Consumer Learning (A Consumer Behavior Topic)

Executive Summary

Learning is a behavioral modification that occurs through experience or conditioning. Researchers have carried out studies to understand consumer learning. According to the behavioral learning theory, learning occurs from exposure to external stimuli such as advertising and according to the cognitive learning theory, consumer learning takes place by a process of internal knowledge transfer. Motivation, cues, response, and reinforcement are the basic elements of learning. Conditioning can be defined as "a learning process in which an organism's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in its environment. The most important aspects of classical conditioning are repetition, stimulus generalization, and stimulus discrimination. Instrumental conditioning, like classical conditioning, also has an association between stimulus and response but in instrumental conditioning, the stimulus that provides the most rewarding response will be learned. According to cognitive learning theory, the human mind processes the information it receives from the environment. There are three stages in the memory of a human being, sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. 

Horlicks has been a part of Indian market for several decades. It is a milk additive that is positioned on the health platform. There have been several variations in his advertisement since the brand has been launched. By consumer learning process Horlicks have made a strong place among the people of India, by targeting the children that by consumption Horlicks children become ‘Taller, stronger and sharper”. And now Horlicks is launching a women’s food supplement known as Women’s Horlicks and Mother Horlicks.

Introduction

To understand the buyer and to make a customer out of him is the main purpose of the study of consumer behavior. The buyer has his own ideas and plans about realizing these needs and desires. The first and foremost task of the marketer is to get close to the buyer and understand his need-structure and priorities. Though this problem has been analyzed from different viewpoints under different premises, it still remains a complex one. On the other hand the buyer is a riddle. He is a highly complex entity. His needs and desires are innumerable. Some are latent, some manifest and some others are highly dominant. These have different priorities in the scheme of things. Learning is a behavioral modification that occurs through experience or conditioning. Researchers have carried out studies to understand consumer learning. Not all psychologists agree on how learning takes place it is difficult to come up with a generally accepted definition of learning. From a marketing perspective, learning is defined as,

“The process by which individuals acquire the purchase and consumption knowledge and experience that they apply to future related behavior”

Example:

• Some ads may induce learning (Brand names) even though the consumers attention is elsewhere (on a magazine article rather than the ads on facing page),
• Other ads are sought out and carefully read by consumers for making a purchase decision.

Loudon and Della Bitta’s Definition: 

“Learning can be viewed as a relatively permanent change in behavior occurring as a result of experience.”

The following are the salient features of Learning:

• Consumer learning is a process, and thus it continuously changes and evolves as a result of newly acquired knowledge
• This knowledge can be obtained from reading, discussing, observing, thinking, etc. from actual experience.
• Both the newly acquired knowledge and personal experience serve as a feedback.
• This also serves as a future behavior in similar situations.
• Not all learning is deliberate. Learning can be: 
• Intentional: acquired as a result of careful search for information with effort.
• Incidental: acquired as a result of accident or by the way, without much effort.
• The term “Learning” generally covers all ranges of learning from simple reflexive responses to abstract concepts or complex problem solving capability.

Consumer learning is a process; that is, it continually evolves and changes as a result of newly acquired knowledge (which may be gained from reading, from discussion, from observation, from thinking) or from actual experience. Both newly acquired knowledge and personal experience serve as feedback to the individual and provide the basic for future behavior in similar situation. Consumer learning is a topic of concern for all marketers. Especially in today's world where marketers want to teach the consumers about their own products and services, consumer learning is integral part of their any marketing strategy. If you are a marketer or producer, and you want people to know about your product, you will make them learn, you must run some effective ad or promotional campaigns telling about your products and its features. These way consumers will acquire knowledge about you product and will experience it by using it once. This is where learning process will accomplish. Now after using that whatever will be there response would be feedback to you. Most of the learning is incidental. Some of it is intentional.

The Elements of Consumer Learning:

Despite different viewpoints, learning theorist agree that in order for learning to occur, certain basic elements must be present. These elements are motivation, cues, response and reinforcement.

• Motivation:

It is the deriving force which acts as spur to learning. It is based on needs and goals. Your needs and desires motivate you to achieve your goal. And to achieve your goal or fulfill your desire you need to find the ways out to accomplish that, you will be motivated to seek information which will help fulfilling your needs. So in learning to takes place, motivation is very important as it gives initiative to learning process. Thought processes, inspiration or drive is exceptionally essential for taking in. Individuals take in by being determined by a few thought processes or spurring component. Thought processes excite people in expanding their availability to react to an inclining movement. It additionally actuates the vitality required to do so. The level of pertinence or contribution decides the shopper's level of inspiration to look for data around an item, benefit. Advertisers must be mindful of this sort of intention so they are primed to give item illumination comfortable minute, i.e. indicating ads for winter products simply before winter and summer items simply before summer.

• Cues:

Motives serve to stimulate learning, Cues are the stimuli that give direction to these motives e.g. an ad is a cue for consumer motivation for a specific product or service. In the market place price, styling, packaging, advertising and the store displays all serve as cues. Marketers teach motivated consumer segments why and how their products will fulfill the consumers need. Motives serve to stimulate learning. Cues act as stimuli and gives directions to your motives. For instance, you are home after 9 hours job, you are tired, at that very moment you watch an ad of a energy drink on the T.V which makes you realize you need that drink to boost your energy and feel fresh. So that ad acted as cue at that time, which motivated you to fulfill your salient need.

• Response:

How individuals react to a drive or cue, How they behave constitute their response e.g. a marketer that provides consistent cues to a consumer may not always succeed in stimulating a purchase. However, if marketer succeeds in forming a favorable image of a particular product in consumer’s mind. It is likely that he or she will consider that product.

Reaction of the consumers to the cue is the Response. How they behave after getting visible to that cue constitutes their response. Consumers may not immediately react to a cue, as it may not be there need at that time. But possibility is there that if consumers have learnt your cue, they may keep it in corner of the mind and whenever their need has arose they make use of that cue and respond in favorable way. For instance, in above mentioned example, energy drink may not be readily available to you, you may fulfill that need with water or some other drink but if you remember that energy drink and in later time when you feel thirsty or tired you may buy it and respond to that ad now.

• Reinforcement:

It increases the likelihood that a specific response will occur in the future as the result of particular cues or stimuli. In above mentioned example, if using that energy drink satisfies you and you have gained all the benefits then you will likely to continue buying that product. Through positive reinforcement, learning has taken place, since energy drink lived up to the expectations. Positive or negative outcome that influences the likelihood that a specific behavior will be repeated in the future in response to a particular cue or stimulus

• Positive Reinforcement: Positive outcomes that strengthen the likelihood of a specific response. Example: Ad showing beautiful hair as reinforcement to buy shampoo. When the environmental conditions reward a certain behavior it is said to be a positive reinforcement.
• Negative Reinforcement: Unpleasant or negative outcomes that serve to encourage a specific behavior. Example: Ad showing wrinkled skin as reinforcement to buy skin cream. When a particular behavior results in punishment or less satisfaction, the individual will try to avoid such behavior. This is called negative reinforcement.

There is no single universal theory of how people learn. There are two general categories of learning theory: behavioral learning and cognitive learning. Although these theories differ markedly in a number of essentials, each theory offers insights to marketers on how to shape their messages to consumer to bring about desired purchase behavior. We also discuss how consumers stores, retain, and retrieve information and how learning is measured. A theory of learning based on mental information processing, often in response to problem solving.

Both contribute to an understanding of consumer behavior. Behavioral Theorists view learning as observable responses to stimuli, whereas Cognitive Theorists believe that learning is a function of mental processing

Learning theories:

Behavioral learning theory:

Various theories have been developed to explain different aspects of learning. The most acceptable are those based on stimulus-response theory. These theories assume that observable response to specific external stimuli indicate that learning has taken place. When person acts or responds in a predictable manner to a known stimulus, then he is said to have “learned”. The “process” of leaning is not at all important here. The only important factors are “inputs” or stimulus and the “outcomes” or response of learning. Theories based on the basis that learning takes place as the result of observable responses to external stimuli, Also known as stimulus response theory.

“a process in which experience with the environment leads to a relatively permanent change in behavior or the potential for a change in behavior.”

Three main features of behavioral learning theory:

• Learning as behavior
• Focuses on changes in behavior that occur as a result of experience
• Emphasizes stimuli and response behaviors

Classical Conditioning: 

The three basic concepts include Repetition, Stimulus generalization and Stimulus discrimination. A behavioral learning theory according to which a stimulus is paired with another stimulus that elicits a known response that serves to produce the same response when used alone. Classical conditioning is the learning of associations among events that allows us to anticipate and represent our environment. From this viewpoint, classical conditioning is not reflexive action, but rather the acquisition of new knowledge. Example: If you usually listen to the 9 o’ clock news while waiting for dinner to be served you would tend to associate the 9 o, clock news with dinner, So that eventually the sounds of the 9 o’ clock news alone might cause your mouth to water even if dinner was not being prepared and even if you were not hungry.

Conditioning can be defined as "a learning process in which an organism's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in its environment. 

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, demonstrated conditioning by conducting experiments on dogs. The most important aspects of classical conditioning are repetition, stimulus generalization, and stimulus discrimination.

Instrumental Conditioning:

Instrumental Learning theorists believe that learning occurs through a trial and error process in which the positive outcomes in the form of results or desired outcomes lead to repeat behavior like Repeat Purchase or Repeat Positive Word of Mouth. Both positive and negative reinforcement can be used to encourage the desired behavior. The timing of repetitions influences how long the learned material is retained. Learning usually persists longer with distributed re-enforcement schedule, while mass repetitions produce more initial leanings. A behavioral theory of learning based on a trial-and-error process, with habits forced as the result of positive experiences (reinforcement) resulting from certain responses or behaviors.

Instrumental conditioning, like classical conditioning, also has an association between stimulus and response but in instrumental conditioning, the stimulus that provides the most rewarding response will be learned. B.F. Skinner, a behavioral scientist, conducted some experiments on pigeons to prove this point.

Observational conditioning or Vicarious Learning: 

Cognitive learning theory holds that the kind of learning most characteristics of humans is PROBLEM SOLVING. Cognitive theorists are concerned with how information is processes by the human mind: how it is stored, retained, and retrieved. Involvement theory proposes that people engage in limited information processing in situations of low relevance to them and people engage in extensive information processing in situations of high relevance. TV is a low involvement medium for learning and print and interactive media encourage more cognitive information processing. Measures of consumer learning include recall and recognition tests, cognitive responses to advertising, and attitudinal and behavioral measures of brand loyalty. A basic issue among researchers is whether to define brand loyalty in terms of consumer’s behaviors or the consumer’s attitude towards the brand. Brand Equity refers to the inherent value a brand name has in the marketplace. Brand Loyalty consists of both attitudes and actual behaviors toward a brand and both must be measured. For marketers, the major reasons for understanding how consumers learn are to teach them that their brand is best and to develop brand loyalty. Example: Clean N Clear (The consumer observes a positive response by two teens.)

Cognitive learning theory:

There is another type of theory of learning, which doesn’t involve repeated trials or connection between a stimulus and response. This type of learning arises out of using the mental faculty of the individual to discover things, perceive things, seeking knowledge, search for information, sudden impulsive learning, solving problems, etc. Learning based on the mental activity is known as “cognitive learning”. Human beings are the most evolved animals who have the most prominent characteristics of thinking, deliberation and problem solving. Unlike behavioral theories, the cognitive theories involve a complex mental processing of information, and emphasize the role of motivation and mental processes in producing the desired response.

WOLFGANG KOHLER’s experiment with a chimpanzee provides an interesting example to understand this theory of learning. A chimp was placed inside a cage with a box in a corner of the cage and bananas hung from the roof of the cage beyond reach. The chimp jumped several times and tried to reach the bananas, but in vain. Suddenly by impulse, the chimp placed the box just under the bananas and jumped from it to reach the bananas, and he got them. This suggests that the ape’s learning was not a result of repetition or trial-and-error, but because of some thinking and a sudden insight into the problem solving method. The bananas in this experiment are not rewards, but a kind of motivation to apply thinking and problem solving methods. In the context of consumer behavior, the individuals are considered to show problem solving behavior have an active understanding of situation confronting them. This view is therefore most important in understanding how consumers learn which stores, method of shopping, or products will best meet their needs.

For example, it can take the form of learning about the uses and benefits of new products in the market, especially if they represent significant innovation. It can also explain how consumers learn about existing products for which they have developed a recent interest or need. This Holds that the kind of learning most characteristic of human beings is problem solving, which enables individuals to gain some control over their environment. Learning through problem solving, which enables individuals to gain some control over their environment?

Information Processing

A cognitive theory of human learning patterned after computer information processing that focuses on how information is stored in human memory and how it is retrieved. Just as a computer processes information received as input. Consumers process product information by brands, comparison between brands.

Practical study

Horlicks is the name of a company and of a malted milk hot drink developed by the founders James Horlicks, a pharmacist, joined his brother William Horlicks, in the US in 1873. It is now manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline in the United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Jamaica, and under license in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Horlicks India

Horlicks came to India with the British Army; the end of World War I saw Indian soldiers of British Indian Army bringing it back with them as a dietary supplement. Punjab, Bengal and Madras Presidencies became early adopters of Horlicks and many well-to-do Indians took to drinking Horlicks as a family drink in early 1940s and 1950s. It became a sort of status symbol in upper middle class Indians and rich classes. The first flavor available in India, as in Britain, was malt.

India, where it has traditionally been marketed as the Great Family Nourisher, is the largest market for Horlicks. The Indian formulation for Horlicks is slightly different than in most other countries, as there it is manufactured from buffalo milk rather than cow’s milk due to cultural concerns. In 2003, the brand underwent a revamp which led to the introduction of new flavors such as vanilla, toffee, chocolate, honey, and elaichi (cardamom). The current line-up of flavors includes original (malt), chocolate and elaichi. With the latest offering Horlicks Kesar Badaam added recently to the portfolio, providing a more specialized taste offering to the consumers.

In 2010, Horlicks accounted for 85% of the  2306 crore (US$390 million) revenue of GlaxoSmithKline in India. It is currently the most widely consumed packaged beverage in India, after bottled water.

The biggest branding event is Horlicks Wizkids. This event started its way in 2003 and till now has reached approximately 25 million kids in all India as well as in SriLanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Horlicks Wizkids – It’s an interschool cultural and literary competition for children from class 1 to 12. The competition attracts students from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. With more than 30 events in the field of arts, literature, painting and extra-curricular activities, Horlicks Wizkids is South Asia's largest interschool fiesta giving children an opportunity to showcase their talent on a global platform.

The 2013 Edition of Horlicks Wizkids South Asia was held in Bangalore. More than 100,000 students from over 1200 schools participated. Five students from Vizag, Jaipur, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhubaneshwar earned the title of the Horlicks WizTeam 2013. The winners got an opportunity to go for a learning program to Germany and a cash award of Rs. 1 lakh each.