CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
TERM IV
CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
LECTURE 3
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Nature of Involvement
• High and low involvement
• Theories of involvement
CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
Involvement is a person’s perceived relevance of
the object based on their inherent needs, values
and interests.
Involvement reflects our level of motivation to
process information. As our level of involvement
with product increases, we devote more attention
to ads related to the product, exert more cognitive
effort to understand the ads, and focus more
attention on product related information in the ads.
CONCEPTUALIZING INVOLVEMENT
TYPES OF CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
Situational
Enduring
High
Low
ASSAEL’S CLASSIFICATION
TYPES OF BUYING BEHAVIOUR
High Involvement Low Involvement
Significant Complex Buying Variety-Seeking
Difference Behaviour Buying Behaviour
Between
Brands
Few Dissonance Habitual
Difference Reducing Buying
Between Behaviour Behaviour
Brands
ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE
HIERARCHIES
LOW-INVOLVEMENT HIERARCHY
Cognitive
Cognitive Conative
Conative Affective
Affective
(learn)
(learn) (do)
(do) (feel)
(feel)
In low-involvement situations:
the consumer engages in passive learning and random
information catching rather than active information
seeking.
consumers do not compare the message with previously
acquired beliefs, needs or past experiences.
the consumer’s perceptual defenses are reduced or absent
advertising results in subtle changes to consumers’
knowledge structure.
IMPLICATIONS FOR LOW-
INVOLVEMENT PRODUCTS
Message
Message exposure
exposure Shift
Shift in
in cognitive
cognitive Purchase
(under
(under low
low structure Purchase
involvement)
involvement) structure
Brand
Brand experience
experience Attitude
Attitude
(Positive
(Positive or
or negative)
negative) formation
formation
Advertisers of low-involvement goods use:
repetition of product claims
copy elements that do not require
significant levels of information processing
simple benefits or umbrella concepts
catchy jingles
A COMPARISON OF LOW AND HIGH
INVOLVEMENT HIERARCHIES
Low-Involvement High-Involvement
hierarchies hierarchies
Brand beliefs are Brand beliefs are
formed by passive formed by active
learning learning
A purchase decision The brand is
is made. evaluated.
The brand may or A purchase decision
may not be evaluated is made
afterward
THEORIES OF LOW INVOLVEMENT
Krugman’s Passive learning theory
Sherif’s Theory of social judgment
Elaboration Likelihood model
KRUGMAN’S PASSIVE LEARNING
THEORY OF INVOLVEMENT
Television is a low-involvement medium that results in
passive learning
Print media is a high-involvement medium
Implications:
Consumers learn information at random
Consumer are information catchers
Consumer represent a passive audience for advertising
Consumer evaluate brands after buying
Consumers seek an acceptable rather than optimal level of
satisfaction
Personality and lifestyle characteristics are not related to
consumer behavior
Reference groups exert little influence on consumers in
low-involvement conditions
SHERIF’S THEORY OF SOCIAL
JUDGEMENT
o People use past experience (internal
anchors) when making judgments
o Ego involvement determines latitude of
acceptance or latitude of rejection of a
message
THEORY OF SOCIAL JUDGEMENT
A highly involved individual who agrees with a
message (within his or her latitude of acceptance)
will interpret it more positively than it actually is.
This reaction represents an assimilation effect.
A message that the individual disagrees with
(within the latitude of rejection) will be
interpreted as more negative than it actually is.
This reaction is termed as contrast effect.
THEORY OF SOCIAL JUDGEMENT
Sherif’s theory conforms to ‘passive learning’
theory. Uninvolved consumers are willing to
consider a wider number of brands because of a
lack of commitment to one or several brands, but
they do not search for alternatives.
Highly involved consumers will use more
attributes to evaluate fewer brands, while less
involved consumers will use fewer attributes to
consider more brands.
ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD
MODEL
Focuses
Focuses on
on the
the way
way consumers
consumers respond
respond to
to persuasive
persuasive
messages
messages based
based onon the
the amount
amount andand nature
nature of
of
elaboration
elaboration or
or processing
processing of
of information
information
Routes to attitude change
Central
Central route
route Peripheral
Peripheral
Ability
Ability and
and route
route
motivation
motivation toto Ability
Ability and
and
process
process aa message
message motivation
motivation to to
is
is high
high and
and close
close process
process aa message
message
attention
attention is
is paid
paid to
to is
is low
low and
and receiver
receiver
message
message content
content focuses
focuses more
more onon
peripheral
peripheral cues
cues than
than
message
message content
content
IMPLICATIONS OF LOW-INVOLVEMENT
DECISION MAKING
Advertising money should be spent in a
campaign of high repetition and short duration
messages.
Ads should focus on few key points and visual
message.
Use of television as primary vehicle for
communication.
Consumers are price conscious for low
involvement products.
In-store stimuli is important.
Widespread distribution