Indians' Paradoxical Marketing Psychology - Essay Example

?Running Head: Marketing Psychology Marketing Psychology [Institute’s Marketing Psychology Introduction Consumer culture is an important element of marketing. In today’s competitive environment, it is essential for companies to understand their consumer’s culture. This is because industry is not just about production of goods; it actually is about the wants, needs and satisfaction of consumers (Levitt, 1960). Understanding of consumer culture helps the industry to achieve these objectives of customer satisfaction leading to its ultimate goal of high profit. Consumer Behaviour Consumer behaviour is an important element of consumer culture. In general, it is usually considered as the study of purchasing process i.e. how a person buys products. However, this purchase process study is just a part of definition; it includes other elements, which the following definition explains: “Consumer behaviour reflects the totality of consumer’s decision with respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences, peoples, Ideas by (human) decision making units (over time)” (Wayne & Deborah, 2008, pg. 3). Consumer behaviour includes more than just the way a person buys tangible products; it further includes a consumer use of services, experiences, activities and ideas. Examples would include decision making like attending an event, donation to a particular charity, planning a vacation etc (Wayne & Deborah, 2008, pg. 3). A consumer manner of buying is extremely important to marketers. However, along with it, marketers are also very interested in consumer behaviour related to using and disposing of an offering (Wayne & Deborah, 2008, pg. 4). As Mowen in 1995 defined, “Consumer behaviour as the study of buying units and the exchange process involved in acquiring, consuming and disposing of foods, services, experience and ideas” (Apruebo, 2005, pg. 2). Consumer behaviour is a dynamic process because an act of a single consumer has effect on the decision of other consumer in one way or another due to the economic circle. It is also not restricted to the decision making of a single individual but can involve many people like0 family and friends and involves numerous decisions making (Wayne & Deborah, 2008, pg. 5). Consumer Psychology Davis and Palladino (1995) defined consumer psychology, “as the study that deals with activities directly involved in selecting, obtaining, and using products, services, and ideas to satisfy needs, and desires, including decision making process that precede and follow these actions.” Simply speaking, it is an applied branch of psychology on consumer behaviour (Apruebo, 2005, pg. 2). Consumer psychology is an aspect of consumer behaviour (Armstrong, Armstrong, & Kotler, 2007, pp. 250-325). In addition, consumer psychology is one of the major aspects and factors that influence consumer behaviour, and it is the basic element of consumer behaviour because this is what triggers a consumer towards consumption of good. It is the most initial or basic element because while evaluating the purchase of a product, psychological processes are the first step customer engages in. The customer needs to be motivated, able, and have the opportunity to be exposed, to understand and utilize information (Bennet, 2009, pp. 30-36). A customer need to think about the available information, develop an attitude towards it and form memories. These are all the psychological aspects of consumer behaviour, study of which describes consumer psychology (Wayne & Deborah, 2008, p 11-12). Consumer psychology mainly deals with why and how people buy certain products and why not others. It is concerned with how believes, feeling, perceptions, and thoughts of a customer influence on the choice of goods and services he purchase. It encompasses of factors like thoughts, feeling, emotions attached to the product, environmental variable like family, friends, society, culture, personal factors etc (Kendra, n.d). Difference between Consumer Behaviour and Consumer Psychology Consumer behaviour is the study of complete purchase process of a consumer ranging from how and why would a consumer buy a product, reason for it preference over other, how will the consumer consume it and how will he dispose it (De Mooij & De Mooij, 2010, pp. 49-58). It is the study of the whole exchange process of purchase. The nature of consumer behaviour is product-person situation specific. Consumer Behaviour encompasses all the elements, which result in consumer behaving in a certain manner. While consumer psychology is a part of consumer behaviour, it focuses only on the psychological aspects that motivate a consumer to make purchases. In addition, it focuses only on the factors that induce purchase or selection of a product over other and not on the complete purchase process. It is not usually situation specific but feelings and emotion specific. Case Study Asian Journal of Research in Marketing conducted a research-based case study of consumer behaviour with respect to various brands of shampoo in the city of Nagpur, India (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pp. 37-39). Dr Ruhi Bakhare while conducting this research kept different aspects, that could constitute consumer behaviour, as guidelines for the research. The bases of the research include consumer personality factor like risk aversion and innovativeness that have a huge impact on consumer purchase decision, the perception of the consumer regarding the product, the perceived fit that helps in selection of a product for purchase on the bases of its distribution channel. External important factors like quality, packaging, brand awareness, family influence, and shopping motives were also taken in to consideration (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pp. 37-39). The sampling method technique was used to conduct the research where the sample had peoples from different age group, different economic levels and diverse educational background, giving the following result (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pg. 39). Regarding the usage, 85% of the respondents use shampoo as the means of hair wash and 25% use any other means of hair wash besides shampoo (e.g. natural herbs or soaps etc). The frequency of hair wash vary in a week, 65% only wash their once in a week, 35% twice and 15% thrice in a week. The frequency of purchase of a shampoo bottle in a month was that 25% bought it just once, 55% bought twice and 35% did more than twice (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pg. 41). Marketing factors as brand awareness revealed that low price drug store brand like Sunsilk were used by 54% of the people while high-end expensive brand like Loreal was used by only 3% of the respondents. The usage of brands, reveal that almost all the respondents use more than one brand of shampoo with 30% using two brands, 50% using three brands and 20% using more than three brands (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pg. 42). Assessing the marketing and economic factors reveal that price is the most major of the factor which makes consumer buy shampoo with 40%, availability has the influence on of 31%, packaging and others as 15% and 14%, respectively (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pg. 43). The research of shampoo preference reveal that 40% respondent prefer their shampoo on the bases of its brand, 30% on its quality, 20% on fragrance and colour 10% on others factors. Study of psychological factor, like person who influence a consumer purchase, reveals that biggest influence is of parents with 40%, 20% of friend and spouses and just 5% on their own self-choice. The mode of promotion that attracts the consumer most is advertisement with 45%, celebrity 25% and banners 20%. The reason for switching to other brands reveal that advertisements have the biggest impact with 20%, price 16% and the lowest is packaging with 10% (Dr. Bakhare, 2012, pp. 44-46). Analysis Analysis of the case study related to the consumer behaviour reveals that consumer awareness is very low in the city due to which there is high potential in the hair care market in the city. Advertising and pricing are the two major reasons of selection of products and the increase frequency of brand use suggest that the consumer lacks brand loyalty and gets indifferent to the brand due to the force of advertising, company schemes and pricing. Majority of the population belong to lower middle class and so is budget conscious instead of brand. Analyses of the case study in regards of consumer psychology reveals that, as Nagpur is a smaller city and not advance and fast paced like a cosmopolitan the lifestyle of its individual have a huge impact on their choice of hair care. Not all of the people use shampoo as part of their hair care regime and instead choose others natural methods because of their perception that shampoo contains chemicals and is dangerous for hairs in the long run. The study also reveals that resident of the city are not much concerned by hair care and do not give much importance to it. High-ended brands like Loreal are least popular not only because of them being expensive but also because majority have the psychology that shampoo only tends to clean hair so there is not much use in spending a large amount over it. Also the fact that India supports joint family system is another reason that parents have a huge influence on their children choices even as small as a choice of shampoo brand is influenced by parents opinion and parents due to budget constrain prefer good quality in low price. References Apruebo. R. 2005. Applied Consumer Psychology. Fifth Edition. Rex Book Store. Armstrong, G. M., Armstrong, G., and Kotler, Philip. 2007. Marketing: An Introduction. Pearson Prentice Hall. Bennet, A. G. 2009. The Big Book of Marketing. McGraw-Hill Professional. De Mooij, M. K. and De Mooij, Marieke. 2010. Consumer Behaviour and Culture: Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising. SAGE. Dr. Bakhare, Rukh. 2012. A Study of Consumer Behaviour with Respect to Various Brands of Shampoo in Nagpur City. Asian Journal of Research in Marketing. Volume 1, Issue 3. Hoyer, Wayne & MacInnis, Deborah. 2008. Consumer Behviour. Fifth Edition. South-Western Cengage Learning. Kendra, Cherry. N.d. What is Consumer Psychology. About.com Levitt, Theodore. 1960. Marketing Mopia. Harvard Business Review. Read More