Mid-term exam revision: Concepts &

Questions
Tips for studying:

1. Study in groups! Try to discuss and ask questions with your friends.
2. Try to define each concept in your own words and come up with your own
examples. They should help you with the multiple-choice questions.
3. The practice questions should give you an idea of what the written questions
look like.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Consumer Behavior

1. Consumer Behavior
2. Big Data and its application in driving consumer behavior
3. User-generated content and its impact on how a company market its products
4. Consumer trends: “sharing economy”, “authenticity”, “personalization”,
“diversity and multiculturalism”, “income inequality”, “healthy, ethical living”,
“gender equality”, “simplification”, “experience versus materialism”
5. Needs vs wants
6. Responsible consumption & responsible marketing

Practice questions:

1. Consumers and the items they consume can take many forms. Give examples of
three different types of consumers and examples of three different types of
items they could consume, including products, services, and ideas.

2. Briefly explain how marketers play a significant role in our view of the world and
why are we “living in a branded world”. Give a specific example.

3. Name three consumer trends. Among them, which one are you most concerned
or excited about? Why?
4. What are diversity and multiculturalism? What are their significance in the
context of Vietnam consumer culture?
5. A critic says that marketing encourages women to hate their own bodies by
showing them models with V-line face, curvy body and smooth white skin. To
which extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Chapter 2: Consumer Ethics, the Marketplace, and the
Planet
1. Business ethics
2. What does the PESTLE framework consist of?
3. Political Environment
a. Consumer activism
b. Corporate activism
c. Slacktivism.
4. Economic Environment
a. Consumed consumers
b. Media literacy
c. Financial literacy
5. Social Environment
a. Cancel culture
b. Cause marketing
c. Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
d. Corporate social irresponsibility (CSI)
i. DuPont
ii. Fossil fuel companies
6. Technological Environment
a. Data privacy. Example of users’ data privacy being violated by companies.
b. Identity theft
c. algorithm bias
d. Consumer addiction and its relation to technology
i. Social media addiction
ii. Cyberbullying
7. Legal Environment
a. Counterfeiting
i. fake pharmaceuticals
8. Natural Environment
a. Conscious consumerism
b. Sustainability
c. Fast fashion
d. Green marketing & Green washing
e. Prosocial behaviors

Practice questions:

1. What are business ethics, and why is this an important topic?

2. Give two examples of important legislation that affects Vietnamese consumers.
 3. Today many consumers pursue a “decluttering lifestyle.” Should marketers
encourage this trend toward simplicity even though it stresses buying less stuff
that marketers sell? What marketing opportunities do you foresee if this trend
spreads?
4. What is greenwashing? Give an example of greenwashing done by a Vietnamese
company.

Chapter 3: Perceiving and Meaning Making

1. Sensations
2. Perception
3. Sensory Marketing
a. Define sensory marketing
b. Vision
i. 5 main elements of visual perception: illuminance, shape, surface
color, material, location
ii. Colors and emotional reactions
iii. Aesthetics bias
c. Scent (smell)
i. How can scent stir your emotions? Memories, mood, …
ii. Name one product that you are impressed with the smell. What
emotions do you feel?
d. Sound
i. What is tempo? Effect of fast tempo and slow tempo on consumer
behavior?
ii. Pitch? (pitch-size effect) Effect of high-pitch music & low-pitch
music on consumers?
e. Touch (haptic)
i. Endowment effect
f. Taste
i. 5 basic tastes
4. Three Stages of Perception (Figure 3.1)
a. Sensory stimuli => Sensory receptors
b. Exposure
i. Sensory threshold
1. Absolute threshold
2. Differential threshold
a. Just noticeable difference
3. Weber’s Law
ii. Shrinkflation
c. Attention
 i. Sensory overload
ii. Multitasking and its consequence on consumers’ ability to absorb,
retain, and understand information
d. Interpretation
i. What is our interpretation of stimulus based on?
1. Schema. Subjective experiences, our cultural background,
our personal sensitivities, our expectations, etc.
ii. Anthropomorphize
iii. Relational processing
iv. Principles of Gestalt Psychology
1. closure principle
2. similarity principle
3. figure-ground principle
4. Joint vs. separate
5. Semiotics
a. Three basic components of marketing message. Give example.
b. Three ways sign relates to objects (Charles Sander Peirce)

Practice questions:

• Identify and describe the three stages of perception.

• Blind taste tests in the 1980s showed that most Coke drinkers preferred a cola
that was sweeter than the current product. When Coca-Cola attempted to make
its product sweeter, brand loyal customers revolted and demanded the old
product be returned. Explain how Coca-Cola marketers could have used the
principles of psychophysics to introduce the new coke without creating these
problems (Hint: A concept in sensory threshold is the key)

• As people age their sensory detection abilities decline. How will advertisements
in the future likely change sensory stimuli to accommodate? Demonstrate with an
example.

• Advertising has increasingly become less effective because of increased clutter.

How can advertisers use contrast to cut through the clutter?

• In car commercials, we usually hear low-pitched male voices. Based on the pitch-
size effect, explain how low-pitched male voice in car commercials influence
viewers.

Chapter 4: Learning, Remembering and Knowing

1. Incidental learning
2. Behavioral learning theories
 a. Define classical conditioning. Describe the process of classical
conditioning using an example.
i. Evaluative conditioning
ii. Repetition
iii. Marketing applications of classical conditioning
1. Transfer of meaning
2. Strategies that marketers base on stimulus generalization
iv. Effect of advertising repetition on product perception
1. Advertising wear-out and advertising weariness
b. Instrumental Conditioning
i. Positive reinforcement
ii. Negative reinforcement
iii. Punishment
iv. Marketing applications
3. Cognitive learning theory
a. Observational Learning
i. Modeling and its application in marketing campaigns
b. Stages of cognitive development in children
i. Ethical issues in kids’ advertising
4. Remembering
a. Memory process (3 stages)
b. Semantic memory vs Episodic memory
c. Types of memory: sensory, short-term, long-term
d. Forget
i. Decay
ii. Interference
1. Retroactive interference
2. Proactive interference
iii. Motivated forgetting
e. Factors help us remember
i. Salience
ii. Visual vs verbal cues
1. Memory markers
iii. Narrative
f. Measurement consumers’ memories for marketing messages
i. Recall
ii. Recognition
g. Nostalgia marketing
5. How knowledge is organized in our brain
a. Associate network, knowledge structures and nodes, spreading activation
i. How do we put products into categories?
 b. Marketing applications of consumers’ knowledge structures
i. Positioning strategy
ii. Identify competitors
iii. Category examplers
iv. Locate products in a store
v. Create distinctive associations
1. Halo effect
2. Pioneer brands and follower brands

Practice questions:

• What is the difference between an unconditioned stimulus and a conditioned

stimulus?
• Give an example of an episodic memory.
• What is the difference between classical conditioning and instrumental
conditioning?
• Discuss the differences between recognition and recall.
• People have a tendency to more effectively remember ads that are unusual than ads
that are not. Why? Demonstrate with an advertisement that contains unusual elements.

Chapter 5: Motivation
1. Motivation
a. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation
i. external incentives to motivate consumers
b. motivational drive
i. Drive theory and its drawback
1. Delay gratification
ii. Nonconscious goals
c. Self-regulation
2. Consumer Needs
a. Needs, Utilitarian needs and Hedonic needs
b. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Problems of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
i. Terror management theory
ii. Self-determination theory
1. Needs for autonomy
2. Needs for relatedness
3. Needs for competence
c. Other important needs relevant to consumer behavior
i. Need to belong
ii. Need for power
iii. Need for uniqueness
 3. Setting and Reaching Goals
a. Goal conflicts
i. approach-approach conflict
1. Theory of cognitive dissonance
2. rationalization
ii. approach-avoidance conflict
iii. avoidance-avoidance conflict
b. Goal framing
i. What is a frame?
ii. Positive frame vs negative frame
4. Consumer involvement
a. Involvement
i. Inertia
ii. Levels of involvement
iii. Cult products
b. Types of involvement
i. Product involvement
1. Strategies to increase product involvement *
ii. message involvement
1. high-involvement medium
2. low-involvement medium
3. strategies to increase message involvement *
iii. Situational involvement
1. strategies to increase situational involvement *

*You do not need to memorize all strategies mentioned in the textbook. Also, feel free to
include other strategies

Practice questions:

• What is motivation, and why is this idea so important to marketers?

• What is cognitive dissonance? Give an example.
• It is known that consumers differ in their level of involvement with a product
message. Marketers use attention-getting factors to ensure that messages get
through the clutter that constantly bombards the consumer's senses. Name two
techniques that can be used to enhance the consumer's motivations to process
product information and increase their involvement.

Chapter 6: Attitudes and How to Change Them

1. Attitude
2. multiattribute attitude model and its application in marketing
 3. moods and emotions
4. Elaboration Likelihood Model
a. Central route
b. Peripheral route
c. Narrative persuasion
5. Media literacy
6. Crafting Communication Strategies
a. The source
i. Source credibility
ii. Source attractiveness
b. The message
i. Picture vs words
ii. (Optional) Types of message appeals

Chapter 7: Deciding
1. Rational decision making
a. stages in consumer decision making
i. problem recognition
ii. information search
1. filter bubble
iii. evaluate alternatives
1. compensatory rules and noncompensatory rules
iv. product choice
v. post purchase evaluation
2. Fast (Habitual) decision making
a. Inertia vs brand loyalty
b. Heuristics and examples of heuristics
3. Context Effects in Decision Making
a. Priming