Marketing Psychology & Consumer Behaviour (part 2)

Tri Component Attitude model

The decision-making process plays a critical role in shaping consumer behaviour. A better understanding of the decision-making process can help marketers develop effective strategies to influence consumer behaviour. People make decisions formed through three different components, also called the "Tri Component Attitude Model"  (Schiffman, 2010)

The cognitive component focuses on the consumer’s knowledge and beliefs, about products and services (Schiffman, 2010). The affective component refers to the consumer’s emotions or feelings (Schiffman, 2010). For example, think about colours of packaging that attract or make you feel positive. The cognitive component refers to the behaviour that results from the attitude (Schiffman, 2010). It is often considered an expression of the consumer’s intention to purchase. For example, shopping, tasting bread, looking at packaging. 

By understanding the Tri-Component Attitude Model, businesses can create emotional marketing campaigns that target all three components, to establish a deeper emotional connection between consumers and brands. Emotional marketing consists of emotional advertising and emotional branding. 

Emotional advertising

Advertising has come a long way over the years, and one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience is through emotional advertising. Emotional advertising is all about tapping into the emotions of your target audience to create a connection with them. It's about using emotional triggers to make people feel something, and ultimately, to motivate them to take action. One of the most common emotional triggers used in advertising is happiness. Brands use images and messaging that evoke positive emotions to make people feel happy and good about themselves. An example is Coca-Cola’s emotional advertising. Figure 1 shows the advertisement of Coca-Cola. The advertisement shows happy and smiling people who are satisfied with their Coke. This is what Coca Cola wants to be known for: happy, smiling, and satisfied customers. Customers who can make a moment more enjoyable by drinking a Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola, 2016). Customers will associate the brand with good feelings when seeing smiling people.

Figure 1

Advertisement as part of the Coca-Cola™ campaign: "Taste the Feeling" (Coca-Cola, 2016)

An example of brands that make extensive use of negative emotional advertising are animal rights organisations. Figure 2 shows the advertising of the animal rights organisation PETA. It uses this advertising to appeal to people's empathic abilities. It allows the viewer to empathise with the millions of animals suffering in laboratories while better, non-animal methods can be used instead. They aim to evoke an immediate sense of pity and guilt in people and encourage them to make more conscious and animal-friendly choices (PETA, 2018). These emotional triggers have a great impact on our decision-making process, which makes it very attractive for marketers to exploit them. However, these negative emotions can also risk diverting attention from the advertising message and evoking viewers' defence mechanisms (Nabi, 2014).

Figure 2

PETA Advertisement Against Animal Testing. Source: PETA, (2018)

There is much debate about the effectiveness of positive advertising compared to negative advertising. However, a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania showed that people were most interested in positive advertising. For six months, the researchers closely tracked the list of most emailed New York Times articles. They found that positive articles were shared more often than negative ones, and that the more emotional stories were emailed most often (Ji et al., 2018)..

Emotional branding

Emotional branding leads to competitive advantage and positive brand awareness. Marketers hope to achieve deeper, lasting, and strong brand loyalty, by establishing emotional connections between consumers and brands (Malär et al., 2011).

Apple is widely regarded as a brand that excels at emotional branding. Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be used to understand how Apple creates an emotional impact. The pyramid represents the driving force behind the actions taken to satisfy an individual's needs. Abraham Maslow (1943) proposed that each layer of the pyramid represents one of a person's basic needs.

Figure 3

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Apple's products and associated communications address all of these layers, making the brand successful in terms of emotional branding. Apple's emotional branding strategy looks like this:

Layer 1 Physiological needs: Apple's products are comfortable to use and provide relaxation.

Layer 2 Safety needs: An iPhone makes you feel safe: you can easily and quickly send an alarm or call someone. However, they stand out in this category by emphasizing the privacy consumers maintain when they choose Apple.  The slogan of one of their campaigns is therefore: 'Privacy. That's an iPhone.'

Layer 3 Love and Belonging: Apple recognizes the desire to be part of something. Part of something important: Part of the latest and most advanced technology. Apple responds by not just announcing new products, but turning them into a mysterious and spectacular event. People who attend the event get the impression that they are part of something big and important. People buy the latest technology from Apple because they want to belong and keep up with advancing technology.

Layer 4 Esteem: Apple is more expensive than comparable brands. Combined with Apple's beautiful design, this brings with it a certain status. The brand is associated with success and elegance.

Layer 5 Self-actualization: Apple positions itself as a platform where one can become part of a cultural movement, a technological revolution. Under the motto "Think differently," people are encouraged to develop their creative selves.

Apple's successful emotional branding has resulted in many people joining the "Apple community" over the years. Apart from utilizing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to establish a strong emotional connection with customers, there are additional tactics that marketers can use. 

According to behavioural psychologists, making an emotional impact works best through images. 40% of people respond better to visual information because images are processed 60,000 times faster than text (Media Education Center, 2010). Images amplify or influence emotions and attitudes, because 50% of our brain functions through images (Pavel, 2014). Second, you need to engage your audience personally. You build a connection with your customer by making them feel special, unique, and important. It is critical to keep in touch with your customers, such as through social media. You also need to make your customers feel comfortable by being consistent in your expressions and behaviours. Finally, it is important to respond quickly to social issues or changes, and a very positive brand experience must follow (Rossiter & Bellman, 2012).

 

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