Marketing communication: principles and practice

The cognitive approach
In the decision-making paradigm, consumer behaviour is seen as a problem-
solving and decision-making sequence, in which the cognitive consumer
processes information, conducts comparative evaluation, and makes a
rational selection. Much management strategy and marketing thinking is
underpinned by this belief. But reflect for a moment how in many purchase
situations no decision is made. Much consumer behaviour is not buying
behaviour – window-shopping is a pleasant pastime for some people!
Behaviour may be based on past experience and cues that come from the
consumer’s situation. Decision-making may be pre-empted. Consumer
theorists seem to agree that some behaviour results from the situation and
other behaviour is deliberate and preceded by planning. The cognitive and
reinforcement theories may be complementary rather than competing views.
But insufficient attention has been given to habitual behaviour (East, 1997).
Scholars such as Engel 
et al
. (1995) have tried to provide an all-encompassing
model of consumer behaviour with a decision process continuum, which
C O N S U M E R B E H A V I O U R A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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Table 3.2
Theories of consumer behaviour
Approach
How is purchase 
Weakness
Implication for marketing 
treated?
communication management
Cognitive
Decision-making 
Consumers seem
Provide information and 
in problem-solving
to be not very 
persuade
systematic and 
rational in decision-
making
Reinforcement Consumption is seen Complex behaviour Change the consumer’s 
as learned behaviour cannot be traced to
situation
in response to 
multitudinous past 
aspects of the 
experiences
consumer’s situation
Habit
A pre-established 
?
Use specific stimuli 
pattern of behaviour 
associated with desired 
is elicited routinely 
behaviour
in particular contexts

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includes habitual decision-making. But, points out East, this is contradictory.
If behaviour is habitual, then there is no conscious cognitive processing before
action (i.e. there is no ‘decision’ as such). Engel 
et al
. have offered their
rational model as a normative tool that indicates to managers what they need
to find out about consumers. However, it is not universally accepted as a
true representation of how consumers behave.
Habits seem, from observation, to account for much of consumption
behaviour, but habit is much more than simply the absence of thought. Simon
(1957) explained the typical decision-making based on limited information
as the adoption of a ‘good enough’ solution to a problem – what he called
‘satisficing behaviour’. Typically, we assess a situation and identify a possible
option or action. Then we evaluate the option to decide if it will give a
satisfactory outcome. Only if it fails will we seek a further option. Mostly,
we do not compare old and new options, or generate a set of options and
make comparisons among them. If consumers rarely extend much thought
to purchase and consumption decisions, and satisfice to keep their consum-
ption efficient, then the extended-problem-solving model of Engel 
et al
.,
favoured by almost all other textbooks, is of little real value in trying to
influence consumer behaviour.