Page 179 - DMGT506_CONSUMER_BEHAVIOUR

Consumer Behaviour

Notes that for many important personal consumption products, consumers make attitude-based choices.
For example, for a notebook computer such as Acer’s Ferrari 3000 series, many consumers are
prepared to pay a premium price because of its looks and association with the Ferrari logo.
The purchase decision of certain products is primarily based on affective choice or what we call
feeling-based purchases. For example, a young girl goes to a ready-to-wear clothing store to
buy a dress, she would wear for the annual college dinner. She examines several dresses, tries a
few and finally decides that in one particular dress she looks pretty attractive. She looks forward
to making a great impression in the party and buys that dress. Such choices do not fit well with
either attitude-based or attribute-based criteria and tend to be more holistic in nature. The
brands are not divided into distinct components and each of them is evaluated separately from
the whole. The evaluation is simply based on how the product makes the consumer feel while
he/she is using the product or service. Probably most of us can recall certain purchases we made
based on our overall feelings associated with product usage. Consumers imagine or picture
themselves using the product or service and evaluate the associated feelings that this use will
produce. For example, the ads of some products and personal care services such as mattresses,
undergarments, massage, sauna bath and others aim at stimulating consumers to anticipate
feelings that the consumption experience will produce and base their choice on these anticipated
feelings.
Marketers’ messages must attempt to furnish information and experiences by using suitable
spokespersons to help develop a strong attitude-based position. Marketers’ must also provide
performance levels and supporting information to help those consumers who tend to develop
preference based on attribute-based choice.

Marketing Strategy

Marketers targeting consumers who are likely to use compensatory decision rules for products
and services should nevertheless have performance level at or near the level of competition on
the key features as these are given more weight than important features. In case of compensatory
decisions, the marketer must consider the total mix of the relevant attributes to offer superior
product compared to those of the competitor.
Marketers may sometimes want to change consumers’ approach to making a decision. For
instance, if most consumers are believed to be using a compensatory decision approach and the
competitor has a major weakness, switching consumers to non-compensatory approach may be
advantageous. By convincing consumers not to accept a lower level of an important attribute
(such as price), a marketer can sometimes encourage consumers to reject competitors from
consideration. For example, Zenith PC has attacked competitors with low priced PCs, attempting
to get consumers to reject other branded computers on the basis of high price. Maruti Udyog
Limited has attacked competitors with considerable reduction of price of its Maruti 800 model.
When consumers are rejecting a brand with a non-compensatory decision approach, marketers
can attempt to encourage them to adopt compensatory decision approach and convince them
that the brand’s key attributes compensate for less important negatives.

Task Determine from five of your friends the list of products/brands they have
in their evoked set, inept set an inert set for the following products/services:
(a) Detergents (b) Anti-dandruff shampoo (c) Deodorant (d) Airlines

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