Internal Factors and Their Influence on a Consumers Decision Making Process for Sony Smartphones - Case Study Example

Task: Internal factors and their influence on a consumer’s decision making process for Sony smartphones. Student’s Name: Student number: Name of the unit: Unit Code: Unit coordinator: Introduction The decision to buy a product by consumers is reached after a rigorous analysis of factors originating from outside the individual, external factors, and those factors intrinsic to the individual otherwise known as internal factors. Due to globalization and economic crunches competition grows fiercer and reality dawns on companies that the consumer is an important individual as far as the success of the company is concerned. In order to stay afloat in the business arena companies need to perceive consumer behaviours, understand them and segment the markets appropriately and position products in the right manner (Yakup and Jablonsk, 2012). Consumer behaviour is the process by which consumers gather information about products and services, analyse such information, form opinions and attitudes about such products and services and eventually settle on the appropriate ones for their consumption (Burrow, 2009). The internal factors that consumers look at or actually contribute to their behaviours as far as consumption of goods and services are concerned include needs and motivation, perception, learning, lifestyles of consumers, attitudes, personality, age and cycles of life of the consumer, occupation, income and savings (Maadan, 2009; Burrow, 2009; Sahaf, 2008). Sony is one of the recognised brand names globally today. It has its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and deals in such products as Bravia LCD TVs, home theatre systems, cyber-shot digital cameras, handycam video camera, VAIO computing devices, PlayStations, Sony Ericson collection of mobile phones (Okumar, 2009). This essay will discuss the internal factors that affect the decision of consumers to buy Sony products specifically the smartphones. It will also expound on how these affects affect the strategy of Sony in market segmentation, targeting and positioning of products. Perception and how it influences consumer behaviour Perception is the process through which an individual chooses, arranges and interprets information and makes something meaningful out of it. This aspect of perceiving is very important for consumers as it plays a vital function in purchasing decisions because it affords the consumer the chance of selecting and arranging stimuli originating from the environment that create in the consumer meaningful outcomes and these outcomes enables him or her to make a decision (Sahaf, 2008). Perception goes through a series of activities; first if there is a stimulus in the environment that is an object, the consumer begins to gather information about the object. This is commonly referred to as information input and is simply the reactions of sense organs to the stimulus. For instance when an individual watches the advertisement of a product on television or touches an object in stores he or she starts to experience aspects of the object. The second step involves perceptual selection where the individual gets a lot of information about the product and memory capabilities of the individual cannot process all of them thus it becomes necessary for the individual to filter out the most important and relevant information. This is followed by perceptual organization where the individual in this case being the consumer where there is the bringing together all the environmental inputs to form a pattern. From here the individual attempts to create meaning out of the recognizable patterns formed. The interpretation formed from those patterns is dependent on the individual’s morals, motives, values, past experience, social and physical context of the object (Sahaf, 2008). A group of perceptions work together in getting the consumer to formulate purchase intentions and eventually decide to buy. One of such is quality perception which refers to the expressed superiority or excellence of the product. Consumers evaluate the quality of products and services using both the extrinsic and intrinsic attributes of the product or service such as feature of the product, price, brand recognition, reputation and superiority (Samli 2013). There is also the aspect of value perception that is, is the features of the product meet the requirements of the consumer. There is the group of risk perceptions, that’s the likelihood of experiencing bad consequences or the likelihood of the product becoming obsolete in the near future (Samli, 2013). A German scientist, Ernst Weber found out that if the initial stimulus is stronger for the second stimulus to be noticed and perceived correctly then it must exceed the first one in intensity (Raju, 2004). Marketers have internalised this law and have in their endeavours attempted to increase the intensity of the stimulus in regard to their products beyond that of their competitors. Sony in its exposure of its smartphones has made attempts to have their phones perceived to be of highest quality. For instance the Sony xperia Z ultra smartphone is an android smartphone which has features surpassing any other competitor smartphone for example it is waterproof and thus can be used under water to take pictures and videos in full HD, 6.4 inch screen which is the biggest screen display in the market (Mlis, 2013). The prices of Sony smart phones are relatively and averagely high compared to competitors. The prices are also inflexible. This in essence boosts the perception of these mobile phones as one of high quality. This is because consumers tend to perceive products retailing at high prices communicate quality. Hence consumers looking for quality tend to identify with Sony smartphones basing their decisions on the prices of the phones. Sony is also a recognised and reputable brand name and this also guides the consumer’s decision making process as far as Sony smartphones are concerned. Sony with the type of smartphones they are producing is that they are targeting class A consumers who could want their phones to communicate their status in the society. Their positioning of these smartphones is based on quality and class not price. The brand name is also very important in guiding consumers to make decisions about buying such brands. Because of the successes that Sony had enjoyed in rolling out other electronics, Sony has become a household name worldwide. This has a tremendous effect on influencing customers in buying Sony phones. An example of how consumers view Sony is depicted in a case where an individual was calling his friend on phone and he couldn’t get what the other friend was saying clearly. Then he inquired from the friend of what type of handset she was using and the friend replied that she was using a Sony smartphone. Then the friend interjected by saying that the problem of the unclearity might have to do with the network provider since Sony smartphones are high quality phones. So the brand reputation influences how consumers view the quality of products. Needs and motivation and the effects on consumer behaviour Motivation is an activated internal need creating a goal-oriented behaviour to satisfy that initiated need (Yakup and Jablonsk, 2012). Thus motives can be understood a relatively enduring, strong and persistent internal urge that stimulate and direct behaviour towards fulfilling certain objectives. There are five kinds of needs as identified by Maslow and these needs are dubbed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; Physiological needs are the most basic needs and include needs that are vital for survival such as water, food, air and sleep. Then there is the security needs which are simply needs for security such as safe and steady employment, safe neighbourhoods, health insurance and shelter. Social needs deals with the needs for love, affection and belonging. Esteem needs are high up the hierarchy and this is concerned with one requiring things that boost his or her self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment. The highest in the hierarchy is the self-actualization needs and this include the needs to do with personal growth and self-fulfilment characterised by vitality, creativity, self-sufficiency, authenticity among others (Yakup and Jablonsk, 2012). The craving to satisfy all these needs influence the consume decision making process in that the lowest in the hierarchy has to be satisfied before an individual strives to achieve the needs in the next level. The possession of a smartphone especially one with such features as the Sony Ericsson smartphones is attempts to satisfy self-esteem needs which in other cases referred to as ego-needs. The decision of consumers to purchase a Sony smartphone is informed by the fact that the consumer is in search of satisfying his or her ego-needs which is concerned with the desire of these consumers to experience some form of prestige in their occupational and social relations. Owning a product from such a huge brand name such as Sony enables an individual to achieve a higher status, recognition, appreciation and self-respect from the society. The decision to buy a Sony smartphone by consumers is also as a result of meeting the operational and non-operational motives. Operational motives are concerned with those reasons for the buying of the commodity and are directly related to expected performance of the product. That is they expect the commodity to perform specific which they in need of and that performance is associated with the physical performance of the product. The non-operational motives are those that are indirectly associated with the performance of the product this aspect is related with the consumer’s social and psychological satisfaction associated with having the product for example the fulfilment of social prestige by simply owning the product (Sahaf, 2008). Consumers buy Sony smartphones because of its performance for example taking of pictures under water and also satisfy the social prestige associated with the ownership of the gadget. Thus Sony sets out it smartphones to satisfy these needs by targeting the population in the esteem level of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy and have their products targeting class A consumers and they emphasise class and status in the advertisements of their products. Learning and its effect on consumer behaviour Psychologists define learning as the relatively permanent change in in behaviour as a result of experience (Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard, 1999). Marketers define it as a process by which consumers obtain the purchase and consumption knowledge and experience that they utilise in a future related behaviour (Schiffman et al., 2008). A consumer depends heavily on his or her experience (learning) in making decisions to purchase certain brands. Nearly all consumer behaviours emanate from learning. Learning cannot be observed directly but can be deduced to have happened by looking at the actions of individuals, for instance seeing an advert of a new pain relieving drug in the market and going to the store and buying the drug then we infer that you have learned something about that pain relieving drug. There are two types of learning; experiential and conceptual. Experiential is when an experience on the product changes the consumer’s behaviour for instance if the new pain relieving drug does not relieve you of your pain, you may not buy that brand again. Conceptual learning is not acquired through self-experience for example you have noticed a new brand of a product in the market and you want to buy and then a friend warns you against buying it because of its side effects hence you end up buying a different brand. Thus one has learned about that product without even trying it (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel, 2009). Repetition and reinforcement help boost learning. Reinforcement can either be positive encouraging the continuation of the behaviour or negative discouraging the behaviour forcing one to adopt new behaviours. Learning theorists agree that for learning to occur certain elements must be present; motivation acts as a catalyst for learning because the needs and goals associated with motivation stimulate learning on part of consumers, for instance if individuals have the need to reduce their body weight they are motivated to learn all that appertains to good eating habits and exercise habits. Cues also aid in learning as they act as stimuli to learning. Cues serve to direct the drives of consumers if they are in agreement with the expectations of consumers. For example an advert depicting fitness equipment and nutritional supplements as tools for reducing weight may act as a cue for those in need of reducing their body weight. In marketing advertisements, packaging, displaying, price, and styling all serve as cues hence marketers should be careful so as to provide cues that are in agreement with the needs of consumers. Response is another element of learning and it is the way and individual reacts to stimuli and can either be overt or covert. Thus learning can occur even if the response is covert because the stimuli would have made the consumer to like the product even if it does not initiate purchase instinct in the consumer but the next time the consumer is ready to purchase such a commodity he or she will definitely go that brand because learning about the brand had occurred sometimes back. Reinforcement is another element of learning and increases the chances of a particular reaction to a particular brand of product to occur in the future, for example if the individual uses the nutritional supplements to check weight and actually it works then that response is reinforced (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino and Carlson, 2014). The large screen displays, the extra features of Sony smartphones acts as cues for consumers to want to have a feel of such an experience by acquiring such phones. Sony have realised the need of consumers to be able to use their phone features even under water so the adverts showing an individual using the phone under water to take photos and actually seeing the same happen motivate consumers to own such a phone. The fact that the phone can be used under water creates a need to change behaviour and buy that phone and the fact that they see somebody actually use the same phone under water and this does not affect the phone in any way actually reinforces the response of consumers. The classical conditioning theorists agree that all living organisms both human and animals can be taught to behave in a particular way by repetition otherwise known as conditioning. In this case a stimulus that does not elicit a response is paired with a stimulus that evokes a known response. This pairing is repeated severally until the stimulus without a known response start to evoke a response when used alone (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino and Carlson, 2014). For example in this case following many years of being around and advertisements of their quality products, Sony has established itself as a Brand name and consumers have learned to associate Sony as the producer of quality electronics and hence consumers have been conditioned to believe so. This implies that when they make decisions to buy a smartphone and a Sony smartphone happens to be in the store they will definitely go it because they have learned to associate Sony with high quality products. The strategy of Sony marketing their line of products under the same brand name otherwise known as family branding has proved to be beneficial when it comes to consumer learning about product quality. In this case consumers associate any product from Sony as of high quality. Instrumental conditioning theorists argue that learning occur through trial and error process (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino and Carlson, 2014). Consumers learn by adopting behaviour and if the behaviour elicits favourable outcomes the consumers learn to repeat the same behaviour. Consumer buying Sony smartphones form a habit of buying such phones by trying them out and finding them fulfilling their expectations and for this Sony has enhanced the features of its smartphones to target those consumers who will indeed try something out to confirm its suitability. Cognitive learning theorists have it that learning involves complex mental processing of information. The consumer thinks and tries to cake out some solutions to problems (Schiffman, O’Cass, Paladino and Carlson, 2014). Sony in marketing its smartphones design their advertisements in a way that evokes thinking in consumers. For example the feature of waterproof is unique to Sony smartphones and this makes consumers to think of a situation where the phone being rained on or falling into water and getting destroyed and in order to avoid that it becomes clear to them that that problem can be solved by acquiring Sony xperia Z ultra smartphone. So in a way they have positioned their brands in targeting the critical thinking kind of consumers. Personality and influence of consumer behaviour towards Sony smartphones Personality is a wide concept that can be roughly taken to mean the way of arranging and grouping the reactions of individuals to situations. It encompasses psychological and environmental components. Personality can be defined as the inner psychological characteristics of an individual which influence and direct how a person responds to his or her environment (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel, 2009). Personality is very relevant to marketer as it influences the types and brands of products consumers purchase. For example the type of car, clothes, jewellery, phones a consumer purchase may in essence be an indicator of personality traits of that consumer. The self-concept theory which is concerned on how an individual views himself or herself in the totality of his or her feelings. And individual identifies himself/herself has possessing characteristics and values which define that individual. It encompasses attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and self-evaluations. Here individuals define their identity which in turn orders their consistent and coherent behaviour (Batra and Kazmi, 2008). Individuals think and believe to have a certain identity which unique to themselves and that is their actual self. These individuals also aspire to be of a different identity and this forms their ideal self. There is also a feeling among these individuals on how they feel how others see them and this forms part of their social self. There is also a way they would want others to see them and this is the ideal social self and there is the identity they would like to assume in the future and this is what is referred to as expected self (Batra and Kazmi, 2008). Self-concept is driven by the desire of individuals to achieve self-consistency and the desire to enhance of one’s self-esteem. An individual in his or her actual self may be a father, a mother, employee, husband, wife and a member of some club. One of the roles can dominate and influence the consumer’s behaviour. They will buy products in accordance of the images they have of themselves. An individual will decide to buy a Sony smartphone in order to attain self-consistency and self-esteem. Some individuals consider them to be a higher standing in society and in order to keep up with that statue they buy flashy products for example smartphones. A Sony smartphone is one such a product and the consumer’s appeals of their fantasy such as attracting the opposite sex or portraying a macho image can be achieved by possessing a Sony smartphone. Such a phone can also be important as it indicates to others some aspects and characteristics of the consumer. Freudian theory suggests that personality of individual originates from childhood conflicts. It encompasses the id which is the harbouring of primitive and instinctual needs for which individuals seek immediate satisfaction, the superego which is the individual’s internal expression of moral and ethical codes of conduct of the society and the ego which is the individual’s conscious control that balances the demands of the id and superego. Buying a Sony smartphone is as a result of the consumer being in possession of such traits as being ambitious, successful, perfectionist, impatient with less than the best which forms part of both ego and superego traits. Sony with their smartphones have segmented the market to target the consumers with the superego and ego personality traits and their phones communicate high standing of their consumers in society. Neo-Freudian theory has it that social relationships are fundamental to the formation and development of personality. These relationships reduce feelings of inferiority or tension. Here individuals can be categorised as to how they interact with others; aggressive, detached or compliant. A compliant individual craves for attention, aggressive one desires admiration and a detached one desires independence and freedom from obligation (Batra and Kazmi, 2008). Compliant individuals tend to buy established brands and since Sony is an established brand their decision to buy a Sony smartphone because it is a known brand. As far as the decision of consumers to buy Sony smartphones is concerned aggressive individuals will have it easy in deciding to buy such a phone because such individuals emphasise power, admiration and strength. A Sony smartphone will appeal to such individual since it affords them all those. The trait theory emphasise the measurement of personality in terms of traits. These traits are the ones that inform behaviours. A trait is any distinguishing and relatively enduring way in which an individual differs from another (Batra and Kazmi, 2008). Some personality traits are more associated with consumer behaviour and include optimal stimulation level where some activities have the potential to provide some individuals with some physiological arousal. Products that are stimulating, exciting and emotionally energising are more likely to induce arousal and Sony smartphone with it enhance features can stimulate consumer behaviour towards this product. Dogmatism which is a trait that indicates the degree of an individual’s rigidity towards anything that is contrary to her or his established beliefs. An individual of high dogmatism is likely to resist change and individual with low degrees of dogmatism are more likely to accept new and innovative products and are more receptive to adverts focussing on product characteristics and benefits. Sony has targeted these individuals with low levels of dogmatism as they are readily receptive of the innovativeness associated with the phones. In targeting those individuals with high levels of dogmatism Sony has used celebrities and experts to advertise their products as this group of individual find this more appealing. Individuals also differ in degrees of susceptibility to influence in that others are easily influenced by others and Sony has had strategies to reach these groups by using celebrities to endorse their products. Attitudes and consumer behaviour Attitude consists of beliefs and propensities that drive people to act consistently favourably and unfavourably towards specific individuals, ideas, groups or objects (Sahaf, 2008). In the marketing context and more specifically in regard to consumer behaviour attitude can be taken to refer to a feeling of like or dislike of a purchase alternative as determined by the consumer’s beliefs about product attributes (Sahaf, 2008). It is a learned tendency to react in a consistent manner towards a given object such as a brand. Attitudes rest on the consumer’s value system which represents personal standards of good and bad, right and wrong (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel, 2009). Attitude is made up of three components which are cognitive, affective and behavioural. The cognitive element has to do with the consumer’s knowledge, beliefs and opinion about a product. With a reason the consumer classifies a product to be good or bad, favourable or unfavourable, necessary or unnecessary. The affective element is concerned with the consumer’s feelings, sentiments and emotions regarding a particular brand and the behavioural aspect deals with how the consumer reacts towards the object which in this case is the product (Sahaf, 2008). Consumer attitudes exist in order to satisfy a function and some of those functions include; the utilitarian function which means an individual will make a decision to purchase a specific commodity if the satisfaction he or she will get is maximum or the outcomes of such a decision brings about happiness. The other function is the value function and this is put into work when consumers are basing their attitudes regarding a product or service on central values. The reflection the product or service has on the consumer is of major concern. The ego-defensive function is concerned when an individual is threatened that the use of a product or service will compromise the individual’s self-image and hence the individual develops the attitude in defence of one’s ego. Knowledge function which constitutes standards of reference that consumers use to organise and interpret beliefs (Novack, 2010). Based on attitudes the decision to purchase a Sony smartphone will be based on the cognitive knowledge the consumer already has about Sony products and it is evident that Sony products of high quality and the more likely that the consumer will go a Sony smartphone. The general feelings that the consumer has towards Sony smartphones can also inform their decision to buy. They will also base their decision to buy a Sony smartphone will be taken through the sieve of the value one intends to achieve from the investment. The utilitarian aspect of attitudes also plays a role in informing the decision of a consumer to buy a Sony smartphone. Will the phone bring happiness in terms of the features it carries? The Sony smartphone supports the function of individuals with ego-defensive attitudes since it is a phone of class and thus will make these same individuals to make a decision to buy it because it boosts their self-image Sony in order to reach the utilitarian function of attitude they will advertise on the benefits of the smartphones and in order to nub consumers with value-expressive attitudes they will have to include product symbolism and an image. Fir ego-defensive attitude consumers the advertisement will concentrate on class and the sophistication of the phone. Lifestyle and its influence on consumer behaviour A lifestyle is a person’s mode of life as indicated in his or her activities, interests and opinions (Lamb, Hair and McDaniel, 2009). Lifestyle characteristics are very important for marketers as it helps them in segmenting and targeting consumers. The lifestyle exhibited by the consumer will affect the behaviour and purchasing decisions of the consumer. For example an individual with a healthy and balanced lifestyle use organic products and thus will buy them from specific stores that stock organic products. That individual will have a regular jogging programme and therefore will need some specific shoes and clothes (Perreau, 2014). For Sony smartphones the target of the products is a class of individuals with a high status lifestyle. It also targets those individuals with the lifestyle of being on the internet. Those who like surfing the net always and like the comfort of taking pictures wherever they may be. Individuals of all these kind of lifestyle will find it easier making the decision of buying a Sony smartphone. Their lifestyles can also be associated with brand selection since a renowned brand is associated with consumers leading a flashy lifestyle and the Sony smartphones will just reinforce that lifestyle. Sony smartphones are positioned to meet the requirements of consumer who are associated with flashy lifestyle, those who want to be seen as successful in society. They are also targeting the internet lovers who could want to always surf on the net always. Lifestyle makes individuals to fall into different segments and this helps marketers to appropriately target the right group with the right products. Age and consumer behaviour The products that an individual uses at his or her teenage years will not be the same as the one he or she will be using when at 70 years old. As one grows up changes take place both psychological and biological changes. An individual gets old, marries, have kids and so on (Perreau, 2014). Sony smartphones are relatively expensive because of the many features they possess. A teenager at 18 years of age won’t be in a position to raise the amount of acquiring such a phone. Such phones can be afforded by individuals in employment and those individuals are at the age of 27 years and above. Individuals beyond 65 years of age are more concerned with their health and decision to buy a smartphone. So Sony smartphones have been positioned in upmarket regions where most of the consumers are of age and are in employment. Purchasing power and revenue and consumer behaviour The purchasing muscle of an individual will affect the consumer’s behaviour and purchasing decisions. The level of income and individual possess will inform what products to buy and from which store to buy them from. The income level of a consumer informs what one can afford (Perreau, 2014). Sony smartphones target the individuals with a considerable amount of disposable income. The phones also promise these consumers social value as possessing such a smartphone is a show of their incomes and their level of purchasing power. Conclusion In conclusion, internal factors such as motivation and needs, level of income, perception, attitudes, personality, age, lifestyle among others have a great influence on consumer decision making especially when they are deciding to purchase a smart phone. It thus pertinent for marketers to thus understand the needs of consumers and factors that influences their purchase decision making. Because the understanding of these factors and how they influence consumer decision making goes a long way in segmenting the marketing correctly, positioning products right and producing target specific products. References Batra, S.K., and Kazmi, S.H.H. (2008). Consumer behaviour: Text and cases. New Delhi: Anurag Jan. Burrow, J. (2009). Marketing. 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