Now that we know about the relatively superficial external search for information which is undertaken in selecting brands, as future marketers we must know its implications for us. The questions the marketers need to consider is whether increasing levels of information help or hinder consumer brand decisions.
Marketers need to recognize that increasing the quantity of information will not necessarily increase brand decision effectiveness, even though it may make consumers more confident. It is becoming apparent that we follow two broad patterns when searching for information. Some of us make a choice by examining one brand at a time, i.e. for the first brand we select information on several attributes, and then for the second brand we seek the same attribute information, and so on. This strategy is known as Choice by Processing Brands.
An alternative strategy is seen when some of us have a particularly important attribute against which we assess all the brands, followed by the next most important attribute and so on. This is known as Choice by Processing Attributes.
It is also seen that when some of us have limited knowledge of a product or service, we tend to process information by attributes while more experienced of us process the information by brands. Furthermore, choice by processing attributes tends to be the route followed when there are a few alternatives, when differences are easy to compute and when the task is in general easier.
