Classical And Operational Conditioning

Classical and Operational Conditioning

Classical conditioning is a technique often used by marketers. It is essentially a process of behaviour adjustment by which a person comes to respond in a desired manner to a stimulus that was formerly neutral to them but that has now been repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that obtains a desired response for the marketer. For example, the Pharmacy Boots has affiliated the song ‘here come the girls’ with their stores by playing it on many of their adverts and in their shops. Now people instinctively associate Boots with that song i.e when consumers hear it they will think of Boots’ pharmacy and the products they sell.
Operational conditioning is a different type of behaviour modification in which the chances of a specific behaviour increases or decreases through positive or negative reinforcement each time the behaviour is exhibited, so that the person comes to link the pleasure/ displeasure of the reinforcement with the behaviour. For example, when a toddler writes on the wall the mother of the baby punishes them by perhaps putting them in ‘the bold corner’. The toddler will eventually realise that any time they write on the wall they will be put in that corner. Likewise, if the toddler does something good they will be rewarded perhaps with a treat or a trip to the playground.
Classical Conditioning
An example of how the principles of classical conditioning have been effectively used to build a strong brand association among my set of preferred brands would be Adidas’ use of professional football players in their adverts.
I myself enjoy playing and watching football especially the better teams such as Liverpool, Barcelona, Manchester City etc. All these teams have some of the best players in the world playing for them such as Steven Gerrard, Lionel Messi and YaYa Toure and this is the reason that Adidas sponsor these players and use them in their adverts.
An example which would be relevant to this topic would be Pavlov’s dogs classical conditioning. Pavlov had a dog that would salivate at the sight of meat powder, the food being the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation the unconditioned response. Pavlov then introduced classical conditioned learning to his dogs eating habits. He rang a bell right before he fed his dog, at first there was no salivation as the dog did not associate the bell with food. This ringing of the bell was the neutral stimulus which initially did not evoke a conditioned response. Over time, the dog linked the ringing of the bell with the food and would begin salivating, initially this was an unconditioned response but over time as Pavlov kept repeating the action of ringing the bell before food the salivating became a conditioned response and was embedded in the dogs long term memory.

Just like Pavlov trained his dog to know when he was being fed by associating the ringing of a bell with the presentation of food, Adidas have conducted their marketing in such a way that I now associate a high standard of football with Adidas football boots. In my case Adidas football boots are the neutral stimulus and the quality of football I am watching is the unconditioned stimulus.
When I watch football teams such as those mentioned above it evokes a positive emotional response from me. This positive emotional response would have happened prior to me having any knowledge of Adidas football boots being worn by the players playing these matches.
With regards to this example of classical conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus is the watching of high quality football being played, particularly by players which are idolised by their fans (i.e Liverpool fans will idolise Steven Gerrard as he plays for Liverpool but will have a negative attitude towards Wayne Rooney as he plays for Manchester United who are Liverpool’s biggest rival) given this information, people who play football and enjoy watching Steven Gerrard play football himself will eventually associate the type of boot he wears as a conditioned response which will eventually transform into an unconditioned response and be linked to the feeling of joy when watching Steven Gerrard play.
The unconditioned response is the feeling of joy and entertainment experienced when seeing excellent football being played by excellent football players. This unconditioned response entices me to watch more and more football and thus see more and more of these players wearing Adidas’ football boots.
The conditioned stimulus is the boots that Adidas produce and pay footballers to wear. These include the Adidas predator, F50’s and also their classic boots. Many of these types of boots have been worn for decades by professional footballers, rugby players and also GAA players. We not only see these boots being worn by the players in televised matches but also in adverts on television, in magazines, at bus stops etc. such as this one below. https://www.google.ie/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=x-jYTCR6FKkudM&tbnid=mLNq21IiKOKJqM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpopsop.com%2F34702&ei=iqdAUdnELcSAhQfG6YGwBw&bvm=bv.43287494,d.ZGU&psig=AFQjCNFYYE471GOTgerzdpVbtCFtQc4rww&ust=1363278082363998 The conditioned response is the feeling of joy and entertainment experienced when seeing a high quality of football being played which I instantly link to Adidas. I believe that the boots Adidas make improve the standard of football being played and thus this entices me to buy them for my own football endeavours. Many of Adidas’ football boots claim to add to a certain quality. For example, the Adidas predator claims to be able to add more power and swerve to your shooting and passing whilst their F50 model mainly focuses on speed as the boot is so light.

Operational Conditioning
An example of how the principles of operational conditioning have been effectively used to build a strong brand association among my set of preferred brands would be the loyalty cards which Wards corner-store have recently introduced.
Wards corner-store is a store opposite the college that sells groceries but it also has a deli. This deli caters to many college students, staff, schoolchildren and others with their rolls, soups, sandwiches etc. I am one of these college students who regularly buys his lunch at the shop. All around the college there are various eating establishments, be they the bialann, friars restaurant, the college bar, the students union shop and the list goes on. With this huge amount of competition that Wards face daily they have been forced to introduce a ‘reWARDS’ scheme for their customers. This involves giving out a Wards card resembling a credit card that you can leave in your wallet and use whenever you make a purchase in the store. Whenever you do make a purchase and produce your card the clerk will add on 10% of the price of your purchase to your card, i.e if you spend five euro you get 50 cents on your card to spend as you please. This incentive has undoubtedly made me a more loyal customer to the shop and also having the card constantly in my wallet reminds me to use it more often. Almost daily I buy at least 5 euro’s worth of food in Wards in order to build myself up to that illustrious free roll and when I do and my card is empty I instantly want to fill it up again. This system has helped Wards to compete more effectively with the other eating establishments located in and around the college as many of them have a similar system in place.