The Psychology of Personal Marketing - Assignment Example

The Psychology of Personal Marketing When my aunt gifted me the clamshell Nokia 6170 mobile on my graduation, I was ecstatic and couldn’t stop jumping up and down with joy. It was a simple, metallic compact phone with a VGA camera which wasn’t real good and the pictures weren’t very clear, but I was still happy with it. I could both send as well as receive multimedia messages from it. The phone even had a small color screen on the outside of the clamshell. Putting everything aside what really mattered to me was that I finally had a mobile phone. It was something I had been longing for. I had been planning on saving enough money to buy myself a decent camera phone and never seemed to be able to save enough and I had almost given up hope on it. My parents hadn’t been too keen on the idea of my owning a mobile, so asking them for one was useless. Although why they didn’t want me to own one is beyond me, I just don’t know why for all my friends owned one. Anyway that was like four years ago. I had long since completed my education and am now working. I had been putting some money aside in my savings, for I now wanted to buy myself a laptop. Although my dad had offered to buy it for me, still I insisted that I wanted to buy it on my own. I wanted it to be like an achievement. Something I had worked hard for, earned and finally bought for myself as a reward. I was sitting in front of the computer searching through various models of laptops and trying to find the one that I liked best and which also fulfilled all of my requirements. I had placed my cell in my lap as I had been texting my friend alongside my laptop search. I heard my mother calling me so I stood up, completely forgetting my cell phone. My mobile crashed to the floor just as I got up, but I didn’t worry too much, for it had been with me for the past four years and in that time I had dropped it numerous times. It was a Nokia phone, so it was rather strong and well built, I was about to bend down to pick it up when suddenly the front door screeched open and my younger brother came running inside. He was running blindly and didn’t see my phone on the floor. Crack! And there right before my eyes my beloved mobile lay on the floor broken into two neat pieces. The flip had cleanly broken into two equal pieces; I was in shock, for a moment I couldn’t speak and then two fat tears rolled down my cheeks. My brother stood before me frozen in horror to what I might do to him now. But I just didn’t have the heart to say anything, so I simply picked up the pieces and went to my room. A few minutes later I heard my father calling me downstairs. I straightened up, washed my face and went downstairs. There in his arms was a gift box. He said he had got me a present and wanted me to open it with him. I sat down and opened it, staring at me out of the box was a brand new HP laptop, just the one I had been planning on buying. I loved it; I hugged my parents and thanked them from the core of my heart. Then my brother came forward, his eyes swimming with tears and apologized. I knew he hadn’t done it on purpose and it had been an accident, so I forgave him. Now I wanted to tell all my friends about my amazing present and how happy it made me. I felt like I was on top of the world. But oh… how was I supposed to do that? For a moment I had forgotten that my phone was now in two pieces and no more in working condition. Then it occurred to me. Maybe this accident had happened for a reason. My friends had practically been begging me to buy myself a new cell phone. But I had not been able to spare money for that, besides my old one, although I felt like it was ancient, had been working fine. So I hadn’t really given it much thought. But now I had the money and I didn’t need to spend it on getting myself a new laptop. Hence, I changed my focus of attention and concentrated all my research on finding the best mobile phone. Where previously I had been searching for a lap to, it was now replaced with the search for the mobile that I would consider to be just perfect for me. And this search for a new mobile is what did the inauguration of my laptop. I powered it on and started on my long journey towards finding, ‘The Mobile’ phone for myself. When making a purchase, the consumer passes through various stages of the decision making process and I believed, I was going to have to pass through each stage, even though I would be doing so unconsciously to finally get to the purchase I was so looking forward to. There are many factors that influence the behavior of a consumer. Consumer behavior is basically ‘‘The study of individuals, group or organization and the processes they use to select, secure, use and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society’’ (Perner 1999) Problem Recognition: The problem before me was my inability to communicate with my friends. My mobile was broken and I couldn’t exist without one, so my prime issue at that time was to buy myself a new cell phone. Also now I didn’t want just any cell phone, I wanted one which would fulfil my requirements and which would be worth its price. I had saved a reasonable sum and wanted a nice yet sleek camera phone. I love taking pictures and I like to keep a camera at hand. And since mobile is a gadget that one always keeps with oneself so I thought that getting a phone with a reasonably good camera would be better than getting a camera, because although, the camera would give me better picture quality, I wouldn’t always keep it with me like I would keep a cell phone. Hence, getting a cell phone that would live up to my expectations was what I really wanted. I wanted a multimedia phone that had just about everything in it, while being stylish, light weight and within my price range. Many things and factors influence a person when he or she is considering making a purchase. The best possible way to influence the behaviour of a consumer is to give him/her an adequate motive, because the consumer wants to feel that by making that purchase, they are doing something good, beneficial and worthwhile or maybe they deserve the thing they are going to purchase, for they have earned it for themselves. So, the key for marketers is to make the consumer feel that whatever he/she is thinking about purchasing, it is going to be consumed for a genuine purpose (Mason & Wendy n.d.). Information Search: I had decided how I was going to spend my saving. I was going to get a really nice mobile for myself, so now all I had to do was decide on which one I wanted. I surfed on the internet and checked out different models and brands. I had had a very good experience with Nokia therefore, it was my first preference. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t change brands very quickly and I consider myself to be quite brand-loyal. I took a piece of paper and wrote down all the things that I wanted to have in my new cell. Also, I started paying more attention to advertisements. I checked newspapers and magazines and even paid attention to bill boards. I read reviews on the internet of the latest mobiles. Then I checked different internet sites and short listed some sets which I liked and they were in my specified price range as well; besides they were expected to fulfil demands. Another thing I came across was that I didn’t want a simple classic mobile; I preferred flip, slide or best of all touch screen phones. I wrote down the model numbers of the sets that I liked and then went to the mall to see them for myself. That made things much easier for me because holding the sets in my, my views, of the ones I liked and which I didn’t, became much clearer and my list became shorter as some sets were too heavy while some just didn’t have the right look and feel. The shopkeepers were also quite helpful for they guided me as to which sets, out of the ones I had short listed, had the highest sales and why and also which had the lowest sales for various reasons. Also I consulted many of my friends and checked which one had which cell phone and why. They each had their own preferences and reasons for choosing their respective sets. But what I observed was that majority of them were using Nokia. And the second most popular brand was Sony Ericsson. Some had Samsung as well, but Nokia and Sony Ericsson were the most popular. Hence, one thing was clear to me that whichever phone I got, it would be best if it were Nokia or Sony Ericsson. Then something else happened which turned things around a bit. Another friend of mine who had been meaning to change her phone got an iphone. She had been using Sony Ericsson earlier and had been quite satisfied with it but she had had it for quite some time so she had been meaning to treat herself to a new one. Her brother got her an iphone for her birthday and she was thrilled with it. I wasn’t really interested in an iphone because I thought it would be too complicated to use and besides that I had heard its camera wasn’t really good; plus you couldn’t record videos in it. And also it seemed quite fragile. Emergence of a range of alternatives: My friend was really happy with her iphone and she was enjoying it very much. She asked me to try it and see if I liked it. She also told me about its various features and they seemed very attractive to me. There were some features of the iphone which captured my attention. First of all it saved entire conversations, it provided you with the ability to edit pictures, it had motion gaming and if you had Wi-Fi you could download countless applications of every sort. There was practically an application for everything one could come up with. So now the iphone was added to my list of phones. There are many mobile manufacturing companies in the market and a consumer with little sense of what he wants is a good catch for the companies, for they can lure the consumer into buying their product. Now many smaller companies have also come in to the market although it wasn’t easy for them but they too have consumed a chunk of the mobile customers. The new firms which enter a new product market are faced with a massive amount of doubt and competitive insecurity, especially when the market that they are planning to enter is engulfed by drastic technological change. Prospective clientele have little or no experience with products, and during this period of instability, firms try out different product configurations, functions and technologies. (Benner & Tripsas 2010) I was not going to go through all these small companies for I was focusing solely on Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Apple. There was Nokia which had sturdy models and the best thing I liked about them was that they were quite user friendly plus there was my previous experience with Nokia to add to my inclination towards it. Also it had a very large range of models for me to choose from. Next was Sony Ericsson, and its beautifully designed sets were what attracted me the most towards it. They were very attractive and elegant sets and each was better than the last. I was having a hard time limiting myself when choosing this brand for I loved the look and feel of these sets. But my list of requirements made it simpler for me to choose a small number of sets of this company. Evaluation of alternatives: Finally after a lot of research, consulting with family and friends and also searching the internet I had limited my choice even more and I was now down to three models. The three phones I liked and had to now choose from were Nokia N 97, Sony Ericsson Aino and last but not the least Apple iphone. They each had their pros and cons. and I was having a hard time choosing from these three phones. The Nokia N 97 was a nicely designed phone with a metallic body. Its design was very attractive, it was sleek and had a sliding full QWERTY key pad. With a camera button on the side which made taking pictures much easier. The display was good and the screen was wide. Also it had an elegant stylus with it. The memory was gigantic; it was 32GB which was more than enough for me. It was an amazing phone but then it has some draw backs as well. I had expected Nokia to be a very user friendly phone but when I tried it for a while at the shop it seemed very complicated. Plus it was a touch screen phone and I had to really press down on it to select any command but using the stylus was easier. So its touch screen wasn’t very good but it performed better if I used the stylus instead of my fingers. The sliding mechanism was very good as was its camera. It had a 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. Also when I tried listening to a couple of songs on it, the voice quality was crystal clear but it wasn’t very loud. Another thing I found a little complicated was that when making a call if I had to choose a name from the contact list I could either scroll down to it all the way or I could type the name instead but for that I would have to use the physical keyboard, which didn’t seem very practical if I kept my phone closed and tried working with the touch screen only. But with all these pros and cons I still liked the phone although I found it quite complicated but I thought I would get used to it with the passage of time. What made be so unsure about this phone were the reviews that I read about it. Although there were some good ones also but then there were some really discouraging ones as well. The review which really caught my attention was a review that insisted that nobody should purchase this phone. The writer said that he was a diehard Nokia fan but N 97 had shattered his dreams and this would be the last Nokia phone that he would buy for himself. He said that the phone was great but it had too many problems and that the company itself had admitted that this model was a failure in their eyes too. He found the following problems with the phone: Slow in opening and accessing the simplest of things like contacts When you are browsing the web it just closes at random times At times even if no other application is open and one tries to open an application or the photo gallery it gives the message of memory full and then the phone has to be reset. At times it just freezes and gets stuck. He liked the user interface and the camera but other than that it turned out to be a great disappointment. (Silver_Tonic 2010) Then there was the Sony Ericsson Aino. It was a very beautiful touch screen phone. It had a slide-out alphanumeric keypad. The camera was amazing for it was 8 megapixels. It’s a high-tech multimedia phone and has all the applications that a good multimedia phone is expected to have. The wide screen design was rather attractive but a major draw back that I found in it was that one couldn’t perform all the functions required by just using the touch screen for it had limited functionality and the keypad had to be used alongside the touch screen . Also one of my friends had used Aino for a short period before selling it and getting another set instead. She told me that it didn’t give a very good battery time. She had been very happy with the camera but had found the set as a whole rather unsatisfactory for it had constantly got stuck and the screen had blacked out numerous times. So after having spoken with her and also read the reviews on the internet I was unsure if I wanted Aino although it had everything I wanted and I loved the design. Then I read this horrid review about the Aino. For this phone too there were some very encouraging comments and reviews but then after reading the horrible ones I just wasn’t sure anymore if this was what I really wanted. The following review from an individual in Greece caught my attention. According to him it was a fake “Masterpiece" that didn’t live up to its name or the consumers’ expectations from it. It turned out to be slow, it shut down all by itself, the Bluetooth stopped working after a while and the camera worked better at night than at day time. Besides this the autofocus wasn’t very good nor was the flash which over exposed the pictures at times. In his view the company had created a phone that was overpriced yet fancy but they had been unable to satisfy the consumer. He thought it was the worst phone he had ever used. (Mwraitis 2010) My third choice was iphone 3G. Although, 3GS and 4G were also available, but my budget only allowed me to either opt for 3G or 3GS. After some research I found out that the only major difference between these two models was that as 3GS had more memory so it provided you with better speed. I decided on 3GS for I’m not a person who changes phones every two months or so, therefore I thought I should opt for the better model of the two. Although 4g seemed amazing but it was beyond my price range so I crossed it out. Again I asked my friend who had recently switched to iphone how she liked it and she said she loved it so much that even if she bought a new phone in the future it would have to be an Apple iphone, for after having used it she believed she wouldn’t be happy with any other cell phone. When I tried her phone I immediately fell in love with the touch screen. It was very sensitive and the slightest tough made it work. The applications really attracted me and the display was outstanding. She said the battery timing wasn’t superb but looking at the screen I could see why. When I tried different applications on it and tried texting, my fear that it would be too complicated to use vanished into thin air. Although other phones had fun applications too but the ones on this phone were amazing and it set it apart from other cell phones. Then I tried the camera and although the picture quality wasn’t as good as that of either N 97 or Aino, it was still good. Plus the option for video recording was there too. There was just one thing that made be slightly unsure and that was the fact that you cannot send a multimedia message from it. But since I loved it so much I believed I could live without that option. I read reviews on the internet and found them to my satisfaction. The low battery life was some what solved when I chose 3GS over the 3G phone. A superb feature of the Apple iphone 3GS was that it had increased battery timing along with a higher clock speed in the device. With Smartphone, low battery timing has always been a major concern but with the iphone 3GS a user can expect a full day charge. (Thompson 2010) Purchase decision: Having weighed all my various alternatives and options I had narrowed my choice down to three sets N 97, Aino and iphone 3GS. Now after having completed my research on all three cell phones I thought I liked iphone the best. I don’t usually spend so much time on deciding what I want to purchase but when I have to spend such a large amount on something that I’m going to be using for a long period of time, then I believe I have to spend it on something worthwhile. Hence I was satisfied with my decision and couldn’t wait to buy and start using it. Purchase: The next day I went to the mall with my dad and bought myself a brand new Apple iphone 3GS. I felt very happy and proud with my purchase and couldn’t stop smiling all the way back to my house. When I got home I opened the box and took out my beautiful set. It was very sleek, elegant and stylish. The smartest thing was that it had no buttons except for one. Also it wasn’t heavy for it was a classic design with no flip or sliding options. I could access all the applications using only the wide touch screen. And I could download as many applications as I wanted using the Wi-Fi. But I knew very well that I had to be very careful with it for its screen was very sensitive and need to be cautiously used. The first thing I did was that I applied the screen guard to it so as to prevent the screen from scratches. My younger brother presented me with a beautiful fluffy pink pouch for my new cell. I appreciated his gesture very much for in a way this showed me how sorry he was for accidently having broken my old cell phone. I carefully placed it in the pouch, set it aside and hugged my brother appreciatively which made him very happy. Then I put my phone on charging for I could hardly wait to start using it. Post purchase evaluation: After having used the iphone for a couple of weeks I realized that my friend had been right when she said she wouldn’t be happy with any other phone now. It lived up to my expectations and was well worth its price. My brother loved the motion gaming and enjoyed it a lot all the time being careful not to drop it. I love reading books and when I realized I could download books in my phone and read them in it, I was filled with glee. Searching through contacts was very easy and best of all I loved the fact that I could just write the name of an application that I had downloaded and was unable to find and search for it. I found this very helpful because I had downloaded many applications in my cell and in the beginning had a hard time locating which icon was where. The camera was good and I could edit photos and put special effects on them using various softwares. The applications just kept on coming and each was superb in its own way. One very helpful application that made me love my phone even more was the where phone application. If I activated this application in my phone and then placed it somewhere in the room and was unable to find it then all I had to do was whistle and it would ring. Isn’t that just amazing? The phone practically told me where it was. And its only just one of the amazing applications for there are many more that follow right behind. I for one would highly recommend to anyone who is looking to change their cell to get an Apple iphone for you will just love it just like I do. Also having done a research also helps because then you know what you are appending on and also helps you in getting your money’s worth. References Silver_Tonic, 2010. Nokia N 97 Review, Comments [online]. Available at: [Accessed 10 Dec 2010] Mwraitis, K., 2010. Sony Ericsson Aino Consumer Reviews [online]. Available at: [Accessed 10 Dec 2010] Perner, L., 2010. Consumer Behaviour: The Psychology of Marketing [online]. Available at: [Accessed 10 Dec 2010] Benner, J. M. & Tripsas, M., 2010. The Influence of Prior Industry Affiliation on Framing in Nascent Industries: The Evolution of Digital Cameras [online]. Available at: [Accessed 10 Dec 2010] Thompson, J., 2010. iPhone 3GS Review, Battery [online]. Available at: [Accessed on 10 Dec 2010] Read More