Marketing Mix Stimuli - Essay Example

Consumer Behaviour Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Marketing Mix Stimuli 2 Cognitive Response 4 Affective Response 12 Behavioural Response 14 Reference 21 Marketing Mix Stimuli The study has selected detergent as a product category to analyze marketing mix stimuli. The will use renowned detergent brand ‘Ariel’ manufactured by Proctor & Gamble to analyze cognitive response of consumer. Product Overview P&G has created extended portfolio for the Ariel brand. The brand is maintaining a portfolio four products in order to satisfy daily housing need of customers belong to United Kingdom. Product portfolio of Ariel brand can be explained in the following manner. Ariel Excel Gel The product is designed for low temperature cleaning. Unique design of the bottle and innovative gel formulae of the product give user the opportunity to wash cloths with high precision. The gel gets dissolve very easily in water hence solvency rate increases. The detergent is able to remove various types of stains such as tomato sauce, dirt, chocolate etc from cloths. Ariel Powder Ariel Powder is designed to give brilliant cleaning in every wash. The detergent can wash coloured garments without causing harm to fabrics of garment. The detergent should be dosed directly on the cloth by taking water as surfactant. Ariel Excel Liquitabs Ariel Excel Liquitabs is able to remove stains such as oil, tar, grease etc. The product should be dosed in the lower drawer of Washing Machine. Ariel Tablets Ariel Tablets provides convenience of using to users. The product has been developed in order to get brilliant wash from smallest possible dose. (Source: Ariel, 2012) Cognitive Response The study will be incomplete if it misses the opportunity to explain role of consumer behaviour on purchasing detergent product. Personality Psychoanalytical theory proposed by Sigmund Freud states that human personality depends on different variables such as id (biological need driven gratification), ego (conflict between hedonistic requirement of id and ethical constraint of superego) and superego (behaviour backed by social responsibility). Many consumers show boycotts to non eco friendly products in order to show their environmental concern. These customers prefer “ethical consumption” in order to maintain environmental sustainability (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan, 2004). Foxall et al. have divided motivation in to six components such as social needs, physiological needs, cognitive needs, symbolic needs, experiential needs and hedonic needs in order to explain customer demand (Foxall, Goldsmith, and Brown, 2005). Customers purchase Ariel detergent in order to satisfy their daily household needs hence purchase behaviour is more driven by id aspect in contrast to other elements of psychoanalytic theory. Detergent purchase behaviour of customer can be briefed in the following manner. (Source: Egyankosh, 2005) Self-Concept People purchase detergent as daily household item hence they do not spend much time on pre purchase decision. Self consciousness plays very small role in purchasing decision. Brand conscious customers purchase Ariel due to the brand name of Procter & Gamble. Many customers purchase Ariel with an intention to satisfy self esteem. Psychographics VALS or “Value and Lifestyle” framework has divided consumers into four segments such as “Actulizers” (Customers spending large sum of money on purchasing in order to show taste and attitude), Fulfilled (Customers purchasing product after doing rigorous background research), Believers (purchasing product in order to satisfy traditional family value) and Strivers (Customers purchasing low priced but stylish products) (Young and Pagoso, 2008, p. 116). Study shows that believers play significant role in purchasing detergent. Believers prefer well known brands hence they choose Ariel over unknown local brands (Ferrell and Hartline, 2008, pp. 173-174). Involvement Detergent is a low involvement product because customers do not require huge financial resources to purchase it (De Mooij, 2005, p. 150). This is also true for Ariel because purchasing detergent makes little impact on attitude of end users. Motivation Customers purchase Ariel in order to wash cloths and maintain hygiene. Motivation plays crucial role on deciding the dynamics of consumer behaviour. Schiffman and Kanuk have divided motivation into four parts such as positive, negative, management and emotional (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2010). Five motivation factors that can affect purchase decision of customers are: (Franzen and Moriarty, 2008, p. 137). Packaging of Ariel Washing capability of Ariel (read ability to remove stains) Sales promotion and TV commercials Ability to satisfy multidimensionality of customer needs such as ability to retain smoothness of cloths versus ability to remove stain Positive feedback from industry leaders about the product Beliefs and Attitudes People develop attitude by performing a particular human trait for long time while belief refers to long cherished perception about some products or individuals. Consumers show keen interest in knowing rationale behind premium pricing of certain product hence it can be inferred in general customers prefer to purchase value for money product. Customers purchasing Ariel show tendency to check product ingredients printed at the backside of detergent. Many customers change detergent brands due to various reasons such as poor quality, negative feedback from opinion leader, low switching cost and advertisement stimuli. Memory Model and Cognitive Response Ariel Detergent Advertisement in UK Study shows that value UK detergent market is $1,500 million. Procter & Gamble used famous British tennis player Tim Henman to promote Ariel brand among British customers (Yeshin, 2006, p. 68). The British brand ambassador promoted Ariel’s ability as ‘Championship White’. It was shown in the advertisement that Ariel is able to give cloths ‘Championship White’ cleaning repeatedly after each wash. Unfortunately the campaign failed to motivate British customers to purchase Ariel. Why the Campaign Failed? The campaign failed due to three reasons. External input was weak for memory of customer. Ariel failed to provide strong stimuli such as memorable jingle or advertisement to create a sustainable impact in the minds of consumers. They used a brand ambassador with weak public association hence customers failed to identify characteristics of the brand. First stage of memory is called sensory memory. Sensory memory generates short term impact on brain. Ariel missed the opportunity to produce effective sensory memory among customers. Researchers showed doubt on the encoding impact of the tagline ‘Championship White’ of Ariel advertisement. Customers failed to match their personality with the tagline and in some cases the tag line created confusion among consumers. Ultimately input transformation perturbed due to vagueness of the advertisement. Storage of the input in memory was poor among customers. Short term memory is often considered as working memory. Short term memory can process only seven data at a time hence selectivity is pretty much high in comparison to sensory memory. In case of ‘Championship White’ campaign, selectivity of memory decreased impact of it. The campaign failed to motivate customers to purchase Ariel due to low involvement. Storage of the external input of the campaign was poor hence it created minimal memory impact among customers. Brand equity of Tim Henman was not sufficient to create long term impact on memory of customer. ‘Championship White’ campaign failed to become meaningful event for British customers hence long term memory never developed among them. Customers failed to recall the advertisement due to its poor association with daily requirement of life. Sales Promotion Ariel learned the lesson from failure of their previous ‘Championship White’ campaign. Ariel created a washing powder to make cloths look whiter for long period of time. Target audience for the campaign was mid family mothers. Objective Ariel created the campaign in order to increase trial and sales of their product line. The advertisement campaign was created with an intention to increase association with mothers having children in the age group of 5-12. Marketing Stimuli Interesting fact is that the campaign offered triplet marketing stimuli. They can be explained in the following manner. The campaign offered strong juxtaposition with lawn tennis and whiteness of cloth. Lawn tennis is a popular sport in United Kingdom and many mothers encourage their children to play tennis. Ariel provided the stimuli of “making my child play like professional tennis player” for mothers. The brand used Tim Henman (a local tennis hero) extensively in order to motivate mothers to purchase Ariel. External input the form of sales promotion and benefit message like “Championship Whites for longer” fostered the encoding process. (Source: Institute of Promotional Marketing, 2012) Ariel added value in their ‘in store promotion’ in terms offering reward on each purchase. The reward offering was complemented by free tennis lesson to every child using Ariel as washing detergent by LTA licensed coach. The company provided free tennis lesson booklets to mothers having children in the age group of 5-12 years. The booklet also contained contact address of more than 200 national coaches. These are all benefits designed by the company in order to build memory cue among mothers. This strategy helped Ariel to deliver identifiable benefits to mothers and fillip the encoding process. Motivating British mothers to choose a lucrative profession such as Tennis for their children helped Ariel to increase memory storage penetration among target customers. (Source: Institute of Promotional Marketing, 2012) Ariel launched the promotion during first week of Wimbledon. They used amusing painting, radio advertisements, A5 leaflets, shelf barkers and ambient models to reinforce the campaign in the mind of consumer. Constant reinforcement helped the brand to increase storage of external input in the mind of target customers. In house sales promotion helped mothers to retrieve benefits conveyed by the campaign in the time of making purchasing decision. Result The campaign increased 38% sales of Ariel products in United Kingdom More than 0.1 million people subscribed to free tennis lesson during the 10 week long promotional stint Ariel became market leading detergent brand in UK with an increase in market share by 5% Customer base for the company was increased by 0.1 million Affective Response Functional benefit Functional benefits of Ariel are directed by its ability to wash the cloth and give brilliant cleaning. Functional benefits of particular brand have relationship with brand promise (Pringle and Field, 2009, pp. 103-105). Brand promise for Ariel is motley of following aspects: Creation of functional benefit How functional benefits are conveyed How functional benefits are kept Ariel offers functional benefits such as removing tough stains, re4store smoothness of fabrics after washing, releasing harmless surfactants to environment, removing dirt in minimum time and bright cleaning of cloth to customers. P&G has decreased environment foot print by 10% in the manufacturing process of Ariel. Psychological Benefits Ariel launched an advertising campaign for British customers one month ago. The campaign was created in order to show stories of Ariel users and their personal experience with the brand. The campaign focused on showing emotional benefits of Ariel instead of placing functional benefits as central character. “Championship White” campaign of Ariel provided psychological benefits such as “making my child play like professional tennis player” to mothers. Every mother loves to see their child growing as professional person. Ariel took the opportunity to offer products that not only wash cloths but helps children to grow as professional tennis player also. Means End Chain Analysis Ariel Excel Gel Ariel Powder Ariel Excel Liquitabs Ariel Tablets Attribute Detergent Gel Detergent Powder Detergent Liquid Detergent Tablet Functional Level Gelling formulation increases solvency of detergent hence it takes less time to wash cloth. The detergent can remove various types of stains such as tomato sauce, dirt and chocolate. Hot water is needed for the detergent to wash cloth. Ariel Powder is able to give brilliant cleaning at every wash. It can wash cloths without hurting the colour of fabrics. Ariel Excel Liquitabs can remove stains such as oil, tar, grease etc. Ariel Tablets are used for removing stains from cloth according to convenience of users. Users do not need separate washing equipments for Ariel tablets. Psychological Level Customers can get bright looking cloths which can increase their social image. Restoring colour of fabrics shows caring nature of detergent. Wearing colourful cloths can enhance personal image in front of close relatives. Removing tough stains show washing capability of Ariel. Wearing stain free cloths can enhance self confidence among customers. The product gives opportunity to busy professionals to wash their cloths without wasting much time. It enhances professional pride among users. Value Level Enhancement in social image It enhances social image of end users Increase in social image It enhances self esteem among users Behavioural Response Marketing Mix Stimuli Solomon has divided consumer behaviour into micro and macro segment. Experimental psychology plays crucial role on deciding micro consumer behaviour while macro economics and demography decide the direction of macro consumer behaviour. (Source: Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard and Hogg, 2010, p. 24) Case Study- Ariel in Nigeria Ariel faced competition from detergent brands such as Omo and Elephant in Nigerian market. PZ has launched Elephant Gold to cut the market share of Ariel while Unilever has increased the packaging size of Omo with an intension to increase product penetration. Such situation created immense challenge for P&G to push the product category of Ariel Gold to Nigerian customers. In 2007, Ariel created an exclusive promotional campaign to invoke superior brand efficiency in the mind of consumers. According to Blackwell et al. consumer motivation can be satisfied by both physiological and psychological driving force of shopping merchandises (Blackwell, Miniard, and Engel, 2006). Ariel used physiological driving force of shopping. They launched a new product named as Ariel Enzymax complemented by enzyme power removing dried in greasy stains. Challenge for the company was to create brand distinction to Nigerian customers. Ariel used multi stage launch campaign to build brand equity among target customers. The company used various promotional activities to stimulate consumer behaviour. Ariel used four phase promotional campaign such as below the print advertising, media activity, road shows and above the line advertising to generate awareness among Nigerian customers. Such activities are alternate form external stimulate to affect the equilibrium consumer purchase decision. Promotional activities of Ariel can be explained in the following manner: P&G gave the opportunity to wives of local media personalities to wash cloths Ariel Enzymax and compare the washing experience with brands they are using. Ariel offered a free trial session for local women to experience POD or point of difference of their product. Ariel challenged their market rivals by showing cleaner cloths in the free trial campaign. Such activity enforced logical thinking among women using detergent brands other than Ariel for washing. Result shows that more than 60% of women admitted that washing experience with Ariel Enzymax is better in comparison to other detergent brands. Ariel launched 10,000 posters showing product advantage for local customers. Strategic location of posters enforced marketing stimuli among customers to purchase Ariel detergents. Ariel created specialized road show to generate awareness among local customers. The brand created a “control” group complemented by chefs, nurses and auto mechanics to demonstrate product attributes to customers. Control groups were cleaning tough stains of palm oil with Ariel Enzymax in an open road show with an intention of demonstrating washing power of the product to customers. They asked customers to put palm oil stain on white cloth and then wash the cloth with Ariel Enzymax. This activity was designed in order to convince customers about washing capability of Ariel Enzymax. Ariel produced the masterstroke during main launch period. They asked senior officer of NAFDAC or National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to wash cloths to demonstrate chemical safety of detergent to customers. The senior official demonstrated that the chemical used in Ariel Enzymax can cause no or minimum harm to not only fabrics of cloth but to skin also. Theoretical Model Instrumental Conditioning Research scholars have pointed out that concept of operant or instrumental conditioning can be used to understand learning process of consumer. Thondike has proposed Law of Effect in order to explain key concepts of instrumental conditioning. Sometimes vocabulary and grammar of advertisement can influence consumer understanding (Gross, 1996, p. 317). Two key aspect of instrumental conditioning can be explained in the following manner. Customers perform only those purchasing behaviours which brought them satisfaction in previous occasions Customers avoid only those purchasing behaviours which brought them dissatisfactions in previous occasions Instrumental Conditioning Model Form of Consequence Description Effect Positive Reinforcement Ariel has introduced four new variants such as Ariel Excel Gel, Ariel Powder, Ariel Excel Liquitabs and Ariel Tablets for increasing product choice for customers. For example, time constrained professional can use Ariel Tablets to wash cloth without wasting much time. Customers of United Kingdom will purchase more Ariel products. Negative Reinforcement Removing long duration product speech in Television commercial of Ariel can engage more customers. Ariel has adopted emotional message from customers in the advertisement in order to increase engage quotient. Viewership for Ariel advertisement will rise Positive Punishment Products advertised by Ariel might fail to remove tough stains from cloth or might fail to give bright cleaning at low temperature. Ariel will fail to deliver brand promise hence churn rate will increase. Customer will not only stop purchasing Ariel detergent but will create negative word of mouth about the brand also. Negative Punishment In future Ariel might decrease use environment friendly surfactants in the product. The company might take the step in order to decrease overall production cost. In this situation the product will harm colour and fabrics of the cloth. The situation might create negative word of mouth for Ariel. Ariel needs to reinforce positive purchasing behaviour of customers in order to maintain market share. Continuous reinforce foster consumer learning hence Ariel should focus on creating a continuous reinforcement program. Ariel can use four type of reinforcement schedule such as variable ratio schedules, fixed ratio schedule, fixed interval schedule and variable internal schedule. Schedules of reinforcement are explained below. Fixed Ratio Schedule Ariel can use periodic sales promotions such as giving free products to N th (100 or 500) purchaser in retail outlet Variable Ratio Schedule Ariel can design reward system for customers without maintain particular fixed interval Fixed Interval Schedule Ariel can organize a road show for customers every week in order to demonstrate product quality Variable Internal Schedule Ariel can create flexible promotional campaign without following fixed routine Reference Ariel., 2012. Our Product. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 November 2012]. Arnould, E. J., Price, L. and Zinkhan, G. M., 2004. Consumers. 2nd ed. Burr Ridge: McGraw Hill. Blackwell, R. D., Miniard, P. W. and Engel, J. F., 2006. Consumer behavior. 10th ed. Mason: Thomson/South-Western. De Mooij, M. 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