Analyse the behaviour of consumers when choosing a mobile phone.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Consumers go through a number of processes from the moment they feel the need to buy something, right through to actually taking action to do so. The ‘buyers consciousness’ will be triggered by a number of stimuli. These stimuli may be in the form of marketing or the environment in which consumers are in. Consumers are constantly in face to face contact with messages and adverts that are the stimuli and are there to hopefully trigger the response into feeling the need to go out and buy a certain product. Vodafone are especially successful at this with there sponsorship schemes of high profile sports teams. Such teams include the England cricket team and possibly the most famous football club in the world, Manchester United. It is clever marketing such as this that will plant there logo into the viewing publics memory in the effort to gain a recognition and feeling of belonging with their companies logo, which will inevitably benefit their company if a consumer is looking to buy a new phone. The buyers consciousness is the ‘black box’ that marketers need to understand.

The consumer as a ‘black box’.

A consumer’s motivation for buying a phone may come from variety of different needs that they want to fulfil. There may be a number of different motives for a consumer to buy a mobile phone, some of which may be more purposeful than other consumers. Maslow (1970) recognises that people in general have a variety of needs that can be categorised into a basic hierarchy. Fulfilment of lower order needs (e.g.’ physiological needs for water, food, sleep) is necessary before higher order needs can be fulfilled, such as egoistic or self actualisation. For example, relating to the context of a consumers decision to buy a phone, a family with young children may feel the need to buy them a mobile phone to know that they can contact them to find out if they are safe. The parents may have heard on the news that the area they are living in is not safe at night. This would be the kind of stimuli that would motivate a parent to respond and buy their child a phone for a safety aspect. Another type of consumer may be motivated to buy a phone in order to feel a sense of belonging within his peer group. Maybe all his friends have got a mobile so he feels the need to have one in order to fit into his social group. This would subsequently be categorised into the social or egoistic need of the hierarchy. Social needs such as this consumer are externally directed and relate to other individuals. Fulfilling his needs thus requires the presence or actions of others. For example, the need for esteem drives our desire to have others hold us in high regard. In not owning a mobile of his own this esteem is not present, and therefore he will begin to recognise that he needs to look for a phone.

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After consumers have recognised the need to buy a mobile phone for whatever reason, they will go through a series of processes in their minds looking to satisfy this need. A person’s perception will change as result of this. For example, a consumer who has now decided that they do want a phone will be constantly processing information about mobile phones consciously and subconsciously. The consumer may have never really payed much attention to adverts on the radio, television or in the local newspaper about mobile phone deals. The reason for this is because they may have never needed to do so. The theory of selective attention describes how consumers will decide which of possibly hundreds of things we want to focus on at any one time. Consumers are exposed to hundreds of marketing stimuli, although not all of these are able to be examined simultaneously. Instead we must somehow determine which are worthy of processing. The fact that attention is selective means that we can control what we focus on. Consumers who have found the need for a mobile phone will now switch their attention towards these stimuli.

There are five stages that a consumer will go through in the process of choosing a mobile phone; problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase decision.

The consumers decision process generally begins when a consumer identifies a consumption problem that needs to be solved (“I need a mobile phone”). Problem recognition is the perceived difference between an ideal and actual state. This is the stimuli, be it internal or external, which motivates the consumer to take action. The ideal state is the way that the consumer would like a situation to be. The actual state is the real situation as we perceive it now. A discrepancy between the actual state and the ideal state activates problem recognition.

After problem recognition has been stimulated, the consumer will usually begin the decision process to solve the particular problem. A consumer looking out for a mobile phone will heighten their attention towards solving the problem. Typically the next step is the internal search. Each consumer has stored in memory of relevant information, feelings and experiences. Therefore consumers will attempt to recall more information when felt involvement, perceived risk, or need for cognition are high. Consumers with a greater degree of knowledge and experience have a greater ability to search internally. This could be seen with a consumer who has bought a phone previously compared to someone who hasn’t. The person who has never had a mobile phone before will have a more restricted internal search than someone who has prior knowledge of how to go about looking for a phone.

One important aspect that affects this decision making is the set of brands that are recalled from memory whenever the problem recognition has been stimulated. Rather than remembering all available brands of mobile phone, consumers will usually tend to remember a subset of two to eight brands. Although there are not vast selections of brands of mobile phones, someone buying one might consider Orange or Vodafone rather than all possible brands. The consideration brand usually consists of those brands that are ‘top of mind’. Well known brands such as Vodafone and Orange are more easily recalled than unfamiliar brands because the memory links associated with these brands tend to be stronger. This factor emphasises the importance of repeating marketing communications to keep brand name awareness high and associations strong.

Sometimes a consumer’s decision can be based entirely on information recalled from memory. At other times information may be missing or some uncertainty surrounds the recalled information. If this is the case the consumer may engage in external search of outside sources such as dealers, distributors, friends, magazines, advertisements or the internet. Consumers can add to additional information about which brands are available, as well as the benefits and attributes that are associated with brands in the consideration set. Pre-purchase search occurs in response to the activation of problem recognition. Upon deciding to buy a phone a consumer will go to dealers, search on the internet and get magazines.

Evaluation of alternatives by the consumer will be ongoing throughout the internal and external information searching processes. The consumer will be trying to get the best or most appropriate brand with the right attributes for themselves. They will need to know the attributes and the salience for the customer before they decide on choosing a phone. A number of cognitive models show the process by which consumers combine items of information about attributes to make a decision. In compensatory models consumers choose the brand that has the greatest number of positive features relative to negative. In contrast, with a non-compensatory model negative information leads to immediate rejection of a brand. In making a decision, consumers often evaluate one brand at a time. Thus, a consumer making a mobile phone purchase might collect information about Orange and make a judgement about it before moving onto the next brand. This type of brand processing occurs frequently because the environment, often in the form of package information, is often organised by brands. Attribute processing, in comparison, occurs when consumers compare across brands, one attribute at a time. An example of this is price comparing between brands, followed by the consumer selecting the brand with the right price.

Once the consumer has compared up a number of alternative brands they will make a purchase decision of one brand from the choice set. This decision may not only be chosen through their personal internal and external information searching, but also from the influence of others. Other people’s attitudes such as friends, peers, experts or intermediaries such as reviewers can strongly influence a consumer’s choice.

The final stage of the five stage model occurs after the purchase is made. The consumer will display post-purchase behaviour. This may be in the form of post-purchase satisfaction or post-purchase dissatisfaction. If the consumer is satisfied with their choice of phone they will lose interest and show less attention towards information and adverts on phones. If the customer, on the other hand, is dissatisfied with their choice in brand they will start the whole process over again, identifying the problem and seeking information on alternatives. The consumer will have gained experience and knowledge in their internal and external information area which will make it easier to search again.

Bibliography

Soloman, Bamossy, Askegaard. Consumer Behaviour- A European Perspective, Second Edition (2002).

Hoyer, MacInnis. Consumer Behaviour, Second Edition (2000).

Harper, Row. Motivation and Personality, Second Edition (1970)

Rasmusson. Sales and Marketing Management, Second Edition (1998)