Explain, illustrating your answer with reference to an organisation(s) of your choice, why marketers should understand consumer behaviour.

Introduction The notion of marketing management refers to a pre-determined strategy aimed at achieving a given marketing objective. Consumer behaviour, and the study of consumer response to a company's interaction with the commercial environment, represent key deliberations and are integral to the success of a marketing strategy. Historically, the study of consumer behaviour has been rather neglected; with Dubois (2000) suggesting that it is the stepchild of the marketing discipline. This essay seeks to explore the relationship between these two concepts, while examining some of the key reasons why marketers should attempt to understand consumer behaviour. It could be reasonably assumed that a consumer is in the best position to make a rational product purchase if that person has access to all the information available to them. Issues such as price, quality, product brand image and others affect the attractiveness of a product and its subsequent chances of being purchased. Understanding consumer behaviour gives marketers the chance to influence the availability of this information in a way which is beneficial to the company. Providing positive information on product attributes relative to the competition will evidently increase the affiliation and information consumers have with that product. The reasons for this are explained later in this essay. From the perspective of the organisation, a company's ability to retain a personal relationship with its customers can be restricted when it is dealing with large numbers of people. In such situations, failure to adequately understand the target market may result in any number of negative consequences such as delivering a product to the market which consumers do not demand. Dubois (2000) suggests that understanding consumer behaviour is necessary when direct contact with those consumers is not feasible.

Consumers as Decision Makers

By analysing and predicting the way in which consumers may be likely to react to a company's marketing activity, (e.g. a new product launch) the best course of action can be ascertained (e.g. a choice between initial sales promotion or a sustained advertising campaign). Hence,

understanding a consumer's likely reaction is vital to successful marketing management. Consumers can be said to react to a product depending on their individual circumstances. Soloman et al. (1999) defined a customer thought process involving initial problem recognition, related information search, and evaluation of alternatives, and a subsequent choice of purchase. Through the various marketing communications channels, marketers are able to manipulate an information search, influence the evaluation, and to a certain extent help identify with the original problem. A person looking to purchase a replacement video games console, for instance, will begin by assessing which one is best for them. The information search can be influenced by Microsoft, by ensuring that the appropriate amount of hype and advertising material reaches such a consumer while in this decision making process stage. Messages which they may wish to communicate to the consumer may include superior games, better technology, and value for money. By creating necessary hype about their new console, they are also able to influence the evaluation stage of the process. In this example, Microsoft is able to use a quality marketing campaign to engage a consumer's attitude and increase the chances of a successful launch for its Xbox 360 console. Evidence set out by Soloman et al. (1999) suggests that a purchase decision strategy adopted by a consumer will depend on the relative importance they associate with that decision. A decision to purchase an iPod or Minidiscwill be more carefully considered than when buying, say, an apple or a banana for lunch. Marketers should thus approach the way they react to a consumer's purchase decision making strategy depending on the consumer's level of involvement. It is likely that a person with a high involvement in their decision will be more susceptible to advertising than with a low involvement decision, so called habitual or purchase as learned behaviour (East 1997).

Cognitive and Behavioural Decision Making Processes

The role of a marketing strategy as set out above will likely differ depending on these consumer decision making processes. East (1997) identifies two competing types: that of a cognitive decision process and behaviouristic reinforcement decision making. The cognitive approach, involving high levels of thought processing when making a buying decision, would seem to allow the greatest scope for marketer interaction (as in the Microsoft example above). Fill (2002) suggests that a cognitive based decision making process assumes that individuals attempt to control their immediate environments, in which producers play their part. This view is backed up by Foxall (1992a), as cited in East (1997), who goes as far as to suggest that consumers handle considerable quantities of information when making cognitive based purchase decisions. We hence see decision making which is close to an informed and rational thought process, open to manipulation by marketers via media such as advertising campaigns. A second decision making process is one of behaviouristic or learned behaviour. This reinforcement argument focuses on the idea that a person who has a positive experience one time with a product will be more likely to purchase that product again, as they remember the positive results associated with the purchase. It could be argued that this decision making process can be nurtured by marketers by ensuring that consumers are left with positive feelings towards the product, thus increasing the chances that they will purchase it again. Likewise, a process known as shaping, identified by Skinner (cited in East 1997), in which consumers can be prompted towards particular attributes of a product (e.g. by selective advertising) provides marketers with more possibilities as regards modifying learned behaviour. The '3' Mobile Network may represent an example of this with its current marketing campaign which emphasises the ability to download music videos on mobile phones. By providing incentives to use such services, many consumers will effectively move from one 'behaviour' to another (i.e. a different use for their phone), and if

downloading music videos becomes an acquired new behaviour, there is more chance that 3's service will be successful.

Consumer Attitudes
Described by Soloman et al. (1999), attitudes relate to a lasting, general evaluation of people, objects or issues. There are many models (e.g. Ajzen and Fishbein's Theory of Reasoned Action 1980 and Theory of Planned Behaviour 1991 - cited by East 1997) set out to describe the links between attitudes, beliefs, intentions and associated behaviours which marketers would do well to follow, but are beyond the scope of this essay. It would, however, seem logical that prevalent attitudes have a key impact on decision making, both in learned or cognitive purchase decision making. Attitudes, as described by East (1997), refer in the commercial sense to opinions on the actual process of purchasing a given product. Hence, marketers are able to influence opinion on their products to improve the chances of a person reflecting favourably to purchasing that product. This point would seem to add further weight to Peter et al. (1999)'s assertion that Ads that consumers like seem to create more positive brand attitudes and purchase intentions than ads they don't like. Dubois (2000) suggested that attitudes form preferences to a particular brand or product, which in turn triggers a potential purchase. This being the case, it would be the aim of a marketing strategy to create preferences for a product by altering attitudes. Dubois argues that this can be achieved via the process of persuasion; by influencing the attitudes of the audience. As identified by Peter et al. (1999), commonly successful persuasion methods include in store communication, advertising, publicity creation and personal selling. Due to competing messages, or noise (East 1997), effective persuasion is of crucial importance in the face of competing brands or external messages. According to Zaltman (2003), poor quality thinking cannibalises high quality thinking. In order to communicate a product to the consumer in the best possible way, Zaltman et al. argue, a company must address negative or incorrect prevailing attitudes towards it. Such stigma may become attached to a brand through external sources such as negative press in the media (common with global brands like McDonalds and Nike). Understanding consumer behaviour provides organisations with the opportunity to counteract such messages as well as compete against the noise of other messages from competing organisations.

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Conclusion: Implications for Marketing Management Strategy

Whether a marketing strategy is to create awareness, improve image, create brand equity or increase sales, it has become clear that consumer response should be a vital component of the strategy. Furthermore, the importance of understanding the way a consumer behaves is also crucial to the successful formulation of a marketing communications strategy as set out by Fill (2002) and Peter et al. (1999), as consumer response must be factored in to all four stages of the process (i.e. context analysis, setting promotional objectives, devising an appropriate communications plan and evaluation of consumer response). What becomes apparent throughout the body of research carried out by the academics highlighted in this essay is the core principles of consumer behaviour, as discussed above, and their relevance to a structured marketing management strategy. By taking the decision making processes of consumers into account, marketers are able to better tailor their marketing efforts. There would seem to be a balance marketers must strike between understanding why consumers make the decisions they do, on the one hand, while at the same time attempting to shape attitudes and hence their behaviour on the other. Bibliography De Mooij (2004), Consumer Behaviour and Culture Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising, Sage Publications, London, UK Dubois (2000), Understanding the Consumer, Pearson Education Ltd, London, UK East, R. (1997), Consumer Behaviour: Advances and Applications in Marketing FT Prentice Hall, UK Fill, C. (2002), Marketing Communications: Contexts, Strategies and Applications (3rd Ed.), FT Prentice Hall, UK Peter, Olson, Grunert (1999), Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Strategy European Edition, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, UK Soloman, Bamossy, Askegaard (1999), Consumer Behaviour a European Perspective, Prentice Hall Inc, New Jersey, USA Zaltman (2003), How Customers Think Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, Harvard Business School Press, USA

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Consumer behaviour
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Consumer behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology andeconomics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general. Customer behaviour study is based on consumer buying behaviour, with the customer playing the three distinct roles of user, payer and buyer. Relationship marketing is an influential asset for customer behaviour analysis as it has a keen interest in the re-discovery of the true meaning of marketing through the re-affirmation of the importance of the customer or

buyer. A greater importance is also placed on consumer retention, customer relationship management, personalisation, customisation and one-to-one marketing. Social functions can be categorized into social choice and welfare functions. Each method for vote counting is assumed as social function but if Arrows possibility theorem is used for a social function, social welfare function is achieved. Some specifications of the social functions are decisiveness, neutrality, anonymity, monotonicity,unanimity, homogeneity a nd weak and strong Pareto optimality. No social choice function meets these requirements in an ordinal scale simultaneously. The most important characteristic of a social function is identification of the interactive effect of alternatives and creating a logical relation with the ranks. Marketing provides services in order to satisfy customers. With that in mind, the productive system is considered from its beginning at the production level, to the end of the cycle, the consumer (Kioumarsi et al., 2009).
Contents
[hide]

1 Black box model 2 Information search 3 Information evaluation 4 Purchase decision 5 Postpurchase evaluation 6 Internal influences 7 External influences 8 See also 9 References

[edit]Black

box model
BUYER'S BLACK BOX BUYER'S RESPONSE

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

Marketing Stimuli

Environmental Stimuli

Buyer Characteristics

Decision Process

Product Price Place Promotion

Economic Technological Political Cultural Demographic Natural

Attitudes Motivation Perceptions Personality Lifestyle Knowledge

Problem recognition Information search Alternative evaluation Purchase decision Post-purchase behaviour

Product choice Brand choice Dealer choice Purchase timing Purchase amount

The black box model shows the interaction of stimuli, consumer characteristics, decision process and consumer responses.[1] It can be distinguished between interpersonal stimuli (between people) or intrapersonal stimuli (within people).[2] The black box model is related to the black box theory of behaviourism, where the focus is not set on the processes inside a consumer, but the relation between the stimuli and the response of the consumer. The marketing stimuli are planned and processed by the companies, whereas the environmental stimulus are given by social factors, based on the economical, political and cultural circumstances of a society. The buyers black box contains the buyer characteristics and the decision process, which determines the buyers response. The black box model considers the buyers response as a result of a conscious, rational decision process, in which it is assumed that the buyer has recognized the problem. However, in reality many decisions are not made in awareness of a determined problem by the consumer.

[edit]Information

search

Once the consumer has recognised a problem, they search for information on products and services that can solve that problem. Belch and Belch (2007) explain that consumers undertake both an internal (memory) and an external search. Sources of information include:

Personal sources

Commercial sources Public sources Personal experience

The relevant internal psychological process that is associated with information search is perception. Perception is defined as "the process by which an individual receives, selects, organises, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world". The selective perception process Stage Description

Selective exposure consumers select which promotional messages they will expose themselves to. Selective attention consumers select which promotional messages they will pay attention to. Selective comprehension consumer interpret messages in line with their beliefs, attitudes, motives and experiences. Selective retention consumers remember messages that are more meaningful or important to them.

The implications of this process help develop an effective promotional strategy, and select which sources of information are more effective for the brand.

[edit]Information

evaluation

At this time the consumer compares the brands and products that are in their evoked set. How can the marketing organization increase the likelihood that their brand is part of the consumer's evoked (consideration) set? Consumers evaluate alternatives in terms of the functional and psychological benefits that they offer. The marketing organization needs to understand what benefits consumers are seeking and therefore which attributes are most important in terms of making a decision. It also needs to check other brands of the customers consideration set to prepare the right plan for its own brand.

[edit]Purchase

decision

Once the alternatives have been evaluated, the consumer is ready to make a purchase decision. Sometimes purchase intention does not result in an actual purchase. The marketing organization must facilitate the consumer

to act on their purchase intention. The organization can use a variety of techniques to achieve this. The provision of credit or payment terms may encourage purchase, or a sales promotion such as the opportunity to receive a premium or enter a competition may provide an incentive to buy now. The relevant internal psychological process that is associated with purchase decision is integration. Once the integration is achieved, the organization can influence the purchase decisions much more easily.

[edit]Postpurchase

evaluation

The EKB model was further developed by Rice (1993) which suggested there should be a feedback loop, Foxall (2005) further suggests the importance of the post purchase evaluation and that the post purchase evaluation is key due to its influences on future purchase patterns.

[edit]Internal

influences

Consumer behaviour is influenced by: demographics, psychographics (lifestyle), personality, motivation, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Consumer behaviour concern with consumer need and consumer actions in the direction of satisfying needs leads to his behaviour of every individuals depend on thinking

[edit]External

influences

Consumer behaviour is influenced by: culture, sub-culture, locality, royalty, ethnicity, family, social class, past experience reference groups, lifestyle, market mix factors.

[edit]See

also

Food and Brand Lab Consumer socialization Art & Copy

[edit]References
1. ^ Sandhusen, Richard L.: Marketing (2000). Cf. S. 218 2. ^ Sandhusen, Richard L.: Marketing (2000). Cf. S. 219 View page ratings

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