Learning is the process through which, a relatively permanent change in behavior

results from the consequences of past behavior.

Consumer learning is the process by which individuals acquire the purchase and
consumption knowledge and experience which they apply to future related
behavior. Some learning is intentional; much learning is incidental. Basic elements
that contribute to an understanding of learning are motivation, cues, response, and
reinforcement.
Marketers are concerned with how individuals learn because they want to teach
them, in their roles as consumers, about products, product attributes, and potential
consumer benefits; about where to buy their products, how to use them, how to
maintain them, even how to dispose of them.
Marketing strategies are based on communicating with the consumer. Marketers
want their communications to be noted, believed, remembered, and recalled. For
these reasons, they are interested in every aspect of the learning process.
There is no single, universal theory of how people learn.
There are two major schools of thought concerning the learning process: one
consists of behavioral learning theories, the other of cognitive learning theories.
Cognitive theorists view learning as a function of purely mental processes,
although behavioral theorists focus almost exclusively on observable behaviors
(responses) that occur as the result of exposure to stimuli.
Despite their different viewpoints, learning theorists in general agree that in order
for learning to occur, certain basic elements must be present—motivation, cues,
response, and reinforcement.
Motivation
Motivation is based on needs and goals.
The degree of relevance, or involvement, with the goal, is critical to how
motivated the consumer is to search for information about a product.
Uncovering consumer motives is one of the prime tasks of marketers, who try to
teach consumer segments why their product will best fulfill their needs.
Cues
If motives serve to stimulate learning, cues are the stimuli that give direction to the
motives. In the marketplace, price, styling, packaging, advertising, and store
displays all serve as cues to help consumers fulfill their needs. Cues serve to direct
consumer drives when they are consistent with their expectations.
Response
How individuals react to a cue—how they behave—constitutes their response.
A response is not tied to a need in a one-to-one fashion. A need or motive may
evoke a whole variety of responses.
The response a consumer makes depends heavily on previous learning; that, in
turn, depends on how related responses were reinforced previously.
Reinforcement
Reinforcement increases the likelihood that a specific response will occur in the
future as the result of particular cues or stimuli.
Learning Theories
Learning theories guide marketers how to shape their messages for consumers to
bring desired purchase behaviors. As discussed, there are two schools of thoughts,
behavioral learning and Cognitive.

Behavioral Learning Theories

Behavioral learning theories are sometimes called stimulus response theories.
When a person responds in a predictable way to a known stimulus, he or she is said
to have “learned.” Two forms of behavioral learning with great relevance with
marketing are classical conditioning and instrumental conditional/ operant
conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new behavior via the process of
association. In simple terms two stimuli are linked together to produce a new
learned response in a person or animal. There are three stages of classical
conditioning. At each stage the stimuli and responses are given special scientific
terms:
Stage 1: Before Conditioning:
In this stage, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) produces an unconditioned
response (UCR) in an organism. In basic terms, this means that a stimulus in
the environment has produced a behavior / response which is unlearned (i.e.
unconditioned) and therefore is a natural response which has not been taught. In
this respect no new behavior has been learned yet.
A perfume (UCS) could create a response of happiness or desire (UCR).
This stage also involves another stimulus which has no effect on a person and is
called the neutral stimulus (NS). The NS could be a person, object, place, etc. The
neutral stimulus in classical conditioning does not produce a response until it is
paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
Stage 2: During Conditioning:
 During this stage a stimulus which produces no response (i.e. neutral) is
associated with the unconditioned stimulus at which point it now becomes
known as the conditioned stimulus (CS).
Perfume (UCS) might be associated with a specific person (CS).
Often during this stage the UCS must be associated with the CS on a number of
occasions, or trials, for learning to take place. However, one trail learning can
happen on certain occasions when it is not necessary for an association to be
strengthened over time (such as being sick after food poisoning or drinking too
much alcohol).
Stage 3: After Conditioning:
Now the conditioned stimulus (CS) has been associated with the unconditioned
stimulus (UCS) to create a new conditioned response (CR).
For example a person (CS) who has been associated with nice perfume (UCS) is
now found attractive (CR).
Under neo-Pavlovian conditioning, the consumer can be viewed as an information
seeker who uses logical and perceptual relations among events, along with his or
her own preconceptions, to form a sophisticated representation of the world.
Strategic Applications of Classical Conditioning
Three basic concepts derive from classical conditioning: repetition, stimulus
generalization, and stimulus discrimination.
1. Repetition works by increasing the strength of the association and by slowing
the process of forgetting. After a certain number of repetitions retention declines.
This effect is known as advertising wearout and can be decreased by varying the
advertising messages.
According to classical conditioning theorists, learning depends not only on
repetition, but also on the ability of individuals to generalize.
Stimulus generalization explains why imitative “me too” products succeed in the
marketplace: consumers confuse them with the original product they have seen
advertised.
It also explains why manufacturers of private label brands try to make their
packaging closely resemble the national brand leaders.
The principle of stimulus generalization is applied by marketers to product line,
form, and category extensions.
In product line extensions, the marketer adds related products to an already
established brand, knowing that the new product is more likely to be adopted when
it is associated with a known and trusted brand name. Conversely, it is much more
difficult to develop a totally new brand.
 Marketers offer product form extensions that include different sizes, different
colors, and even different flavors.
Product category extensions generally target new market segments.
The success of this strategy depends on a number of factors.
For example, if the image of the parent brand is one of quality, consumers are more
likely to bring positive associations to the new category extensions.
Stimulus discrimination is the opposite of stimulus generalization and results in
the selection of specific stimulus from among similar stimuli.
The consumer’s ability to discriminate among similar stimuli is the basis of
positioning strategy, which seeks to establish a unique image for a brand in the
consumer’s mind.
The key to stimulus discrimination is effective positioning, a major competitive
advantage. The image, or position, that a product or service has in the mind of the
consumer is critical to its success. Unlike the imitator who hopes consumers will
generalize their perceptions and attribute special characteristics of the market
leader’s products to their own products, market leaders want the consumer to
discriminate among similar stimuli.
Instrumental Conditioning
Like classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning requires a link between a
stimulus and a response. However, in instrumental conditioning, the stimulus that
results in the most satisfactory response is the one that is learned.
Instrumental learning theorists believe that learning occurs through a trial-and-
error process, with habits formed as a result of rewards received for certain
responses or behaviors.
According to American psychologist B. F. Skinner, most individual learning
occurs in a controlled environment in which individuals are “rewarded” for
choosing an appropriate behavior.
In consumer behavior terms, instrumental conditioning suggests that consumers
learn by means of a trial-and error process in which some purchase behaviors result
in more favorable outcomes (i.e., rewards) than other purchase behaviors.
A favorable experience is instrumental in teaching the individual to repeat a
specific behavior.
In a marketing context, the consumer who tries several brands and styles of jeans
before finding a style that fits her figure (positive reinforcement) has engaged in
instrumental learning.
Reinforcement of Behavior
Skinner distinguished two types of reinforcement (or reward) influence , which
provided that the likelihood for a response would be repeated.
The first type, positive reinforcement, consists of events that strengthen the
likelihood of a specific response. Negative reinforcement is an unpleasant or
negative outcome that also serves to encourage a specific behavior. Fear appeals in
ad messages are examples of negative reinforcement. Either positive or negative
reinforcement can be used to elicit a desired response. Negative reinforcement
should not be confused with punishment, which is designed to discourage
behavior.
Forgetting and extinction—when a learned response is no longer reinforced, it
diminishes to the point of extinction; that is, to the point at which the link between
the stimulus and the expected reward is eliminated. Forgetting is often related to
the passage of time; this is known as the process of decay. Marketers can
overcome forgetting through repetition and can combat extinction through the
deliberate enhancement of consumer satisfaction.
Strategic Applications of Instrumental Conditioning
The objective of all marketing efforts should be to maximize customer
satisfaction. Aside from the experience of using the product itself, consumers can
receive reinforcement from other elements in the purchase situation, such as the
environment in which the transaction or service takes place, the attention and
service provided by employees, and the amenities provided.
Some hotels provide reinforcement to guests in the form of small amenities.
Relationship marketing—developing a close personalized relationship with
customers—is another form of non product reinforcement.
Reinforcement schedules—marketers have found that product quality must be
consistently high and provide customer satisfaction with each use for desired
consumer behavior to continue.
Marketers have identified three types of reinforcement schedules: total (or
continuous) reinforcement, systematic (fixed ratio) reinforcement, and random
(variable ratio) reinforcement. Variable ratios tend to engender high rates of
desired behavior and are somewhat resistant to extinction—perhaps because, for
many consumers, hope springs eternal.
Shaping—the reinforcement of behaviors that must be performed by consumers
before the desired behavior can be performed is called shaping.
Shaping increases the probabilities that certain desired consumer behavior will
occur. Massed versus distributed learning—timing has an important influence on
consumer learning.
Question—should a learning schedule be spread out over a period of time
(distributed learning), or should it be “bunched up” all at once (massed learning)?
The question is an important one for advertisers planning a media schedule
because massed advertising produces more initial learning, although a distributed
schedule usually results in learning that persists longer.
When advertisers want an immediate impact (e.g., to introduce a new product or to
counter a competitors blitz campaign), they generally use a massed schedule to
hasten consumer learning.
When the goal is long-term repeat buying on a regular basis, however, a distributed
schedule is preferable.
A distributed scheduler with ads repeated on a regular basis, usually results in
more long-term learning and is relatively immune to extinction.
Modeling or Observational Learning
Learning theorists have noted that a considerable amount of learning takes place in
the absence of direct reinforcement, either positive or negative, through a process
psychologists call modeling or observational learning (also called vicarious
learning). They observe how others behave in response to certain situations
(stimuli), the ensuing results (reinforcement) that occur, and they imitate (model)
the positively-reinforced behavior when faced with similar situations.
a) Modeling is the process through which individuals learn behavior by observing
the behavior of others and the consequences of such behavior.
b) Their role models are usually people they admire because of such traits as
appearance, accomplishment, skill, and even social class.
c) Children learn much of their social behavior and consumer behavior by
observing their older siblings or their parents.
Advertisers recognize the importance of observational learning in their selection of
models, whether celebrities or unknowns.
Sometimes ads depict negative consequences for certain types of behavior.
d) This is particularly true of public policy ads, which may show the negative
consequences of smoking, of driving too fast, or taking drugs.