Discuss_the_Role_of_Attitude_in_Consumer_Behavior

In terms of cognitive model, customers would take a deliberate decision-making process, and use stock of personal knowledge and opportunities before buying. Under the cognitive model, the entire process of customer behavior is that from the customer learns about the product/service to the customer buy it. There are four components involve in the buying process, they are beliefs, attitudes, intentions and action. Attitude comes from beliefs, and it would influences intention. Thus, attitude plays a role as an intermediate component in the buying process under consumer behavior. In my opinion, attitude is not effective in predicting consumer behavior. Firstly, attitude represents what the customers like and dislike. It can tell us about the customers who favor fat- free milk are likely to drink it, or it can tell us about the customers who like Landrover are likely to drive it. However, in reality, the customer who having a good attitude to Landrover does not mean that he/she will buy it. Moreover, in the cognitive model, attitude means attitude towards the product/service, instead of attitude towards action or purchase behavior. They are totally two different conceptions. Thus, the customers having a positive attitude to a specific good/service does not mean that they having a good attitude towards purchasing it. Therefore, attitude is not helpful in predicting consumer behavior. Further, according to Ajzen, attitude is a summary evaluation of a psychological object. That means, attitude has knowledge of evaluate of customer`s expectations/beliefs. They are not stabling, but changeable. It influences intention which a behavior component as well. Behavioral intention is closely linked to actual purchase than attitude. Thus, intention is a far better predictor of behavior than either beliefs or attitude. Overall, in my opinion, to some extent, attitude could be as a predictor of customer behavior. However, it still cannot say that attitude is effective in predicting customer behavior. Next, I would like to comment on advertising a brand of toothpaste ‘Colgate Total Cavity Protection’ on television from the cognitive view. First of all, Colgate has a distinctive ads style. It do a lot of TV ads, some of them select teenagers as the protagonist. Colgate does not to choose the main buyers- adult as the advertising characters, but choose teenagers by reason of distinctive. Toothpaste ads are often choose beautiful women as protagonist in the past, the only difference between them is whose smiling more sweet or whose tooth more shining. The boring ads on TV not only wastes time and money, but also makes customer`s sightness tired. Therefore, Colgate`s distinctive ads might gain more goodwill, and get more positive attitude towards this brand. In addition, Colgate takes into account the influence of children on parents. They use children as protagonist, it caters for them taste in ads. Olshavsky and Granbois (1979) found that certain items of personal care, recreation and education are very strongly compelled by social pressure. Further, Studies indicate that, for some children, weekly television viewing exceeds their parents' 40-hour work week (Murray 1972; Stroman 1986). It is indicate that children might be more susceptible to TV's effects. Therefore, Colgate had considered the impact of children on their parent`s purchase decision. The parents might be easily to adopt their children`s suggestion about toothpaste. Another point is, Colgate done a lot of ads on TV. According to Smith, Rogers and Shoemaker`s (1971) review shows that plenty of evidence that early adopters have significantly greater exposure to change agents, mass media, and interpersonal communication channels. A large number of ads for Colgate let customers learned about their product /service and assessed customer`s beliefs system. Moreover, Olashavsky and MacKay (1978) shows that there are some bases such as personal recommendation or preference acquired in early childhood. The children who choosing to use Colgate daily, they might establish positive attitude to this brand. Once they established the intimacy of Colgate and cultivated loyalty from their childhood, they probably still choose the same brand when they grown up. I reckon that TV advertising influences consumers by changing their attitude towards the brand. Ward, Wackman, and Wartella (1977) indicated that advertising can have a dominant effect on consumer learning. Thus, we might predict that advertising can have an effect on beliefs. As we mentioned above, beliefs is a cognitive component of consumer attitude. According to Smith (1999), people are socialized by media can impact attitudes on advertising. The ads can use the message via TV to influence the people who watching it. Smith also mentioned that advertisers could use ads to building positive attitudes toward their product/service, and such positive attitudes eventually could influence the brand itself. Therefore, through the evidences I mentioned above, I think that TV ads could influence consumers by changing their attitude towards the brand.