Transcript Consumers` Product Knowledge and Involvement - McGraw

Chapter 4
Consumers’ Product
Knowledge and
Involvement
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Levels of Product Knowledge
• Consumers use different levels of product
knowledge to interpret new information and
make purchase choices
• How consumers form levels of knowledge
• No one level of knowledge captures all the
possible meanings of an object, event, or
behavior
4-3
Levels of Product Knowledge cont.
• Four levels of product knowledge
– Product class
– Product form
– Brand
– Model/features
4-4
Levels of Product Knowledge cont.
4-5
Consumers’ Product Knowledge
• Three types of product knowledge
4-6
Consumers’ Product Knowledge cont.
• Products as bundles of attributes
– Attributes
– Concrete attributes
– Abstract attributes
• Products as bundles of benefits
– Consequences
• Functional
• Psychosocial
4-7
Consumers’ Product Knowledge cont.
– Benefits
• Bundles of benefits
• Benefit segmentation
– Perceived risks
•
•
•
•
Physical
Financial
Functional
Psychosocial
4-8
Consumers’ Product Knowledge cont.
• Perceived risk influenced by
– Degree of unpleasantness of negative consequences
– Likelihood that negative consequences will occur
– Products as value satisfiers
• Values
– Instrumental
– Terminal
– Core
4-9
Means-End Chains of Product
Knowledge
• Links consumers’ knowledge about product
attributes with their knowledge about
consequences and values
4-10
Means-End Chains of Product
Knowledge
4-11
Means-End Chains of Product
Knowledge cont.
• Four levels of means-end chain
– Attributes
– Functional consequences
– Psychosocial consequences
– Values
4-12
Means-End Chains of Product
Knowledge cont.
• Examples of means-end chains
4-13
Means-End Chains of Product
Knowledge cont.
• Identifying consumers’ means-end chains
– One-on-one personal interviews
• Two basic steps involved
• Marketing implications
4-14
Digging for Deeper Consumer
Understanding
• Focus groups
• The ZMET approach to consumer
knowledge
• The ZMET interview
• Marketing implications
4-15
Involvement
• Consumers’ perceptions of importance or
personal relevance for an object, event, or
activity
– A motivational state that energizes and directs
consumers’ cognitive and affective processes
and behaviors as decisions are made
– Felt involvement
4-16
Involvement cont.
• Focus of involvement
– Products and brands
– Physical objects
– People
– Activities or behaviors
4-17
Involvement cont.
• The means-end basis for involvement
– A consumers’ level of involvement or selfrelevance depends on two aspects of the
means-end chains that are activated
• Importance of self-relevance of the ends
• Strength of connections between the product
knowledge level and the self-knowledge level
– Factors influencing involvement
4-18
Involvement cont.
4-19
Involvement cont.
– Person’s level of involvement influenced by two
sources of self-relevance
• Intrinsic
• Situational
– What marketers need to understand
• Focus of consumers’ involvement
• Sources that create it
4-20
Marketing Implications
• Understanding the key reasons for
purchases
• Understanding the consumer-product
relationship
4-21
Marketing Implications cont.
– Four market segments with different levels of
intrinsic self-relevance for a product category
and brand
•
•
•
•
Brand loyalists
Routine brand buyers
Information seekers
Brand switchers
4-22
Marketing Implications cont.
– Influencing intrinsic self-relevance
– Influencing situational self-relevance
4-23
Summary
• Discussed the fact that consumers don’t buy
products to get attributes
• Learned that consumers think about
products in terms of their desirable and
undesirable consequences, benefits, and
perceived risks
• Described how consumers form knowledge
structures called means-end chains
4-24
Summary cont.
• Learned that consumers’ feelings of
involvement are determined by intrinsic selfrelevance – the means-end knowledge
stored in memory
• Discussed situational factors in the
environment and how they influence the
content of activated means-end chains and
thereby affect the involvement consumers
experience when choosing which products
and brands to buy
4-25