Module 3
Consumer Decision Making – Overview of consumer
behavior, Understand the consumer buying decision process
– problem recognition, Information search, Evaluation of
alternatives, Purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation.
Creating marketing messages targeted at business buyers
• The primary goal
of an IMC
program is to
persuade people
to buy goods
and services.
• To do that we
need to
understand how
people make
decisions to buy
Persuading people to them.
purchase goods and
services
Consumer Purchasing Process
• Marketing
communications
help in
influencing
consumer
purchasing
decisions.
Consumer Decision Making Process
Problem
Recognition
Information
Search
Evaluation of
Alternatives
Purchase
Decision
Post-purchase
Evaluation
Need Recognition
Internal Stimulus External stimulus
(Environmental)
NEED RECOGNITION (PROBLEM RECOGNITION)
1) CAN BE DUE TO INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL STIMULI.
2) DEPENDS ON MAGNITUDE OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
ACTUAL STATE (AS) & DESIRED STATE (DS) &
IMPORTANCE OF PROBLEM.
AS – the way the needs are currently met
DS – the way consumer wants to satisfy his needs
(aspirational)
Problem recognition occurs either due to change in desired state,
change in actual state or due to change in both the states.
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Need Recognition
Problem recognition
Dissatisfaction
with the actual
state
Stimulate Problem recognition – Attempt to create a new ideal state (Here in this ad
6% is the new ideal state)
Creating a
new ideal
state
Retail ads targeting Actual State and Desired State
Create new needs/make customer aware of
need not addressed before
Information Search
CONSUMER SEARCHES FOR INTERNAL SEARCH – IF THE PREVIOUS
MENTALLY RECALLS EXPERIENCE DOES NOT
RECOGNIZES A INFORMATION HELP, A MORE
NEED PRODUCTS THAT
COMPLETE INTERNAL
MEET THE NEED AND SEARCH WILL HAVE TO
MAY MAKE A FOLLOW. THIS INCLUDES
DECISION MEMORIES OF PAST
EXPERIENCES AS WELL
AS THE EXAMINATION
OF OTHER BRANDS.
From the IMC perspective, the search process is an
important time to reach the customer with information
about a brand
Where does your brand stand in the
consumers' mind?
THE CONSUMER MAY REMOVE BRANDS THE BRAND MANAGERS AND CREATIVES
THAT DID NOT SATISFY HIM ON EARLIER SHOULD HENCE MAKE SURE THAT THE
OCCASIONS AND ELIMINATE BRANDS COMPANY’S BRANDS WOULD BECOME
WHICH HE DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT IN PART OF THE CONSUMER’S SET OF
DETAIL. POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVES. AND IN TOP OF
MIND AWARENESS
Top of the mind awareness
• If the consumer is uncertain about
the right brand to buy based on the
internal search, the external search
follows.
• External information comes from
friends, relatives, peers, experts,
books, magazines, newspapers,
External advertisements, PR activities, store
displays, sales-people, and the
Search Internet.
• The amount of time a consumer
spends on the external search
depends upon:
1. Ability to search
2. Motivation to search
3. Costs versus benefits
Ability to Search, Motivation level and Cost vs
Benefit
Ability to search
• Increases with education level
• Generally increases with specific knowledge about the product and brand category
• But both ends of the spectrum show less interest in searching
Level of motivation
• Level of involvement- might depend on how important is the product for the consumer. For
example shopping for casual clothes vs shopping for outfit for a special occasion
• Need for cognition – is a personality characteristic an individual displays when he/she
engages in and enjoys mental activities.
• Level of shopping enthusiasm
Cost Vs Benefit
• Perceived costs vs the perceived benefits
• The actual cost of the good or service
• Opportunity cost of forgoing other activities to search for information (going shopping
instead of attending a marriage or watching a cricket match on TV)
Major Influences in Consumer Decision-
making Process
• The right time for the marketers to influence the
decision-making process is when the customer has not
made up his/her mind. The key is to provide the right
information at the right time in the right manner.
• We may examine three important concepts at this
point of time:
(1) Attitude
(2) Values
(3) Cognitive Mapping
Consumer Attitude
• Is a mental position taken toward a topic, person, or
event that influences the holder’s feelings,
perceptions, learning process, and subsequent
decisions.
• From the IMC point of view, attitudes can drive
purchase decisions.
• Attitude consists of three components: Affective,
Cognitive, and Conative
• Cognitive (behavioral) component –
refers to a person’s mental images,
understandings, and interpretations
of the person, object, or issue.
Attitude • Affective component- contains the
feelings or emotions of a person
regarding an object, topic, or idea
• Conative component – is an
individual’s intentions, actions, or
behavior.
Cognitive Affective Conative
Most of the time, a person develops an understanding about an
idea or object. These thoughts emerge from watching TV or
newspaper, Internet ads. or word of mouth. Eventually these
ideas become beliefs the consumer will have about a product or
service.
Affective component
The affective part of the attitude
is the general feeling or
emotion a person attaches to
the idea. In the case of goods
and services the product, its
name, and other features all
generate emotions. Consider
one’s emotional reactions to
following:
• Cadbury chocolates
• Harley Davidson
• Political parties
Conative
Decision and action tendencies are the
conative parts of attitudes.
If someone feels very strongly offended by an
article in a news magazine, he may cancel
subscription to that magazine.
Though many a time, attitudes are not held that
strongly.
Attitudes can develop in other ways too:
Affective Conative Cognitive
The goal here is to make the consumer “like” a product and
then make the purchase (the conative component). Conitive
mechanism follows.
Conative Cognitive Affective
Purchase that require little thought, have a low price, or
those that do not require a great deal of emotional
involvement may follow this path.
Consumer Values
• Attitudes are partly shaped by one’s values
which are strongly held beliefs about topics or
concepts.
• Values tend to be enduring and normally form
during childhood, although they can change as
a person ages and experiences life.
• If a good / service can be tied to a relatively
universal value, such as patriotism, love, etc. it
gains positive image.
Common Personal Values
• Honesty • Equality
• Loyalty • Freedom
• Commitment • Happiness
• Self Reliance • Inner peace
• Punctuality • Personal
• Excellence accomplishment
• Concern for others • Security
• Self-fulfillment
• Self-respect
Cognitive Mapping
• Individuals store information in different ways and it
impacts the way in which information is recalled.
• Cognitive map is a type of mental representation
which helps an individual to acquire, code, store,
recall, and decode information about the relative
attributes of phenomena in their everyday life.
• Marketing communication managers should hence
understand how various processes and memories
work.
Cognitive maps
• These are simulations of the knowledge structures and
memories embedded in individuals’ brains.
• These structures contain assumptions, beliefs,
interpretation of facts, feelings, and attitudes about the
larger world.
• People use these thought processes to interpret new
information and to determine an appropriate response
to fresh information or a novel situation.
Hamburger
Restaurants
Great Food
Dine-In
Fast Foods
Applebee’s
Ruby Tuesday
Little Caesar’s
Pizza Excellent
Service
Pizza Hut
Mel’s Diner
Slow
Cognitive Map for Ruby Tuesday
Cognitive Mapping
Customer has an image of Ruby Tuesday as:
• One that gives dine-in service
• One that gives excellent service
• One that offers slow service like that of Mel’s Diner
Cognitive structures contain many linkages and exist on several spatial levels and
conjure images of the actual physical location of Ruby Tuesday.
Processing New Information: When customer gets some information or sees an
ad, The information is processed in a few different ways:
• New information if consistent with old information would strengthen an
existing link
• When a message has no current linkages, consumer’s response would be
different – Example: Customer for the first time notices that Ruby Tuesday
offers a good range of Sea Food
Roles of Marketing Messages in Cognitive Mapping
Strengthen current linkage
Marketing Modify current linkage
Messages
Create new linkage
Strengthening linkages will be easier
Adding new linkages or modifying them will be
far more difficult
Strengthening
current linkages
• Hearing something
once usually, may not
get into the long-term
memory
• Short term memory
retains only five to nine
pieces of information –
new messages are soon
forgotten or forms part
of long-term memory
• Repetitions of
messages may get
processed into long-
term memory
Creating Linkages – Tommy Hilfiger
successful launch 1985
New Concepts
• Another way a consumer can process
information is to link message to a new
concept
Evaluation of Alternatives
• Third step in consumer-buying decision
process
Evoked Set
Problem Information Evaluation
Multi-
Recognition Search of attribute
Alternatives
Affect
Referral
Evoked set method
• Evoked set consists of the brands the
customer will consider during the
purchasing situation
• An evoked set might be reviewed both
at information search and evaluation
stages
• The inept set - the brands that are part
of the memory but not considered as
they elicit negative feelings – caused by
bad experiences, inferior quality etc.
• The inert set - the brands which the
customer may not have negative or
positive feelings (indifferent).
• Marketing messages must place the
brand name in the evoked sets of the
consumer – requires active promotion
of the brand
The Multi-attribute approach
• Most useful in the case of high involvement purchase
situations
• The model suggests that consumers display attitude toward a
brand is determined by:
A. The brand’s performance on product or brand attributes
B. The importance of each attribute to the consumer
The higher a brand rates on attributes, more likely the customer
would buy it
Multi attribute model
STRATEGIES FOR MARKETERS
• MODIFY THE BRAND – REAL
REPOSITIONING
• ALTER BELIEFS ABOUT THE
BRAND – PSYCHOLOGICAL
REPOSITIONING
• ALTER BELIEFS ABOUT
COMPETITOR’S BRAND –
COMPETITIVE DEPOSITIONING
• ALTER IMPORTANCE
WEIGHTS
• CALL ATTENTION TO
NEGLECTED ATTRIBUTES
Affect referral
• Suggests that consumers choose brands they like best or the
ones with which they have emotional connections (AFFECT IS
POSITIVE)
• May not look closely at the attributes but the ones that incite
positive feelings – soft drinks, chewing gum and candy – are
examples
• These have typically low-level involvement – it also explains
the purchases of highly priced and “socially visible products”
• It may also be that the consumer has previously selected the
brand after evaluation through a multi-attribute approach. So
for further purchases an affect referral process is used.
PURCHASE DECISION
AFFECTED BY
• PERCEIVED RISK
• ATTITUDE OF OTHERS
• UNANTICIPATED SITUATIONAL FACTORS
1. PROVIDING INFORMATION & ASSISTANCE
– E.G. DEMONSTRATION
2. UNDERSTANDING USER’S CONSUMPTION
SYSTEM
3. WARRANTIES – POWERFUL MARKETING
TOOL
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POST-PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR
• POST PURCHASE EVALUATION (NEUTRAL, POSITIVE
DISCONFIRMATION AND NEGATIVE DISCONFIRMATION)
• DISPOSAL
• FEEDBACK, WOM, REPEAT PURCHASE, LOYALTY
• COGNITIVE DISSONANCE – OCCURS WHEN CONSUMER
HOLDS CONFLICTING THOUGHTS ABOUT AN OBJECT.
WHEN IT OCCURS AFTER PURCHASE IT IS CALLED POST
PURCHASE DISSONANCE
• CONSUMERS CAN REDUCE DISSONANCE BY –
RATIONALIZING THEIR DECISION, SEEK
ADVERTISEMENTS THAT SUPPORT CHOICE, SELL FRIENDS
ON POSITIVE FEATURES AND LOOK TO SATISFIED
OWNERS
• POST- PURCHASE SATISFACTION HIGHER AMONG ELDER,
LESS EDUCATED, MEN, MORE CONFIDENT & COMPETENT
DECISION –MAKERS
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Trends in consumer Buying
behavior
Age complexity
Gender Complexity
Active Busy lifestyles
Diverse Lifestyles
Communication revolution
Experience pursuits
Health Emphasis
