CHAPTER 4
MEMORY AND KNOWLEDGE
Learning Objectives:
1. Distinguish among sensory, working, long-term, implicit, and explicit memory, and explain
why marketers must be aware of these different types of memory.
2. Describe how schemas and scripts affect consumers’ knowledge content.
3. Explain how and why the content and structure of knowledge, including associative
networks, categories, and prototypicality, are relevant to marketers.
4. Discuss what memory retrieval is, how it works, and how marketers try to affect it.
Memory
• Consumer memory/retrieval
• Knowledge, attitudes, & memory
• Memory, retrieval, & decision making
Memory & Retrieval
• including recall and recognition, is the process of
remembering information stored in long-term memory
SOME THEORISTS SUGGESTS THERE ARE 4 STORES OF MEMORY
Sensory Memory Working Memory Imagery Long-Term Memory
Echoic—Hearing Imagery processing May help create liking for product Autobiographical (episodic)
• Affects decision making
• Promotes empathy/identification
• Cueing/preserving
• Reinterpreting
Iconic—Seeing Discursive processing Stimulates memories of Semantic
experiences
Characteristics Impact:
• Limited • Evaluation
• Short lived • Satisfaction
• What are some of your childhood memories with brands?
• Are those brands still in your life?
Types of Memory
• Explicit Memory
Consciously aware you remember something
• Implicit Memory
Not consciously aware you remember something
Processing fluency
How Memory Is Enhanced
• Recognition
• Recall
• Elaboration
• There are techniques to enhance your memory:
Chunking
Rehearsal
Recirculation
Elaboration
Why are these techniques key for advertisers/marketers to understand?
Semantic / Associative networks
• Semantic networks are a logic-based formalism for knowledge representation semantic
networks are often termed “associative networks.” They directly address issues of
information retrieval.
• Trace strength
• Spreading of activation
• Priming
Semantic or (Associative) Network
Knowledge Content
• Schemas & Associations
Types of associations
Favorability
Uniqueness
Salience
• Types of schemas
• Images
Brand image
Brand’s personality
Brand extension
Licensing
Brand alliance
Protecting brand images
• Scripts
Brand Personality Framework
Scripts
• Special type of schemas that represent our knowledge of a sequence of
actions involved in performing an activity
Helps marketers understand how consumers buy & use an offering
May want consumer to consider brand as part of scripted activity
Marketing Implications
• Creating new schemas, images, & personalities
Brand extensions
Licensing
Brand alliances
• Developing existing schemas, images, & personalities
• Changing schemas, images, & personalities
• Protecting brand images
Brand Extensions
Knowledge Categories
• Graded structure
• Position to prototype
Close
Away
Competitive
Retail store & site design
• What affects prototypicality?
• Correlated associations
• Hierarchical structure
Taxonomic Category Structure
Hierarchical Structure Levels
• Superordinate
• Basic
• Subordinate
Goal-Derived Categories
• Goal-derived categories
Things belong in the same category if they fulfill
same consumer goal
What are examples of your goal-derived categories?
• Construal level
Low-level construal—concrete
High-level construal—abstract
Why Consumer Knowledge Differs?
• Cultural system
Associations linked to concept
Category members
Category prototypes
Correlated associations
Goal-derived categories
• Level of product/service expertise
Retrieval for Marketers
• Communication objective
• Affects consumer choices
• Relates to advertising effectiveness
• Consumer segments
Retrieval Failures
• Retrieval failures
Decay
Interference
• Serial position effects
Primacy & recency
• Retrieval errors
Memory and Retrieval
Enhancing Retrieval
• Characteristics of the stimulus
• What the stimulus is linked to
• The way the stimulus is processed
• Consumer characteristics
Characteristics of Stimulus
• A stimulus is a cue that triggers something in your memory.
What are examples of advertising/marketing stimuli?
• Characteristics of Stimuli:
Salience
Prototypicality
Redundant cues
Medium in which the stimulus is processed
Ad Stimuli: Old Spice Guy
• A successful campaign to revamp a brand
Linking Stimulus-Retrieval
Cues
• Brand Name
• Logos
• Package
• Category Names
• Typefaces
Package Retrieval Cue
Questions?
