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Retail Business Environment

Notes Emotional Arousal: Sometimes latent needs are stimulated because a person gets involved
in thinking or daydreaming about them. This occurs when consumers deliberate about
unfulfilled needs. For example, a young man who wants to become a cricket player may
identify with Sachin Tendulkar and use products endorsed by him commercially.

Cognitive Arousal: Sometimes just random thoughts may stimulate arousal of needs. An
ad “home away from home” may remind a person of home and he may suddenly become
aware of his need to call his wife or children.

Situational Arousal: A certain situation confronting a consumer may also trigger arousal.
This can occur when the situation attracts attention to an existing bodily condition.
For example, seeing an ad of Coca Cola or a display suddenly makes one aware of being
thirsty. The need would have been present but was not strong enough to trigger arousal.
Similarly, seeing an ad or a kitchen gadget in use may activate the need to buy that gadget.

9.4 Motivation Research

Consumers just do not buy products or services. Instead, they actually buy motive satisfaction
or problem solutions. It has been noted that motives influence consumers’ purchase behaviour
and in many cases some motives may not reach the consumer’s consciousness. Motives are
hypothetical constructs and no one has ever tangibly observed them. Due to this reason any
method of motive measurement cannot be considered as completely reliable.

Did u know? Dr. Ernest Ditcher and James Vicary were among the first to use motivation
research by adopting psychoanalytic techniques such as depth interview and projective
techniques.
Marketers were fascinated by explanations offered for consumer behaviour and before long
almost every advertising agency on Madison Avenue had a psychologist to conduct motivational
studies.
The term motivation research refers to a type of marketing research (qualitative research)
employed to uncover subconscious motivations of consumers that influence their behaviour. It
seeks to discover and comprehend what consumers do not fully understand about them. It also
attempts to identify forces and influences that consumers may not be aware of such as cultural
factors and sociological forces that influence their behaviour. Typically, these below-awareness
or unconsciousness motives are interlinked and complicated by conscious motives, cultural
biases, economic variables, and fashion trends.
Motivation research is particularly useful when it is suspected that underlying motives are
exerting upon consumer behaviour. Products or services that relate or might relate to attraction
of opposite sex, to become more beautiful and attractive, to status or self-esteem, to power, to
fears, or to social taboos are apparently good reasons for motivational research. Even
low-involvement product categories can often benefit from the insights gained by motivational
research. Typically, in low involvement product categories, perception variables and cultural
influences are most important. For example, how we squeeze a tube of toothpaste, open packages,
and who does what work, etc. Most of us are relatively unaware of these cultural rules.
Understanding how these cultural rules influence a particular product can be extremely useful
information for the marketer.
The methods used (three major motivation research techniques include observation, focus group,
and depth interviews) involve disguised and indirect techniques to probe consumer’s feelings,
attitudes, and emotions concerning a product, or service, without triggering defence mechanisms
that can lead to misleading results.

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