Understanding Consumer Attitudes and their Impact

Attitude plays a large role in consumers’ customer journey and purchase behavior. Understanding your target audiences’ attitudes and how to influence them is key to improving your bottom line.

“In the interconnected landscape in which our consumers live, work and play, this includes not only understanding and influencing attitudes toward our own products, but also attitudes toward the category, competitors’ products, influencers and any other elements surrounding a purchase decision,” according to Forbes.

To simplify, marketers are mainly interested in understanding consumer attitudes to predict and diagnosis purchase decisions.  

Prediction: helps marketers explain the what.

For example, imagine your product, or “object” in terms of attitudes, is an electric passenger car (think: Tesla). Because your target audience’s attitude towards fuel efficiency is positive, you can predict their likelihood to purchase your electric car is high. On the flip side, Ford is not likely to market their new Bronco to the same target audience based on their same attitudes towards fuel efficiency.

Diagnosis: helps marketers explain the why.

When a product does not meet sales goals, executives often look to Marketing for answers. Having a meaningful response can earn you a seat at the decision-making table in the future. Understanding consumer attitudes can help marketers explain how a product performed in-market. Using the example above, imagine Ford went to market in 2022 with only electric cars. Looking at Ford’s target audience, they may want to consider a product that more closely aligns with consumer attitudes- like horsepower.