Consumer Roles in
Marketing Communications
Objective: Introducing and discussing the significance of
consumer behavior and motivations in communications in
tourism and hospitality.
Consumer Buying Behavior
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Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying
behavior of the individuals and households who
buy goods and services for personal
consumption.
Consumer market refers to the combination of all
these individuals and households.
These diverse consumers make their choices
among various products based on several
factors.
Model of Consumer Behavior
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How do consumers respond to various
marketing efforts that the company might use?
The company that understands how consumers
will respond to product features, prices,
advertising has a great advantage over its
competitors.
According to the “model of buyer behavior”,
marketing (4Ps) and other
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macro environmental (economic,
technological, political and cultural) stimulus
starts the response model. All these enter
into the buyer’s head (black box) and then
turn into responses as product choice, brand
choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and
purchase amount.
The buyer behavior is affected by; (1) the buyer’s
characteristic - cultural, social, personal,
psychological; (2) the buyer’s decision
process.
Model of Buyer Behavior
Marketing &
Other Stimuli
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
Economic
Technological
Political
Cultural
Buyer’s Black Box
Buyer
characteristic
Buyer’s Response
Buying
decision
process
Product choice
Brand choice
Dealer choice
Purchase timing
Purchase amount
Roles of Consumers
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Included in the 4Ps, consumer behavior is
affected by marketing communications.
Consumers are influenced by media
representations and messages; based on how
they interpret and evaluate information.
Consumers may react in different ways to certain
types of messages or media channels or sources.
Therefore, companies need to research to
understand what forms of communication work
best and produce the desired results.
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However, this is not an easy process as
marketing communications are delivered in an
integrated fashion.
Consumers are aware of products or brands
through various forms of communications
including advertising, sponsorship, public
relations, word-of-mouth, exposure to places
through film and television, etc.
As a result, it is difficult to evaluate how, where,
when a person becomes familiar with a brand,
organization, destinations, ...
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In addition, consumers themselves actively buy
into or identify with certain brands, images, or
organizations.
Modern consumers often act as advocates for
certain products, places, brands, and so on.
Consumer Behavior Theory
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Consumer beavior theory is based on the
discipline of psychology.
Accordingly, consumers are perceived as rational
beings whose buying choices are directed to
satisfy a need.
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Different paradigms in consumer behaviour;
The cognitive approach: recognizes puchases as
problem-solving decisions
 The reinforcement approach: recognizes
consumption as learned behavior
 Habit: recognizes routine production of behavior
for particular purchases.
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While the first has a cognitive perspective, the
last two have behaviourist perspectives.
The Cognitive Paradigm
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Focuses on consumer decision making process
involving
need arousal
 information processing
 brand evaluation
 purchase
 Post-purchase evaluation
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Does not explain repeat-buying behavior,
spontaneous or impulsive “walk-by” decisions.
Need Recognition
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The buying process starts when the buyer
recognizes that he has a problem or need.
The need can be felt because of internal stimuli
(hunger, thirst...) or external stimuli (the buyer may
feel hungry when he passes by a bakery, the buyer
may need to have a vacation when he watches a
commercial about Caribbeans on TV).
At this stage, the marketer must identify the factors
that most trigger interest in the product and develop
marketing programs that involve these factors.
Information Search
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When the consumer feels his need, he satisfies
his need with a product near at hand. But, if
there is not such a product, he starts to search
for information.
The consumer can obtain information from
several sources;
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personal sources: family, friends, neighbors,
acquaintances (more important for the consumer to
evaluate)
commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, dealers,
packaging, displays (more important for the
consumer to get information)
 public sources: mass media, consumer rating
organizations
 experiential sources: handling, examining, using the
product
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Here, the marketer is responsible to identify
the consumer’s sources of information and
their importance, then design its marketing
efforts in the way that would increase the
awareness and knowledge of the potential
consumers.
Evaluation of Alternatives
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After gathering information, the consumer
evaluates each alternative and makes a brand
choice.
Consumers pay attention to certain issues when
evaluating the alternatives;
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product attributes: consumers see products as a bundle
of product attributes (e.g. quality, size, price...)
Consumers pay the most attention on the attributes
that satisfies their need the most.
degrees of importance: consumers give different
degrees of importance to different attributes
according to their needs and wants.
 brand beliefs: consumers develop a set of brand
beliefs about where each brand stands on each
attribute. The set of beliefs that are held about a
particular brand is known as the brand image.
 total product satisfaction: consumers combine the
attributes that give them the highest perceived
satisfaction and create their ideal product.
 evaluation procedure: consumers approach different
brands through some type of
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evaluation procedure which depends on the
individual and specific buying situation. In some
cases, consumers use logical thinking, and at other
times, emotional. Sometimes, they may decide on
their own, or ask their friends, or salespeople for
advice.
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Here, the marketer should study the buyers to
understand how they evaluate each alternative
- e.g. which attribute receives the highest
attention.
Purchase Decision
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The consumer ranks all the brands and intends to
purchase one. However, sometimes the consumer does
not buy the one he intended. Two factors can come
between the purchase intention and decision;
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attitudes of others; e.g. family may claim that the alternative is
better.
unexpected situational factors; unexpected events may change
the purchase intention e.g. the consumer may loose his job so
that he have to purchase a cheaper brand, a friend my report
his dissatisfaction about the product, a competitor may drop
its prices...
Postpurchase Behavior
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After purchasing the product, the consumer will
be satisfied or dissatisfied and will engage in
postpurchase behavior of interest.
Whether the buyer is satisfied or dissatisfied is
determined by the relationship between the
consumer’s expectations and the product’s
performance.
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The marketer’s job does not end when the
product is bought. The marketer must do
research in order to understand whether the
consumer is satisfied about the product or
not. Responding to consumer complaints
help to reduce the number of dissatisfied
consumers. E.g. Toyota contacts the new car
owners and congratulates them. In addition,
places advertising with the favorable words
of the new car owners. “I love what you do
for me Toyota”
The Reinforcement Paradigm
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Focuses on the way behavior is modified by the
environment, therefore managers try to change
the consumer’s situation.
Past behavior teaches consumers and after
learning they shape their future puchases.
There are a number of ways to learn about
products and brands including trial and error,
brand extention, use of stimuli (packaging,
colors, etc.).
The Habit Paradigm
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Focuses on established patterns of behavior.
Mobilised in response to relevant stimuli.
Consumer behavior for tourism and
hospitality services?
Consumers and Markets for Tourism
and Hospitality Services
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A market is defined as all those willing and able
to purchase tourism and hospitality services.
A market includes both current and potential
customers.
Organizations need to know how their services
are positioned in the mind of both current and
potential customers.
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Markets and customer-base of organizations
change in time due to changes in socioeconomic circumstances, attitudes (e.g. organic
products)
Consumers atttudes toward company’s products
and offers may also change.
Marketing communications is basically directed
towards developing sales.
The messages must be created and delivered
having target audiences in mind.
Generic Versus Variant Service Markets
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Before preparing their marketing communications,
marketers need to distinguish between generic needs of
markets for tourism and hospitality services and the
range of offers (variants) within that generic category.
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For instance, while a package holiday is a generic service
category, there are subcategories or services product classes
under it; winter sun, summer sun, lakes and mountains,
activity as safari holidays (which may even have a range of
different types like day safaris, 1-3 nights short-break safaris,
luxury safaris, budget safaris...
Marketing Analysis
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In order to understand more about their
customers and develop the right marketing plans
and communications strategies, managers should
break down a market into more discrete market
groups or segments.
Therefore, they do a great deal of analysis on
customers and markets.
This type of market analysis is sometimes called
market analysis-competitor analysis.
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Such analysis look at the following factors:
Total number of people in a population who ay be
purchase the products/services
 Total number of customers actually buying these
types of products/services
 Size of sales of the company’s products/services
relative to competitors’
 Relationship between the company’s
products/services relative to competitors’
 Ability of people to buy company’s offer over other
types of products/services.
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In developing marketing communications, first
markets are analysed.
Market analysis
 Identification of stakeholders
 Customer analysis
 Segmentation and targeting
 Marketing communications mix
 Customer relationship management
 Service quality and satisfaction
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What the Organization Needs to
Know about Consumers’ Behavior
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Marketing communications must consider that
consumers are open to influence from external
environmental factors which influence
consumer behavior and how they process
marketing messages.
In order to develop attractive messages,
organizations need to answer the following
questions about their customers;
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Who: what type of person, their socio-demographic
characteristics and situational influences.
When: do people buy and when they receive and/or
receptive to messages.
Why: their motives for buying and also how they react
to the messages through perception.
What: their preferences, attitudes and beliefs about the
services they buy and their purchase behavior; also their
reactions to marketing messages, the frequency of
purchase and use.
Where: the place they buy the products or receive the
messages from.
Which methods: they use to purchase the
products/services.
Consumer Characteristics – Who?
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In order to better target their marketing
communications, when analying markets, it is
important for organizations to collect
information on the following;
Demographics
 Socio-economic characteristics; employment status,
social class, lifestyle, etc.
 Feelings, beliefs and values
 Decision-making units; children
 Buying center roles; initiator, influencer, gatekeeper,
decider, puchaser, user.
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Decision and Purchase
Characteristics – When?
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Organizations should understand when
customers buy their porducts/services by
checking their sales data, when they search for
information, when they make their decision to
buy and what infleunce those decisions, so that
they can determine the timing of their
marketing communications.
Consumer Motivations – Why?
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If organizations understand why customers
choose their products/services over competitors’,
then they can direct their marketing
communications to stimulate new demand
(extend the market) or remind.
Motivation; physical, social, personal, cultural
motivations for tourism and hospitality
products/services
Perceptions
Identity
Buying Behavior Patterns – What?
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This question is about the types of things
people buy, e.g. Short breakes vs. long holidays
etc.
Attitudes; marketing communications managers
are interested in understanding how attitudes to
places and services can be influenced.
Distribution and Access – Where?
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This relates to how consumers access marketing
messages, e.g. Online booking, etc.
Orgenizations need to know where consumers
access marketing communications and under
which circumstances they react favourably in
relation to the content of the message.
Purchase Characteristics – Which
Methods?
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Organizations also need to know how
consumers purchase their products/services e.g.
cash or by credit card, etc.; how they book,
whether they get help or not, whether they pay
in advance or not.
Resources
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McCabe, S. (2009). Marketing Communications
in Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts, Strategies
and Cases. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.
Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (2010).
Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (5th. ed.).
Prentice Hall: New Jersey.
Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles
of Marketing (13th ed.). Prentice Hall: New
Jersey.