The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Social, business, cultural, political

and economic environment

Environment stimuli

(e.g. advertisement, interpersonal observation)

Attentional

and perceptual filter

Interpretation,

formation and

evaluation of

wants, needs,

necessary actions,

outcomes

Brand beliefs

Brand attitudes

Brand purchase intentions

Social, economic, cultural, political

impeding/facilitating conditions

Response

(purchase/rejection)

Short-term

memory

Long-term

memory

Experience, beliefs, attitudes,

goals, evaluative criteria, etc.

INPUTS

CENTRAL

PROCESSING

OUTPUTS

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122 The Marketing Book

circumvent this filter by being so weak that
they are not recognized by the senses and yet
influence our cognitive processes – do not exert
an influence on our mental operations. Percep-
tion is clearly more than the process in which
stimuli impinge on the senses; it is the begin-
ning of information processing, the interpreta-
tion of those stimuli to which we pay attention
according to our existing mental set-up –
attitudes, experience, motivation. Only when
an advertising message has got through the
filter and had some meaning attached to it in
this preliminary processing activity can the
consumer be said to be aware of a problem in
his or her life (e.g. dandruff), its consequences
(possibly for their health and social activity)
and the proffered means of overcoming it (the
advertised brand of shampoo).

Search and evaluation

Even awareness of a problem does not guaran-

tee that the process of decision making will

continue. Only if the problem is important to

the consumer and he or she believes that a

solution is available will it continue. If a

sufficiently high level of involvement or

engagement with the problem is present, the

consumer is likely to seek further information

to evaluate the claims of the advertiser. Internal

search takes place within the consumer’s mem-

ory system; it is an attempt to locate informa-

tion in the form of pre-existing knowledge,

especially beliefs and attitudes about the prob-

lem, the likely solutions, and remedies that are

already in use. If the problem or the proffered

solution is radically new to the customer, this

Figure 6.1 Consumer information processing