We're now into module number two in the course, which focuses on learning. Let's start with a quick definition. Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience. Now that experience can come from many many different sources, both internal to the consumer and external. Brush your teeth with a new formula with high MP gets teeth much whiter. You can see the stains and film really well.

Fights Do you wonder where he ever went? When did I sure did with so how is that for an oldie but goodie. If you're at certain age, you probably remember that little jingle for Pepcid and quite well, even though it's been over 50 years since we've heard it. So there's a great example of the power of learning. And a nice transition to the first objective in this segment, which is that a lot of the knowledge that customers have about your products and services come from simple associations between stimuli and responses. So we're going to start by talking about behavioral learning theories.

These are some of the simplest most fundamental approaches to learning that have had a tremendous impact on the way we think about how people and animals learn from experience. The basic premise of behavioral learning theories is that learning takes place as a result of response. to external events. And so sometimes these theories are referred to as blackbox theories. And that simply means that a tried and true behavioral learning theorist really doesn't care what goes on inside the individuals mind. They really just focus on the stimulus that that individual perceives, and then the response to that stimulus.

So here's a nice example of that. We often respond to brand names and cents and jingles like in that Pepcid in commercial and many other marketing stimuli, because of the simple learned connections that we have formed over time. So when we start with a stimulus like the famous Marlboro cowboy that becomes so familiar to us because we've seen it Over and over again. That over time we just immediately think of the Marlboro package when we think of Cowboys, and Marlboro has worked very hard for many, many years to create that simple, but very strong connection. How strong is that connection? Well, today in some instances, Marco doesn't even bother to put its brand name or package in an advertisement.

All the company feels it needs to do is to show this familiar red and white shape. And people will know from experience that that means Marlboro. Another basic premise of behavioral learning theory is that people learn that the actions that they take result in rewards and punishments. So these external good things and bad things that happen To us as the result of things that we do, create learning. And this feedback influences the way that we respond in similar situations in the future. So when we have this familiar situation of a mouse in a maze, and the mouse learns over time that if he is able to find his way to that piece of cheese, then he gets a nice snack.

According to behavioral learning theorists, that's exactly the way humans learn many things as well, we find that cheese, we're going to get to the stack. And on the other hand, if we don't find the cheese, and we stumble upon something nasty, like saying electric shock the way that mice often tend to do in these experiments, we're going to learn as well, but not because we've been rewarded rather because we've been punished and those connections are often hard to extinguish as well. Why is that important to us and marketing? Well, just think about the bad experiences that people have with some service providers. It's very, very difficult to recover from an initial bad experience. So when one major component of behavioral learning theory called classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own.

Over time, this second stimulus causes a similar response because we associated with the first stimulus. The classic work on classical conditioning was conducted by a Russian physiologist by the name of Yvonne Pavlov, and you have probably heard of the famous Pavlov's dogs. So let's take a moment to review What Pavlov did and what he observed, and how that translates to what we know about the way people learn. Pavlov kept a bunch of dogs in a laboratory in cages, and the dogs would be fed every day by assistance. So the assistance would bring the food into the laboratory. And this was in the form of meat powder.

That's what they gave the dog. So the meat powder is an unconditioned stimulus. In other words, it's something that naturally occurs in the environment that the dogs are really going to get excited about. So when the dogs smell the meat powder, they start to salivate and that's how we know that they are really hungry and we better feed them soon. So that salivation process is the unconditioned response. In other words, that's what happens naturally, when the dogs pick up the scent of the meat.

Now at the same time as the assistant are coming into the laboratory and unlocking all the cages. They're using a bunch of jingling keys and the keys are making a loud noise. That's really important. So keep that in mind as we move to the next phase here. The keys are an initially neutral stimulus. In other words, they have no meaning when it comes to the dogs.

However, over time, Pavlov made a very interesting observation, which is that when the dogs heard the sound of the jangling keys, even before they could smell the meat powder, guess what they started to salivate. So the keys became a conditioned stimulus, that is the dogs had learned to associate the sound of the keys with the meals that were being delivered to their cages, and therefore, they gave off a conditioned response and this is classical conditioning in a nutshell. Over time, if one thing is associated with something else that we like or dislike, we come to associate that second thing which is now a conditioned stimulus with the reward or punishment. And therefore, it's so to speak guilt by association, the initially neutral stimulus now becomes a conditioned stimulus, which elicits the conditioned response. And this explains why, for example, product logos that initially are neutral, over time take on a positive or negative association for many customers.

And classical conditioning could have similar effects from more complex reactions to even a credit card becomes a conditioned cue that triggers greater spending, especially because as a stimulus, it's present only in situations where we spend money. Now we know that conditioning effects are more likely do occur after the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli have been paired together a number of times. It's very unusual for this kind of learning to occur if a neutral stimulus and a conditioned stimulus are only paired together once or twice, just doesn't work that way. So repetition becomes extremely important in classical conditioning. Repeated exposures increase the strength of stimulus response associations, and they prevent the decay of these associations in memory. stim stimulus generalization refers to the tendency of stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar conditioned responses.

So, for example, Pavlov noticed in subsequent studies that his dogs would sometimes sound When I heard noises that only vaguely resembled the initial noises that had turned them on, such as, for example, a bell or a different set of keys jangling. This is really important for us in marketing. Because classical conditioning often creates a so called halo effect. This means that people react to other similar stimuli in much the same way they responded to the original stimulus. So why is that important for us? Well, here's a great example.

Think about look alike packaging. You'll notice that many generic brands in the supermarket for example, bear an uncanny resemblance to national brands. And indeed, research supports the idea that stimulus generalization is operative. For example, in one study Consumers rated look alike shampoo brands as similar and quality and performance to the brands that they were trying to imitate. Now the downside is we can have too much of a good thing when it comes to repetition. Consumers can become so used to hearing or seeing a marketing stimulus that they no longer pay attention to it.

So varying the way in which you present the basic message can alleviate this problem of advertising wear out. what's the takeaway here? Very simply don't rest on your laurels. What I mean is that just because you have created a positive connection between some stimulus like an advertising message, and a response like consumers positive feelings towards your brand, don't assume that that's going to continue over time. Because more likely than not you will become a victim of adversity. Pricing were out so you need to change things up a bit.