Consumer Behavior: Knowledge and Understanding of the Processes - Assignment Example

?Consumer Behavior Knowledge and understanding of the processes by which consumer attitudes are learned, stored and retrieved and use of examples (attention, perception, learning, memory systems and processes%35 The company we have chosen in this assignment is Unilever, an international brand that has strong presence in many countries. Unilever is well known for their diversified and quality products. Unilever has wide range of products and brands like food brands, home care brands, personal care brands, nutrition products, beauty, health and hygiene products etc. “Unilever’s archives have origins from late 18th century” (Product Innovation, 19th Century Style 2011). Unilever’s products consumer’s day by day needs and requirements for personal care, nutrition and hygienic brands that really assist consumers feel better, look better. Unilever’s vision is We work to create a better future every day We help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others. In this assignment we could discuss the case of Lux soap that is a significant product of Unilever. People would have different opinions and views, this entire thing could be called as perception. Senses are very important in consumer behavior; there are five senses in perception that are Sight, Smell, Taste, Feel, Sound All these features belong to senses and it is a part of perception building. In the case of Lux, perception and senses have major role to play. Smell and sight are the two senses that influence the consumers to buy this product. Consumers are attracted to the fascinating variety smell of this brand. Not only smell but also sight has a major role in attracting the consumers. For example: packaging of the product is very important, Lux is packed in a very attractive way. Attractive colors and model’s picture are used to make the packs of soaps. Not only Lux but also other brands of Unilever are packed in a way to attract the customers. In the food brands unilever has concentrated in taste and packaging, for example we could take the case of Lipton tea. Lipton tea has a good taste that can satisfy the consumers and it is indeed packed in an attractive way. In home care brands, we could take ‘Surf’ as an example; it has an attractive packaging and also good smell. Axe is the brand that has more importance in smell, sight and feel. These are best examples of perception and senses. Consumers attitudes, and their attitudes change are very important part of their behavior. Consumer behavior is not constant; it could be changed according to their feelings, thoughts and opinions. In the case of Unilever and Lux, the advertisements and the way of presenting the brands to the consumers have importance in influencing the consumers mind. Consumer’s attitudes on issues and their feelings about things are honestly related to their personal feelings and thoughts. Advertisements have a huge impact to influence these attitudes and feelings. “Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumer’s (1) beliefs about, (2) feelings about, (3) and behavioral intentions toward some object--within the context of marketing, usually a brand or retail store” (Attitudes: Introduction para. 1). The application of attitudes is very important in this situation, the first one is belief and consumers would have both positive and negative beliefs to a brand or product, or it could be neutral. Some consumers may have good belief about Unilever products like Lux; some may have negative belief about the brands. Affects or feelings are probably based on beliefs, it is very important in this viewpoint. It is related to moral beliefs and feelings. Few years ago there has been a controversy regarding Lux soap, the allegation raised was ‘animal fat is being used in making Unilever products’ (Yusuf 2008). For extreme animal lovers this thing wouldn’t be acceptable, and these animal loving consumers won’t be willing to use Unilever’s soap products. Behavioral intention is the third step that is what consumer prepares to do with the particular brand. It is the consumer’s wish to buy or not buy the products. I have included a diagram of theory of reaction and it clearly says about the beliefs, attitude, intention and the behavior of consumers. When we focus to the advertising sector, we could definitely see vast examples of ads of unilever products. Especially personal care brands such as Axe, Lifebuoy, Lux, Sunsilk, dove, ponds, close up etc have variety of advertisements in televisions. Advertisement can really influence customer’s mindset and it could make customers to buy that product. Advertising has that much value in today’s world; various techniques are used in advertisements. According to the changes that occurs in technology and time, advertisements also changes. We have seen the changes and techniques of various brand’s advertisements that comes in Televisions and internet. There are different types of advertising like; “Print advertising, Outdoor advertising, Broadcast advertising, Covert advertising, Surrogate advertising, Public service advertising, Celebrity advertising” (Different Types of Advertising 2000). Television, internet and radio advertisements or broadcast advertisements are more popular than other methods. Advertisements of these products are presented in a very eye-catching method to attract the customers. Some kind of facts and figures is shown through advertisements, so that the company could attract more consumers. Many of the people really believe these kinds of facts and figures. This may be true according to the company’s norms and conditions, people believes this and prefer those brands. Unilever’s approach towards advertisements is “advertising helps inform people about the benefits of our products and innovations. It is also a way for us to engage with consumers on issues that matter to them” (Advertising & Promotions 2011). Various advertisement techniques are used by the company in order to gain the attraction of the people. Well known celebrities are casted in the brand’s ads to attract the people and to increase the number of consumers. (i) Lux ad UK (ii) One of the old ads of Lux (Lux Advertisements UK). Another important thing is brand loyalty though it is facing challenges from competitors, Unilever has created a high nature of brand loyalty in their consumers mind. Many consumers repeatedly buy Unilever’s personal and home care brands. It is because of many factors such as ads, quality, satisfaction, price etc. If brand loyalty is there in consumers mind, then it would be a real advantage for the company and its brands. Price and convenience won’t matter if there is brand loyalty. “When consumers become committed to your brand and make repeat purchases over time. Brand loyalty is a result of consumer behavior and is affected by a person’s preferences” (Brand Loyalty 2011). According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs products and brands can help consumers to satisfy basic psychological needs. Third step is social needs (love/belonging) and fourth step is esteem needs, Diagram prove that esteem needs are closer to the unilever brands. For example we could take the case of personal care brand Lux; some consumers feels more confident after using Lux or axe and they could confidently get closer to people. This is actually related with psychological factors, self esteem and confidence are increased after using these products. Consumer behavior requires understanding individual’s ability to learn. Learning alters in a behavior of the person’s caused by various data. Therefore to modify’ behavior of the consumers regarding Consumer learning is the procedure by which persons acquire product, require to give them new data. Unilever is the company and there are so many products of Unilever. And the particular brand taking to complete the study is the LUX. “Unilever had a large number of different brands each serving only a few markets” (Jones 2005, p. 25). Awareness of any of the product is start with its exposure. It means the owner of the owner brand generates certain kind of physical contact with the brand. This is the type of learning once the customers are loyal towards the products they started busying the product regularly. Attention refers to the degree to which customers allocate mental activity to the dealing out of the brand stimulus. Stimulus develops the kind of perception of the consumer towards the product. “A marketer's job is to figure out what needs and wants the consumer has, and what motivates the consumer to purchase. Motivation is the drive that initiates all our consumption behaviors, and consumers have multiple motives, or goals.” (Consumer Behavior 2011). A number of features are associated to the capability of brand stimuli to capture customer’s attention. That are, personal relevance (such as appealing to requirements, morals, emotions and purposes) attractiveness and funniness; surprise (such as abruptness, originality); intensity of the stimulus (such as volume, movement, vividness, loudness etc). Customers interpret every aspects of marketing activity according to the information, meaning and attitude that they have learned, stored in memory and can remember. Consumer behavior consists of the psychological procedures that customers go in the course of in recognizing requirements, finding methods to solve these requirements, making decision related to purchase. All these decisions are arrived mainly from the attention, perception, learning, memory systems and processes of the consumer. e.g., whether or not to purchase the particular invention and, if so, which brand name and where. And on the basis of this next is to interpret various information, create plans, and put into practice of these plans. E.g., by engaging in contrast shopping or really purchasing a product. “The influence of learning and memory processes were seen to be pervasive, affecting behavior from consumers basic likes and dislikes to typical methods of shopping” (Loudon 1993, p. 418). A variety of methods are used to assist customers learn, store up and retrieve brand and information’s related to product. Such as, jingles and catchy tag lines promote immediate rehearsal; exclusive, vivid and highly visual imagery assists storage and recollect; repetition of stimuli from the ad at point-of –purchase can stimulate retrieval of educated information.’ It is one of the earth’s top makers of packaged customer commodities and moves innumerable goods like deodorants, smells, soap, margarine, tea and frozen foodstuffs all over the earth. “The concentration on innovation and brand development on a focused portfolio of 400 leading brands is part of Unilever’s latest growth strategy, called ‘The Path to Growth’, designed to accelerate top line growth and step up the rate of margin improvement in five years time” (Overview: Market Share/Importance n.d.). Attitudes of the consumer are both an obstruction and a benefit to a marketer. Choosing to disregard or discount attitudes of customer’s of particular merchandise or service while building up a marketing policy guarantees limited victory of a campaign. Learning is defined as any alteration in the organization or content of the memory in long-term. Consumers are the king of the market and they learn in many ways which can broadly categorized into low versus high involvement learning. Low involvement learning happens when an individual is paying merely limited or indirect attention to an ad or other messages. “Low involvement learning tends to be limited as a result of a lack of elaborative activities” (Hawkins et al. 2010, p. 400). In marketing terms attitude defined as a universal assessment of a merchandise or service created over time. An attitude of the person pleases a personal motive and at the same time, influences the buying and shopping behavior of customers. A customer can hold negative or positive attitude or thoughts toward a merchandise or service. Consumer behavior is mainly the study of how a customer believes, experiences, and selects among competing products. The amalgamation of behavior, beliefs and attitudes influence how a customer responds to a merchandise or service. When information, meaning and attitude are combined in the course of the process of incorporation to shape an overall evaluation this is identified as a cognitively based brand attitude. Mainly three dimensions are incorporated in attitude. That are, behavioral (doing), cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling). Example of this situation is, I think LUX functions better its cognitive. Using LUX makes me feel very happy that is an affective and finally I always buy the product LUX it is the behavioral dimension of the attitude. “An attitude is an overall evaluation of an object, idea, or action. Attitudes can be positive or negative, and weakly or strongly held. The statement "I love Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Toffee Crunch" is a strong, positively valenced attitude toward a product. The statement "I dislike the new Toyota ad" is a weak, negatively valenced attitude toward an advertisement. Marketers work hard to continuously ” (Consumer Behavior 2011). Assessments or attitudes can also be formed mechanically by the affective system in the form of sentiments, approach and moods as a direct reply to marketer controlled stimuli for example advertising or point-of-purchase displays. Perception signifies the procedure of selecting, managing and interpreting inputs of the information to generate meaning. Information inputs are the feelings received in the course of the senses, i.e. view, touch, flavour, hearing and smell. Personality of the consumer and self-concept offer the customer with a central theme. That is, they offer a structure for the person so that a reliable pattern of behaviour can be build up. “Personality psychologist turn this way of thinking completely around” (Burger 2008, p. 3). The customer decision-making procedure does not finish when a purchase has been made. Once the merchandise is purchased, they will assess its routine in the process of consumption. The result is one of satisfaction (pleased) or dissatisfaction (displeased). Whether the customer is pleased or displeased depends on the relationship among the expectations of consumer and the perceived performance of the product. If the product goes beyond expectations, the customer is pleased; if it meets expectations, the customer is satisfied; if it falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. 3)Consumer Decision Process: The buying decision process is a logical sequence of the various steps in order,the consumer decision process starts with the need recognition,search for the information,evaluation of the alternatives,purchase decisions and the post purchase behaviour.,the consumer decision process can be demonstrated in a water fall model, Need Recognition: When the buyer recognises a gap between the desired state and the actual state, consumer decision process resumes, such recognition can be caused by the stimuli, which is the internal or the external .At this point a marketer should assist to help consumers to identify the current and future problems and the latent needs. Information Search: Generally consumers find out information pertaining to their satisfying products to satisfy the need for the right products and to make the right choices, the account of the information required depends on the, The type of the product------ like the convenience, shopping ease and the quality. Nature of the product--------complex,high tech,easy to distinguish Personal-----------------Family, friends. Commercial------Advertising,sales,people Public----------TV,advertisement,internet Search expands with availability of time, marketers have to take into cognisance this aspect and design offers to induce immediate buying. Keeping in mind the information needs of consumers, marketers should design communication programmes to reach the consumers on wide extent and provide relevant and wide information. Evaluation of Alternatives: The evaluation process is a crucial one to take care much carefully and precisely, they should depend on the durability of goods, convenience goods and the purchased ones.Evaluation is a shot process but much care should be taken to make them explicit. Purchase Decisions: All existing brands in market make a total set,through information search consumer will become aware of some brands.Awarness set consists of the brands which consumers is aware of the brands, which meet initial buying decision. The brands in the initial set should be made available at the particular point of time and the choices should be wide spread. Consideration Set: The consideration set is the set, which we have to identify from the total of the other factors that are in the customers mind at the final stage, for example a person is interested in buying toilet soap, the marketer should be aware of the place his brand has in mind of the prospect through the buying process, table below shows the one such process with reference to unilever products: Total set Awarness set Consideration set choice set decision set Dove Dove Dove Dove Lux Lux Lux Lux Lux Camay Olay Olay Imperial leather Camay Olay ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The factors that influence the final decisions are the, Attitude of others Unanticipated situational factors Perceived risk The other factors are the attitudes that may change the intentions of the decision maker when, the other person’s views are important to the decision maker and he likes to comply with the advice, and secondly the other person has the strong negative attitude towards chosen brand. Post Purchase Decisions: A buyer may feel satisfied when the perceived product performance is close to his expectation, if it exceeds the expectation, the customer is delighted.if it falls short of expectations, the customer is disappointed, and this can develop to cognitive dissonance. The cognition is the thinking of the customer was he thinks that product he purchased was not better or he could have got premium product for the same price or the price was high as like. “Festinger (1957) posits that the perception of an inconsistency among individuals cognition generates a negative affective state, which is termed as cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is characterized by a psychological discomfort, which motivates the individual to seek and implement a strategy to alleviate the aversive state and achieve consonance” (Hong 2008, p. 21). The perception model has a main role with the advertising of the product. The perception is the effect which produces in the mind of the customer when hearing about the product. The attitudes are the beliefs that are created about the product. Attitudes are the likes and dislikes of a person about certain products. It comprise of the evaluation of something that are very specific and lasting and are unstable. Various factors that a person's attitude provides are the effective, values, ego and the deep knowledge. The attitude of the customer can be towards the product, company, retailer or the marketer. Theories/Models of Consumer Behaviour: The basic models of the consumer behaviour are widely accepted and commonly applicable to all the consumers’ worldwide. The basic model of the consumer reflects with the marketing offer, stimuli, and organism behaviour and the consequences. The stimuli are the internal and the external stimuli in the surroundings, the organism in the model we are discussing are the buyer characteristics, the behaviour of the model are the decision making approach and the actions ie the purchase of the product, the outcome of the study is the customer satisfaction which is much advantageous for the company and the cognition among the consumers. Social and Cultural Factors: The preliminary cultural values are up to the mark in the country, the purchase of the product require adequate social sanction. The social customers highly impact the buying nature and the decisions. The social norms influencing the individuals are widely seen, the financial status also influences directly and indirectly but comparing the youth they are much open to the innovative concepts unlike the senior heads in their family. Economy Factors: The economy factors are the low income and the poverty, the product are designed by the company by conducting the local market research and the pricing of them are done in such a fashion. The pricing is the essential factor which combines the company and the consumer together; the price and the marginal utility are to be calculated at the beginning stage to fix for the product. Psychological Factors: The psychological factors that affect the customers are the attitudes, perceptions and the cognition factors. “These models help the marketer in understanding how attitudes influence a person's behavior as a consumer. These models are: Tri-component model, multi-attribute model, Theory of trying to consume, and Attitude toward the ad model. Attitudes are formed through classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, and cognitive theory” (Consumer Behavior: Chapter 7 2010). The various discussions above help to understand vividly the various aspects of the consumer behavior. Reference List A Clear Direction. 2011. Unliver. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Advertising & Promotions. 2011. Unliver. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Burger, JM. 2008. Personality. 8th Edn. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 08 Dec. 2011]. Consumer Behavior. 1999. USC Marshall. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 08 Dec. 2011]. Consumer Behavior. 2011. eNotes. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Consumer Behavior: Chapter 7. 2010. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Different Types of Advertising. 2000. Buzzle.com. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Yusuf, LM. 2008. Is It Halal? Cares, Dove & Lever 2000. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Hawkins et al. 2010. Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy. 11th Edn. Tata McGraw-hill. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 08 Dec. 2011]. Hong, J. 2008. The Multiple Influences of Mixed Emotions on Consumer Judgment and Choice. Northwestern University. Marketing. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 04 Dec. 2011]. Jones, G. 2005. Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition. OXFORD University Press. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 07 Dec. 2011]. Loudon. 1993. Consumer Behavior: Concepts and Applications. Tata McGraw-hill. [Online] Available at < http://books.google.co.in/books?id=XW5LE0gdOo8C&pg=PA412&dq=consumer+attitudes+are+learned,+stored+and+retrieved+and+use+of&hl=en&ei=w2DgTqCfN8emrAeQyrGoCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=consumer%20attitudes%20are%20learned%2C%20stored%20and%20retrieved%20and%20use%20of&f=false> [Accessed on 08 Dec. 2011]. Lux Advertisements UK. n.d. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 07 Dec. 2011]. Oveview: Market Share/Importance. n.d. Corporate Watch. 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