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Consumer Behavior

Question A

Consumer attitudes towards a retailer can be established

through a variety of attributes. In terms of consumer attitudes

towards Wal-Mart, positive and negative attitudes towards the

company are arrived at through a variety of channels. As the

research indicates, consumers are inundated with information on

the firm which has little to do with its actual retailing of

consumer product goods (CPGs) such as its treatment of employees

(Bianco). Consumers may read about this directly or are exposed

to the news vicariously through word-of-mouth and then go on to

assume that Wal-Mart treats it employees poorly and is therefore

a “bad” company. Furthermore, some consumers may perceive the

firm as much more than a retailer but as a powerful economic

force that somehow affects much more than just what products

they purchase. Bianco and Zellner point this out by informing

the consumer that Wal-Mart actually influences their local

community governments and even the national economy.

Thus, consumers may then go on to develop a negative

impression of the firm not for any specific action or event but

merely out of fear of the unknown. This type of information is

contrasted by an equal amount of press that informs the consumer

that Wal-Mart is good for them. However, these types of

attributions are typically more direct in nature as researchers

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such as Maich tend to state more forcefully that Wal-Mart is

positive. Yet, these positive and negative impressions in the

minds of the consumer are predominantly unrelated to the

company’s CPG inventory but are based on both unrelated facts as

well as innuendo.

This type of ongoing consumer attribution to the character

of Wal-Mart as a retailing firm leads to some interesting

contradictions. While many consumers clearly consider the firm

to be negative in some respect or another, the company’s sales

continue to remain stable or to increase. The conclusion is that

while consumers understand that many of Wal-Mart’s corporate

actions may be a negative and that the presence of the firm in

their communities might cause economic harm to countless small

retailers, the fact that its prices are exceedingly low trumps

these negative feelings. Therefore, consumers resolve this

inconsistency based on an economically driven rationale.

Question B

The subservientchicken.com website is somewhat

entertaining. It intrigues the consumer by offering the viewer a

spectacle of someone acting ridiculous. The information offered

on the site is all somewhat misleading although Burger King does

have a highly transparent and difficult to see logo on the

site’s landing page it is easily missed. The consumer is certain

to click on the links below the chicken character video which

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then defaults to more transparent marketing content but many

consumers might leave the site feeling misled. Likewise, the

comeclean.com website is also somewhat misleading. Consumers

that surf to the site accidentally are certain to be completely

confused about what its purpose is. Even after experimenting

with the site and finding the manufacturer’s homepage, the

purpose of the original site seems rather vague. This site does

not seem to engender any feelings in the consumer much less a

call to action.

Question C

1) Cleaning product: Fresh & Clean—“Caution: The contents of

this bottle should not be fed to fish.

2) Bachman Hone Roasted Peanuts: Warning: Contains Nuts.

3) Glade Air Freshener: For use by trained personnel only

Question D

Many organizations and firms will purchase website domains

that merely link to their primary websites. Secondharvest.org is

just such a site. As consumers either type in the site and

navigate to it or click on a link, they are redirected

immediately to the “Feeding America” website which is located at

feedingamerica.org. This site offers an abundance of information

relating to hunger-relief activities performed by the

organization. In this respect, the site is very useful from an

informative aspect and may lead to actual donations. Another

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immediately useful website is the freecycle.org website in which

members of the Freecycle organization or network exchange items

free of charge in order to improve recycling and decrease waste.

This website is also immediately useful and also presents the

random viewer with a value proposition.

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Works Cited

Bianco, Anthony. “Wal-Mart’s Midlife Crisis.” BusinessWeek,

April/30(2007): 46.

Bianco, Anthony & Wendy Zellner. “Is Wal-Mart too Powerful?”

BusinessWeek, October/06(2003): 100.

Maich, Steve. “Whay Wal-Mart is Good for Canada.” Canada News

Wire, July/18(2005).