or object.
Learning to Generalize and Differentiate

• Regardless of which approach to learning is applicable in a given

situation, consumers’ ability to differentiate and generalize from one
stimulus to another is critical to marketers.
• Stimulus discrimination or differentiation refers to the process of
learning to respond differently to similar but distinct stimuli. This process
is critical for marketers who want consumers to perceive their brands as
possessing unique and important features compared with other brands.
• Stimulus generalization, often referred to as the rub-off effect, occurs
when a response to one stimulus is elicited by a similar but distinct
stimulus.
• Thus, a consumer who learns that Nabisco’s Oreo cookies taste good and therefore assumes that the
company’s new Oreo Chocolate Cones will also taste good

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 DISCUSSION QUESTION
STIMULUS GENERALIZATION
How does CVS Pharmacy use stimulus generalization for
their private brands?
Do you think it is effective?
Should this be allowable?
Learning, Memory, and Retrieval
Strength of Learning

Strength of learning is enhanced by six factors:

1. Importance
2. Message Involvement
3. Mood
4. Reinforcement
5. Repetition
6. Dual Coding

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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

1) Importance
Importance refers to the value that consumers place on the
information to be learned.
Importance might be driven by:
Inherent interest in the product or brand,
or
the need to make a decision in the near future.

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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

2) Message Involvement
When a consumer is not motivated to learn the material, processing can be
increased by causing the person to become involved with the message itself.

• Example: Playing an instrumental version of a popular song

with lyrics related to product attributes may cause people to
“sing along,” either out loud or mentally.

Self referencing uses second-person pronouns (you, your) in ads to encourage

consumers to relate brand information to themselves.

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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

3) Mood
A positive mood during the presentation of information such as brand names
enhances learning.

A positive mood during the reception of information appears to enhance

its relational elaboration—it is compared with and evaluated against more
categories.

This produces a more complete and stronger set of linkages among a

variety of other brands and concepts, which in turn enhances retrieval
(access to the information).

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 Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

4) Reinforcement

Reinforcement involves anything that increases the likelihood that a

given response will be repeated in the future.

Positive Reinforcement Negative Reinforcement

A pleasant or desired The removal or the
consequence avoidance of an unpleasant
consequence.

Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement. It is any

consequence that decreases the likelihood that a given response
will be repeated in the future.
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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

5) Repetition
Repetition enhances learning and memory by increasing accessibility
of information or by strengthening the associative linkages between
concepts.
Repetition depends on importance and reinforcement.
Less repetition of an advertising message is needed if
importance is high or if there is a great deal of relevant
reinforcement.

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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

6) Dual Coding
Consumers can store (code) information in different ways.
Storing the same information in different ways (dual (coding) results in more
internal pathways (associative links) for retrieving information.
Approaches to dual coding in advertising:

• Varied themes (e.g., work vs. social theme in ad)

• Varied memory modes (e.g., visual vs. echoic)

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 Memory Interference
• Sometimes consumers have difficulty retrieving a specific piece of information
because other related information in memory gets in the way. This effect is referred to
as memory interference.
• A common form of interference in marketing is due to competitive advertising.
• Competitive advertising interference increases as the number of competing ads within the
same product category increases and as the similarity of those ads to each other increases.
• A number of strategies to reduce Interference
• Avoid Competing Advertising:
• Another strategy, called recency planning, involves trying to plan advertising
exposures so that they occur as close in time to a consumer purchase occasion as
possible.
• Strengthen Initial Learning
• Reduce Similarity to Competing Ads Ads within the same product class
(e.g., ads for different brands of cell phone). Similarity can be in terms of ad
claims, emotional valence, and ad execution elements such as background
music or pictures.
• Provide External Retrieval Cues (Brand name, product on shelf, ads….)

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Learning, Memory, and Retrieval

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 Brand Image & Product positioning
 Brand image refers to the schematic memory of a brand.
 It contains the target market’s interpretation of the product’s attributes, benefits, usage
situations, users, and manufacturer marketer characteristics.
 It is what people think of and feel when they hear or see a brand name. It is, in
essence, the set of associations consumers have learned about the brand.
 Company image and store image are similar except that they apply to companies and
stores rather than brands.
 Product positioning is a decision by a marketer to try to achieve a defined brand
image relative to competition within a market segment.
 That is, marketers decide that they want the members of a market segment to think and
feel in a certain way about a brand relative to competing brands.
 The term product positioning is most commonly applied to decisions concerning brands
 A key issue in positioning relates to the need for brands to create product positions that
differentiate them from competitors in ways that are meaningful to consumers.
 The terms product position and brand image are often used interchangeably.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd46wt_fieA

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 Brand Image and Product Positioning
Product repositioning refers to a deliberate decision to
significantly alter the way the market views a product. This
can involve
 level of performance
 the feelings it evokes
 the situations in which it should be used, or
 who uses the product

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 Brand Equity and Brand Leverage

Brand equity is the value consumers assign to a brand

above and beyond the functional characteristics of the
product.

BE= (product with brand – Product without brand)

Brand leverage,
leverage often termed family branding, brand
extensions, or umbrella branding,
branding refers to marketers
capitalizing on brand equity by using an existing brand
name for new products.
•Successful brand leverage generally requires that the new product fit with
the original product on at least one of four dimensions:
• Complement. The two products are used together.
• Substitute. The new product can be used instead of the original.
• Transfer. Consumers see the new product as requiring the same manufacturing skills as
the original.
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Image. The new product shares a key image component with the original.
 Brand Equity and Brand Leverage
Examples of successful and unsuccessful brand extensions include the
following:

• Harley-Davidson has applied its name successfully to a wide variety of

products, but its Harley-Davidson wine coolers were not successful.

• Levi Strauss failed in its attempt to market Levi’s tailored suits for men.

• Country Time could not expand from lemonade to apple cider.

• LifeSavers gum did not succeed.

• Coleman successfully expanded from camping stoves and lanterns into a

complete line of camping equipment.

• Oil of Olay bar soap is successful in large part because of the equity of the
Oil of Olay lotion.

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