A Low-involvement Choice Model for Consumer Panel Data

The long overdue surge of interest in consumer behaviour texts in low-involvement purchasing has only begun to gather momemtum. It often takes the form of asking whether concepts usually associated with high-involvement purchasing can be applied, albeit in a modified form, to low-involvement purchasing. One such concept is evoked set, that is the range of brands deemed acceptable by a consumer in a particular product area. This has characteristically been associated with consumption involving extensive pre-purchase search and evaluation. The consumer's evoked set is thus the brands he would actually consider purchasing in advance of the purchase event. However, when it comes to regularly purchased, low cost, non durable low-involvement goods, can this evoked set concept be utilised?The authors propose a new measure to gauge brand loyalites of respondents on consumer panels. It draws on the supposition that evoked set may be applied on panels. The measure also strives to incorporate desirable modelling features in being micro-based, unidimensional, and simple. Indications are given of how the measure might be futher utilised to examine brand performance at the macro level and to predict market share.