Work-Related Communication Problem: Altering Consumer Behavior - Literature review Example

Work-related communication problem: Altering Consumer Behavior Two articles: One of the best known authors on the alteration so consumer behavior is the ideas that were presented by one of the better known authorities on the topic-Gordon Foxall in his article, “Consumer Behavior: An Evolutionary Process”, published in the European Journal of Marketing. He suggests in the article that growth of knowledge in marketing requires alternative interpretations of consumer behavior to the prevailing trait and information processing models derived from structural psychology. Consumer behavior may be construed as environmentally determined, an evolutionary process in which the replication of patterns of choice is explained by the meta principle of selection by consequences. The second article that one would refer to in the overall understanding of the process of consumer behavior change is the one by Scott Armstrong, entitled, Prediction of Consumer Behavior by Experts and Novices, published in 1991 in Journal of Consumer Research. 1991. The article provided empirical proof on the fact that there could be no expert opinion on the manner of consumer behavior alteration, instead if one was to follow set policies by practitioners and carry out regular research one would have better hope of finding success. T he study states that experts are more accurate than novices, and academics were not more accurate than practitioners in this study based on 1,736 predictions about consumer behavior. Introduction: The basic problem of marketing is prediction consumer behavior and accordingly coming up with the most apt methods of altering consumer behavior so as to affect the consumer behavior in the most desired manner so that the needs of the client and the product are suited and fulfilled. There are two aspects to the discussion that has been presented below. The first part would deal with the aspects of the social judgment theory and the second part would apply the issue of consumer behavior in line with the theory according to the suggestions that have been made in two well journal articles by two authors that pertain to the topic in question. The Social judgment theory (SJT) was in essence a theory of persuasion that was first propsed by by Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hovland in 1961. The theory helps in the creation of an understanding of the manner in which attitudes can be ranged along a continuum according to how committed we are helps us change attitudes by beginning persuasive efforts within the persuadee’s latitude of acceptance and avoiding their latitude of rejection. The theory is useful in developing an understanding of the necessarily gradual nature of persuasive efforts to change attitudes and behaviour. Public Relations Advertising Journalism and Corporate Communication all require a knowledge of how to persuade others to change their attitudes and actions. In order to understand the details of the theory one would have to accept the fact first and foremost that the theory attempts to bring out empirical suggestions about how to change human behavior, a subject that is extremely subjective in its very being. The theory in essence arose out of the school of socio-psychologicaly; and is in essence a theory that is focused on the interior workings of a given being mind and his decision making process in the context of a given communicated message. The theory wa overall intended as a method of explanation that was supposed to outline in broad framework the convincing communication tactics that would most likely see chances of success. The basic focus of the theory therefore is the proxcess of attitude alteration and the basic outline of the process of persuasive communication forms the backbone of the theory. SJT seeks to specify the conditions under which this change takes place and predict the direction and extent of the attitude change. In sum, the researchers strove to develop a theory that addressed the following: a person’s likelihood to change his/her position, the likely direction of his/her attitude change, a person’s tolerance of other positions, and the level of commitment to his/her own position. (Sherif, 1963). The SJT researchers claimed that expectations regarding attitude change could be based on the message receiver’s level of involvement, the structure of the stimulus (i.e., how many alternatives it allows), and the value credibility of the source. The three principles of Hedonic Reinforcement (derived from the satisfaction that the consumer gets through the possession of the product at hand); Informational Reinforcement (feedback that the customer gets after having consumed the product from those around him), and; the Averse Reinforcement (the cost that has to be borne by the consumer in order to buy the product, in short the product price) are the tools that one would need to identify and utilize in the understanding and the prediction of the consumer behavior in the affecting of an effective communication strategy. The idea therefore would be that the buying behavior in a given target group would have to be understood in terms of the theoretical outlines of the initiators and the adopters. The initiators are usually the ones that start the trend, they are the leaders of the society, they are the ones who tell people what the trends are, and they decide what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’. These do not necessarily have to be big names from industry but can be the local leaders, owners of the corner grocery store, presidents of local communities among others (Varey, 2001). These are the ones who are the reinforcers of change. The deciding vote about the success or failure of the product however comes not from the initiators but from the group that models its buying pattern on the mode that is set by the initiators i.e. the adopters. Maintained on the basis of high hedonistic and informative patterns, it is the initial adopters that model consumption behavior and attract the least active sections of the target group initiating the market (Rogers, 1983). The scope of innovation at this particular level is low by virtue of the fact that it is here that the market begins to reach its saturation. By the time the product is adopted by the last adopters, it has reached the end of its life cycle, (Foxall, 1992).   The four Ps of the marketing mix therefore, (Product, Price, Place and promotion) needs to be reflective of anticipated consumer behavior on the marking stick of the BPM model (Yudelson, 1999). Scholars have suggested that the marketing mix needs to maximize shareholder value (Baker, 2003). What this would translate to in simple terminology is that the marketing mix and the method utilized in the campaign has to highlight the pleasure and accomplishment aspects of the product, while undermining the maintenance part of it. There in turn has to be high levels of rewards that needs to exhibit to prospective consumers thereby affecting an implementation of the accumulation model of consumerism.   The relationship between the behaviors of the earliest adopters and their personality traits and types gives way usually to a more sophisticated treatment of both the concepts of newness and the measures that could be brought to bear on the empirical identification of innovativeness and its impact on consumer behavior (Svensson and Nordfors, 2006). There is a deep connect between innovativeness and the way in which this particular construct is measured (Shavinina, 2003). The idea is to follow a process of initiation for the earliest adopters, from the underlying traits that are hypothesized to account for their behavior. There needs to be an observable level of analysis which may be related on the basis of further empirical and conceptual work to an underlying trait that induces adoption at each stage of the diffusion process.  In conclusion therefore one may state that the problem of consumer behavior is one that affects the marketing professional in the most basic manner and would probably continue to do so in a long time to come. What this would mean in context of the social judgment theory is the fact that altering consumer behavior cannot happen in isolation but that the marketing professional would have to be aware of the environment in which the product is being marketed along with the layers of the target audience in which the behavior change is being targeted. Reference: Sherif, C. W. (1963). Social categorization as a function of latitude of acceptance and series range. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 148-156 Krebs J, Social Judgment theory, accessed December 3, 2009, < http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~kk413797/SJ.htm> Shavinina L V, 2003, The international handbook on innovation, Edition: illustrated, Published by Elsevier, pp310-328   Svensson P and Nordfors D, 2006, Media Communication as a Marketing Strategy for Technology Start-Up Firms, Innovation Journalism, Vol.3 No.4, The Third Conference on Innovative Journalism, pp3-11  Yudelson J, 1999, Adapting Mccarthy’s Four P’s for the Twenty-First Century, Journal of Marketing Education, Vol. 21, No. 1, 60-67  Foxall G R, 1992, “The Behavioral Perspective model of Purchase and Consumption: From Consumer theory to marketing practice”, Pub, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Vol.20 No.2, pp189-198  Baker J M, 2003, The Marketing Book, Edition: 5, illustrated, Published by Butterworth-Heinemann, pp285-288  Read More