Strategies of Attitude change

Attitudes are influenced by personal experience and other source of information, and personality.

Altering consumer attitude is a key strategy for the marketers.  Marketers has to create positive attitude in consumer mind in order to attract them in comparison with the competitors products.  The below are the attitude change strategies :

1). Changing the consumer’s basic motivational function

2). Associating the product with an admired group or event,

3). Resolving two conflicting attitudes

4). Altering components of the multi attributes model

5). Changing consumer beliefs about competitors brands

1). Changing the consumer’s basic motivational function : the consumer attitudes towards a product or brand can be changed by making a particular need important. The approach which is used to change the motivation is functional approach. According to this approach, attitudes can be classified in terms of four functions:

·         Utilitarian Function

·         Ego-defensive function

·         Value expressive function

·         Knowledge Function

·         Utilitarian Function : Consumer value a particular brand because of its utility function. When a consumer is having an experience of using a product in past, he will tend to have positive opinion about it. Therefore the marketer can change the attitude of consumer by focusing on the utilitarian function which the consumers are not aware of. Eg: Hit which can be used to kill mosquito and cockroach.

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·         The ego-defensive Function:  It is natural that most of the consumer wants to protect their self images and they want to feel secure and safe about the product which they are going to buy. Many advertisements helps the consumer to feel secure and confident by which the marketer tries to changes the attitude by offering reassurance to the consumers self concept. Eg: Bolero advertisement.

·         The value – expressive function : Attitudes are an expression or reflection of the consumer’s general values, lifestyles, and outlook. If a consumer segment generally holds a positive attitude toward owning the latest designer jeans, then their attitudes toward new brands of designer jeans are likely to reflect that orientation. Thus by knowing target consumers attitudes, marketers can better anticipate their values, lifestyles or outlook and can reflect these characteristics in their advertising and direct marketing efforts.

·         The Knowledge Function: Customers always have the urge of knowing more about the products. This “need to know” is considered to be important while positioning the product. Indeed, many products and brands positioning are attempt to satisfy the need to know and to improve consumer’s attitude toward the brand by emphasizing its advantages over competitive brands.

·         Combining Several Functions: The customers likes or dislikes are different for different products and services. If three consumers are having positive attitudes towards  Suave hair care products.  However, one may be responding solely to the fact that the products work well (the utilitarian function); the second may have th inner confidence to agree with the point “when you know beautiful hair doesn’t have to cost a fortune”( an ego defensive function). The third consumer’s favorable attitudes might reflect the realization that Suave has for many years stressed value(equal or better products for less) – the knowledge function.

2). Associating the product with an admired group or event:  Attitudes are related, at least in part, to certain groups, social event’s or causes. It  is possible to alter attitudes toward companies and their products, services and brands by pointing out their relationships to particular social groups, events, or causes.

Companies regularly include mention in their advertising of the civic and public acts that they sponsor to let the public know about the good and that they are trying to do. For example Crest Sponsors a program that promotes good oral care to children through the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Recent research into brand-cause alliances have investigate the relationship between the “cause and the “sponsor”. For instance, one study found that while both the brand and the cause benefit from such alliances, a low familiar cause benefited more from this association with a positive brand than did a highly familiar cause.  This finding seems to indicate that it is likely to be a good idea for a sponsor to reveal to target consumers the reasoning behind their sponsorship, so that consumers know the sponsor’s motives rather than from their own potentially inaccurate or negative motives.

3). Resolving two conflicting attitudes: Attitude change strategies can sometimes resolve actual or potential conflict between two attitudes. Specifically, if consumers can be made to see that their negative attitude toward a product, a specific product, a specific brand or its attributes is really not in conflict with another attitude, they may be induced to change their evaluation of the brand.

4). Altering components of the multi attributes model : Multi attitude models have implications for attitude change strategies; specifically, they provide us with additional insights as to how to bring about attitude change:

• Changing the relative evaluation of attributes : The overall market for many products categories is often set out so that different consumer segments are offered different brands with different features or benefits. For instance, within a product category such as dishwashing liquids, there are brands such as Dawn that stress potency and brands such as Dove that stress gentleness. These two brands of dishwashing liquids have historically appealed  to different segments of the overall dishwashing liquid market.  Similarly when it comes to coffee, or when it comes to headache remedies, there is the division between aspirin and acetaminophen.

In general when a product category is naturally divided according to

distinct product features or benefits that appeal to a particular segment of consumers, marketers usually have an opportunity to persuade consumers to “cross over”.

• Changing  brand beliefs: A second cognitive oriented strategy for changing attitudes is changing beliefs or perceptions about the brand itself. Advertising helps us to find out what a particular product has “more” or is “better” or “best” in terms of some important product attribute. As a variation on this theme of “more” ads for Palmolive dishwashing gentleness by suggesting  that it be used for hand washing of fine clothing items.

Within the context of brand beliefs, there are forces working to stop or

show down attitude change. For instance, consumers frequently resist evidence that challenges a strongly held attitude or belief and tent to interpret any ambiguous information in ways that reinforce their preexisting attitudes.

• Adding an Attitude:  This can be accomplished either by adding an attribute that previously has been ignored or one that represents an improvement or technological innovation.

The first route, adding a previously ignored attribute, can be illustrated by the point that yogurt has more potassium than a banana. For consumers interested in increasing their intake of potassium, the comparison of yogurt and bananas  has the power of enhancing their attitudes toward yogurt.

The second route of adding an attribute that reflects an actual product change or technological innovation is easier to accomplish than stressing a previously ignored attribute.

Sometimes eliminating a characteristic or feature has the same enhancing outcome as adding a characteristics of attribute. For instance, a number of skin care or deodorant manufacturers offer versions of their products that are unscented.

• Changing the overall brand rating : Another strategy consists of attempting to alter consumer’s overall assessment of the brand directly, without attempting to improve or change their evaluation of any single brand attribute. Such a strategy frequently relies on some form of global statement that “this is the largest selling brand” or “ the one all others try to initiate” or a similar claim that sets the brand apart from all its competitors.

Reference : Leon G. Schiffman & Leslie Lazar Kanuk,  “Consumer Behavior”