Consumer-Behaviour Concepts and Models - Assignment Example

Introduction Consumer behaviour basically centres its focus on studying where people purchase the products, why they do purchase the products, how they end up buying the specific products and when they do purchase certain products. It looks also at how buyers end up making the decision to buy, whether individually or as a group. Most individuals are easily influenced to buy by friends, rte society, and family and reference groups. It is normal for human beings to desire to fulfil their desires for more, that is, food, shelter, clothing and luxuries such as vehicles, home theatres recreational facilities e.g. swimming pool, pool table, badminton and a gymnasium. From the Stimulus-Response Model of Buyer Behaviour, one’s behaviour also greatly determines the individual’s consumption. The buyer responses are highly triggered by the, dealer, brand, product and retail choices. Moreover, purchase timing frequency and amount also influence individual’s characteristics of buying and decision making process. The key marketing stimuli are the 4P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, Place) followed by other factors such as economic factors, social issues political factors and also issues surrounding technology. Cultural factors such as social class, culture and sub-culture are a great contributor to one’s buying behaviour. These factors are closely followed by social factors comprising of family, one’s reference group, roles and status. Personal factors are also a great influence on an individual’s consumer behaviour. Such factors are age and one’s life-cycle personality, occupation, lifestyle and economic position. Above all, psychological factors minimally affect the behaviour of buying by most people. The factors are motivation, learning, one’s perception, and beliefs of certain communities and one’s attitude in line with these beliefs. The April 2011 marketing magazine In the April 2011 issue of marketing magazine, important highlights on ‘sponsorship’ and particularly partnership in business are discussed by Brendan Lawley. “What we’re about at Melbourne Storm is identifying deep and integrated brand partnerships. The way that brands have traditionally (I think the sports industry broadly) approached sponsorship doesn’t work anymore (Marketing, April 2011). It is real that creation of partnerships that will last long delivers the brand value. The Chief Commercial Officer of National Rugby League (NRL) club Melbourne Storm, Claire Murphy has emphasised on membership and sponsorship becoming the major focus for the finances of the clubs. Nexus MG’s Attrill accepts Clair Murphy’s sentiments that it is not just enough for any given brand to be associated with any sports club or a stadium but rather definitely be of great benefit there is a proper representation of the brand as should be perceived. As indicated in this Magazine (Marketing, April 2011), proper goals and key objectives should be set so that there is proper awareness of the sponsorship through media coverage. This indicates that proper advertisement should be made through media so that good awareness is created amongst consumers. Advertisements can be made through the internet, in magazines, books, journals and on television. The goals and objectives that are core should be set before hand. This is because business is a good yet risky activity for one to venture in. One should be prepared for both profits and losses, so risks should be well calculated. This is because behaviour of human beings is largely learned. An individual is affected by the values learned through childhood, perceptions and one’s preferences (tastes). This issues matter and one should consider them when planning to venture in business (Farley et al, 74). Factors affecting marketing such as political ideologies, social factors and economic conditions should be properly analyzed so as to meet consumer’s needs and satisfy them as well as remaining strong in the market. For instance, in the ‘sponsorship’ article referred herein partnership in business is important but one has to consider branding because it can either sell or bring losses to the entire business. Branding if considered and the given brand of a business well marketed, there is a high likelihood of the specific products with that brand to endure in the market. Brand personality is vital for a specific business to thrive well (Solomon, 49). Individuals in any given business should know that it is of prime importance to adapt to social conditions of a given society because these conditions are very important when it comes to establishing well the brand in the market. This is because many consumers are primarily affected by information from their friends, co-workers, family, neighbours, retailers, newspapers, radio, specialist magazines, dealers, salespeople, consumer organisations and television. Thus it is core to ensure that a proper consumer research is done to blend with the marketing research for the product to highly achieve. Concepts of consumer behaviour greatly influence the whole development of strategies involved in communications in marketing (Armstrong and Kotler, 21). Marketers are supposed to access data in line with consumers, their buying habits and the mode of communication that they use most so as to create awareness to their clients. Issues surrounding who decides on buying, who greatly influences one’s buying decision and what motivates most buyers and all people that are of influence to end up taking action. Consumer-Behaviour Concepts Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs speaks of physiological needs (shelter, food and clothing) being the most needs that individuals seek to satisfy. Safety needs (security, assurance) follow this closely, and then social needs (sense of belonging, love, care, etc). Esteem (self image, personality, etc) is almost at the peak then eventually Self-Actualization that seeks to satisfy the human needs. Self-concept and personality are important aspects that affect consumers. Personality is someone’s unique psychological characteristics. Self-concept focuses on the real self of an individual, self –image that gives one personality, looking-glass self whereby on is able is able to look into his/her own life and then the ideal self (Armstrong and Kotler, 28). Segmentation of markets is vital. Any business should know how to do market segmentation so as to have a good share in the market. Positioning is important so that proper target analysis of the market and competitor analysis leads to proper positioning strategy. Hence, from a well planned positioning strategy underlies the product, distribution, price and marketing communication that can easily lead to creative strategy and media strategy. Position Concepts of the market involves the concept of selling that motivates consumers to purchase. This concept can either be a tangible benefit, or otherwise an image that a certain company would like to instil in its customers’ minds. The positioning statements should aptly describe the primary benefit that is very important to the major target market. Advertising is way that can be used to communicate positioning strategy such as innovation, head-on, Product-Differentiation, lifestyle and brand-leadership (Solomon, 34). In the article “sponsorship” in the Marketing magazine, branding comes out as a very vital component that is important in the business involving stadiums. Consumer Behaviour Model Stimulus-response model has been well-developed, tested to clearly show the buyer behaviour. It is summarized in the illustrated below (Berkman et al, 97). In the model shown above, marketing and the indicated stimuli inter into the customers “black box” and they produce certain consumer responses. Within this “black box”, the marketing management is supposed to try and work out exactly what goes on in customer’s mind. The characteristics of the buyer in a vast way influences the way s/he perceives the particular stimuli. The process of decision-making highly determines what kind of buying behavior will be undertaken. This is well elaborated through understanding of the major factors that contribute to influencing the buying behaviors of consumers. These include cultural factors (the culture, social class and sub-culture), the social issues (family, neighbors, and reference groups), personal factors (age, personality, occupation, economic position and lifestyle) and psychological issues (motivation, beliefs, perception, and attitudes) Implications for marketing strategies Marketing strategies have segmentation as their backbone. Proper segmentation leads to a good market share thus a business is able to thrive well. For the article, indeed the NRL cud Melbourne Storm had to suffer consequences of branding. Brendan Lawley, on page 33 of this article says, “Exposed for rorting the salary cap, the Storm lost premierships, players and big sponsors. ME Bank, HOSTPLUS and Skins all fled the Storm in a nasty aftermath that had the club branded as cheats.” Conclusion Stadiums are places meant for sports, yet they are still good places for entertainment. Good branding ensures massive awareness and thus better profits for the business or otherwise overwhelming loses as seen in this article on “sponsorship”. Therefore a certain brand of a certain club will immensely aid in selling of the services offered. On this note, brand loyalty is extremely important. This is whereby there is a consistent purchase embedded with favourable attitude of a one particular brand time and again. Brand loyalty in most cases differs from country to country. Works Cited Armstrong, Gary and Kotler, Philip. Marketing: an introduction. Switzerland: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Berkman, Harold, Lindquist, Jay, and Sirgy, Joseph. Consumer Behaviour. New York: NTC Business Books, 1997. Farley, John, Howard, John and Ring, Winston. Consumer behaviour: theory and application. United States: Allyn & Bacon, 1974. Solomon, Michael. Consumer behaviour: buying, having, and being. Germany: Prentice Hall, 2009. Read More