Consumer Behaviour Theory: Approaches and Models

Critique of the various approaches that have been taken towards the study of Consumer Behaviou

An investigation of low-income consumer-buying behaviour in the personal-care industry in South Africa

South African companies are said to be mining the so-called "Black Diamond", the emerging middle-class segment that is driving economic growth within the country (Mahajan, 2009:9). The focus on the emerging Middle Class in South Africa (SA) has left a knowledge gap on Low-Income consumers - even though they are still the largest consumer group in SA (Connecting with Survivors, 2014). The Unilever "Connecting with Survivors Report" (2014) highlights the fact that 70% of the SA Market earn less than R6000 per month, while together they have a spending power of R300 Billion per annum. According to Martin (2012:71), 5.8% of Low-Income Consumer Households (HH) spending is prioritised for the purchase of personal care products, while 64.2% of their HH income is prioritised for food and housing expenses. Given the trivial proportion allocated to personal care products, this research has been guided by the problem statement that Low-Income consumers are forced to make trade-offs, when purchasing personal care products, which fall outside their realm of affordability. The primary objective of this study was to investigate Low-Income consumers' buying behaviour in the Personal Care Industry in South Africa. The Theory of Buyer Behaviour was used as a theoretical framework to assist in the understanding of Low-Income consumer behaviour in the Personal Care industry. The phenomenological research paradigm was used in this study, utilising interviews to collect the data from respondents in the Western Cape Province. Inductive reasoning was practised to draw a conclusion on the investigation of Low-Income consumer buying behaviour in the personal care industry in South Africa. The findings from the study indicate that Low-Income consumers do indeed make trade-offs when personal care products fall outside their realm of affordability. The extent to which they do so varies, based on necessity. This research stands to contribute to the body of knowledge by narrowing the knowledge gap on the Low-Income Consumer market in South Africa with the focus on the Personal Care Industry, thereby allowing marketers to develop and implement effective marketing strategies

Antecedents of Brand Recall and Brand Attitude towards Purchase Intention in advergames.

Research on purchase intention had showed remarkable work in contributing to the theory of buyer behaviour. However, the impact of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention in advergames has not yet been well explored especially in a developing economic country such as Malaysia. Furthermore, the influences of self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance as antecedents to brand recall and brand attitude are expecting to put more “value added” to the brand recall, brand attitude and purchase intention relationships. This paper aims to investigate the impact of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention in advergames among Malaysian gamers. Also, the antecedents towards brand recall and brand attitude were examined to measure their influences on purchase intention. A total of 350 Malaysian gamers have been interviewed through an online survey for this study. The results showed that self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance were found to have significant relationship with brand attitude and purchase intention. Also, both entertainment and brand placement acceptance were found to have significant relationship with brand recall. As expected, brand recall and brand attitude have positive relationship with consumer purchase intention in advergames. Applications of the study are discussed. Keywords: Self-congruity, Entertainment, Brand placement acceptance, Brand recall, Brand attitude, Purchase intention, Advergames

Competitor recognition by managerial perception -- a case in the UK computer industry

This paper presents a practical alternative to the clustering technique in strategic group analysis. Using managerial perception as the input, it studies the competitor recognition in the UK computer industry. An analytical framework and the concept of competitive matrix have been developed. Two hypotheses on perceived competition have also been tested. It is argued that firms formulate their competitive strategies on the basis of perceived competition rather than on the conventionally defined industry. The competitive grouping which combines the concept of strategic groups and market segmentation, provides a useful means to conduct such analysis

FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS REGARDING YOUTH AND THEIR DECISION TO PRACTICE TOURISM

Tourism is an activity carried on by individuals, which is usually enjoyed, and tobetter understand this economic phenomenon we must understand the person’s behaviour ââ¬â thepsychology of tourists and of those who could become tourists. Knowing how individuals makedecisions and how they structure their acquired experience can give important advantages in thebusiness practice and how we generally understand the experience in tourism.the travel decision process; decisional patterns in tourism.

Determining female consumer’s insight into products and shopping

This research explores consumer’s insight into the female sportswear segment for the purpose of improving product development in the clothing industry in South-East Asia, a consumer base consisting of 500 million people. The research aims to clarify the important parameters on which buying decisions are made. The parameters are based on price, function, fit, brand, and design. The methodology used in this research is qualitative and quantitative consisting of participative observations, in-depth interviews, and survey. Results shows a wide range of shopping approaches utilized by consumers. Shopping behaviour can be seen depending on products and location. Essential parameters for an exercising garment are fit and design. abundance of available options in the market can cause confusion amongst consumers. The over-availability of products contributed to the creation of such confusion or even fussiness amongst consumers. This is to suggest that the more alternatives available to consumers, the more difficult it will be to find “the right” product. Findings also suggests that consumer’s input and opinion is vital to product development and significantly contributes to product design and enhancement

Major Classic Consumer Buying Behaviour Models: Implications for Marketing Decision-Making.

Ability of the Marketing executive to effectively and efficiently design, plan and produce a product, price it, strategically promote and distinctively distribute it, is determined by his ability to make the product satisfactory to a complex set of consumers. McCarthy (1971) opines that, Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from the producers to consumers or users in order to satisfy customers and accomplish the firm’s objectives. The consumer is the pivot on which all marketing activities and decisions revolve. The consumer as the central focus of marketing activities has remained complex and unpredictable. What motivates, induces or informs his choice of one product brand rather than the other has been a subject of investigations and researches. The formulation and adoption of major classic and contemporary models in consumer and organizational behaviour for managerial decision-making in marketing practice is justified on the need to ensure knowledge of consumers for effective and efficient service delivery. Consequently, this paper broadly reviews major classic contour behaviour models in relationship to managerial decision-making in marketing practice. Keywords: Consumer Behaviour, Classic models, marketing practice, managerial decision-makings

New Forms of Public Service Delivery – are they really valuable?

One of the major challenges currently faced by Public Administrations is the creation of more value for both citizens and firms, mainly because of the increasing budgetary constraints and challenging demands from society. In fact, in the last two decades there has been a general movement of public reform in almost all developed countries, and for this reason it became essential to understand how users assess public services’ quality. This paper aims precisely at understanding which the determinants of public services’ quality are. Due to the nature of the research problem, the case-study methodology has been chosen. Thus, this paper presents the case-study of Citizen Shops in Portugal, a recent and innovative channel of public services’ delivery, within a strong relational perspective. This research involved an extensive qualitative and quantitative data collection. The main findings and implications are presented and discussed.public services; Citizen Shops; quality determinants; satisfaction; dissatisfaction

Negative brand beliefs and brand usage

This research focuses on consumer brand usage segments and the responses they give to negative attributes in brand image studies. Analysis was conducted across three markets and four approaches for measuring brand beliefs with respondents who were current users, past users or had never tried a brand. The major finding of this study was that past users of a brand consistently have the highest tendency to elicit negative beliefs about brands. Further, those who have never used a brand typically have a lower propensity than current brand users to elicit negative brand beliefs. These results suggest that negative beliefs about a brand are developed as a result of purchase behaviour, rather than as mechanisms to reject a brand prior to purchase. These findings have implications for the role of negative beliefs in consideration of set formation and the trial of a new brand. They also provide insight into the patterns that may be expected when measuring and interpreting negative brand beliefs across different usage groups

Attitudes, meaning, emotion and motivation in design for behaviour change

Copyright @ 2012 Social Science Electronic PublishingThis paper discusses some distinct -- but related -- psychological concepts which are relevant to design for behaviour change, but of which some, at least, are not necessarily within the scope of 'conventional' interaction design. They may fall superfi cially along the cognitive blade of Simon's scissors (1990), dealing with users' thought processes rather than the contextual interaction environment itself, but the interaction of meaning and form demonstrated by product semantics (section 2.1) makes it clear that cognition depends on context: the scissors must work together. While design for emotion (Desmet and Hekkert, 2009) is enjoying increasing attention and practical application, including in behaviour change applications (e.g. Visser et al, 2011), influencing and supporting motivation through design is underexplored except by a few pioneers such as Bisset (2010), while the complexity of work on attitudes and persuasion has not necessarily lent itself to practical design applications to the extent that it might. Nevertheless, much public discourse on behaviour change persists with a preoccupation with measuring and 'changing' attitudes