Wednesday, 9 February 2022
Consumer Behaviour & Marketing
Action
CM2072
Week 2
Chapter 9: Decision Making
What’s Your Problem?
- Every consumer decision we make is a response to a problem
- Because some purchase decisions are more important than others, the amount of
effort we put into each differs. Sometimes the decision-making process is almost
automatic; we seem to make snap judgments based on little information. At other
times it resembles a full-time job.
- Purchase momentum - occurs when our initial impulse purchases actually increase
the likelihood that we will buy even more (instead of less as we satisfy our needs);
it’s like we get revved up and plunge into a spending spree
Hyperchoice: Too Much of a Good Thing!
- Things get even more complicated when we realise just how many choices we have
to make in today’s information-rich environment - our biggest problem is having too
many choices not too few
- Consumer hyperchoice - forces us to make repeated decisions that may drain
psychological energy while decreasing our abilities to make smart
- The perspective of constructive processing argues that we evaluate the effort we’ll
need to make a particular choice and then tailor the amount of cognitive
- We can actually create a mental budget that helps us to estimate what we will
consume over time so that we can regulate what we do in the present.
Self-Regulation
1
, Wednesday, 9 February 2022
- A person’s efforts to change or maintain his or her actions over time, whether these
involve dieting, living on a budget, or training to run a marathon, involve careful
planning that is a form of self-regulation
- If we have a self-regulatory strategy, this means that we specify in advance how we
want to respond in certain situations. These “if-then” plans or implementation
intentions may dictate how much weight we give to different kinds of information
(emotional or cognitive), a timetable to carry out a decision, or even how we will deal
with disruptive influences that might interfere with our plans
- Consumers engage in counteractive construal when they exaggerate the negative
aspects of behaviours that will interfere with the ultimate goal
- Types of motivation
1. Promotion motivation encourages people to focus on hopes and aspirations
2. Prevention motivation instead focuses on responsibilities and duties as it
prompts people to think about avoiding something negative.
- These applications provide a feedback loop to help with self-regulation. The basic
premise is amazingly simple: Provide people with information about their actions in
real time, and then give them a chance to change those actions so that you push
them to improve.
- E.g. Fitbit, or Apps for Dieters
Cognitive Decisions Making
- Traditionally, consumer researchers approached decision making from a rational
perspective. According to this view, people calmly and carefully integrate as much
information as possible with what they already know about a product, painstakingly
weigh the pluses and minuses of each alternative, and arrive at a satisfactory
decision.
Steps in the Cognitive Decision-Making Process
1. Problem recognition
- E.g. Problem recognition occurs at what Ford terms the upper funnel, when we
experience a significant difference between our current state of affairs and some
state we desire.
- Though the product you already have does not change, users undergo standard of
comparison, and as a result, consumers have a new problem to solve
- Need comparison —> opportunity recognition
2. Information search
- Information search is the process by which we survey the environment for
appropriate data to make a reasonable decision. You might recognize a need and
then search the market- place for specific information (a process we call
prepurchase search).
- “Newbies” who know little about a product should be the most motivated to find
out more about it.
- Novice consumers may process information in a “top-down” rather than a
“bottom-up” manner; they focus less on details than on the big picture.
2
, Wednesday, 9 February 2022
- Experts are more familiar with the product category, and thus they should be
better able to understand the meaning of any new product information they might
acquire.
- Experts have a better sense of what information is relevant to the decision so
they engage in selective search, where their efforts are more focused and
efficient.
- A filter bubble occurs when the broadcast media, websites, and social media
platforms we consult serve up answers based upon what they “think” we want to
see.
3. Evaluation of alternatives
- We call the alternatives a consumer knows about the evoked set and the ones
they seriously consider the consideration set.
4. Product choice
- Experts call this spiral of complexity feature creep. Products are getting more
complex with book-length manuals and mysterious features. We must realise the
virtue of simplicity.
- E.g. Philips Electronics found that at least half of the products buyers return
have nothing wrong with them; consumers simply couldn’t understand how to
use them! What’s worse, on average the buyer spent only 20 minutes trying to
figure out how to use the product and then gave up.
5. Post-purchase Evaluation
- Postpurchase evaluation closes the loop; it occurs when we experience the
product or service we selected and decide whether it meets (or maybe even
exceeds) our expectations
3
Consumer Behaviour & Marketing
Action
CM2072
Week 2
Chapter 9: Decision Making
What’s Your Problem?
- Every consumer decision we make is a response to a problem
- Because some purchase decisions are more important than others, the amount of
effort we put into each differs. Sometimes the decision-making process is almost
automatic; we seem to make snap judgments based on little information. At other
times it resembles a full-time job.
- Purchase momentum - occurs when our initial impulse purchases actually increase
the likelihood that we will buy even more (instead of less as we satisfy our needs);
it’s like we get revved up and plunge into a spending spree
Hyperchoice: Too Much of a Good Thing!
- Things get even more complicated when we realise just how many choices we have
to make in today’s information-rich environment - our biggest problem is having too
many choices not too few
- Consumer hyperchoice - forces us to make repeated decisions that may drain
psychological energy while decreasing our abilities to make smart
- The perspective of constructive processing argues that we evaluate the effort we’ll
need to make a particular choice and then tailor the amount of cognitive
- We can actually create a mental budget that helps us to estimate what we will
consume over time so that we can regulate what we do in the present.
Self-Regulation
1
, Wednesday, 9 February 2022
- A person’s efforts to change or maintain his or her actions over time, whether these
involve dieting, living on a budget, or training to run a marathon, involve careful
planning that is a form of self-regulation
- If we have a self-regulatory strategy, this means that we specify in advance how we
want to respond in certain situations. These “if-then” plans or implementation
intentions may dictate how much weight we give to different kinds of information
(emotional or cognitive), a timetable to carry out a decision, or even how we will deal
with disruptive influences that might interfere with our plans
- Consumers engage in counteractive construal when they exaggerate the negative
aspects of behaviours that will interfere with the ultimate goal
- Types of motivation
1. Promotion motivation encourages people to focus on hopes and aspirations
2. Prevention motivation instead focuses on responsibilities and duties as it
prompts people to think about avoiding something negative.
- These applications provide a feedback loop to help with self-regulation. The basic
premise is amazingly simple: Provide people with information about their actions in
real time, and then give them a chance to change those actions so that you push
them to improve.
- E.g. Fitbit, or Apps for Dieters
Cognitive Decisions Making
- Traditionally, consumer researchers approached decision making from a rational
perspective. According to this view, people calmly and carefully integrate as much
information as possible with what they already know about a product, painstakingly
weigh the pluses and minuses of each alternative, and arrive at a satisfactory
decision.
Steps in the Cognitive Decision-Making Process
1. Problem recognition
- E.g. Problem recognition occurs at what Ford terms the upper funnel, when we
experience a significant difference between our current state of affairs and some
state we desire.
- Though the product you already have does not change, users undergo standard of
comparison, and as a result, consumers have a new problem to solve
- Need comparison —> opportunity recognition
2. Information search
- Information search is the process by which we survey the environment for
appropriate data to make a reasonable decision. You might recognize a need and
then search the market- place for specific information (a process we call
prepurchase search).
- “Newbies” who know little about a product should be the most motivated to find
out more about it.
- Novice consumers may process information in a “top-down” rather than a
“bottom-up” manner; they focus less on details than on the big picture.
2
, Wednesday, 9 February 2022
- Experts are more familiar with the product category, and thus they should be
better able to understand the meaning of any new product information they might
acquire.
- Experts have a better sense of what information is relevant to the decision so
they engage in selective search, where their efforts are more focused and
efficient.
- A filter bubble occurs when the broadcast media, websites, and social media
platforms we consult serve up answers based upon what they “think” we want to
see.
3. Evaluation of alternatives
- We call the alternatives a consumer knows about the evoked set and the ones
they seriously consider the consideration set.
4. Product choice
- Experts call this spiral of complexity feature creep. Products are getting more
complex with book-length manuals and mysterious features. We must realise the
virtue of simplicity.
- E.g. Philips Electronics found that at least half of the products buyers return
have nothing wrong with them; consumers simply couldn’t understand how to
use them! What’s worse, on average the buyer spent only 20 minutes trying to
figure out how to use the product and then gave up.
5. Post-purchase Evaluation
- Postpurchase evaluation closes the loop; it occurs when we experience the
product or service we selected and decide whether it meets (or maybe even
exceeds) our expectations
3
