Relationship of Consumer Attitude and Brand - Case Study Example

Introduction Consumer behavior is relatively complex phenomenon involving different and interacting factors which define the overall outcomes for the consumers. As such it is the study of how individuals, organizations as well as groups use to select and dispose of the products, services and ideas as well as experiences. It signifies an interweaving nature of different factors which contribute such behaviors resulting into the overall decision to buy or not to buy. Organizations, in order to sell their products and services, need to take into consideration the role of various factors associated with the consumer behavior. A proper understanding of the consumer behaviors and what factors can actually have an impact on the same to help organizations generate more sales and retain more customers. It is also critical to note that the consumer behavior is considered as the blend of factors belonging to psychology, economics, sociology as well as other factors. These entire factors combine together to determine how they are going to have an influence over their buying decisions. (Chaudhuri, 2012) Emotions are one such behavior or characteristics of the factors which contributed extensively towards determining the overall consumption behavior of the consumers. Organizations need to understand the emotional value of their consumers and how much the same can contribute towards the decision making process of the consumers. This paper will discuss and explore the role of emotions in making buying decisions and how companies can actually improve their understanding of the emotions to persuade consumers to make a buying decision. Consumer Behavior and Emotions Consumer behavior is basically the study of why and how people consume the products and services. However, this behavior is also influenced mostly by the three important influences including particular characteristics of the individuals, the environment as well as the genetics of the consumers. The individual characteristics of the consumers however, include a range of other factors which influence the overall individual characteristics. This includes perception, needs, attitudes as well as the personality of the individuals. The environment of the individual include the society, culture, sub-cultures, family, friends and peers etc which can influence the overall buying decisions of the individuals. Apart from this, the genetics of the individuals are largely exclusive and individual to the persons and determine the choices which are not particularly influenced by other factors. (Hansen & Christensen, 2007) Globalization has resulted into a diverse range of products and services and as such the overall range of choices for consumers is relatively large. In such a situation, it becomes difficult for the organizations to establish a value between the brand as well as the consumers. In such a scenario, organizations have to continuously look for new and innovative ways of affecting the consumers and their decision to buy. (Hoyer & MacInnis, 2008) It is critical to note that all purchase decisions are almost future oriented as consumers associate a degree of uncertainty with the same. When the overall purchase decisions involve high value items, the overall level of uncertainty may increase to a level where consumers have to associate more emotional value to their purchase decisions. Traditional marketing folklore suggests emotions play important role in stimulating the buying interests, help make choices, arouse buying intentions as well as influence the overall process of future buying. The overall stimuli through creative and effective marketing can actually stimulate the emotional response which can result into the buying decisions. Various research studies have critically outlined the role of both the negative as well as positive emotions besides the role of specific emotions which can influence the overall decision making process. Specific emotions such as fear, hope, regret, guilt and general moods can actually trigger the emotional reaction which can influence the way consumers make buying decisions. (Bee & Madrigal, 2013) Further, any decision made by the consumers also involves a risk as well as uncertainty regarding the overall correctness of the decision and the risk associated with the same. In order to reduce this risk as well as uncertainty, information plays a key role which consumers can utilize to actually reduce the uncertainty and further improve their confidence in their decisions. What is critical to note however, is the fact that risk can have emotional value also as the risk for high priced or high valued items is relatively greater than the risk associated with the low priced items. As such, when consumers make a decision to buy, a certain degree of emotions also play a role in reducing the risk and help consumers to make decisions backed up by both the rational as well as emotional choices. (Chaudhuri, 2001) It is therefore critical that the emotions play an important and critical role in influencing the overall decision making process of consumers and also invoke feelings which offer an added reason for consumers to buy a particular brand or product. Without having an emotional value attached, consumers may not be able to make a decision specially to buy high priced items. There are five important emotions which play a critical role in building the link between the consumer behavior and emotions i.e. joy, love, sadness, anger and fear. These emotions play an important role in determining how consumers actually attach the value related with these emotions and result into an affect i.e. the positive as well as negative which contribute towards whether a decision will be made or not. It is also suggested that emotions may never be wrong as consumers can be deceived by the intellect but not by the emotions. The personal value of emotions therefore suggest that consumers may have different views about the product itself but their emotional response to the advertisement can be relatively different from their views about the product. For organizations and marketing managers, it therefore becomes important to generate advertisement contents which can generate a lot of emotional value for the consumers rather than providing simple information about the product or service which may not reduce the required level of risk. (Williamson, 2002) From the advertising point of view, it therefore becomes important that marketers must research the emotional value of their target markets and subsequently decide and generate the advertising contents which fulfill the emotional needs of their consumers rather than just the physical needs of the consumers. The intentional communication through advertising and other promotional activities therefore need to be precisely defined and embedded within the overall advertising message to be delivered to the intended audience of the organization. (Banytė, Jokšaitė, & Virvilaitė, 2007) The existing models of the advertising and the industry practices however, focus more on the rational side of the advertisement and are focusing on the rationally driven behaviors. Considering the strong link between the emotions and consumer behavior, it is also critical that the marketers must be able to focus and address the emotionally driven behaviors and attitudes also to generate better acquisition and maintain retention of the consumers. (Constantinides, 2004) It is critical to note however, that the marketers as well as organizations need to distinguish between different drivers of behaviors which are affected by the emotions and which are not. A critical distinction between the two plays an important role in deciding how to design and develop the advertising messages besides allocating proper resources for the same. The drivers such as hunger, pain, addictive habits etc may not be easily influenced by the emotions. These drivers are basically driven by the biological as well as psychological needs of the consumers and the emotions attached with the same may be relatively hardwired to change easily through advertising messages and other strategic tools. (Heath & Feldwick, 2008) It is therefore important that the organizations must focus on developing the advertising messages which can affect the emotions and other drivers and comprehensively cover the overall consumer behavior of the end users. Emotions therefore also need to be viewed from the perspective of other drivers of consumer behavior which can combine together to have an influence on the overall decision making process of the consumers. Conclusion Consumer behavior is a complex web of different factors which combine together to influence the overall purchase decisions to be made by the consumers. Traditionally, marketers focused upon addressing the rationally driven behaviors of consumers and attempted to address the same. These rational behaviors were believed to be the key behind what influence the consumers to decide whether to buy or not buy. However, research studies are now pointing out that the emotions also play a key role in helping consumers to make decisions. The related uncertainty with the decision making process to buy especially high valued items may involve risk and emotions can actually generate the required level of knowledge to reduce such risk. Further, negative as well as positive emotions play an important role in terms of how organizations have to focus more on emotions. It is however, important to note that in order to develop effective strategic message through advertising, marketers need to distinguish between what emotions influence the decision and what may not. Emotional drivers such as hunger, addictions and pain may not be easily addressed and marketers need to focus more on developing specific contents to address the emotions. Bibliography Banytė, J., Jokšaitė, E., & Virvilaitė, R. (2007). Relationship of Consumer Attitude and Brand: Emotional Aspect. ENGINEERING ECONOMICS, 2(52), 65-77. BEE, C. C., & MADRIGAL, R. (2013). 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