Chapter 3

Learning and Memory

 Objectives
• 1 – Why is it important to appreciate how consumers learn about products and services?

• 2 – Why does conditioning result is learning?

• 3 – Why do learned associations with brands generalize to other products, and why is this
important to marketers?

• 4 – What is the difference between classical and instrumental conditioning?

• 5 – How do we learn by observing others’ behavior?

• 6 – How do memory systems work?

• 7 – Why do the other products we associate with an individual product influence how we will
remember it?

• 8 – How do products help us to retrieve memories from our past?

• 9 – How do marketers measure our memories about product and ads?

Objective 1: Why is it important to appreciate how consumers
learn about products and services?

• Learning
▫ Is a permanent change in behavior that experience causes.

▫ The learner need to have the experience directly  we can also learn when we observe events that
affect others.

▫ We learn even when we don’t try  we recognize many brand names, even for products we don’t
personally use.

▫ We call this casual, unintentional acquisition of knowledge incidental learning.

▫ Learning is an ongoing process.

▫ The concept of learning covers a lot of ground  ranging from a consumers’ simple association
between a stimulus such as product logo (e.g. Coca-Cola) and a response (e.g. refreshing soft drink).

▫ Behavioral theories  focus on simple stimulus, response connections .

▫ Cognitive theories  regard consumers as complex problem solvers who learn abstract rules and
concept when they observe what others say and do.
Objective 2: Why does conditioning result is learning?

• Behavioral learning theories

▫ Assume that learning takes place as the result of
responses to external events.
Objective 2: Why does conditioning result is learning?
Objective 2: Why does conditioning result is learning?

• Two major approaches to learning represent this view:

• Classical conditioning  occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is
paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own.

• Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who conducted research on digestion in

animals.
• He paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a
salivation response in dogs(meat powder).

• The powder was an unconditioned stimulus because it was naturally

capable of causing the response. Over time, the bell became the conditioned
stimulus  it did not initially cause salvation, but the dogs learned to
associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of
the bell only.
• Another e.g. credit card.
Objective 2: Why does conditioning result is learning?

• Repetition
▫ Conditioning effects are more likely to occur after the conditioned
stimulus and unconditioned stimulus have been paired a number of
times.

▫ Repeated exposure increase the strength of stimulus and prevent the

decay of these association in memory.

▫ Conditioning will not occur or will take longer if the CS is only paired
with the UCS  one result of this lack of association is extinction.
▫ E.g. the Lacoste polo shirts, with its distinctive crocodile crest, is a
good example of this effect. When the one-exclusive crocodile started
to appear on baby clothes and many other items such as shoes, it lose
its cachet.
Objective 2: Why does conditioning result is learning?

• Stimulus Generalization
▫ Refers to the tendency of stimuli similar to a CS to evoke similar, conditioned
responses.
▫ E.g. Pavlov in his studies  dogs would sometimes salivate when they heard noises
that only resembled a bell, such as keys jangling.
▫ People also react to other, similar stimuli in much the same way they responded to
the original stimulus  we call this generalization a halo effect.
▫ Ex: a drugstore’s bottle of private brand mouthwash it deliberately packages to
resemble Listerine mouthwash may evoke a similar response among consumers,
who assume that this me-too products share other characteristics of the original.

• Some companies now use a strategy they call  masked branding where they
deliberately hide a product’s true origin.
• Stimulus Discrimination  occurs when a UCS does not follow a stimulus
similar to CS. Manufacturers of well established brands commonly urge
consumers not to buy cheap imitations because the results will not be what they
expect.
Objective 3: Why do learned associations with brands generalize to
other products, and why is this important to marketers?

• Associations  brand equity  a brand has strong positive

associations in a consumer’s memory and a lot of loyalty as a
result.
• Marketing Application of Repetition
• Three exposure to a marketing communication are wasted.

• The first exposure creates awareness of the product  the

second demonstrates its relevance to the consumer  the third
reminds him or her of the product results.

• Marketers that attempt to condition an association must ensure

that the consumers they target will be exposed to the stimulus a
sufficient number of times to make it stick.
Objective 3: Why do learned associations with brands generalize to
other products, and why is this important to marketers?

• Marketing Applications on Stimulus Generalization

• Strategies marketers base on stimulus generalization include the following:

• Family brand  many products capitalize on the reputation of a company

name. e.g. General Electric rely on their positive corporate images to sell
different product lines.

• Product line extension  Marketers add related products to an established

brand. E.g. Head & Shoulders.

• Licensing  companies often rent well-known names. e.g. Dunkin Donuts.

• Look alike packaging  distinctive packaging designs create strong

associations with particular brand. Companies make generic or private label
brands and want to communicate a quality image often exploit the linkage when
they put their products in similar packages to those particular brands.
Objective 4:What is the difference between classical and
instrumental conditioning?

• Instrumental Conditioning
• Occurs when we learn to perform behaviors that produce positive
outcomes and avoid those that yield negative outcomes. E.g. when
we teach horses to dance through an musical instruments.

• Instrumental conditioning occurs in one of three ways:

▫ when the environment provides positive reinforcement in the

form of a reward, this strengthens the response and we learn the
appropriate behavior. Ex: a women gets compliments after wearing
Obsession perfume learns that using this product has the desired
effect, and she will be more likely to keep buying the product.
Objective 4:What is the difference between classical and
instrumental conditioning?

• Instrumental Conditioning

▫ Negative reinforcement also strengthen responses so that

we learn the appropriate behavior. A perfume co. might
run an ad showing a woman sitting home alone on a
Saturday night because she did not wear its fragrance. The
message is that she could have avoided this negative
outcome if only she had used the perfume.

▫ Punishment occurs when unpleasant events follow a

response e.g. a friend ridicule us if we wear a nasty smelling
perfume, we learn hard not to repeat these behaviors.
Objective 4:What is the difference between classical and
instrumental conditioning?

• Fixed-interval reinforcement
▫ People tend to respond slowly right after they get
reinforced, but their responses get faster as the time
for the next reinforcement approaches. E.g.
consumers may crowd into a store for the last day of
its seasonal sale and not reappear until the next one.

• Variable-interval reinforcement
▫ The time that must pass before you get reinforced
varies based on some average. E.g. secret shoppers
Objective 4:What is the difference between classical and
instrumental conditioning?

• Fixed-ratio reinforcement
▫ Reinforcement occurs only after a fixed number of
responses. This schedule motivates you to
continue performing the same behavior over and
over. E.g. prize from selling bank assurance.

• Variable-ratio reinforcement
▫ You get reinforced after a certain number of
responses, but you don’t know how many
responses are required.
Objective 5: How do we learn by observing others’
behavior?

• Observational Learning
▫ Occurs when people watch the actions of others and note the
reinforcements they receive for their behavior
▫ Modeling  is the process of imitating the behavior of others.
▫ Ex: woman who shops for a new kind of perfume may remember the
reactions her friend received when she wore a certain brand several
months earlier, and she will mimic her friend behavior with the hope of
getting the same feedback.
▫ The modeling process is a powerful form of learning and people
tendencies to imitate other’s behavior can have a negative effects.
▫ Ex: the potential of television shows and movies to teach violence.

• In order to observational learning in the form of modeling to occur,

the marker must meet four conditions:
Objective 5: How do we learn by observing others’
behavior?
Objective 5: How do we learn by observing others’
behavior?
Objective 5: How do we learn by observing others’
behavior?
• Types of meaning
• Episodic memories
▫ Relate to events that are personally relevant.
▫ Ex: couples often have their song which reminds them of
their first date or wedding.
▫ Vivid associations, flashbulb memories  where were you
when you first heard about the attack on the world trade
center.

• Narrative
▫ Or story is often an effective way to convey product
information.
Objective 6: How do memory systems work?
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• Association Networks
▫ Contains many bits of related information.
▫ We each have organized systems of concepts that relate to brands, manufacturers, and
stores stored in our memories
▫ Their contents depend on our unique experiences

• Spreading Activation
▫ Allows us to shift back among level of meaning.
▫ They way we store a piece of information in memory depends on the type of meaning we
initially assign to.
▫ Brand specific  memory is stored in terms of claims the brand makes (a macho)
▫ Ad-specific  memory is stored in terms of the medium or content of the ad itself (a
macho looking guy uses the product)
▫ Brand identification  memory is stored in terms of the brand name (e.g. Axe)
▫ Product category  memory is stored in terms how the product works or where it
should be used.
▫ Evaluative reactions  memory is stored positive or negative emotions (that looks cool).
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• Level of knowledge

• Script  a sequence of events an individual

expects to occur.
▫ A service script for a visit to the dentist might
include such events as drive to the dentist, read
old magazines in the waiting room, hear name
called and sit in dentist chair, dentist injects
something into your mouth and so on,
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• How We Retrieve Memories When We decide What to Buy

• Retrieval is the process whereby we recover information from long term
memory.

• The information that enters our long term memory does not go away, it may be
difficult or impossible to retrieve unless the appropriate cues are present.

• Individual cognitive or physiological factors are responsible for some of the

differences in retrieval ability among people.

• Situational factors also influence retrieval, which relate to the environment in

which we encounter the message.

• The spacing effect  describes the tendency for us to recall printed material
more effectively when the advertiser repeats the target item periodically rather than
presenting it repeatedly in a short time period. Ex: commercials we see during
football game.
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• What Makes Us Forget?

• Process of decay  the structural changes learning produces in the
brain simply go away.
• Forgetting also occurs as a result of interference; as we learn additional
information, it displaces the earlier information.
• State-Dependent Retrieval
▫ Illustrates that we are better able to access information if our internal
state is the same at the time of recall as when we learned the information.
Ex: we are more likely to re-call an ad if our mood at the time of exposure
is similar to that in the purchase environment.
• Familiarity and Recall
▫ Example; when researchers expose consumer radio as that repeats the
audio track from a television ad they’ve already seen, they do very little
critical, evaluate processing and instead mentally replay the video portion
of the ad.
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• Salience and Recall

▫ Salience of a brand refers to its prominence or level of
activation in memory.

▫ Almost any technique that increases the novelty of a stimulus

also improve recall (a result we call the vonRestorff Effect).

▫ This explain why unusual advertising or distinctive packaging

tend to facilitate brand recall.

▫ Unipolar emotions  we recall good things as even better than

they really were and bad things as even worse. Ex: maybe the
good old days weren’t really so good after all.
Objective 7: Why do the other products we associate with an
individual product influence how we will remember it?

• Pictorial vs Verbal Cues: is a picture worth

a thousand words?
▫ There is some evidence for the superiority of visual
memory over verbal memory.
▫ This advantage is unclear because it is more difficult
to measure recall of pictures.
▫ The available data indicate that we are more likely
to recognize information we see in picture form at a
later time.
▫ Visual aspects of an ad are more likely to grab a
consumer’s attention.
Objective 8:How do products help us to retrieve memories
from our past?

• Products as Memory Markers

• Product and ads can themselves serve as powerful retrieval cues.
•
• Indeed, the three types of possessions consumers most value are
furniture, visual art, and photos.

• A stimulus, at times, able to evoke a weakened response even

years after we first perceive it. We call this effect spontaneous
recovery.

• This reestablished connection may explain consumers’ powerful

emotional reactions to songs or pictures they have not been
exposed to in quite a long time.
Objective 9: How do marketers measure our memories about
product and ads?

• Because marketers pay so much money to place their messages in

front of consumers, they hope that people will actually remember
these ads at a later point.
• Recognition vs Recall
▫ One indicator of good advertising is, of course, the impression it
makes on us.
▫ But can we define and measure this impact?
▫ Two basic measures of impact are: recognition and recall.
▫ Recognition  researchers show ads to subjects one at a time and
ask if they have seen them before.
▫ Recall  ask consumers to independently think of what they have
seen without being prompted for this information first, this task
requires greater effort on their part.
▫ Both types of retrieval play important roles in purchase decisions.
Objective 9: How do marketers measure our memories
about product and ads?
• Problems and Memory Measures
▫ The results obtain from a measuring instrument are not necessarily based on what
we measure but rather on something else about the instrument or the respondent
 response bias.
▫ People tend to give “yes” responses to questions, regardless of what the item asks
• Memory Lapses
▫ People also forget information or retain inaccurate memories.
▫ Typically problems include:
▫ Omitting  leaving facts out
▫ Averaging  the tendency to normalize memories by not reporting extreme cases
▫ Telescoping  inaccurate recall of time.
▫ The illusion of truth effect  where telling people that a consumer claim is false can
make them misremember it as true.
▫ Respondents were repeatedly told that a claim was false, after a 3 day delay they
were likely to remember it as true.
Objective 9: How do marketers measure our memories
about product and ads?
• Bittersweet Memories: The Marketing Power of Nostalgia

• Nostalgia  describes a bittersweet emotion where we view the

past with both sadness and longing.
• References to the good old days are increasing common as
advertisers call up memories of youth and hope these feelings will
translate to what they’re selling today.

• Retro brand  an updated version of a brand from a prior

historical period. These product trigger nostalgia, and researchers
find that they often inspire consumers to think back to an era
where life was more stable, simple.
• Our prior experience also help to determine what we like today.