MKT3x: Buyer Behaviour and Analysis
Key issue of Gillette and ways that the Gillette has done this
Gillette recalled 87,000 Venus Simply3 disposable razors because of manufacturing error made
the blades more likely to cut people during normal use. When it comes to shaving, a sharp razor
is usually a good thing, but not always (Lowe 2019). According to the recall, misaligned blades
may increase the risk of cuts during shaving since a customer has reportedly experienced this
side effect. The retail price of these razors is between US$6 and US$10 and has been sold from
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January 2019 to May 2019 (Rearick 2019). Product failures often lead to recalls, which affect
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the company’s reputation, sales, and financial value (Chen, Ganesan and Liu 2009). When the
company makes a spontaneous decision to reverse the statutory and brand image damage
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caused by product defects, there are reactive recalls in which companies are obliged to promote
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the recall, and voluntary ones. As voluntary recalls will bring costs to the Gillette that
implements it, as the company may receive a negative publicity, loss of sales, damage to its
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image and products, diversion of resources that would be allocated to other purposes and
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additional expenses with client support. After this incident, Gillette has taken measures to urge
consumers to stop using the razor immediately and contact the company to obtain a postage-
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paid return label to return the razor and get a replacement vouchers (Laughlin 2019). Nowadays,
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social media allows users to share information and opinions with each other publicly or
privately, therefore, customers have a greater ability to express their voices, and bad news and
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rumours that spread quickly in social media can easily endanger the company’s reputation (Kim,
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Park, Cha and Jeong 2015). In order to avoid this situation, Gillette issued an apology on its
website, stating that their temporary manufacturing problems are more likely to cut people
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during normal use, and promised that this problem will never happen again as customer safety
is the first priority to maintain the highest possible standards (Rearick 2019). For individuals
and companies who care about their reputation, understanding how to respond to and respond
to the social media crisis is also crucial.
Recommendations on what Gillette could have improved or done differently
Consumer decision-making approach
As Gillette sells razors as their core business, it can adopt consumer decision-making approach
to help Gillette extend their product line. There are three types of consumer decisions to
consider which are extended decision making, limited decision making, and habitual decision
making. In limited decision making, consumers search less for information and reach decisions
based largely on prior beliefs about products and their attributes. For example, if consumers go
to the shopping centre with every intention to make a selection from the particular brand of
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razors, but when they arrive, they notice that another razor is on discounts. A customer's
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memory tells them that they have used this razor before, but found it is too expensive for their
regular shopping habits, so they decide to make a change for a limited time and purchase the
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alternative razor instead. When customers choose the alternatives to shave with a razor, they
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see the price of Gillette March 3 Sensitive Razor is $16.00 that comes with 4 pack and the price
of Schick Quattro Titanium Razor is also $16.00 but comes with 8 pack, they are more likely
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to choose the brand of razor with a reasonable price and the value to save their money. This
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argument could be taken when limited decisions is made due to the loss of brand loyalty.
Therefore, consumers can be attributed to anything with the extent of the novelty of new
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products to a feeling of boredom based on their currently shopping habit (Carter 2017).
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With habitual decision making, consumers do not seek information at all when a problem is
recognized. Despite some people might say they will never use Gillette again, but the buying
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habits, especially with something as habitual as a razor, are difficult to change. Most people
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will not follow the threat of critical feedback even when they saw it on the social media
(Dreyfuss 2019). For the limited income families, they will think that buying food or personal
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hygiene products are not habitual but a significant decision for them. Due to the frequent price
changes, this forced them to make a deep consideration of the product. Thus, the purchase
decision-making approach was discovered not to be habitual but there are low amount of
purchase risk and product involvement (Chikweche, Stanton and Fletcher 2012).
In extended decision making, consumers move diligently through various problem-solving
activities to find the best information that will help them reach a decision. They require a lot
of involvement and there is a high risk. Some people don’t buy razors every day, they wanted
to make sure that they have made the right choice from the selected brand quality. They may
ask for advice from friends and family about how good and safe of the razor is. As a result,
limited decision making can be applied to help Gillette to extend their product line because it
can help to reduce the discrepancy from a variety of brands like Gillette, Bic and Schick within
the razor product category.
The attitude-toward-the-object (ATO) model
Gillette can change attitudes by using the ATO approach in order to command a large market
share of a product line over their competitors. ATO approach is an attitude towards the object,
which has three main key elements to analyse consumers’ attitude. Firstly, it contains the
attributes that consumers consider for any object, the second is the evaluation of the product,
and the third includes the strength of the belief (Kumar and Jelsy 2013). Consumers have a
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different attitude towards a different product, and this approach is useful in any decision
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making. For example, I want to buy a Tupperware plastic bottle, I am concerned about the
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quality and the price and colour, so these are the attributes I consider while buying a product
and accordingly I will give them ratings, quality = 9 and then for Price= 6 and for colour 8, so
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that is my attitude towards the product. Gillette can change the attitude by improving the ratings
or by adding more attributes. For instance, Gillette produces razors that are environment-
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friendly, so people who are concerned about nature and prefer environment-friendly products,
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they will give more importance to it. People's attitude will change towards Gillette and buy it
more often than any other product because the value and benefit they get from Gillette may not
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be received by other brands.
The following Table 1 and 2 depict two different brands of razors which are Gillette and Bic.
e
b
(b) (e)
Attribute
e
b
(b) (e)
Sharpness
2
8
16
Sharpness
2
5
10
Safety
3
9
27
Safety
3
6
18
Price
2
4
8
Price
2
8
16
Quality
3
8
24
Quality
3
6
18
Environment friendly
3
9
27
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Attribute
e
Table 2 – Bic
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Table 1 – Gillette
62
102
Note: e is the importance for that particular attribute which is between -3 to 3.
b is the believe which is from 0 to 10.
Table 1 shows how consumer’s attitude changes when one more attribute is added, and the
average rating will increase for the product. Therefore, the consumer’s attitude can be changed
by improving the ratings for the attributes. If Gillette has better quality than the Bic razors, this
will change consumer’s attitude towards Gillette as they are more preferring to buy it rather
than Bic. As a result, Gillette has more overall rating of (102) and Bic has only (62) which will
change customer’s attitude (Bushkill 2015).
Social Judgment Theory and Balance Theory
Gillette can change the consumers’ attitude toward Sensor by using the social judgment theory
and the balance theory.
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The social judgment theory helps to explain how consumers react to the new information and
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compare the information with what they already know. When new information is negatively
reacted to by consumers, this falls into the latitude of rejection. New information can fall into
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the latitude of rejection when the new information is not consistent with the consumers' initial
knowledge. When new information is positively reacted to by consumers, this goes into the
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latitude of acceptance. This is when new information is consistent with the initial information
that the consumer had. It is far greater than new information will fall into the latitude of
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rejection than acceptance because of many factors that may skew or distort a consumer’s initial
knowledge. It is easier to get new information into the latitude of acceptance when there is no
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initial information (Cummings and Ostrom 1982). This is called an original attitude position;
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it is easier as the consumer has nothing to compare the new information with. Gillette can use
the social judgment theory by staying consistent to the information they have previously
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provided in the past, that can slowly change their attitude towards the sensor or by targeting
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new consumers that new to the product and having the ability to completing change their
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attitudes towards the sensor as do not have information to compare with.
Balance theory is a theory in which the relationship with the three
components must be balanced. In the case of Gillette, the three
components are Gillette, consumer, and a celebrity. If one component has
a negative relationship with another or both component it does not
balance. For example, if consumers think that the company does not like
the celebrity, this may cause consumers to dislike Gillette as they have a
positive relationship. This means that Gillette have to create a negative
relationship with the celebrity to fix the relationship with the consumer
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(Study.com 2019). By using the balance theory, Gillette can find a celebrity like Cristiano
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Ronaldo, a celebrity who has a good record and positive relationship with consumers to be their
ambassador because Ronaldo is a proven celebrity, liked by the demographic of men that shave
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and is consistent with image of the sensor. The celebrity can change consumers mind who did
not consider Gillette before but are fans of the celebrity and reinforce repeat consumer’s
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attitudes.
REFERENCES
Bushkill, Claire. 2015. "ATO - Attitude-Toward-the-Object Model,” Weebly (blog), March 1,
2015. https://bushkill.weebly.com/blog/ato-attitude-toward-the-object-model.
Carter, Rebekah. 2017. “Understanding the 3 Types of Consumer Buying Decisions.”
Guided-Selling.org. https://www.guided-selling.org/types-buying-behavior/
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Chen, Yubo, Shankar Ganesan, and Yong Liu. 2009. “Does a Firm’s Product-Recall Strategy
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Affect Its Financial Value? An Examination of Strategic Alternatives during ProductHarm Crises.” Journal of Marketing 73 (6): 214-226. https://www-jstor-
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org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/stable/20619070?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Chikweche, Tendai, John Stanton, and Richard Fletcher. 2012. “Family purchase decision
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making at the bottom of the pyramid.” Emerald Group Publishing 29 (3): 202-213.
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https://search-proquest-
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com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/1008637920/514D4067672A4F0BPQ/182?accou
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ntid=10382
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Cummings, William Theodore, and Lonnie L. Ostrom. 1982. “Measuring Price Thresholds
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Dreyfuss, Emily. 2019. “Gillette’s Ad Proves The Definition Of A Good Man Has Changed.”
WIRED, January 16, 2019. https://www.wired.com/story/gillette-we-believe-ad-menbacklash/
Kim, Hoh, Jaram Park, Meeyoung Cha, and Jaeseung Jeong. 2015. “The Effect of Bad News
and CEO Apology of Corporate on User Responses in Social Media.” PloS One 10
(5): 1-22. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126358
Kumar, N. Anil. and Joseph Jelsy. 2013. "An Assessment of Consumer Behavior, A Study
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Laughlin, Frank O’. 2019. “Gillette recalling 90,000 women’s razors due to increased risk of
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laceration.” 7 News Boston, June 27, 2019. https://whdh.com/news/gillette-recalling-
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90000-womens-razors-due-to-increased-risk-of-laceration/
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Lowe, Lindsay. 2019. “Gillette recalls Venus razors that could pose a ‘high risk of cuts’ during
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shaving.” Today, July 8, 2019. https://www.today.com/style/gillette-recalls-87-000-
on
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venus-razors-due-high-risk-cuts-t157831
Rearick, Lauren. 2019. “Gillette Announces Recall of Venus Simply3 Disposable Razors.”
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Teen Vogue, July 6, 2019. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gillette-recall-venus-
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simply3-disposable-razors
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Study.com. 2019. “Balance Theory in Psychology: Definition & Examples.” Study.com.
Accessed May 13, https://study.com/academy/lesson/balance-theory-in-psychologydefinition-examples.html