Memory
It is well-known that memory affects our buying behavior. For example, if you have fond memories of a sweet that you loved as a kid, for example, Dumle, you most likely still like that sweet. The scent and the taste of that sweet bring back memories, experiences, and comfort from your childhood. You might, for example, remember you want the specific ice-cream your mother bought for you at the grocery store.
According to the book Consumer Behaviour. European Perspective, consumers’ evaluations of products are affected by their appearance, texture, taste, or smell. It is also stated that when a product succeeds in satisfying consumers’ specific needs or desires, it may be awarded many years of brand or store loyalty.
“Your mind is like a camera with a memory, it can take several pictures, which you can file for subsequent use.”
Consumers have prior learning experiences, which are accumulated in their minds. The total accumulation of past experiences are known as memory. Memory can be divided into short-term memory or long-term memory.
Short-term memory: It is the memory that can be recalled immediately and, is activated and in use. It can also be referred to as the working memory, which one can work with and refer to, whenever required. Short-term memory can give a continued repetition of a piece of information that can be used for problem-solving. When elaborate activities are considered, they ride five involvements in the memory. Elaborate activities make use of previously stored experiences, values attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, to interpret and evaluate information and add new elements to memory.
Long-term memory: It is permanent storage in the minds of the consumer. It is active and can store a variety of information consisting of concepts, decisions, rules, processes, affective states, etc. This is important to the marketeer because an image of a brand and the concepts that a consumer had heard about a brand, are made up of various elements and the consumer can have a lot of meanings attached to the brand when the particular brand is mentioned.
The various factors that come to a consumer’s mind when he thinks of Coca Cola or Bata Shoes are shown in the figure. Similarly, meanings can be associated with various brands and products when one thinks of them. These can be recalled both by short-term or long-term memory.
Positioning
Marketers try to position their brands in the minds of the consumer. It relates to the memory of the brand in relation to competing products. By this, the marketer tries to enhance the image of his brand which suits the consumer, promotes the image of the products and the stores as well. Product position evolves over time, as the marketer gets to know more about the preference of the consumers. Consumers usually have an “ideal brand” concept and, they want to be as close to the ideal brand as possible. The marketer also tries to offer a product by positioning and repositioning the product which comes as close as possible to the consumer’s ideal brand. This can be done by finding out the critical dimensions which are preferred. In the case of a soft drink, the dimension could be:
If the ideal brand as perceived by the consumer is (X) that is (5,2) on the graph. The marketer tries to make a product as close to the ideal brand as possible.
Similarly, if a car has to have the dimensions as shown in the figure.
The different consumers refer to different combinations and have their ideal brand in their minds. The marketer has to find the ideal brand required to cater to the customer’s satisfaction
Learning
Companies and customers gain new knowledge of the surrounding products and markets by learning and experiencing. If a customer buys a product which he/she isn’t satisfied with, most likely he/she won’t buy it again. Free samples such as free sweets and drinks at the supermarket are also a good way to promote the product. Their idea is to try to make the customers familiar with the product in a practical way.
Commercials are also very effective when the buying pattern is considered. Their goal is to make the product desirable, trendy, and good-looking.
All organizations are interested in highlighting the features of their product and services. They make the consumer aware to know about these features so that their behavior can be influenced. It is through learning that the attitudes, beliefs, values, feelings are influenced. We learn a lot from our cultural social class, family influences, and all these also reflect on our lifestyle. Learning can be described as any change in the content or organization of long-term memory. It is a result of information processing. Learning is the key to consumer behavior. We learn through and from our culture, subculture, social class, family friends, and utilize our personal experience, advertising, and mass media as shown. These in turn influence our purchase decision as shown in Figure below. learning is defined as a permanent change in behavior occurring as a result of past experience.
It is a permanent change in behavior. Behaviour is both a non-observable activity as well as overt or open behavior which can be observed. Learning is relatively a permanent change. Learning stresses our past experiences.
Learning can be done under high involvement or low involvement situations. In a high involvement learning situation, the consumer is motivated to learn. If a person wants to buy a gadget, he tries to learn about it and is motivated. If a person wants to buy a camera, he learns about cameras. In a low learning situation, there is no motivation to learn about the product. Learning situations are of degrees and, depend on situations as well. In low involvement learning, consumers do not have any focused attention on the advertisements like cigarette Ads, one only glances at the advertisements. The strength of learning can be intensively influenced by four factors which are, importance, reinforcement, repetition, and imagery.