THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN THE PURCHASE DECISION

PROCESS
Grboveanu Sorina-Raula
University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 13 A.I.Cuza Craiova,
sorinagirboveanu@yahoo.com, 0723-577-164
Crciun Liviu
University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 13 A.I.Cuza Craiova,
lcraciun70@yahoo.com, 0744-197-459
Meghian Georgeta-Mdlina
University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 13 A.I.Cuza Craiova,
madalina_meghisan@yahoo.com, 0744-398-230
Abstract: The purchase process is a decision-making process under risk. The selection of one brand over
all other brands is a process of optimizing the consumers utility. This optimization is done under
uncertainty, since the buyer does not have perfect information. According to this process, buyers must
always choose between making an immediate decision (to buy or not to buy) or delaying this decision to
seek additional information, and thus reduce the decision risk. To purchase a product or a brand, buyers
need a certain level of information; pre-purchase information-seeking activities depend on four factors:
two factors are purchase-situation related, and the two other factors relate to the type of product and
market.
Key words: purchase decision, uncertainty, advertising, pre-purchase information-seeking

1. INTRODUCTION
Needs and motivations are the starting points of purchase decisions. For a purchase to take place, buyers
must experience sufficiently positive attitudes toward the product and the brand and consciously felt needs.
When all the elements of the marketing program are properly designed, a buyer will include the advertised
brand in his or her evoked set of brands, which is all the brands that are considered for purchase. These
elements of the marketing program include designing the product to have the attributes buyers seek,
ensuring that the product is available at conveniently located retail stores, and setting a price that buyers
perceive as reasonable. This article describes the process buyers follow to select a brand from within their
evoked set. Emphasis is put on elements of the process that advertisers can influence through a welldesigned communication program.

2. THE PURCHASE DECISION PROCESS

Social scientists develop many sophisticated theories of consumer behaviour. They give a variety of
theoretical models to explain the sequence of behaviours involved in making a purchase decision. The first
task in promoting any new product is to create awareness perception that the product exists. The second
is to provide enough information learning about the product for the prospective customer to make an
informed decision. Finally, the marketer wants to be persuasive enough to stimulate the customer's desire
motivation to satisfy his or her needs or wants by purchasing and repurchasing the product. These three
personal processes of consumer behaviour perception, learning, and motivation are extremely important
to advertisers (Arens & Bove, 2005).
Most purchases imply the decision to buy a product or service. This purchase decision process includes:
1. A goal to be reached (i.e., lessening the tension created by an unsatisfied need or desire).
2. A number of alternatives (i.e., competing products and brands). Products and brands are
perceived, evaluated, and compared on the basis of their distinctive attributes and on their ability
to satisfy a set of needs. These alternatives also include the non-purchase decision.
3. Some evaluation criteria for choosing the best alternative.
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4.

A state of doubt, arising from the impossibility of possessing all relevant information on the
different products and brands. Buyers are also uncertain about how well a given product or brand
will satisfy their needs and desires.
When they buy a specific brand, buyers have expectations. This notion of expectation is intimately related
to any purchase decision. A consumer who buys a product has developed definite expectations about the
consumption of this product. Consumers buy a certain brand because it is preferable to competing brands;
they have implicitly or explicitly anticipated that the selected brand will yield more satisfaction than the
other brands and that it will respond more appropriately to the relevant set of felt needs. Hence, the amount
of satisfaction consumers anticipate they will receive from a certain brand constitutes the expectations
raised by the selected brand. An overview of consumers purchase decision process is shown in Figure 1
(Darmon&Laroche, 1991).

No purchase
(Frustration)

Additional
information
search

Attitudes

Needs and
Motivations

Evoked
set

Evaluation process

Product
Price
Place

Purchase
Expectations

Figure 1. The Purchase Decision Process

The Purchase Decision: An Optimization Process

A purchase decision can be considered as an optimization process through which buyers seek the product
or the brand that will yield the greatest satisfaction. In order to find which brand will produce the highest
utility, buyers compare these brands along attributes they consider as important. The choice process can be
considered as the search for the most satisfying trade-off among brands that possess desirable attributes at
different levels.
Assume that a buyer judges wrongly or rightly that all the brands of one product on the market have
exactly the same level of a given attribute. This attribute does not enable the consumer to differentiate
among different brands, since it is present in all of them. This attribute is called an inherent attribute.
Obviously, in this case, to choose a brand, one would have to compare the different brands along other
important attributes. For example, a buyer may perhaps think that all the umbrellas on the market are
waterproof, whether or not this opinion is technically well-founded. The consumer who perceives this as a
fact cannot use the water-resistance attribute to compare umbrellas, since all the brands are perceived as
being equal on this attribute.
A corollary of this observation is that brand comparison is possible only when a consumer considers those
attributes on which some differences among brands can be perceived. These attributes are distinctive brand
attributes. Consumers can compare different brands of umbrellas by their colour, style, or durability if they
think these characteristics vary from one brand to another.

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The Purchase Decision: A Decision Under Uncertainty

A buyer who experiences the psychological tension caused by an unsatisfied need or desire faces a series
of decision problems: What product should I buy? Which brand should I choose? These decisions may be
described within decision making under uncertainty framework.
As was shown before, consumers run a certain risk in making a decision based on present information
because this imperfect information does not enable them to predict exactly which product will procure the
maximum satisfaction sought nor which brand really has the qualities desired (or that should be desired).
A certain number of costs are related to the risks taken by buyers. These costs are, for example, financial
losses (if the product does not adequately satisfy all or part of a consumers need as it was hoped it would).
The costs may also be physical (if, for instance, the realization of the risk endangers the consumers life) or
psycho-sociological (if a wrong purchase jeopardizes a consumers reputation in one of his social groups,
for example). These costs are essentially associated with a fast decision (hence with a limited amount of
information). They decrease with time, because time has been used by the buyer to gather additional
information, thus reducing the risk involved in the purchase.
However, when the buyer waits until more information is gathered before making a decision, costs
associated with a delay decision are incurred. This time, two types of cost are involved. First, there are
psychological opportunity costs experienced by consumers who are deprived of the product they need and
are consequently in a state of psychological tension. As time elapses, this psychological tension becomes
more acute and eventually develops into a state of frustration. Second, buyers experience costs associated
with the information-gathering effort. They must invest time and energy to visit several retailers, seek out
and read advertisements, or inquire for other opinions about the best product to buy. These delayed
decision costs considerably increase as time elapses. The buyer must seek information until it is felt (at
least intuitively) that a search for additional information will bring about more costs than benefits.

Advertising Implications of the Purchase Decision Process

This view of the role of additional information in consumer purchase decision has implications for
advertising. An advertisement reaching a potential buyer while the buyer is seeking information will have a
greater impact, since the buyer is spared the time and effort needed to seek out this information himself and
is less likely to turn to competing brand advertisements to obtain the additional information. In other
words, buyers are generally more responsive to different brand advertisements while they are seeking
information on these brands. This is why they become a choice target for the advertiser, provided the
advertiser can identify and locate them. The strategy that consists of asking consumers to return a coupon
at the bottom of a print advertisement is often devised along these principles. Thus, a consumer who is
interested and is in an information-gathering stage is asked to return a coupon in order to obtain more
information on the product or the brand. Then the advertiser takes advantage of the consumers having
identified him or herself to send a series of informative (and persuasive) messages or to send a salesperson
who will try to conclude a sale. This strategy is currently used by life-insurance companies.
A second series of implications that this analysis of the buyer decision process has for advertising is that an
advertiser must reduce the buyers uncertainty about the distinctive attributes of the brand. Because a buyer
takes only these attributes into consideration when comparing and evaluating brands, an advertiser
normally tries to give positive information about the brands performance on the distinctive attributes. An
advertisement about the inherent attributes of a brand is bound to be ineffective. At best, it will be primary
advertising for the whole product class, which will also promote the competing brands. This is why an
advertiser must know which attributes is the relevant product category are perceived as inherent by the
buyer, and what are the distinctive attributes on which the advertising effort should be concentrated.
After purchasing the product, the consumer will experience some level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
The marketer's job does not end when the product is bought but continues into the post-purchase period. A
distinction must be drawn between the post-purchase feelings, which are essentially experienced during the
period of relative uncertainty about the actual instrumental value of the purchased product, and which
concern the occasional important and costly purchase; and between the post-usage feelings, when the
consumer has evaluated the degree to which a product has met expectations.

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3.THE DYNAMICS OF PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR

The Determinants of Purchase Information-Seeking Activities
As we have seen, the buyer behaviour is not static; rather, buyer behaviour and the information acquisition
process can be viewed as a continuous system. To purchase a product or a brand, buyers need a certain
level of information about the characteristics and the probable performance of various brands on the
market. Pre-purchase information-seeking activities depend on four factors that have an important time
dimension (Figure 2). Two factors are purchase-situation related; the urgency of the purchase situation and
the level of information the buyer has acquired by the time of the purchase decision. The two other factors
relate to the type of product and market: the length and regularity of the purchase cycle for a particular
product type and the risk perceived by consumers in the purchase situation (Darmon&Laroche, 1991).
Urgency of Purchase Situation
Purchase
Situation
Level of Information Already
Acquired by Consumers at the
Time of Purchase Decision

Pre-Purchase
Information
Seeking
Activities

Length and Regularity of the

Purchase Cycle for This Type of
Product
Product
Type
Level of Risk Perceived by
Consumers in the Purchase of
Product Type

Figure 2. The Determinants of Pre-Purchase Information-Seeking Activities

Urgency of the Purchase Situation. The urgency of the purchase situation affects the quantity and quality
of information that a buyer has time to acquire before making a purchase decision. For instance, a
consumer who is suffering a severe migraine may go to the nearest drugstore to buy a pain reliever, and
thus is acting under great time pressure. Because of this hasty decision, the consumer probably will not buy
the same brand he might have if he was seeking a pain reliever for some future headache.
Level of Information Already Acquired. Depending on the extent of market information, a buyers decision
process has differing levels of complexity. A products characteristic in relation to an individuals past
experience determines the level of complexity of the decision process. Three possible cases can be
identified: the consumer is familiar with a product category and knows the characteristics of competing
brands (routinized response behaviour); the consumer knows the product category well but not the
particular brand (limited problem solving); the consumer does not know either the product category or the
brand (extensive problem solving). The level of information already acquired is directly affected by the
length of the purchase cycle, because the rate of information forgetting depends on how frequently a
product is purchased.
Length and Regularity of the Purchase Cycle. Purchase situations related to certain needs and wants occur
at various frequencies and paces. Frequency is linked to the type of product and market. Based on the
regularity and length of the purchase cycle, there types of markets can be identified: short purchase cycle
markets are characterized by routine purchase decision processes or by limited problem solving when a
new brand is introduced on the market (coffee, sugar, bread, soft drinks, canned vegetables, and household
and beauty care products fall into this category); irregular purchase cycle markets are characterized by
products that are purchased more or less regularly (desserts, cookies, cake mixes, aperitif wines, and deluxe
food products); long or unpredictable purchase cycle markets include all durable goods, such as cars,
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household appliances, and furniture (products for which occasions of purchase cannot be predicted, which
most consumers buy only occasionally).
Level of Perceived Risk. In general, the nature of the risk physical, financial, and/or psychological as
well as the level of the risk depend on the kind of purchase contemplated. Buying a candy bar typically
does not involve the same level of risk as buying an expensive second-hand sports car. When buyers
perceive a high risk in a purchase situation, they will generally require more information about the brand
and the product class before making a decision. The relationship between the size of the risk and the
consumers information research depends, in turn, on the consumers attitude toward risk.

Brand Loyalty and Brand Switching

The information a buyer has already acquired, the urgency of the purchase, the type of product, and the risk
involved interact with one another and determine a buyers level of pre-purchase information-seeking
activities. Once evaluated, this information is used to implicitly rank-order the different brands in the
evoked set, and other conditions permitting, the most preferred brand will be purchased.
But for how long will this brand remain the most preferred? Is a buyer likely to switch to another brand at
the next purchase? Learning theory may help answer these questions. According to psychologists, learning
is the behavioural change resulting from previous behaviour in similar situations. Learning theories
postulate a state of tension as soon as a need is felt by an individual, in response to a stimulus in the
environment (such as products or ads), which calls for the subjects response (a purchase decision). If the
behaviour is rewarded by satisfaction and, by tension reduction, it is repeated when the need occurs again.
Learning is more likely to take place in short purchase cycle and routinized response behaviour situations
(Blackwell et al, 2000). During the short time lag between two consecutive purchase occasions, only a
fraction of information has been forgotten, and a substantial amount of additional information has been
gained through using the selected brand. At the next purchase occasion, a buyer does not need and
generally does not deliberately seek additional information. If the previously selected brand resulted in a
positive experience, this buyer remains loyal to the brand with no further reassessment of purchase
alternatives. Otherwise, if the preceding purchase has led to a negative evaluation of the brand, or if the
buyer has been exposed to and accepted new information that changed the order of the brands, then the
conditions for brand switching are met. The buyer will try the new, most positively evaluated brand at time
of the next purchase.

CONCLUSIONS
Because buyers must act on the basis of incomplete information, they automatically and consciously incur
a risk in every purchase and non-purchase decision. The size of the risk buyers perceive depends on the
importance of the particular purchase and on the quantity of relevant information about the product
category and the competing brands. A purchase decision can be considered as an optimization process
through which buyers seek the product or the brand that will yield the greatest satisfaction. The choice
process can be considered as the search for the most satisfying trade-off among brands that possess
desirable attributes at different levels.
Once a purchase is completed, the buyer expects the products or services to provide the satisfaction he or
she was seeking and that motivated the purchase. For goods with a short consumption cycle, consumers
can judge if the product meets their expectations by using it immediately. But with durable products with
long consumption cycles, consumers cannot tell immediately whether the product will meet their
expectations. Therefore, a distinction must be drawn between the post-purchase feelings, and the postusage feelings.
Buyer behaviour and the information acquisition process can be viewed as a continuous system. Prepurchase information-seeking activities depend on four factors that have an important time dimension: the
urgency of the purchase situation; the level of information the buyer has acquired; the length and regularity
of the purchase cycle for a particular product type and the risk perceived by consumers in the purchase
situation.
Consumers run a certain risk in making a decision based on present information because this imperfect
information does not enable them to predict exactly which product will procure the maximum satisfaction
sought nor which brand really has the qualities desired. Thus, buyers are generally more responsive to
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different brand advertisements while they are seeking information on these brands. This is why they
become a choice target for the advertiser, provided the advertiser can identify and locate them.

References
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