Midterm 2
SECTION 3 – Choosing and Using Products
Chapter 9 Decision Making
Chapter objectives
- 9-1 The three categories of consumer decision making are cognitive, habitual, and affective.
- 9-2 A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of a series of stages that results in the
selection of one product over competing options.
- 9-3 We often rely on rules-of-thumb to make routine decisions.
- 9-4 The way information about a product choice is framed can prime a decision even when
the consumer is unaware of this influence
9-1 What’s Your Problem
The three categories of consumer decision making are cognitive, habitual, and affective.
Purchase momentum occurs when our initial impulse purchases increase the likelihood that we will
buy even more (instead of less as we satisfy our needs); it’s like we get “revved up” and plunge into a
spending spree (we’ve all been there!).
Consumer hyperechoice is for many of us one of our biggest problems, it is not having too few
choices, but rather too many.
à This condition of forces us to make repeated decisions that may drain psychological energy while
decreasing our abilities to make smart choices.
The perspective of constructive processing argues that we evaluate the effort we’ll need to make a
particular choice and then tailor the amount of cognitive “effort” we expend to get the job done.
In some cases, we create a mental budget that helps us to estimate what we will consume over time
so that we can regulate what we do in the present. E.g., if the dieter knows there is a BBQ tonight, he
may decide to skip the candy bar this afternoon.
Self-regulation: A person’s effort to change or maintain his or her actions over time, whether these
involve dieting, living on a budget, or training to run a marathon, involve careful planning.
If we have a self-regulatory strategy this means that we specify in advance how we want to
respond in certain situations. These “if-then” plans or implementation intentions may dictate how
much weight we give to different kinds of information (emotional or cognitive), a timetable to carry
out a decision, or even how we will deal with disruptive influences that might interfere with our
plans (like a bossy salesperson who tries to steer us to a different choice)
Consumers engage in counteractive construal when they exaggerate the negative aspects of
behaviors that will interfere with the ultimate goal
Researchers distinguished between two types of motivation:
1) Promotion motivation – encourages people to focus on hopes and inspirations
2) Prevention motivation – focuses on responsibilities and duties as it prompts people to think
about avoiding something negative
Feedback loop: applications which gives you information about your progress so far (to help with
self-regulation). E.g., MyFitnessPal provides information about the calorie intake on a diet or a
dynamic speed display, this helps drivers to regulate their speed
Morning Morality effect: people are more likely to cheat, lie, or even commit fraud in the afternoon
than in the morning.
,9-2 Cognitive Decision Making
A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of a series of stages that results in the selection of one
product over competing options.
Cognitive Decision Making
Traditionally, consumer researchers approached decision making from a rational perspective
Rational perspective – according to this view, people calmly and carefully integrate as much
information as possible with what they already know about a product, painstakingly weight the
pluses and minuses of each alternative, and arrive at a satisfactory decision. E.g., financial planning
which call for a lot of attention to detail needs this perspective
Steps in the Cognitive Decision-Making Process
Step 1: Problem Recognition
à Problem Recognition occurs at the upper funnel when we experience a significant difference
between our current state of affairs and some state we desire.
Actual state à need recognition
Ideal state à opportunity recognition
, Step 2: Information Search
à Information Search is the process by which we survey the environment for appropriate data to
make a reasonable decision. You might recognize a need and then search the marketplace for
specific information (a process we call prepurchase search)
- Browsing for fun or because you like to stay up-to-date, people are using ongoing search
A filter bubble occurs when the broadcast media, websites, and social media platforms we consult
serve up answers based upon what they “think” we want to see. E.g., personalized Google search
results
Step 3: Evaluate Alternatives
2 types of alternative sets to evaluate:
- Evoked set – the alternatives a consumer knows about
- Consideration set – the ones he or she seriously considers
Step 4: Product Choice
The spiral of complexity is the feature creep, this are the lot of features products nowadays have.
People tend to choose a product with a lot of features (also if they don’t know any of them) over a
simple product without all those features
Step 5: Postpurchase Evaluation
à Postpurchase Evaluation closes the loop; it occurs when we experience the product or service we
selected and decide whether it meets (or maybe even exceeds) our expectations.
Social scoring: both customers and service providers increasingly rate one another’s performance
Intelligent agents are sophisticated software programs that use collaborative filtering technologies
to learn from past user behavior to recommend new purchases
Search engine optimalization (SEO) – This term refers to the procedures companies use to design
the content of websites and posts to maximize the likelihood that their content will show up when
someone searches for a relevant term.
A business model called long tail is a model where the basic idea is that we no longer need to rely
solely on big hits to find profits. E.g., amazon sells 3.7 million books, compared to 100,000 you will
find in a large retail store. The 3.6 million books the retailer doesn’t sell make up a quarter of
Amazon’s revenues
How do we put products into categories?
Knowledge structure refers to a set of beliefs and the way we organize these beliefs in our minds
Hybrid products feature characteristics from two distinct domains
Strategic implications of product categorization:
- Position a Product, the success of a positioning strategy hinges on the marketer’s ability to
convince the consumer to consider its product within a given category
- Identify competitors
SECTION 3 – Choosing and Using Products
Chapter 9 Decision Making
Chapter objectives
- 9-1 The three categories of consumer decision making are cognitive, habitual, and affective.
- 9-2 A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of a series of stages that results in the
selection of one product over competing options.
- 9-3 We often rely on rules-of-thumb to make routine decisions.
- 9-4 The way information about a product choice is framed can prime a decision even when
the consumer is unaware of this influence
9-1 What’s Your Problem
The three categories of consumer decision making are cognitive, habitual, and affective.
Purchase momentum occurs when our initial impulse purchases increase the likelihood that we will
buy even more (instead of less as we satisfy our needs); it’s like we get “revved up” and plunge into a
spending spree (we’ve all been there!).
Consumer hyperechoice is for many of us one of our biggest problems, it is not having too few
choices, but rather too many.
à This condition of forces us to make repeated decisions that may drain psychological energy while
decreasing our abilities to make smart choices.
The perspective of constructive processing argues that we evaluate the effort we’ll need to make a
particular choice and then tailor the amount of cognitive “effort” we expend to get the job done.
In some cases, we create a mental budget that helps us to estimate what we will consume over time
so that we can regulate what we do in the present. E.g., if the dieter knows there is a BBQ tonight, he
may decide to skip the candy bar this afternoon.
Self-regulation: A person’s effort to change or maintain his or her actions over time, whether these
involve dieting, living on a budget, or training to run a marathon, involve careful planning.
If we have a self-regulatory strategy this means that we specify in advance how we want to
respond in certain situations. These “if-then” plans or implementation intentions may dictate how
much weight we give to different kinds of information (emotional or cognitive), a timetable to carry
out a decision, or even how we will deal with disruptive influences that might interfere with our
plans (like a bossy salesperson who tries to steer us to a different choice)
Consumers engage in counteractive construal when they exaggerate the negative aspects of
behaviors that will interfere with the ultimate goal
Researchers distinguished between two types of motivation:
1) Promotion motivation – encourages people to focus on hopes and inspirations
2) Prevention motivation – focuses on responsibilities and duties as it prompts people to think
about avoiding something negative
Feedback loop: applications which gives you information about your progress so far (to help with
self-regulation). E.g., MyFitnessPal provides information about the calorie intake on a diet or a
dynamic speed display, this helps drivers to regulate their speed
Morning Morality effect: people are more likely to cheat, lie, or even commit fraud in the afternoon
than in the morning.
,9-2 Cognitive Decision Making
A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of a series of stages that results in the selection of one
product over competing options.
Cognitive Decision Making
Traditionally, consumer researchers approached decision making from a rational perspective
Rational perspective – according to this view, people calmly and carefully integrate as much
information as possible with what they already know about a product, painstakingly weight the
pluses and minuses of each alternative, and arrive at a satisfactory decision. E.g., financial planning
which call for a lot of attention to detail needs this perspective
Steps in the Cognitive Decision-Making Process
Step 1: Problem Recognition
à Problem Recognition occurs at the upper funnel when we experience a significant difference
between our current state of affairs and some state we desire.
Actual state à need recognition
Ideal state à opportunity recognition
, Step 2: Information Search
à Information Search is the process by which we survey the environment for appropriate data to
make a reasonable decision. You might recognize a need and then search the marketplace for
specific information (a process we call prepurchase search)
- Browsing for fun or because you like to stay up-to-date, people are using ongoing search
A filter bubble occurs when the broadcast media, websites, and social media platforms we consult
serve up answers based upon what they “think” we want to see. E.g., personalized Google search
results
Step 3: Evaluate Alternatives
2 types of alternative sets to evaluate:
- Evoked set – the alternatives a consumer knows about
- Consideration set – the ones he or she seriously considers
Step 4: Product Choice
The spiral of complexity is the feature creep, this are the lot of features products nowadays have.
People tend to choose a product with a lot of features (also if they don’t know any of them) over a
simple product without all those features
Step 5: Postpurchase Evaluation
à Postpurchase Evaluation closes the loop; it occurs when we experience the product or service we
selected and decide whether it meets (or maybe even exceeds) our expectations.
Social scoring: both customers and service providers increasingly rate one another’s performance
Intelligent agents are sophisticated software programs that use collaborative filtering technologies
to learn from past user behavior to recommend new purchases
Search engine optimalization (SEO) – This term refers to the procedures companies use to design
the content of websites and posts to maximize the likelihood that their content will show up when
someone searches for a relevant term.
A business model called long tail is a model where the basic idea is that we no longer need to rely
solely on big hits to find profits. E.g., amazon sells 3.7 million books, compared to 100,000 you will
find in a large retail store. The 3.6 million books the retailer doesn’t sell make up a quarter of
Amazon’s revenues
How do we put products into categories?
Knowledge structure refers to a set of beliefs and the way we organize these beliefs in our minds
Hybrid products feature characteristics from two distinct domains
Strategic implications of product categorization:
- Position a Product, the success of a positioning strategy hinges on the marketer’s ability to
convince the consumer to consider its product within a given category
- Identify competitors
