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Marketing Communications
Consumer Behaviour And Marketing Communication
COGNITIVE LEARNING: has to do with thinking, understanding and interpreting things around
us. It is the process by which an individual becomes consciously aware of a stimulus, by direct
communication exposure.
AFFECTIVE LEARNING: has to do with feelings, emotions and moods, and takes place when the
consumer begins to like a product stimulus after he has become consciously aware of it.
OPINION LEADERSHIP: can occur when:
- One individual seeks information from another.
- When one individual volunteers information.
- As a by-product of normal group interaction.
ADOPTER CATEGORIES
Researchers have identified some categories of individuals, based on the relative time when they adopted
a given innovation:
- INNOVATORS: a venturesome group is the first to adopt an innovation. They are likely
to be younger than later adopters, have a higher social status and be in a better financial
position. Innovators tend to have broader, more cosmopolitan social relationships. They
are likely to rely more on impersonal sources of information, including those external to
their own social system, rather than sources from sales people or other word-of-mouth. - EARLY ADOPTERS: they tend to be a more integrated part of a local social system. This
category includes more opinion leaders than any other adopter group. They are greatly
respected in their social system. The agent of change who is seeking to speed up the diffusion
of a given innovation will often try to work through the early adopters, because they are
not too far ahead of others in their peer group. Sales people are probably used more by the
early adopters than any other category. - EARLY MAJORITY: they tend to accept an innovation just before the average adopter
in a social system. This group is a bit above average in social and economic measures. Its
members rely quite a bit on advertisement, sales people and contact with early adopters.
Business firms in this category are average-sized operations. - LATE MAJORITY: the late majority is a skeptical group. Usually, they adopt an innovation
in response to an economic necessity or social pressure from their peers. They rely on their
peers, late or early majority, as source of information. Advertising and personal selling are
less effective with this group than in word-of-mouth.