Q1.

Describe an attitude you recently developed toward a product or service in terms of

classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, vicarious learning/modelling and
cognitive learning. Give one example each of your acquisition of an attitude in each of these
four learning modes.
ANSWER
1. Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning is viewed as a “knee jerk” response that builds up through
repeated exposure and reinforcement. It is a form of behavioural learning stating that
animal and human alike, can be taught behaviours and associations among stimuli
through repetition. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, developed the concept of
classical conditioning. Pavlov maintained that conditioned learning results when a
stimulus that is paired with another stimulus that elicits a known response produces the
same response when used alone. Pavlov demonstrated what he meant by “Conditioned
Learning” in his studies with dogs. Genetically, dogs are always hungry and highly
motivated to eat. In his experiments, Pavlov sounded a bell and then immediately applied
a meat paste to the dog’s tongue, which caused the dog to salivate. After a number of
such pairings, the dog responded the same way – that is, the dog salivated – to the bell
alone as it did to the meat paste.

Applying the Pavlov’s theory to human behaviour, for example I used to watch my
favourite shows which used to begin with a musical theme. Today also when I hear
the musical theme I get attracted towards it.

2. Instrumental Conditioning
Instrumental conditioning is also known as Operant Conditioning. Like conditional
stimulus, Instrumental conditioning requires a link between a stimulus and a response. In
 instrumental conditioning, the stimulus results in the most rewarded response is the one
that is learned.

The American Psychologist, B.F. Skinner constructed the model of instrumental

conditioning. It is a form of behavioural learning based on the notion that learning occurs
through a trial and error process, with habits formed as a result of rewards received for
certain responses or behaviours. According to Skinner, most learning occurs in the
environments where individuals are rewarded for choosing an appropriate behaviour. It
also suggests that consumers learn by means of a Trial-and-error process in which some
purchase behaviours result in more favourable outcomes than others.

Skinner developed this model of learning by working with animals. Small animals, such
as rats, and pigeons, were placed in his “skinner box”. If they behave as Skinner desired –
such as pressing a particular lever or pecking certain keys – he rewarded them with food
pellets. In the context of human behaviour, the consumer who tries several brands
and styles of jeans before finding a style that fits his/her figure, i.e., Reinforcement,
has engaged in instrumental learning.

3. Observational Learning
Observational Learning is also called as Modelling or Vicarious Learning. Observational
Learning is the process through which individuals learn behaviour by observing the
behaviour of others and the consequences of such behaviour. In modelling, learning
occurs when people observe and later imitate observed behaviours. Advertisers recognize
the importance of observational learning in selecting the people they feature in
advertisements, whether celebrities or unknowns.

Children learn much of their social and consumer behaviour by observing their older
siblings and parents. They imitate the behaviour of those they see rewarded, expecting to
be rewarded similarly if they adopt the same behaviour.

4. Cognitive Learning
Cognitive Learning consists of mental processing of data rather than instinctive responses
to stimuli. In other situations, we search for information and carefully evaluate what we
learned. This is called Cognitive Learning.

The human mind processes the information it receives. Consumers process product
information by attributes, brands, comparisons between brands or a combination of these
factors. Consumers with higher cognitive abilities acquire more product information and
consider more product attributes and alternatives than consumers with lesser ability.
Q2. Despite the raging war against tobacco industry and the generally negative sentiments
towards cigarette smokers, a lot of people continue to smoke. Based on the attitude change
strategies identify strategies you would recommend for an anti-smoking marketing
campaign in action.
ANSWER
Changing Consumer’s Attitudes
Changing attitudes about products and brands is difficult because consumers frequently resist
evidence that challenges strongly held attitudes or beliefs and tend to interpret any ambiguous
information in ways that reinforce their pre-existing attitudes.
1. Changing Beliefs about Products
The strategy of changing beliefs in order to change attitudes concentrates on changing
beliefs or perceptions about the brand itself. This is by-far the most common form of
advertising appeal. Advertisers’ constantly are reminding us that their products have
more or are better or best in terms if some important product attribute. For example, an ad
for Kraft’s Miracle Whip claims that the product makes tastier turkey sandwich than
mayonnaise.

Information aimed at changing an attitude must be compelling and repeated many times
if it is to overcome people’s natural resistance to abandoning established attitudes.

2. Changing Brand Image

The strategy of changing brand image consists of attempting to alter consumers overall
assessment of the brand. Marketers employ this approach by using promotional
statements designed to set their brands apart from those of the competition. For example,
“This is the largest-selling brand”.

3. Changing Beliefs About Competing Brands

Another attitude-change strategy involves changing consumer beliefs about competitors’
brands or product categories. For instance, and advertisement for Eclipse chewing gum
makes a dramatic assertion of the brand’s superiority over other gums by stating. Ads that
compare organic food to non-organic food are an example of comparative advertising.

4. Attitude Behaviour Gap

 It is commonly accepted that there is a consistency between the components of an attitude
and actual behaviour. However, there are instances in which there is disconnect between
these components and actual behaviour. Although a consumer may think, “Hybrid cars
are great and they are helping to solve the pollution problem”, they aren’t buying these
cars in great numbers.

Q3. Find two examples of ads that are designed to arouse consumer needs and discuss their
effectiveness.
ANSWER
1. Sainsbury’s Christmas Ad
Sainsbury uses “Mog’s Christmas Calamity,” a Christmas Classic-esque movie clip complete
with snowflakes and a soft-spoken narrator. The clip draws on the emotions of the viewer by
pulling them into the feeling of watching an old Christmas movie. The ad depicts a snow-
covered village with a family sleeping and a cat sleeping in their kitchen. The next day, the cat
accidently breaks everything in the kitchen, through a bizarre accumulation of unfortunate,
clumsy mistakes. It culminates with the cat accidentally, burning the house down. The firemen
enter the house and rescue a cooked turkey from the house. The family renters the house, seeing
it burn from the inside. Then their neighbours arrive with bounds of tools to repair the house,
food, and supplies.

2. John Lewis
Each year John Lewis comes out with a Christmas ad aimed to trigger our emotions and consume
us. This year, the company’s ad was especially provoking. A little girl in the video uses her
telescope to see an old man who is living alone on the moon. The man has no way of seeing the
girl, but the girl sees him. Then, she sends a gift carried by balloons to the moon. The man opens
the gift, and finds a telescope inside, which he uses to look back to earth to see the girl. The clip
ends with the text “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas.”

Effectiveness of advertising
 Ascertain the true reach of a campaign.  
‘Reach’ refers to the number of people who actually saw a company’s advertising. It’s
easier to measure the reach of some ad types over others. For example, TV media
planners have a strong idea of the number of people who will be watching at a certain
time, and can safely estimate how many will see it. 

Digital display ad reach, however, is harder to quantify. This is where survey data comes

in. It enables you to identify people who have seen the ad, and ask them about their
experience, and most importantly, whether they remember the brand.
  Find the frequency sweet spot.
You need to track the frequency of your exposure. Advertising effectiveness data helps
you find the ‘sweet-point’ of exposure. This is the perfect number of impressions before
an ad has the desired effect, and before over-exposure and fatigue kicks in.

It takes passively-derived analytics and active survey data to get a true sense of whether

something is working.

 Evaluate the true impact of your campaign.

Knowing what success looks like for your ad is crucial. 

So whether your ad aims to build brand affinity, brand equity, push a promotion or sell a
specific product, collecting the right data is key.

Q4. How does sensory adaptation/ advertising wear out affect ad effectiveness? How can
marketers overcome sensory adaptation?
ANSWER
Sensory Adaptation
Sensory adaptation refers to a reduction in sensitivity to a stimulus after constant exposure to it.
While sensory adaptation reduces our awareness of a constant stimulus, it helps free up
our attention and resources to attend to other stimuli in the environment around us. All five of
our senses are constantly adjusting to what's around us, as well as to us individually and what we
are experiencing, such as aging or disease.

Just imagine what it would be like if you didn't experience sensory adaptation. You might find
yourself overwhelmed by the pungent smell of onions coming from the kitchen or the blare of
the television from the living room. Since constant exposure to a sensory stimulus reduces our
sensitivity to it, we are able to shift our attention to other things in our environment rather than
focusing on one overwhelming stimulus.

How does Sensory Adaptation Affect advertisement

 Consumers are stimulated by what they hear, see, feel, smell and taste. When marketers’ advertise
their products and services with online, TV or radio advertisements they aim to stimulate the sight
and hearing senses in the consumer, and create communications that appeal.

 Sensory adaptation occurs when the consumer’s sensory receptors are no longer stimulated by the
marketing communications. The reason why this occurs is because the environment is not
evolving, meaning that the consumer will eventually not be as sensitive to the stimuli being
communicated in the advertisement (Coon & Mitterer, 2008).This will ultimately affect the
advertisement and the marketing message could be lost to the consumer. Marketers can overcome
sensory adaptation and increase the likelihood that consumers will notice their advertisements by
being unique in comparison to competitor marketing communications – another words they need to
find ways to stand out from the rest. Another way is by ensuring that the sight and sound stimuli
 within their advertisement is changing or evolving regularly to ensure that the consumer is always
stimulated by something new and different.

 Perception is the process of receiving, selecting and interpreting stimuli. There are threshold levels
of stimuli that humans can process and a general rule or trend is that the more stimuli a person is
exposed to the less they are able to perceive it.

 In a marketing context sensory adaption occurs when consumers get use to the stimuli they are
being exposed to or the ability to perceive it is restricted.

 I agree with Glen that one of the primary reasons for sensory adaption is a lack of change. This is
supported by the fact that most ads have a short shelf life and even if the message for brand
remains the same the approach, medium, colours, sounds etc. of the adverting strategy are modified
even in the short-term.

 Through the process of perception, due to lack of change, consumers are less likely to perceive the
advertising message as they have become desensitised to it. Conversely a change is likely to
stimulate a consumer.

 Another challenge for advertising that causes sensory adaption is saturation or sensory overload.
This occurs in places where multiple brands are competing for consumer attention, such as at large
sporting venues. Due to high volumes of sensory information marketers must first ensure that the
product or service is noticed (received) and then selected over another product. At a sporting venue
location and medium command a higher price as they more effective at being perceived by
consumers – for example a static sign at ground level oral video space on the replay screen. When
watching the rugby last weekend I focused my attention to see how many brands I could count and
it was interesting how many you gloss over or do not perceive.

How Can Marketers Overcome Sensory Adaptation?

This mental response is due to sensory adaptation (also called neural adaptation), which
according to the American Psychological Association is “a phenomenon in which receptor cells
lose their power to respond after a period of unchanged stimulation.” In other words, the more
you are exposed to a certain stimulus, the more you tune it out. And rest assured, you are very,
very, very good at tuning stuff out.

This is why when you walk into your office every day, you stop noticing the colour of the carpet
or the shape of the lights or the texture of the wall. Your subconscious takes over and clears the
deck so that you can focus more clearly.

And this is precisely why you are able to tune out thousands upon thousands of display ads so
effortlessly.

Given your brain’s inclination towards tuning out stimuli that goes unchanged, consider how to
improve your website design to grab your site visitors’ attention and shake them out of their
current state. Your design should make them stop and take notice.
Your website should be easy to navigate, the experience should feel intuitive, and their time on
site should feel good on a subconscious level. However, it shouldn’t feel like a template. It
shouldn’t appear stale or boring or the same as many other sites they’ve visited.

Deviation is highly effective in breaking the brain’s predictive inclinations, and in causing a
person to experience a website much differently than a me-too design. Understand the
competitive landscape. Document their journey. Realize what they are seeing when
experiencing your competitors’ websites.

Then, be sure you are delivering a site experience that breaks through all the noise and prevents
any type of sensory adaptation.

Q5. Find three examples of promotional methods that are ambush or experiential
marketing. Evaluate the sensory input emphasized by this methods & its effectiveness.
ANSWER
Ambush marketing – also known as coat-tail marketing or predatory ambushing – is the practice
of hijacking or co-opting another advertiser’s campaign to raise awareness of another company
or brand, often in the context of event sponsorships. Ambush marketing has emerged in recent
years as an effective, although controversial, weapon in the arsenal of marketing departments
seeking to associate themselves with sporting events without official authorization or
endorsement of the event organizer. It is an attempt by a third party to create a direct or indirect
association with an event or its participants without their approval, hence denying official
sponsors, suppliers and partners, part of the commercial value due to their ‘official’ designation.
This association is without permission of the event organizer or its official partners, and the
desire is to deceive the consumer into believing that there is an official association. Ambush
marketers do not use the trademarks of third parties but rather creatively allude to a sporting
event and use their own trademarks to suggest a connection or affiliation with that sporting
event.

For example,
(a) During the 2014 Winter Olympics, it is a great example of Ambush Marketing to start with.
In 1996, Nike rolled out one of the most memorable Ambush Marketing Campaigns in history.
During the 1996 Olympic Games held in Atlanta, Nike chose not to actually invest in the games
themselves or any sponsorships and instead chose to try their hands at Ambush Marketing. Nike
not only lined the streets of the city of Atlanta with Olympic themed advertisements, but they
also created one of the most memorable moments at the 1996 Olympics: Michael Johnson with
the gold Nike Shoes he raced in and his gold medals.
No one even remembered that Reebok actually sponsored the games, just Nike, those shoes, and
all the advertisements surrounding the games.

(b) RONA placed its ad under an Apple iPod advertisement in an available ad space. It is not
your typical type of Ambush Marketing because it is not done to grab a bigger percent of the
market from a direct competitor. It said “Nous récupérons Les Restes de Peinture” translating
into, “we recycle leftover paint.” This example was not global like Apple, but it surely got
attention with its single occurrence.

(c) Again Nike is the star of this example. In the 2006 World Cup, Nike once again created a
successful Ambush Marketing campaign. They launched a social networking website for the
world’s soccer fans as part of its “Joga Bonito” marketing campaign. Nike claimed that their
website and sponsorship of the Brazilian soccer team combined gave them the same exposure as
their competitors Adidas, only they didn’t pay the extra millions that Adidas had to for the Cup
Sponsorship.

Effectiveness of Ambush Marketing

There are primarily four reasons as to why ambush marketing, despite being an intellectual
property infringement has survived, as discussed below:

1. Most ambush marketing campaigns are short lived:

Sporting events such as the world cup, super bowl, Olympics, etc. occur within a short period of
time, likewise, corporations’ efforts to ambush events usually occur within a very limited time
period. For example, where a corporation uses an event which only lasts for two or three days, to
market its products, it becomes very difficult for the event organizers to exercise their legal
options to curtail such activity.

2. Existence of limited case laws:

Though laws exist which may have a general application to the problem of ambush marketing,
only a handful of cases have actually progressed through the judicial system. This is particularly
true for challenges to ambush marketing using the theory of misappropriation. Legal battles
require much time and effort, and so far very few promoters or sponsors have brought suits
against ambush marketers, for instance, misappropriation of the league property.

3. Success of Corporations in defending themselves:

Corporations have been extremely adept at protecting themselves from legal challenges against
ambush marketing. For example, in the case of NHL Pepsi Cola, Canada, the popular strategy of
using disclaimers such as ‘the company is not an official sponsor and has not paid to affiliate
with the event’ was successful in helping Pepsi get away scot free. Besides, since the two
products were not similar, Pepsi wriggled out of the allegation of trademark infringement and
passing-off. The problem is that always at least one condition of any of the above-mentioned
claims or any other potentially applicable claims remains unfulfilled thereby leading to a failed
action by the claimant.

4. Avoidance of legal recourse by event organizers:

Affected parties often do not take legal help since there is a paucity of case laws regarding
ambush marketing, and a court decision in favour of an ambushing company could set a
precedent that could be used by every other company implementing an ambush campaign.