Introduction

People have their needs from peer pressure, personal needs, TV shows, advertising magazines, and so on. These kinds of needs motivate them to get more information. The whole process of getting information and buying the products or services to feeling satisfaction depends on the degree of involvement. Not all purchase decisions are equally important or psychologically involving for the consumer. People engage in a more extensive decision making process, involving a more detailed search for information and comparison of alternatives, when buying high involvement goods and services than when purchasing more ordinary, low involvement items. Because of the differences in the decision-making process, a given marketing strategy will not be equally effective for both high-and low-involvement products. The consumer marketer’s primary task, therefore, is to determine whether the majority of potential customers in the target segment are likely to be highly involved with the purchase decision or not.

The Decision-making Process

The decision-making process has five stages. The first stage deals with the problem or need recognition, where the buyer recognises that there is a better state of affairs than the present one. This can have both internal and external stimulus. However, marketers can only influence the external motivation.

Secondly, there is the information search, where customers look for all the information possible, using commercial, public, personal and experiential sources. Advertisements have a great deal of influence on where they start their information search which could affect their behaviour.

The third stage includes the evaluation of alternatives, while the fourth stage deals with the purchase decision. This is the stage where the customer actually buys the product, choosing the most preferred brand.

Finally, there is the post-purchase behaviour stage. This is where consumers take further action after purchase and evaluate their decision.

Depending on whether there is high or low involvement, the process of how advertising works could be organised in two different ways.

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Cars, insurance, and computers require more time and thoughtful consideration before actually purchasing and thus these are high-involvement products/services. In the case of high involvement products/services, people who have expressive and practical needs for high-involvement products keep their eyes and ears on various media that address their needs. Due to this, all stages of the decision making process are usually used.

In the case of low involvement products or services, household products need consumer’s thinking. Other low involvement products such as beer, cigarette, and beverage products, however, are related to consumers’ feelings. In comparison to ...

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