The Role of Consumer Behavior in Marketing Strategies - Assignment Example

Consumer Behavior Word Count: 2719 Introduction: The topic concerning consumer behavior has, in the recent years, gained more importance, particularly in terms of its use in marketing. Different marketing plans and activities are capable of being determined with the help of an understanding of consumer behavior. Concepts of marketing and the behaviors of consumers are involved under this concept, along with seven Ps of marketing, segmentations, relationship marketing, and marketing planning as well. The term consumer behavior has been defined to be those activities that consumers embark on while they obtain, consume and dispose off any products available in the market. Thus a study and understanding of this topic can be realized to be of most value to the marketers who need to understand the behavior of the consumers in order to target their minds accordingly (Blythe, 2008, pp.3-8). The need for understanding the behavior of the consumers is mostly needed by marketers since it helps to identify the psychology of the consumers for particular products available in the market. Also the influence of the products and their brands on the consumers can be determined. This enables the marketers to identify and target their customers accordingly realizing their choices and preferences, their lifestyles, their income and ways of expenditure, and mentalities towards particular products or services (Role of Consumer Behaviour in Marketing, 2012). An important feature of marketing is the marketing mix that refers to the plans and ideas combined and represented by marketing representative intending to promote a specific product or a brand. The different elements of marketing mix include, in association with the product, the product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence (Marketing Mix- Meaning and Its Elements, 2012). The present study focuses on an understanding of the marketing stimuli that influences consumer behavior, the marketing mix stimuli that are formed in order to influence the behavior and responses of the consumers, their obvious behaviors, their emotions and feelings in association with products available in the markets. In other words, the cognitive response, affective response and behavioral responses of the consumers would be studies. Marketing Mix and Cognitive Response of Consumers: Cognitive response of a human being refers to the behavior that emerges from persuasive communication with another party (Cognitive Response Theory, 2000). Thus in regard to marketing and the use of marketing mix, the cognitive response of the consumer can b realized to be the one that is obtained as a result of the persuasion that the marketing mix is capable of presenting in front of the consumers. There are different theoretical approaches to understand the behavior of consumers. One of these is the cognitive approach. This approach attributes behavior or the action that may be observed to intrapersonal cognition. In this regard, an individual is considered as a processor of information. It is observed and discussed that the environment as well as the social knowledge that an individual experiences are influential on the behavior of the consumer. In other words, the environmental and social stimuli are received by the consumers as inputs for different products depending on which their purchasing decisions may vary (Bray, n.d., p.6). A response model may be illustrated as provided in the following figure: Figure 1: Stilumus-Organism- Response Model of Decision Making (Bray, n.d., p.7). According to the above figure, there lies a linear relationship between the stages of stimuli, organism and response where the external stimuli that act upon the individuals include the environment and society. Studies by modern theorists “acknowledge that information processing is conducted by an active organism whose past experience will influence not only the processing of such information but even what information is sought and received” (Bray, n.d., p.7). There are four fundamental reasons that enable the cognitive approach to assist in understanding the nature of consumer behavior. These include: Its proximity to the reasonable elucidations of daily communications formulate an instinctively striking medium that offers clarifications of behaviors on a daily basis like purchasing and consuming The capability of consumers to explain their knowledge and understanding with respect to their outlooks, requirements, wants and intentions makes certain that a justification proceeds in the same manner as the account of what has been clarified It carries an assessment of harmony and agreement to a field of investigation that is still immature in nature The widespread use “made by other social science and humanity disciplines of cognitive explanation has assisted the conceptual development of this line of consumer research by making possible the borrowing of theoretical and methodological inputs” (Bray, n.d., p.8). The concept of cognition involves the mental construction and developments that involves an individual in opinions, understanding, and realizing stimuli and actions. It includes the information, significance, and viewpoints that consumers have obtained from their experiences and that has been stored up in their minds. The processes related to significantly considering and realizing stimuli and events, keeping past events in memory, outlining assessments, and considering decisions of buying as well as of customer preferences are included under this concept. “Although many aspects of cognition are conscious thinking processes, others are essentially automatic. Marketers often try to increase consumers’ attention to products and their knowledge about them. For example, Volvo ads often feature detailed information about the safety features of the cars to increase consumers’ knowledge and the chances that they will buy Volvos” (A Framework for Consumer Analysis, n.d., p.21). Studies reveal that research in advertising has proved that consumers respond effectively to persuasive images. It has been obtained that in comparison to radio or any other media, the television has been more influential on consumers for the purpose of broadcasting. Thus consumers have significant involvement as they bring out the differences of the effects of television media against the radio or other print media. Several advertising response models reflect on the fact that the level of involvement of the consumers has the capability to influence both the “amount and the quality of the consumer’s cognitive response” (Buchholz & Smith, 1991, pp.4-7). Thus it can be realized that depending on the exposure of the products as planned by a marketing mix stimuli, the influences, involvement and effects on the consumers may vary. Hence the marketing mix stimuli can be said to be used to influence the knowledge and beliefs of the consumers and effectively achieves the cognitive responses as well. Marketing Mix and Affective Response of Consumers: The affective approach of understating the behavior of consumers involves realizing the influences of marketing mix stimuli on the feelings and emotions of the consumers. It has been observed that in most cases consumers tend to depend on their beliefs, feelings and emotions in order to evaluate products available in the market. It is much later that they focus on the performance of the particular brand in terms of their attributes. When marketers make use of affective strategies as part of their marketing mix stimuli, affective responses are experienced by the consumers. This leads to emotional reactions obtained from the consumers to communications reflected from marketing measures. They also tend to anticipate about the feeling that the product might give to them or how the brand might develop their self understanding and beliefs on the concept (Lantos, 2010, p.534). The affective responses of consumers may be encouraging or not and show a discrepancy in strength. For example, “affect includes relatively intense emotions such as love or anger, less strong feeling states such as satisfaction or frustration, moods such as boredom or relaxation, and milder overall attitudes such as liking McDonald’s french fries or disliking Bic pens” (Consumer Analysis, 2012). Marketers characteristically build up strategies to form encouraging effect of consumers for their products and brands to augment the probability that consumers will buy them (Consumer Analysis, 2012). Recent advertisements of cars from BMW i3 and i8 have made it clear that emotion is one of the significant driving factors that attract consumers towards a particular product. “Marketing performance is sub-par across the board, with everything from ad recall to customer loyalty declining” (Zorfas, 2012). Satisfaction of customers that was the traditional gold standard for commitment between the brand and its customers is no longer significant like before. The traditional market patterns and its value have now become too slow and too costly. This is particularly because in the present times of rapidity marketers need information on which they can act immediately. “The economics of emotion are so powerful in driving consumers to buy, pay more and spread the word that leading companies are already replacing customer satisfaction with “emotional connection” as a KPI” (Zorfas, 2012). Several companies in the present times are using behavioral analytics, or personalization, to provide consumers with better services. The concept of using earlier history of purchases and profile information has been made popular by Netflix and Amazon to advocate products to their customers. This has been found to be successful in several cases. “If a customer adds a digital camera to his shopping cart, he will probably be interested in the camera case his online retailer suggests” (Zorfas, 2012). This class of intellect can immensely progress online retailing, benefitting both the consumer and the marketer (Zorfas, 2012). In recent times, the process of personalization not only makes recommendations on the purchase and use of products depending on the history of purchases, but it also focuses on trying to foretell the next action that the customer might consider. “Micro-behaviors on the web, such as mouse hovers, search terms and scrolls, are being used in an attempt to predict future engagement. Those behaviors certainly help marketers to better merchandise selection to shoppers and capture their preferences” (Zorfas, 2012). Also, the affective behavior or response of consumers can be proved through the recent data obtained from Motista. Based on this data, it could be obtained that “the top emotional drivers behind retail purchases in 2011 Q4 were more motivated by “fun” and “comfort in life,” reflecting an emotional need they want from their retailers” (Zorfas, 2012). The information also presented a comparison between satisfied consumers against the emotionally connected consumers, “and forty-six percent of emotionally connected shoppers indicated they always shop a particular retailer first compared to only 13 percent of “satisfied” shoppers. In other words, emotionally connected shoppers are four times more likely to shop a particular retailer first” (Zorfas, 2012). Marketing Mix and Behavioral Response of Consumers: Behaviorism reflects certain philosophies that consider behavior to be explained by external actions and all actions and activities of living organisms including their feelings and emotions are regarded as their behaviors. Thus it is said that the cause of any particular behavior of an individual is depended on the external factors. In this regard, classical conditioning was studied by Ivan Pavlov; introspective methods were rejected by John Watson, while the operant conditioning was developed by Burrhus Skinner. These models were applicable to the understanding of behavioral aspects of human beings, and hence applicable in consumer behavior as well (Bray, n.d., p.5). As far as behavioral responses are concerned, studies reveal that marketing mix, plans and strategies are focused on affect and cognition such that behavioral responses may be obtained from the individual. This is done particularly for new products. In the process, the nature and characteristics of the products are made available to the customers, also providing along the benefits, and other purchase details of the products. A positive effect on the consumers is tried to be formed on the mind of the consumer. “For example, when JCPenney developed its Diahann Carroll line of women’s clothes and its Nefertiti Collection of African prints, it sought to create positive affect for its stores with African-American women consumers. In other cases, marketers focus more on behavioral responses initially for new products. For example, free samples of a new soap or toothpaste are mailed to consumers to generate trial” (Peter, 2007, p.236). Further studies made in details reflect that customers, when dissatisfied with the quality or services of any particular product, express their feelings in the form of behavioral responses. An organization’s profitability may be affected as a result of these responses. In order to model the impact of emotion on the levels of satisfaction of the customers and hence their behavioral responses, there are two approaches that may be used- the valence based approach and the specific emotions approach. It is necessary to use these approaches in distinguished manner. Dissatisfactions and emotions of customers when studied reflected the impact of emotions on consumer behavior that was obtained in addition to the feelings of dissatisfaction (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2004, pp.445-452). Behavioral responses may be related to the marketing mix of an organization for specific products as feelings of regret have been obtained in cases where better alternatives were available. Thus customers had the opportunities to switch their preferences towards other products. Moreover, a relation between the dissatisfaction and the complaints was also obtained. Customers are found to be dissatisfied mostly when others are found to be responsible for providing the customers with a bad experience of the product (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2004, pp.445-452). Thus it can be understood that the behavioral responses of consumers are largely dependent on their levels of satisfaction from the products. Relationship among Affect and Cognition, Behavior and Environment: As far as relationships between affect, cognition, behavior and environment are concerned, studies reveal that any of these may be the cause or the effect arising from some changes in one or more components related to marketing mix.  “For example, a consumer sees an ad for a new laundry detergent that promises to clean clothes better than Tide. This ad changes what the consumer thinks about the new brand and leads to a purchase of it. In this case, a change in the consumer’s environment (the ad for the new detergent) led to a change in cognition (the consumer believed the new detergent was better), which led to a change in behavior (the consumer bought the new brand)” (Consumer Analysis, 2012). If consumer processes can be observed as a mutual system connecting affect and cognition, behavior, then the environment can be found to have implications. Firstly, any wide-ranging investigation of consumers needs to reflect on all three fundamentals and the associations between them. Secondly, any of these elements may initiate the point for examination of the consumer.  Thirdly, the observation being forceful, it is familiar with that consumers can incessantly modify. Fourthly, consumer analysis is applicable at different levels and on different types of consumers.  Finally, this structure for analyzing consumers emphasizes on the significance of consumer research and analysis such that efficient marketing strategies may be built up (Consumer Analysis, 2012). The best possible solution to this is to first investigate and examine what “consumers think, feel, and do relative to a company’s offerings and those of competitors” (Consumer Analysis, 2012). Besides, an investigation of environments around the consumers is also initiated that helps to determine the factors that are at present controlling them. Depending on this research and analysis, marketing plans or the marketing mix for the product may be developed setting the objectives accordingly, indicating a suitable target market, and developing a marketing mix (product, promotion, price, place) to influence it. “After the target market has been selected based on careful analysis of key differences in groups of consumers, marketing strategies involve placing stimuli in the environment that hopefully will become part of the target market’s environment and ultimately influence its members’ behavior” (Consumer Analysis, 2012). Conclusion: From the above study, it can be concluded that consumer behavior is one of the most significant factor as far as deciding on marketing strategies is concerned. Depending on the behaviors and responses of the consumers over particular products, organizations would be capable to consider their marketing mix accordingly such that they can target their market and attract customers accordingly in an effective manner. In this regard it can be mentioned here that the responses of the consumers may be cognitive, affective or behavioral, with these factors being in relationships with one another. The study has given evidences that prove that the marketing mix stimuli is used by different organizations and brands in order to influence consumers and consumers are actually influenced as well. Thus marketers can effectively make use of marketing mix towards trying to gain greater number of consumers for their products. References A Framework for Consumer Analysis (n.d.), highered, available at: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073404764/792077/Sample_Chapter_02.pdf (accessed on November 29, 2012) Blythe, J. 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