Lecture 3 – Consumer learning and memory
a) Understanding consumer learning
Repeated exposer – helps to learn and memorise
Goal as a marker – Store brand information in consumers’ long-term memory
Learning: Acquiring knowledge or skills by studying, practicing, or experiencing something
Relatively permanent change in behaviour which is linked to experience (can be direct or
indirect)
Can be incidental
Making associations
1. New information
2. Internal drive (emotion triggered) or cue stimulus (external)
3. Response
4. Reinforcement
5. Retention
Behavioural learning theories: Assume that consumers’ experiences are shaped by the feedback they
receive as they go through life
Reward or punishment – Influences the way they respond in similar situations in the future
Environment is KEY to shaping learning and behaviour
Only look at what they see
o They approach the mind of the consumer as a black box
o Emphasizes observational aspects of behaviour
Assumes that learning takes place as the result of responses to an external event
Classical conditioning: When a stimulus that elicits a response is learned to be associated
with another stimulus that does not originally elicit a response (Learning by association)
o Association between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus by the
anticipation of an outcome
o Pavlov’s learning by association – dog’s study
o Marketing = Associate your brand with something else – try to achieve something
positive response with brand
a) Understanding consumer learning
Repeated exposer – helps to learn and memorise
Goal as a marker – Store brand information in consumers’ long-term memory
Learning: Acquiring knowledge or skills by studying, practicing, or experiencing something
Relatively permanent change in behaviour which is linked to experience (can be direct or
indirect)
Can be incidental
Making associations
1. New information
2. Internal drive (emotion triggered) or cue stimulus (external)
3. Response
4. Reinforcement
5. Retention
Behavioural learning theories: Assume that consumers’ experiences are shaped by the feedback they
receive as they go through life
Reward or punishment – Influences the way they respond in similar situations in the future
Environment is KEY to shaping learning and behaviour
Only look at what they see
o They approach the mind of the consumer as a black box
o Emphasizes observational aspects of behaviour
Assumes that learning takes place as the result of responses to an external event
Classical conditioning: When a stimulus that elicits a response is learned to be associated
with another stimulus that does not originally elicit a response (Learning by association)
o Association between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus by the
anticipation of an outcome
o Pavlov’s learning by association – dog’s study
o Marketing = Associate your brand with something else – try to achieve something
positive response with brand
