Consumer Behavior Analysis - Essay Example

Consumer Behaviour Analysis To launch a new line of personal care products for men, a carefully-designed marketing plan must be in place. The product line includes oil-free face wash, hair styling gel, anti-dandruff shampoo and sunscreen for men’s skin. For a large first-world market such as US, the marketing strategy should be well-rounded and functional. Factors such as target market, demographics and value propositions of the product must be well-grounded in order to ensure the products’ potential success. To determine these factors, let us take a close look at the marketing strategy. The first and foremost thing, of course, is to do market fragmentation; it is a necessary early step while making a marketing plan. To know who the product is for is probably the most important factor to determine before any anything. Another vital factor is to develop the need recognition of the product in the customers’ eye. It is the psychology of humans to recognize something as ‘need’ or ‘want’ before a purchase. Even if it is a ‘want’, the desire to experience it in order to feel better is often subconsciously camouflaged as a ‘need’ as well. This is also referred to as customer’s value perception of the product. (Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G., 1991). Hence, the products should be marketed in a way that the consumers can recognize and acknowledge the need of those items for themselves. Propose a type of message appeal to be used in the advertising, making sure to explain the rationale behind the appeal.  It is important to identify what benefit and value are the customers deriving from the products vis-à-vis what the products are offering. For the advertising campaign of the product line, the main proposition can be protection against the harshness of outdoor lifestyle. This proposition creates much value for males considering a common man’s outdoor routine and sun and dust exposure to the skin. Since the product line is only chosen for men, the marketing strategy needs to revolve around the lifestyle of men. This means that the outdoor roughness and rugged routines for men need to be utilized as key factors during marketing. Moreover, the target market of the personal care product line is bracketed for young males who are aged from 18-35. Considering these factors as framework, it is important to distribute focus on each product according to their specific offerings. For instance, the hair-styling gel needs to address its firm nature, wet look, allowing young males to use the gel for any hairstyle - from causal to formal. The face wash and shampoo will address their own offerings, while staying in the same age group of 18-35, along with a nominal price tag. The face wash can utilize a common male concern i.e. oily skin. Our face wash will offer clear and oil-free skin for young men, both with an athletic lifestyle or an office lifestyle. Furthermore, the anti-dandruff shampoo will ensure young men of dandruff-free hair and will save them from social embarrassment. Analyze the different cultures this product will appeal to and make recommendations on which three would be the best choice.  While crafting the marketing strategy for the products, it is beneficial to determine which cultures are to be targeted, and how the products will appeal to the consumers. Predominantly, the culture to be targeted is outgoing men. The culture of this class of men tends to be active, interactive, and social; they spend a considerable time of their day outside. For them, this line of products provides a complete range of personal care products for men so that they can groom themselves easily before leaving for outside. The advertisements for the products should encircle these points as well. Other cultures these products will appeal to include health conscious men and sportsmen, whereby, conformity within the culture will reinforce and promote buying habits of customers once the products penetrate these cultures. The products will carry a young and manly aura and thus, consumers of the above culture will be attracted. Subsequently, this will trigger brand loyalty and group influence among young men, be it sportsmen or outgoing social men. Decide which microcultures and additional demographics should be targeted.  These cultures mentioned above can also be considered as another demographic which needs to be taken into account. The mobility of consumers, predominantly because of their young age, is a vital point to consider because this very demographic becomes an important tool to use while marketing. Additionally, other demographics such as race, disabilities and location, though do not seem as vital, are to be kept in mind while designing the marketing strategy. The plan for advertising includes television, billboards and posters. Television advertisements can be created using the value offerings and target specifics of each product respectively. However, they should all focus on the core demographics of the target market i.e. gender, age and mobility. Moving on, Billboards advertising could show well-groomed young male models as satisfied people who use the products. Along with this, a functional, bull’s-eye punch line will complete the job. The models will depict the main idea of the products i.e. allow young men to keep their skin and body clean and toned. Advertising using media is a separate parallel way of advertising, hence, this needs to be very well-crafted and must highlight the benefits of the products through catchy visuals. Suggest ways to utilize group influence in the marketing of the product.  In the initial stages of product introduction into the market, there is possibility that advertising stalls could be set up as well in shopping malls and busy crowd zones. One of the effective ways to enrich the quality of marketing would be to arrange personal care medical labs in shopping malls. This way, not only will the consumers get to know more about their own health condition and get free check-ups and advices, but the products will be marketed in a very positive and effective way (Market personal care products business with a good strategy, n.d.). Also, this will bring into effect the power of group influence. In a crowded place, a crowded medical lab will, automatically, influence passer-bys and groups as a whole. Strangers will conform to the behaviour of strangers and this will set-off a chain process. At the end, the process will achieve mass effective marketing at that location. Such steps can be taken as usage of personal care products is closely linked with customers being self-conscious and wanting to know more about their personal care scenarios. Create a plan to address need recognition, search behavior, and getting the product into the consumers consideration set. The awareness campaign of the products will be implemented via a plan as well. Social media can be used as well as networks can be established. Social media has risen to be a strong and powerful tool to market products. The products can attract many consumers from its price tag as well. Nominal pricing is one of the most important factors when it comes to young men. Depending upon the nature of product, a lot of men prefer nominally-priced products especially in their youth when they do not possess much money to lavishly spend on luxury items. Since the target market is young men, networks will work well via word of mouth of social people, who have a large number of friends. Also, during all this marketing plan and awareness drives, the competitors need to be acknowledged as well. In the market for personal care products, the competition is tough and rigorous. However, if the marketing strategy is well-rounded and considers competitors during the time of marketing strategy design, the products are set to give the competitors a tough time. The availability of the products is another important point to consider. The availability depends upon the nature of the products as they are all personal care products. Most logical places of availability are drug stores and general stores, whereby consumers can be easily exposed to the products and hopefully feel tempted to buy. At drug stores, these products will, somehow, be associated with an image of good health and quality assurance. This will present an impression where consumers will believe the products to be well-designed and medically-tested. This, however, does not mean that the products need to create that image. Indeed, the products will be well-researched in laboratories during design phase optimum quality will be ensured. Other places of availability include Wal-Mart and Target, where the customers can buy packed kits of the whole product line at cheaper rates. To make sure the marketing strategy is effective, communicative and precise; the marketing should always focus on the value propositions and the trigger points of consumers. The organization should be able to identify what the customers’ perceived value of the products is, since that is what determines consumer’s decision to buy the item or not. On the other hand, the consumer must be able to set out the product on the basis of its offerings and appeal; if the consumer fails to do that, it decreases the chances of him/her buying the product. Keeping these things in mind will help ensure the best results; high sales and customer loyalty at the end of the day. References Market personal care products business with a good strategy. (n.d.) Retrieved 6th August, 2012 from http://www.mastbusiness.com/bizarticles/ba21/ Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (1991). Principles of marketing. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. Pg 13. Read More