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Workshop 1: Consumer Involvement
Carolina Pereira, Andres Montealegre, Claude Dolriat, Jose Peaa, David Espitia
Introduction
This workshop analyzes the level of consumer involvement for different products.
The term involvement makes reference to the arousal and interest a consumer feels in an
offering, activity or decision (Hoyer & MacInniis, 2008). Considering consumer
involvement is an important part of merchandising since it gives information about what
are the consumer’s interests, where does he search for product information, and how long
will it take for the consumer to make a purchase, etc. Additionally, there are different types
of involvement that influence different areas of an individual; enduring involvement,
situational involvement, cognitive involvement and affective involvement. Along with this,
one can feel involvement for different types of products and services, for example
involvement can be enduring, situational, cognitive, or affective (Hoyer & MacInniis,
2008). Along with this, consumer involvement is crucial in the buying process since it is
strictly related to the perceived risk. In this sense, perceived risk, which is the uncertainty
the consumer has about the consequences of an action like buying a product, determines if
the consumer feels a high or low involvement for a certain product or service (Hoyer &
MacInniis, 2008). The higher the perceived risk, the more involved a consumer will be.
To analyze the level of consumer involvement for different products, we selected
two specific products: rice (which is thought to have a low involvement) and cars (which is
thought to have a high involvement). To do this workshop we first collected information
through a survey, that included the PII for Advertising Scale, the CIP Consumer
Involvement Profile, and three open questions related to the searching of information, time
required to purchase, brand, and characteristics of the product or service that influence the
selection and use. The survey was applied to a sample of 25 people chosen at random, 10
men and 15 women (Figure 1). Additionally, most of the respondents (96%) were students
and their age ranged from 17-23, with an average of 20.6 years (see Figures 2 and 3).
Almost half (48%) of the participants belong to level 6 in social stratification and finally 22
of the individuals tested are Colombian (refer to figures 4 and 5).
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Figure 1. Gender Distribution
Figure 2. Occupation Distribution
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Figure 3. Age Distribution
Figure 4. Social Stratification Distribution
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Figure 5. Nationality Distribution
Analysis and results
The scales applied have the objective of measuring, in a confident and reliable way,
the level of involvement that the consumer has for a certain product. Each scale was applied
twice to the respondents since it is necessary to measure the involvement for rice and cars
to be able to compare the level of involvement for each product. In addition, the three open
questions related to searching of information, time, brand and product characteristics will
deepen in the consumer involvement and give information about the type of involvement
that, in average, consumers have for the products selected (rice and cars).
The PIIA Scale consists on 10 items and is used to measure involvement. When
comparing the results PIIA Scale of rice and cars we can observe that almost on every
single item the car generates a higher level of involvement than rice: cars are rated as more
important, interesting, relevant, exciting, meaningful, appealing, fascinating, valuable and
involving. The only item in which cars are rated as less involving is with respect to the
needed-not needed item: rice is rated as more necessary than cars (see Figure 6 and 7).
Overall, cars appear to generate a much higher level of involvement than rice when using
the PIIA scale to evaluate involvement. It is interesting that although consumers show a
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lower involvement for rice than for cars, the former is considered as more needed. Several
predictions can be made to explain this result. First of all it, one could relate the lack of
interest and excitement towards the purchase of a product with the frequency of the
purchase. Usually, people buy rice at least once a month, which means that there are much
more chances to change the product in case the consumer made a wrong choice. On the
other hand, people tend to buy cars with the idea that they will use it for a long period of
time before disposing it. In this sense the life cycle for rice is shorter than that of cars, and
because of this we replace rice in a more frequent fashion than cars. Therefore, since the
probability to change the product is less for cars, people dedicate more time and attention to
the purchase of this product, however it does not necessarily mean that it is more needed
than rice.
In addition, one could explain the difference in involvement for cars (high-
involvement) and rice (low-involvement) in terms of price. Buying a car is much more
expensive than buying rice. For this reason, consumers present a higher involvement in the
purchase of cars than rice. In other words, consumers tend to protect their resources and
invest their money in the most optimal way.
Figure 6. PII for Advertising-Rice
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Figure 7. PII for Advertising-Cars
The consumer Involvement Profile Revised consists of 16 statements towards which
the participants respond their level of agreement or disagreement in scale from 1 to 5. If we
look at the average scores with respect to the statements we can see that the respondents
manifested a higher level of involvement towards cars than rice in all of the statements. For
example, the average score towards the statement ‘What product I buy is extremely
important to me’ for cars is 4,4 (high level of agreement) while for rice was 2,5 (neither
agree or disagree). Even when the statements were formulated in the opposite direction
people consistently exhibited a higher involvement towards cars than rice. For example, the
average score towards the statement ‘It doesn’t matter too much if one makes a mistake
buying a product’, for rice is 3,2 (slightly agree) while the score for cars is 1,9 (disagree).
Once again, these results demonstrate that consumers have a higher-involvement for cars
than for rice (see Figure 8 and 9).
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We can understand the level of involvement exhibited towards rice by analyzing the
factors that generate motivation. The perceived risks involved in the product are probably
relevant. Social risk or “the extent to which buying, using or disposing of an offering is
perceived to have the potential to do harm to one’s social standing” (Hoyer & MacInnin,
2008, p. 60) can increase the level of involvement because people rate cars as relevant for
their social image while rice is not considered relevant in this respect. Figures x and x,
specifically items 7, 8, and 9 of CIP scale, evidence this. Likewise, there is probably a
financial risk involved because the financial cost of buying the wrong car is huge while the
financial cost for rice is much less. This is evident in items 10, 11 and 12 of the mentioned
figures. Additionally, the high involvement towards rice can be explained because the
participant’s responses show that consumers find cars personally relevant and related to
their symbolic needs (see items 7,8, and 9).
Figure 8. CIP Scale for Rice
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Figure 9. CIP Scale for Cars
As we can see in Figures 10 and 11, consumers dedicated a greater amount of time
when deciding to buy a car than when deciding to buy rice. With respect to rice, the time
reported by the participants during the decision process is in a range that varies from 5
seconds to 5 minutes. In contrast, the time reported by the participants during the decision
process when selecting cars was in a range that varied from 1 week to 3 months. As we can
see, the time involved in the decision process for cars was much greater than the one
dedicated to rice. This kind of behavior exposes indirectly the different levels of consumer
involvement in each product.
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Figure 10. Time consumed in decision process for rice
Figure 11. Time consumed in decision process for cars
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Based on the data discussed above it is evident that when people are deciding to buy
a car they show high effort behavior and high effort information processing and decision-
making. The fact that people dedicate a much greater amount of time to choose cars shows
indirectly that they are highly motivated and involved in the purchase of this product.
Additionally, there is a higher effort involved in cars with respect to rice because –as we
can see in Figures 12 and 13- people use much more sophisticated and technical sources of
information when choosing cars. While people primarily use mouth-to-mouth sources such
as family and friend recommendations and tradition to choose rice, when choosing cars
people rely mainly on more complex and statistical information such as professional advice
and technical characteristics of the product.
Figure 12. Information Sources for rice
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Figure 13. Information Sources for cars
When we analyze the reasons why people choose the products we can observe some
differences between cars and rice. For both products quality and price have a great
importance, however we can see that people give a much greater importance to tradition
when choosing rice (see Figures 14 and 15).
Figure 14. Rice characteristics
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Figure 15. Car characteristics
It is important to highlight that, there are different types of consumer involvement:
enduring, situational, cognitive, and affective. In this workshop it was possible to identify
the presence of cognitive and affective involvement for the products selected. It is
necessary then to define what does each category mean. Cognitive involvement “means that
the consumer is interested in thinking about and processing information related to his or her
goal”, and affective involvement “means that the consumer is willing to expend emotional
energy in or has heightener feelings about an offering or activity” (Hoyer & MacInnin,
2008, p. 48). Considering the way the participants search for information (see Figures 12
and 13) we can determine that there is a more cognitive involvement for cars and a more
affective involvement for rice. The results show that when buying cars people search for
information in statistical information such as professional advice and technical
characteristics of the product, which are all sources that require the processing of detailed
information. In contrast, consumers search for information about rice through friends and
family, which require a less cognitive involvement.
When analyzing the characteristics that consumers consider important in both
products we found that they place a great value on quality and price. However, the results
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show that in relation to rice, people purchase certain brand of rice because of tradition.
Since tradition is linked to people’s social and emotional background we can conclude that
there is principally an affective involvement for rice.
Figure 16. Demographic Analysis
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Figure 17. Demographic Analysis
Figure 18. Demographic Analysis
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Figure 19. Demographic Analysis
With respect to differences in levels of involvement that can be described by
demographic variables we found no significant differences with respect to gender. As we
can see from the graphs shown above men and women have similar levels of involvement
in both inventories in rice and cars. However one can note a tendency for men to be slightly
more involved than women with cars, especially in the CIP Scale inventory. With respect to
social stratification we found no significant differences probably because our sample
consisted primarily of students of the University of the Andes, which tend to be of a high
social class. It is very important to consider this fact because our sample was probably
inclined towards wealthy individuals. The fact that people displayed a much greater
involvement towards cars than towards rice could probably be related with people’s
economic capacity. We were not able to deduce differences for nationality and age with
because almost all of the people were Colombian and had between 17 and 23 years.
With respect to the differences in the categories of involvement that can be
explained by demographic variables we found that in cars more men tended be cognitively
involved than woman. The evidence for this claim is that when reporting the sources of
information more men tended to look for professional advice or search for technical
information than woman. With respect to rice there were no differences with respect to the
type of involvement probably because it is a product that generates a low level of
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involvement, so people often rely on low effort information processing such as mouth-to-
mouth information. As we mentioned previously with respect to social stratification we
found no significant differences probably because our sample consisted primarily of
students of the Andes University which, as we mentioned, tend to be of a high social class.
The same happened with nationality and age with almost all of the people being Colombian
and having between 17 and 23 years.
The surveys applied also asked participants or the brand they use, both of rice and
cars. The results (see Figures 20 and 21) show that for rice, the most common brands are
Diana, Doña Pepa and Roa. On the other hand, the most used brands for cars are Chevrolet,
Mazda and Audi. To increase the consumption of these products and interest on behalf of
the consumers we suggest two things: First, we advice the company to consider the type of
involvement present in each product and apply them on their advertising campaigns. For
example, the results above demonstrated that rice relate mainly to the affective involvement
and cars to the cognitive involvement. In this sense, the publicity of the rice companies may
display scenes that appeal to consumer emotions, such as portraying images of families or
happy people. On the other hand, car companies should display advertisement that make
consumers process information about the product. In this case, they could include technical
characteristics and professionals on their publicity to catch consumer’s attention and
interest. Second, we recommend for the companies to improve their communication
channels. Since people look for rice information through family and friends, the company
should use the mouth-to-mouth strategy to spread the information directly. For example,
they could make public events in which the product is advertised. In contrast, since
technical information is crucial for consumers when buying a car, magazines and
advertisements should include this information. Using these two strategies would help the
companies increase their sales.
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Figure 20. Rice brands
Figure 21. Car Brands
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Conclusions
At the beginning of the workshop we hypothesized that cars would have a high-
involvement level and that rice would have a low-involvement level. After collecting the
data and analyzing the results it is possible to conclude that the level of involvement for
each product was the expected one. As explained above, the differences in the level of
involvement were determined by the use of the two scales applied (PAII and CIP) and the
open questions related to the search of information, the duration of the decision process,
and the characteristics of the product. In addition, we can corroborate that the scales are
reliable and valid since they provided the same results for both products. In other words,
the PIIA and the CIP both showed that the involvement for cars was high and the
involvement for rice was low.
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Bibliography
Consumer Behavior. Wayne Hoyer and Deborah MacInnes, (2008). Fifth Edition
(international edition). Southwestern, Cengage Learning.
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ATTACHMENTS
INVOLVEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE
The objective of this questionnaire is to identify and analyze consumer involvement for different products. The information provided by you in this questionnaire is anonymous and confidential. Please respond to each one of the questions in the most sincere way. Thank you for your collaboration.
Product 1: Rice
I - Test your behavior towards rice buying
1. Where do you search for information about the product (previous experience, family or friends, a professional, package information, advertisement etc.)?
2. How much time does it take for you to decide what brand of rice to buy?
3. What brand do you use and why do you use it? (tradition, price, quality, accessibility etc.)?
II - Test your involvement
PIIA: PII for Advertising (Zaichkowsky, 1994):This scale consists of ten items to rank from 1 to 7.
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→ Rice is:1 Important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unimportant2 Boring 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Interesting3 Irrelevant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Relevant4 Unexciting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Exciting5 Means a lot to
me1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Means nothing to me
6 Appealing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unappealing7 Mundane 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fascinating8 Valuable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Worthless9 Involving 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Uninvolving
10 Not needed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Needed
CIP: Consumer Involvement Profile Revised (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985):This scale consists of 16 statements, which are evaluated by the respondent using a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being “Strongly Disagree” and 5 being “Totally Agree.”
1Strongly Disagree
2 3 4 5Totally Agree
1. What rice I buy is extremely important to me
1 2 3 4 5
2. I’m really interested in rice
1 2 3 4 5
3. I couldn’t care lees about rice
1 2 3 4 5
4. I really enjoy buying rice 1 2 3 4 55. Whenever I buy rice it’s
like giving myself a present
1 2 3 4 5
6. To me, rice is quite a pleasure
1 2 3 4 5
7. You can tell about a person from the rice he or she buys
1 2 3 4 5
8. The rice a person buys says something about who they are
1 2 3 4 5
9. The rice I buy reflects the sort of person I am
1 2 3 4 5
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10. It doesn’t matter too much if one makes a mistake buying rice
1 2 3 4 5
11. It is very irritating to buy rice which isn’t right
1 2 3 4 5
12. I should be annoyed with myself if it turned out I made the wrong choice when buying rice.
1 2 3 4 5
13. When I’m not in front of the rice section I always feel rather unsure about what to pick
1 2 3 4 5
14. When you buy rice you can never be quite sure it was the right choice or not
1 2 3 4 5
15. Choosing rice is rather difficult
1 2 3 4 5
16. When you buy rice you can never be quite certain about your choice
1 2 3 4 5
Product 2: Cars
I - Test your behavior towards cars buying
1. Where do you search for information about the product (previous experience, family or friends, a professional, technical characteristics, advertisements, etc.)?
2. How much time does it take for you to decide what car to buy?
4. What brand do you use and why do you use it? (tradition, price, quality, accessibility etc.)?
II - Test your involvement
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PIIA: PII for Advertising (Zaichkowsky, 1994):This scale consists of ten items to rank from 1 to 7.
→A car is:
1 Important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unimportant2 Boring 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Interesting3 Irrelevant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Relevant4 Unexciting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Exciting5 Means a lot to
me1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Means nothing to me
6 Appealing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unappealing7 Mundane 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fascinating8 Valuable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Worthless9 Involving 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Uninvolving
10 Not needed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Needed
CIP: Consumer Involvement Profile Revised (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985):This scale consists of 16 statements, which are evaluated by the respondent using a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being “Strongly Disagree” and 5 being “Totally Agree.”
1Strongly Disagree
2 3 4 5Totally Agree
1. What car I buy is extremely important to me
1 2 3 4 5
2. I’m really interested in cars
1 2 3 4 5
3. I couldn’t care lees about cars
1 2 3 4 5
4. I really enjoy buying cars 1 2 3 4 55. Whenever I buy a car it’s
like giving myself a present
1 2 3 4 5
6. To me, a car is quite a pleasure
1 2 3 4 5
7. You can tell about a person from the car he or she buys
1 2 3 4 5
8. The car a person buys says something about who they are
1 2 3 4 5
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9. The car I buy reflects the sort of person I am
1 2 3 4 5
10. It doesn’t matter too much if one makes a mistake buying a car
1 2 3 4 5
11. It is very irritating to buy a car which isn’t right
1 2 3 4 5
12. I should be annoyed with myself if it turned out I made the wrong choice when buying a car.
1 2 3 4 5
13. When I’m not in front of the car I always feel rather unsure about what to pick
1 2 3 4 5
14. When you buy a car you can never be quite sure it was the right choice or not
1 2 3 4 5
15. Choosing a car is rather difficult
1 2 3 4 5
16. When you buy a car you can never be quite certain about your choice
1 2 3 4 5
Demographic Data
Age: _______ Gender: M___ F___ Occupation:______________________
Social Status you belong to: Nationality: ______________________1. ___ 2.___ 3.___ 4.___ 5.___ 6.___
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