CB: Session 8C : Instrumental Conditioning and its Marketing Applications

If you carefully notice the product examples used in the explanation of classical conditioning, you would find that most of the product are in the category of FMCG or personal care. In these cases mere association helps in learning. Point to be noted here is classical conditioning is highly influenced by interference of new cues and stimulus generated from the competitive environment. The response to these stimuli result in variety seeking behaviour and hence suitable for less involvement product. How should learning be induced for high involvement products? Mere association will not help consumer learning as the products may be of expensive nature and strong motivation is required to generate response. For such learning to occur, marketers aims at Instrumental or operant conditioning.

Instrumental Conditioning

Instrumental or operant conditioning views consumers as an active participant for learning. Learning occurs through trial and error process and the habits are formed as a result of rewards received. According to B.F. Skinner – "Most individual learning occurs in controlled environment in which individuals are 'rewarded' for choosing an appropriate behaviour". It is referred to as instrumental conditioning because the individual’s response is instrumental in getting a positive reinforcement (reward) or avoiding negative reinforcement (punishment).  This concept applies to marketing as companies attempt to provide their customers with products and services that satisfy their needs, thus rewarding them and reinforcing the probability of repeat purchase.  

Reinforcement in advertising can be seen in two ways: 

1. Ads emphasize the benefits or rewards a consumer will receive from using the product or service. For example, a paint company in their reinforcing that the identity of person is reflected in how they paint their home.

2. Ad encourages consumers to use a particular product or brand to avoid unpleasant consequences. For example, the ad showing conversation of two individuals where one is rewarded by using the brand and the other is facing consequences of not using the brand.

Marketers need to understand that when a learned response is no longer reinforced, it diminishes to the point of extinction and the link between stimulus and the reward is eliminated. Forgetting happens with the passage of time – process of decay. 

Here, two concepts relevant to marketers are schedules of reinforcement and shaping.  Schedules of reinforcement ensures retention of learning and can either be continuous or intermittent.  Learning occurs most rapidly with continuous reinforcement, but the behavior is likely to cease when the reinforcement stops.  Learning occurs more slowly with intermittent reinforcement, but lasts longer.  Shaping is referred to as the reinforcement of successive acts that lead to a desired behavior pattern. 

Marketing Applications of Instrumental Conditioning

These are four applications of instrumental conditioning that are used by marketers.

Customer satisfaction

When each time the customer has an experience with the product or company, there has been positive reinforcement, the customers will be satisfied. In such cases the possibility of customer retention increases. This is the reason the companies are paying at lot of attention to customer relationship management. Satisfied customers will give better response and will also influence others.

Reinforcement Schedules 

How marketers schedule the reinforcement is their strategic choice. They may vary the pattern of scheduling. They can be total (or continuous) reinforcement, systemic (fixed ratio) reinforcement, or a random (variable ratio) reinforcement schedule. Marketers will often used random reinforcement as a bonus for the customer and fixed reinforcement as loyalty points or rewards.

Shaping

Shaping occurs by having the reinforcement before the behavior occurs. In this situation, the consumer can be given the offer of a reward before they actually make their decision and purchase a product. Many car companies keep a lucky draw for those who test drive their vehicle.

Massed Vs Distributed Learning

The final application is the choice of massed versus distributed learning. Should the learning and the exposure to the stimuli happen in a relatively short period of time or be drawn out? Media planners are often faced with this decision when putting together an advertising campaign. Many companies plan spillover ad campaign to generate a distributed learning. In distributed learning the schedules and repetitions are planned with great care.

Observational Learning

Observational learning occurs not through responses directly to the consumer but by observation of the behavior and responses of others.  Use of celebrity in advertisement is done with this objective. The concept of modeling views these celebrities works as role models in their advertising so that consumers can understand the rewards of purchasing the advertisers’ products.

Reference: Consumer Behaviour by Schiffman, Kaunk and Kumar

Coming up: Cognitive Learning theory

Next: Strategic applications to Instrumental Conditioning