Situational Influence

Consumer behaviour: course framework

• Exposure
NEED
• Attention
RECOGNITION • Perception
• Motivation
INFORMATION
SEARCH • Learning
Social Influence

• Memory
EVALUATION OF
• Attitudes and persuasion
ALTERNATIVES

CHOICE/ • Decision Making

• Situational Influence
PURCHASE

POST-CHOICE • Post-Purchase Satisfaction

EVALUATION
Situational influence
Agenda
 Situational influence
 What is priming?

 Priming examples: sensory influence

 Colours
 Sound
 Fragrance

 When does priming work?

 Some caveats
Situational Influence
 3 things influence purchasing decisions
 Features of the product/service (stimulus)
 Features of the consumer (intra-individual factors)
 Situational features (everything else)
 Unimportant/non-functional features of the product
 Features of the environment

 Situational features
 Factors particular to a time and place other than intra-individual
and stimulus attributes that have a demonstrable and systematic
effect on current behaviour

 It is worth examining situational influences because…

Situational influence works through
priming
 Our brains store information in associative networks that
represent clusters of related knowledge
Autos Luxury
Cars
US
Made
Prince Sports car German made

Corvette Mercedes
Porsche
Cheesy

Fast Expensive Prestigious Reliable

What is priming?
 A prime activates a particular area of the brain, making
related concepts more accessible
 Priming activates a node, which moves to different
concepts/nodes through links in the network in a process called
spreading activation
About priming
 Primes can activate information or motivational states
 Semantic priming activates information, concepts, knowledge
 Goal/motivational priming activates approach/avoid behaviour

 Both function through exposure to particular stimuli

 Caveat: in order to prime anything, links must already exist

What can you prime?

Aggression Business
Emotion Frugality
Affiliation Attitudes
 The operational potential of
subliminal perception
About priming
“Certain individuals can at certain times
 Primes can be and under certain circumstances be
influenced to act abnormally without
 Supraliminal awareness of the influence.”
 Subliminal

 Priming can occur through

 Scrambled sentence tasks (verbal)
 Computer-based priming (visual)
58% 18%
 Environmental priming
 Visual/auditory/tactile/scent
How do you prime people?
Scrambled sentences
 Please use 4 of the following 5 words to form a
grammatically correct sentence
 lives his she Florida in
 she lives in Florida

 Participants unscrambled 30 sets of 5 words

 Condition 1: words related to the elderly
 worried, Florida, old, lonely, grey, selfishly, careful, sentimental,
wise, stubborn, bingo, retired, wrinkle, ancient
 Condition 2: neutral words
 thirsty, clean, exercise, clear, success

Bargh, Chen, and Burrows 1996

How do you prime people?
Scrambled sentences
 Study participants who were exposed to elderly words
walked more slowly when leaving the experiment relative
to study participants who were exposed to neutral words
How do you prime people?
Computer-based
 Display key words (or images) very briefly in between
other stimuli
 Length of time key words are displayed determines whether
prime is supraliminal or subliminal
 Where the prime is displayed matters

QFZBX
DIET
QFZBX
How do you prime people?
Environmental features

Kay et al. 2004 Fishbach and Friedman 2003

Motivational priming
 Lasts longer than semantic priming
 Gets stronger over time rather than fading
 Dissipates only when goal/motivation is satiated

 In order to occur
 Motivation must be possible (a discrepancy must exist)
 The behaviour must have a positive (desired) outcome

 If these conditions do NOT exist  semantic priming

 Much more temporary effects that fade quickly
Motivational priming:
brand example
 Apple versus IBM  creativity
 Disney versus E!  honesty

Fitzsimons et al. 2008

 Motivational priming:
brand example

NIKE
1@ $5.25

HANES
2 @ $6.00

prestige frugal
or or
Nordstrom Wal-Mart

Chartrand et al. 2008

Motivational priming:
Drink Cola!

Karremans et al. 2006

Agenda
 Situational influence
 What is priming?

 Priming examples: sensory influence

 Colours
 Sound
 Fragrance

 When does priming work?

 Some caveats
Vision and colour
 Colours are seen as warm or cool mainly because of long-
held (sometimes universal) associations
 Yellow, orange and red = heat of sun and fire, energy, danger
 Blue and green = coolness of leaves, sea and the sky, peace

 Red has been shown to stimulate the senses and raise the
blood pressure

 Blue has the opposite effect and calms the mind

Ohme 2001
Colour: Motivational example
 Red = avoid  better at detail-oriented tasks
 Blue = approach  better at creative tasks

Mehta & Zhu 2008

Colour: Interbrand Example
 Nabisco’s Snackwells
 Wanted to be memorable brand in newly-emerging category
 fat-free snacks
 Chose green = fresh
 One of the most successful food product introductions of 90’s
Colour: Halloween example
 Day before Halloween versus one week later
 “Quick thinking” questionnaire
 Participants listed 8 types of candy/chocolate or soda
60 54
50 47
% mentioning

40
30 30
30
Reese's
20 Orange Crush
10
0

Berger & Fitzsimons, 2008

Sound and Hearing
 The four ways sound influences us
 Physiologically

 Psychologically

 Cognitively
 Narrow auditory bandwidth

 Behaviourally
 Approach/avoid
Sound: Brand names
 Abstract vs. informative? Descriptive vs. suggestive?
Coined names vs. real words?
 Depends on ease (time and cost) of building associative networks

 Name should be associated with qualities you want to

convey
 Italiatour vs. Italytour for package tours to Italy
 Acura: “Acu” means precise in many languages
 Ally: friend, helper, trustworthy
Sound: Brand Names
 Phonetic symbolism: sounds in words convey meaning

 New line of cars: Brimley or Bromley

 Bromley rated higher than Brimley on perceived legroom, trunk
space, and engine power

Lowrey & Shrum, 2007

Sound: Brand Names
 New brand of ice cream: Frish or Frosh
 Frosh rated as creamier, smoother & richer
 Brand attitudes were higher for Frosh
 Purchase intentions were higher for Frosh

Lowrey & Shrum, 2007

Sound: Brand Names

/i/ and /e/ :

small, light,
lively, sharper
Hummer Tahoe

/a/, /o/,
and /u/ :
big, slow,
heavy,
dull
Mini Fiat
Sound: Interbrand Example 1
 Gillette SensorExcel
 “Sensor” suggests sensation on skin and contours of face
 “Excel” conveys excellence of shave
 Supports brand’s positioning as a line of products with
more advanced features than original

 Gillette Mach3
 Primary target audience: male wet-shavers 18-34
 Wanted to suggest precision, futuristic, agile, three-stage, fluid,
quick, responsive, sleek and next-generation
Sound: Interbrand Example 2
 Eli Lilly’s Prozac
 Pharmaceuticals usually use derivatives of generic compounds
(safe, serious, and effective): fluoxetine
 Led to alphabet soup

 Wanted to be unique: short, crisp, simple, and non-typical

 Positive associations on Latin/Greek derivations of “pro” with

short, effective sounding suffix
Sound: Interbrand Example 3
 Mitsubishi’s Eclipse
 Mitsubishi wanted to roll out new sports coupe and wanted
name to be sporty
 Interbrand studied “elements of speed, motion, and action”
 Found that “eclipse” connotes power and enhanced
performance
 Suggests that car eclipses all others in its path
 Associated with solar or lunar eclipse (which travels at high
speeds)
Sound: auditory branding
 Top ten non-brand sounds  Top ten branded sounds
1 Baby giggle 2  Intel
3 Vibrating phone  National Geographic
5
4 ATM / cash register 6  MTV
9 ‘Star Spangled Banner’ 7  T-Mobile
 Sizzling steak 8  McDonald’s
 Hail to the Chief 10  State Farm
 Cigarette light and inhale  AT&T
 ‘Wedding March’  Home Depot
 ‘Wish Upon a Star’  Palm Treo
 Letterman theme  PC Richard

Daye and VanAurek 2010

Sound: auditory branding
Sound: Music
 Tempo: slow vs. fast
 Affects pace of people walking through store
 Affects sales

 Other dimensions that are important?

Sound: Music example
 French vs. German music playing in a wine store

45
40
40
35
30
Bottles Sold

25
22 French Music
20 German Music
15 12
8
10
5
0
French wine German wine

North et al., 1999

Fragrance
 Environmental fragrancing
 Increase worker productivity

 Bookstores use coffee shop in-store to give whole store

pleasant coffee-ground smell

 Quality Suites: “My guests recognize the scent of Downy,

Febreze, Comet and Mr. Clean in our establishment and tell us
that it makes them feel right at home.”

 Why are smells so powerful?

 Consumer’s intentions and actual behaviour are
influenced by aspects of the environment
 Use existing associations with colours

 How can marketers use this situational influence to trigger

needs, shape intentions, and change purchase behaviour
When priming works
 Are we always being primed by everything?
 If so, how do we manage situational influence?

 How do you know what will be activated by a prime?

 associative network characteristics
 Strength ( frequency, recency) and specificity
 context
 motivation

 How do you know which prime will “win”?

 strength
 “affordances”