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Consumer Behaviour

Notes economics and the prevailing theory was that of an ‘economic man’, assuming that consumers
are rational beings who make objective evaluations about products or services and chose only
those that offer them maximum satisfaction at the lowest cost. Consumer behaviour research is
now used to identify both felt and latent needs, to learn how consumers perceive products,
brands and stores, what their attitudes are before and after promotional campaigns and how and
why they make their purchase decisions.

2.1 Paradigms: Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Consumer research, sometimes known as market research, is the investigation into the driving
forces behind customer behavior, consumer psychology and purchase patterns.
Consumer research falls under marketing activities, as well as in higher education under business
psychology or sociology.

Consumer research is focused on obtaining objective information through statistical sampling
to help businesses craft products and advertising that increase sales and profitability.
Understanding the meaning of consumption is not a simple task. According to A. F. Firat and
Alladi Venkatesh, most studies on consumer behaviour are based on a set of beliefs and
assumptions called positivism or modernism (Table 2.1).
Researchers who support or approve the assumptions of modernism are referred to as positivists.
1. Positivist research methods consist of experiments, survey techniques and observation.
The findings of positivist research are descriptive, empirical and can be generalised to
larger population.
2. The nature of collected data is quantitative for which sophisticated statistical analysis can
be used.
3. Positivism takes the view that if it can't be proven in the laboratory, the data are not useful
and that only information derived from scientific methods should be used in decision-
making.
'Economic man' theory assumed that consumers are logical decision-makers. However,
researchers soon realised that consumers were not always rational and consciously aware of
why they made the decisions they did.
Even in situations when they were fully aware of their basic motivations, consumers were not
always willing to disclose these reasons.
Ernest Ditcher, a Viennese psychoanalyst, began to use Freudian psychoanalytic techniques in
1939 to uncover the unconscious motivations of consumers which by 1950 came to be known as
motivation research.
Today it is widely used by marketers and advertising agencies and consists of projective
techniques and depth interviews. Motivation research is considered to be qualitative research
and is primarily used to identify and obtain new ideas for promotional campaigns.

Marketers and advertising agencies often combine quantitative and qualitative research. They
use qualitative research to gain consumer insights and new ideas and quantitative research to
predict consumer actions based on different promotional inputs.

Many scholars in various disciplines have become more interested in the act of consumption
rather than the act of purchase decision-making. Their interest in consumer experiences has
originated the term experientialism or postmodernism. Experientialism uses qualitative and
other research methods to understand consumer behaviour and is complementary approach to
positivism.

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