MKT547
Marketing Communications
Shamshul Anaz Hj. Kassim
UiTM Perlis
Introduction
 Understanding consumer behavior is important
so marketers can design a more effective
MarCom programs
 Marketing communicators need to understand
the factors influencing customers purchasing
decisions
 With better understanding of consumers
behavior, they will be better able to predict the
effectiveness of their marketing activities
The Fundamental of Consumer Behavior
Marketing Mix
Socio-cultural
Environment
Psychological
Characteristics
- Motivation
- Learning
- Perception
- Attitudes/Beliefs
Decision Making
Recognize needs
Search for information
Evaluative alternatives
Make purchase
Experience
Purchase
& Evaluation
Key Aspect Of Consumer Behavior
Key Aspect
Of
Consumer Behavior
Learning
Motivation
Attitudes
Motivation
Inner drive or pressure to act in order to
eliminate tension, to satisfy a need or want, to
solve a problem, or to restore a sense of balance
A need or desire must be aroused to serve as a
motive

i.e. hunger may be stimulated by food commercial that
shows a delicious picture of your favorite meal
Rational motives vs Emotional motives
Attitudes / Beliefs
 Enduring favorable or unfavorable
cognitive evaluations, emotional feelings
and action tendencies.
 3 components:
 Cognitive – beliefs & knowledge about the
object of a attitude
 Affective - feeling about the object
 Conative – action taken towards the object
Learning
 Process of taking in information, processing them
and producing new knowledge
 Changes in an individual’s behavior arising from
experience
Perception
 How a motivated person actually acts is influenced
by his or her perception of the situation
 Process by which an individual selects, organizes,
and interprets information inputs
Model of Decision Making Process
 Problem Recognition
 the initial step in the purchase decision
 Identification of a problem or unfulfilled needs
 Information search
 After recognizing a problem, a consumer begins to search for
information, the next stage in the purchase decision process.
 First, you may scan you memory for previous experiences with
products or brands. This action is called internal search for instance
buying a frequently purchase products such as shampoo
 Or a consumer may undertake an external search for information.
This is especially needed when :
 past experience or knowledge is insufficient
 the risk of making a wrong purchase decision is high
 the cost of gathering information is low.
 Alternative evaluation
 Evaluate the available alternatives
 Some factors that must be considered in evaluating alternatives are


Fund
Performance of the product alternatives
 Purchase decision
 Having examined the alternatives in the evoked set, the consumer
makes a purchase decision.
 Post purchase behavior
 Consumer will make comparison of the performance based on their
expectation
 If the buyer is satisfied with his consumption, he enhances the
potential of the brand, which is likely to result in greater probability of
its repeat purchase. If the consumer is dissatisfied, the potential of the
brand is diminished, and so is the possibility of a repeat purchase.
 Post purchase behavior can be linked to customer advocacy/support. If
customers are satisfied with the products and services given, other
firms will find it difficult to convince customers to take the risk and
switch to a new partner.
Take 5
Persuasion in Marketing Communications
 Marketing communicators use reasoning or emotional
appeals in trying to guide people to accept some belief,
attitude or behavior
 Persuasion is the essence of marketing communications
whereby marketers use various kinds of methods and
techniques
 Tools of Persuasion






Reciprocation
Communication and Consistency
Social Proof
Liking
Authority
Scarcity
Persuasion in Marketing Communications
 Tools of Persuasion
 Reciprocation
 People naturally learn to return a favor which is the norm of
reciprocity
 Marketer give samples or gifts with hope customers will
reciprocate by purchasing product
 Communication and Consistency
 There is usually a strong tendency for people to remain
faithful/consistent after you have made a commitment
 Social Proof
 In cases when people do not know what to do, they usually
look at the behavior of other
 i.e. tendency to follow your friends or family
 Liking


People would be more likely to undertake action when it is
recommended by a likeable person
Two features of likeability are physical attractiveness and
similarity
 i.e. use attractive celebrities to endorse their product
 Authority

People generally raised respect authority figures and to
exhibit sense of duty towards them
 i.e. the use of dentist in TV commercial for toothbrush or
toothpaste
 i.e. the use of athletes to advertise energetic drinks or
exercise equipments
 Scarcity

Psychological reactance-people will react against any effort
to reduce their freedom or choices
 i.e. ‘only a few left’, ‘while stock last’
Models of Consumers Process Information
 The Consumer Processing Model
(CPM)
 The Hedonic Experiential Model
(HEM)
8 stages of CPM
The Consumer Processing Model (CPM)
1. Exposure to Information

Consumers are exposed to info with the marketer's message
2. Selective Attention


Consumers focus and consider the info that they have been exposed to
3 types of attention



Involuntary
 Require little or no effort on the part of the receiver
 Attention is gained based on the intensity of the stimulus i.e. bright color or
loud sound
Non-voluntary
 The kind when a person is attracted to a stimulus and continues to pay
attention because it hold his/her interest
Voluntary
 A person willfully notices a stimulus
3. Comprehension (understand) of what is attended

Communication is effective when the meaning of the message from the
marketers matches with what the consumers extract
4. Agreement with what is comprehended
 Consumer will only agree with the message that they understand if the message is
credible and if it contains info and appeals that are compatible with values that are
important to them
5/6. Retention and Search/Retrieval of Stored Information
 What consumer remember about the marketing stimuli and how they access and
retrieve the info when making consumption choices
7. Deciding among alternative
 How do consumers decide among alternatives
 Usually consumers use simplifying strategies/ heuristics to arrive at a decision
 three types of heuristics:
 Affect referral – a heuristic here you simply calls from memory an attitude toward
relevant alternatives and choose alternative where the effect is most positive
 Compensatory heuristic – is used for non-dominant circumstances where you know
that something must be given up in order to get something else
 Conjunctive heuristic – is a type of non-compensatory heuristic where it requires
the consumers to establish minimums of all selected choices. An alternative is
retained to be considered further after it has met all minimum criteria
8. Acting on the basis of the decision
 Although consumers has gone through all the above stages, they may not behave
consistently with their preference
The Hedonic, Experiential Model (HEM)
 HEM views customers behavior as driven in
pursuit of “fun, fantasies and feelings”
 This model recognizes that people often
consume products for the sheer fun of it or in
the pursuit of amusement, fantasies or sensory
stimulation
 The HEM model helps us to explain how
consumers process information when they are
carefree (relaxed) and happy and confronted
with positive outcomes
End of Chapter
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