Rather than engaging in a detailed search for information when deciding between competing brands, we look for a few clues that we believe will give an indication of brand performance. For example, when people buy new car they talk about them as being ‘tinny’ or ‘solid’, based on the sound heard when slamming the door. Clearly, then, some people use the sound as being indicative of the car’s likely performance.
If through experience, we recognize a few clues offering high predictive and high confidence values, these will be selected. More often than not, the most sought after clue, is the presence of a brand name, which rapidly enables recall from memory of previous experience. However, when we have limited brand experience, the brand name will have low predictive and confidence values and thus more clues will be sought, usually price, followed by other clues. Learning, through brand usage, enables us to adjust predictive and confidence values internally, which stabilize over time.
