When we talk of attitude, what are the component parts of this attitude? Attitude models they to show us the number of component parts of an attitude and how those parents are arranged or interrelated. In this section we will discuss three attitude models.
(1) Tri component Attitude Model: This model states that attitudes consist of three major components; a cognitive component,and affective component,and a conation component.
The Cognitive Component: The cognitive component consists of a persons knowledge(cognition) and perceptions that are acquired by a combination of direct experience with the attitude object,and related information secured from various sources. This knowledge and resulting perceptions frequently take the form of beliefs. In other words the consumer believes that the attitude object possesses various attributes and benefits.
The Affective Component: Refers to a consumers emotions or feelings with respect to a particular product of brand. These emotions and feeling are primarily evaluative in nature. They represent or show an individual's overall assessment of the attitude object,that is,the extent to which the person rate the attitude object as favorable or unfavourable.
The Conation Component: Is concerned with the likelihood or tendency that a consumer will undertake a specific action or behaviour in a particular way with regard to the attitude object. In marketing and consumer research, the cognitive component is frequently treated as an expression of the consumer's intention to buy.
(2) Single Component Attitude Models: This attitude model,emphasises only one dimension of the attitude. In other word in regard to affective or feeling component as the attitude its self.
The single component model is preferred by marketing researchers who wants to save time and space by including single evaluative scale on the questionnaire. Even though the single component model seems to be uncomplicated,however,it fails to provide useful insights as to what influences a consumer's evaluative rating. This can be illustrated in the case of two consumers who possess the same positive attitude (ie the same level of affect) towards jergens soap,with quite different beliefs. One of the consumers may like jergens soap because of its deodorant protection, while the others may like it because of its pleasant fragrance. We can see that unless the researcher measured each consumers beliefs and evaluations about each attribute of jergens soap, all that would be known is that both possess the same basic attitude or level of affect towards jergens soap. In this case,we would be left in the dark as to their overall assessment. Moreover,we would not be provided with any relevant insights or understanding about the relation between their evaluations and the consumer's intention to buy.
(3) Multi attribute Models: Multi attribute models measure brand attitude by determining how well a brand satisfies a consumer by meeting his expectations on different product attributes. Multi attribute models are saying that consumers normally considers different attributes of a product before they have a particular attitude towards that product. These models allow marketers to find out the strength and weakness of other brands relative to the competition by determining how consumers evaluate brand alternative on important attributes.
Various multi attributes models have been applied to marketing. The models all have one thing in common. They regard attitudes as a function of consumers belief about the attributes of the brand. Most of these models also weigh beliefs by the value of importance of the attribute to the consumer. For example,the consumer who regards Pepsi as a strongly carbonated ,sweet cola and who places a high value on a strongly carbonated,sweet cola will buy Pepsi.
We Have The Following Three Examples Of Multi attribute Models.
a. Beliefs/Evaluation Model: According to the beliefs/evaluation model,an attitude towards a brand depends on the probability that the brand has certain attitude (eg what is the likelihood that Brand A is a highly carbonated cola) and in the value placed on these attributes (does the consumer regard carbonated as desirable).
This model provides a frame work of analysing brands based on the attributes,consumers use to evaluate brands. The attribute must relate to brand evaluation and brand intention could be identified and marketing strategy could be developed accordingly.
b. Beliefs/Importance Model: In beliefs/importance model,the overall evaluation of a brand is a function of belief about the attributes possessed by a brand,weighted by the importance of each attribute.
c. Ideal Point Model: The ideal point model is used to determine the consumer's ideal brand by asking the consumers to rate their ideal brand on various attributes. For example,consumers may be asked to rate their ideal coffee on strength,flavour etc. This will indicate the direction of need. They will then be asked to rate various brands of coffee on the same attributes. The closer the brand is to the ideal,the stronger its position is.
