Operant Conditioning and The Way Companies Reward Their Customers

Operant Conditioning explains how consequences lead to changes in voluntary behaviour. B.F Skinner says it’s a form of learning that focuses on using either positive or negative punishment or reinforcement to change an individual’s behaviour. B.F Skinner discovered that behaviour that is reinforced tends to be repeated and that behaviour that is not reinforced tend to die out.

The picture above shows how B.F Skinner used rats on his experiment with positive and negative reinforcement. According to Skinner the rats quickly learned that by pressing the lever they get a reward or turn of the shock.

Positive Reinforcement- strengthens a behaviour by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. This makes it more likely that you will do it again like when the rat was getting food from pressing the Lever/ stopping the electric shocks once they pressed the lever or like when you get desert after you finish eating your veggies. An example of Positive Reinforcement: click here  

Negative Reinforcement- this strengthens behaviour because it stops or removes and unpleasant experiences.  This is the removal of a stimulus like getting no homework because you did well in class.

Punishment- this the opposite of Positive reinforcement because it makes it less likely that you will repeat it again.

Operant conditioning is everywhere in our daily lives, there aren’t many thing that we do in our lives that haven’t been influenced at some point in Operant conditioning. We even see Operant conditioning in some extraordinary situations like teaching pigeons to do some tricks by systematically rewarding them for desirable behaviour.

Operant Conditioning has been brought to the marketing place and businesses started rewarding their customers based on buying or using their brand ^{(Solomon, 2012)}. It tends to create a relationship where consumers associate the brand with rewards and they keep returning to their products.

Reinforcement:

ü  Fixed-Interval Reinforcement-  this makes individuals want to buy your product because  it maybe only scheduled or for a limited amount of time e.g. you have always wanted to go on a holiday but you could never afford it but let’s say Secret Escape Holiday Offers   these are just for a limited amount of time so you are forced to get them or wait till next year. (Sales / Special Offers)

ü  Variable Interval Reinforcement-  this is when the reinforce should provide motivation for the behaviour to be repeated like having Secret shoppers keep standards high or having work reviews every months to get feedback based on your performance that month.

ü  Fixed-Ratio Reinforcement- is a schedule of reinforcement where a response is reinforced only after a specified number of responses. E.g. various companies in the tourism Industry have many ways of rewarding their loyal customers. British airways have a rewards system which ranges from the Blue exclusive club, Bronze, Silver and Gold membership. Each time a customer flies with them they get a chance to add points each of their exclusive clubs have different benefits for the consumer. Consumers get attracted to such schemes it’s a good way to draw customers in. (Loyalty cards, bonus points etc.)

ü  Variable-Ratio Reinforcement- is a schedule of reinforcement wherein a reinforcer is provided following a pre-determined average number of responses Example  . (Probability of Reward – Gambling, betting, risk). In conclusion this is a good marketing scheme for companies lastly it is a good way to enforce customer loyalty. 

Celebrity Marketing

Mostly Famous people have always made excellent salesmen. Presenting a familiar face is one of the fastest and easiest ways for companies to create brand associations in the minds of consumers. When a widely loved actor or a heroic sports figure endorses a product, that product gains immediate credibility. This is like when you use celebrities like Rihanna who was named the most marketable celebrity in the world, according to (Global Information Provider) it's most likely for the young  audience will purchase a product featuring their idol and this will help the sales for the brand to increase and gain new and younger consumers and its up to them to keep them.

Celebrity marketing is a tactic featuring a famous person to offer an endorsement of a product. This famous person might be an actor, musician, athlete, ex-politician or a cartoon character. They do not need to be international superstars; they only need to be familiar to the target audience. For instance, a famous skateboarder might be unknown to the population at large, but beloved in the circle of young men that energy drinks are being marketed to. Basically its about knowing your target market and what will attract them to your product.

A celebrity’s involvement can range from an explicit to an implicit endorsement of a product. Some celebrity marketing campaigns try to suggest that the star uses the product personally and enjoys it. Others simply involve the celebrity in the image of the brand, relying on the celebrity’s reputation rather than their outright endorsement to market a product. A great example will be the Pepsi advertisement in 2013; they Used Beyonce to reach a wider range of audience and this was a great markerting strategy for the brand because this helped increased their revenue and its known world wide because of Beyonce's big fan base.

Celebrity marketing has been used across all mediums. Print, television, radio, film and various forms of new media have all been effective outlets for celebrity endorsed products. The key is to match the right celebrity with the right product and place them both in the right ad campaign. If the combination is done well, it can lead to huge profits and an immediate change in the public perception of a company. If it is done poorly, it can ruin a brand overnight.

Successful and unsuccessful celebrity campaigns

Successful

1. Michael Jordan for Hanes – The famous basketball star has endorsed Hanes brand clothing for over a decade. The admiration of the athlete lends an air of respectability and quality to the brand.
2. Britney Spears for Pepsi – The pop star was the celebrity face of a famous ad campaign in the late 90s. The singer's worldwide fame and popularity helped to connect Pepsi with a new group of young soda drinkers.

Unsuccessful

1. OJ Simpson for Hertz – The football star endorsed Hertz Rent-A-Car throughout the 1980s. When he was accused of murder in the early 90s, the advertiser quickly severed their relationship with him.
2. Tiger Woods for Nike – Woods had been an iconic spokesman for the brand for years. Following the public meltdown of his marriage, Woods appeared in a now famous spot featuring a voice over from his deceased father. The ad was extremely unpopular and is widely considered one of the least effective ads of all time.

Hospitality and Sensory Marketing

Hospitality is an industry made up of different organisations including hotels, restaurants, food service management, fast food, coffee shops and pubs, bars and nightclubs. It contains a selection of job roles from waitressing to event coordination, and management positions too. It’s an industry that offers an exceptional working environment, and as it is public facing it offers a friendly and self-motivated working life.

Most of the times when people hear the word Hospitality the first thing that comes to their minds is food (mine does) but hospitality is more than that. It’s also about the relationship between a guest and a host and how they both present themselves to each other. In the Hospitality industry they use Sensory Marketing to attract their target market because our senses dictate what appeals to each one of us and this can happen in different ways.

First, Visions- colour influences emotions (Bryant 1999) in Hospitality colours are important and red stimulates appetite; in many Food advertisement they always use res because it’s associated with hunger and most Chefs tend to add more colour in their food to make it more interesting. Same principle, when there is wider variety of food choices, we associate this will a horizontal offering and feel it is acceptable to eat more because we think there isn’t that much available (Khan and Wanswick 2004). Long plate and horizontal positioning of food gives the impression that there is less food than there actually is. Consumers are then more likely to be ‘surprised’ in a positive way. Drinking – research has shown that bars over pour drinks in taller glasses because we perceive vertical size as being ‘more’ (Raghubir and Krishna 1999).

Secondly, Smell- Mitchel et al (2005) found that consumers who were exposed to visuals of flowers and chocolate who also experienced the scent of these items processed them for longer and formed more favourable perceptions. This is one of the most important ones for example some companies are associated with a certain scent for example when you smell coffee in the morning you think Starbucks and breakfast.

Thirdly, Touch- Research has shown that when consumers touch a product, they then have a higher level of attachment to the product. Consumer researchers are studying the role that haptic sense (touch) plays in consumer behaviour. Like sometimes when buying clothes you have to touch them to be satisfied with the quality than just buying online.

Fourth, Hearing- Research has shown sound and music can influence people’s mood, speed, responsiveness, direction, and propensity to consume. This also works in the tourism industry because a word of mouth counts. For example when booking a holiday sometime you go online to see the reviews of the resort before you book the holiday.