Chapter 2 - Consumer Behaviour ⢠Preparation, use, and wide scale ...
Chapter 2 - Consumer Behaviour • Preparation, use, and wide scale availability of large amounts of consumer research is a critical force in advancing the discipline of consumer behaviour o Dedicated to building a body of knowledge and understanding as to what makes consumers tick, and how marketers can better satisfy consumers needs and wants IMPERATIVE TO CONDUCT CONSUMER RESEARCH • Studying consumer bejaviour enables marketers to predict or anticipate how marketers might better meet consumer needs by offering them more suitable products and marketing messages • The task of knowing and satisfying the needs of consumers and communicating with them, is becoming a greater challenge, as more companies seek to become global in scope, and to expand to more and more countries OVERVIEW OF THE CONSUMER RESEARCH PROCESS • We consider the importance of secondary information but most of our attention is concentrated on two categories of primary research - new research especially designed and collected for purposes of current research problem o Qualitative research: focus groups and depth interviews, and specific associated research approaches o Quantitative research: observational research, experimentation, and survey research, and their associated research approaches for collecting information from consumers • Six steps of the consumer research process; o Defining the objectives of the research o Collecting and evaluating secondary data o Designing a pimary research study o Collecting primary data o Analyzing the data o Preparing a report of the findings DEVELOPING RESEARCH OBJECTIVES • First and most difficult step in consumer research is accurately defining the objectives of the research • In designing a quantitative study, the researcher may not know what questions to ask, in this case, before undertaking a full-scale quantitative study o Conduct a small scale exploratory study COLLECTING SECONDARY DATA • Second step in the consumer research process is to search for the availability of secondary data • Secondary data is already existing information that was originally gathered for a research purpose other than the present research • Internal Secondary Data o Such information or data could consist of previously collected in-house information that was originally used for some other purpose o Companies use internal secondary data to compute customer lifetime value profiles for various customer segments
Include: customer acquisition costs, profits generated from individual sales, costs of handling, and expected duration • External Secondary Data o This type of secondary data comes from sources outside of the firm or organization o PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT SECONDARY DATA Such data is collected by government bodies or their agencies, and is generally made available for a very nominal cost o PERIODICALS AND ARTICLES AVAILABLE FROM ONLINE SEARCH SERVICES Business-relevant secondary data from periodicals, newspapers, and books are readily accessible via a variety of online search engines o SYNDICATED COMMERCIAL MARKETING AND MEDIA RESEARCH SERVICES Within the realm of commercially available information about consumers, there are syndicated and subscriber-based studies that are offered by marketing research companies that routinely sell data to subscribing marketers Secondary data is also provided by companies that routinely monitor a particular consumption-related behaviour, and sell their data to marketing companies who use the insights to make more informed strategic decisions Future might entail monitorign the media expsoure of almost all consumers via digitable cable set-up boxes o CONSUMER PANELS Marketers have purchased data from secondary data providers who collected consumer behaviour data from household or family consumer panels Members of consumer panels are paid for recording their purchases and media viewing habits in diaries that are then combined with thousands of households and analyzed by the data providers Obtaining secondary data before engaging in primary research offers several advantages • First: secondary data may provide a solution to the research problem and eliminate the need for primary research altogether Secondary data has disadvantages - information may be categories in units that are different from those that the researcher seeks DESIGNING PRIMARY RESEARCH • New ideas require qualitative research, merits in both • Designing and Conducting Qualitative Research o Contemporary qualitative consumer research grew out of the rejection of the belef that consumer marketing was simply applied economics, and that consumers were rational decision makers who objectively evaluated the goods and services available to them and selected those that gave them the highest utility at the lowest cost o Those rejecting this simplistic view include adopters of an early and important school known as motivational researchers
Early leader of motivational research movement was Dr. Ernest Dichter, movement became popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s Focus groups and depth interviews are very well-established research tools that are regularly used not only to secure insights about consumers underlying needs and motivations o In designing and implementing an appropriate research strategy for conducting a particular qualitative study, the researcher has to take into consideration the purpose of the study o Specific research methods used may differ in psychoanalytic and clinical aspects of psychology o Two key types of interviews conducted in carrying out qualitative studies are depth interviews & focus groups DEPTH INTERVIEWS: depth interviews are referred to as one-on-one interview, somewhat lengthy non-structured interview • Interviewer minimizes their time talking in order to provide as much time for the consumer to express their thoughts • Depth interviews provide marketers with valuable ideas about product design or redesign, and provide insights for positioning or repositioning products FOCUS GROUPS: usually consists of 8 to 10 participants who meet with a moderator-researcher-analyst to focus on or explore a particular product or product category • Usually takes about two hours, a researcher can generally conduct two or three focus groups a day • For focus groups. Respondents are recruited on the basis of a carefully drawn consumer profile that is detailed in the form of a questionnaire called a screener DISCUSSION GUIDES: step by step outline that sets out the line of questionaing that the researcher needs to cover with the respondent in a depth interview or a group of respondents in the case of a focus group session • An agenda of sorts PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES: projective techniques are a useful tool borrowed from psychanalytic theory and practice, and adapted for studying the unconscious associations of consumers who may be concealing or suppressing some of their thoughts and reactions • Sometimes administered as part of focus group research METAPHOR ANALYSIS: stream of consumer research that suggests that since most communication is nonverbal and that people do not think in words but in images, it is important to use a set of engaging tasks and exercises to get consumer participats to get in touch with their own inner feelings • Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique - first patented marketing research tool in the U.S. GROWING PRESENCE OF ONLINE FOCUS GROUPS LOOKING-IN (ONLINE RESEARCH) o
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Established stream of consumer research that considers ways in which consumer-oriented web sites can be systematically studied to add to our understanding of the importance of contemporary consumers online activities • Looking-in research is conducted by researchers performing a key phrase search of the stored threads and related postings o Commonly used qualitative projective exercises: word associations, sentence completions, photo/visual storytelling, role playing DESIGNING AND CONDUCTING QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH • Used to better understand the acceptance of various products or brands • OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH o Watching or observing, best way to gain in-depth understanding of the relationships between people and products is by watching them i the process o Marketers use physiological observation devices that monitor respondents patterns of information processing • EXPERIMENTATION o Controlled experiments of this type (manipulating only one variable) ensures any difference in the outcome is due to different treatments of the variable under study and not to extraneous factors o Major application of causal research is test marketing • SURVEY RESEARCH o Personal interview surveys most often take place in a public space or a retail shopping arena o Telephone interview surveys are used to collect consumer data o Mail surveys: conducted by sending questionnaires directly to indviduals at their homes o Email surveys: increasingly popular alternative to using the postal service as a means of distributing questionnaires to target consumers QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS • Data collection instruments are developed as part of a studys total research design to systematize the collection of data and to ensure all respondents are asked the same questions • A study has validity if it does collect the appropriate data needed to answer the questions or objectives stated in the first stage • A study has reliability if the same questions produce the same findings • Primary data collection isntrument is the questionnaire • Attitude scales are a way to gain the relative feelings o Liket scales are the most popular form of attitude scale because it is easy for researchers to prepare and to interpret and simple for consumers to answer o Semantic differntial scale is relatively easy to construct and administer, scale typically consists of a series of bipolar adjectives anchored at the ends of an odd numbered continuum o Behaviour intention scale measures the likelihood that consumers will act in a certain way in the future
Rank-order scales subjects are asked to rank items such as products in order of preference in terms of some criterion CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT o Customer satisfaction measurement includes quantitative and qualitative measures as well as a variety of contact methods with customers o Customer satisfaction survwys measure how satisfied the customers are with relevant attributes of the product or service, and the relative importance of these attributes of the product or service o
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Include: customer acquisition costs, profits generated from individual sales, costs of handling, and expected duration • External Secondary Data o This type of secondary data comes from sources outside of the firm or organization o PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT SECONDARY DATA Such data is collected by government bodies or their agencies, and is generally made available for a very nominal cost o PERIODICALS AND ARTICLES AVAILABLE FROM ONLINE SEARCH SERVICES Business-relevant secondary data from periodicals, newspapers, and books are readily accessible via a variety of online search engines o SYNDICATED COMMERCIAL MARKETING AND MEDIA RESEARCH SERVICES Within the realm of commercially available information about consumers, there are syndicated and subscriber-based studies that are offered by marketing research companies that routinely sell data to subscribing marketers Secondary data is also provided by companies that routinely monitor a particular consumption-related behaviour, and sell their data to marketing companies who use the insights to make more informed strategic decisions Future might entail monitorign the media expsoure of almost all consumers via digitable cable set-up boxes o CONSUMER PANELS Marketers have purchased data from secondary data providers who collected consumer behaviour data from household or family consumer panels Members of consumer panels are paid for recording their purchases and media viewing habits in diaries that are then combined with thousands of households and analyzed by the data providers Obtaining secondary data before engaging in primary research offers several advantages • First: secondary data may provide a solution to the research problem and eliminate the need for primary research altogether Secondary data has disadvantages - information may be categories in units that are different from those that the researcher seeks DESIGNING PRIMARY RESEARCH • New ideas require qualitative research, merits in both • Designing and Conducting Qualitative Research o Contemporary qualitative consumer research grew out of the rejection of the belef that consumer marketing was simply applied economics, and that consumers were rational decision makers who objectively evaluated the goods and services available to them and selected those that gave them the highest utility at the lowest cost o Those rejecting this simplistic view include adopters of an early and important school known as motivational researchers
Early leader of motivational research movement was Dr. Ernest Dichter, movement became popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s Focus groups and depth interviews are very well-established research tools that are regularly used not only to secure insights about consumers underlying needs and motivations o In designing and implementing an appropriate research strategy for conducting a particular qualitative study, the researcher has to take into consideration the purpose of the study o Specific research methods used may differ in psychoanalytic and clinical aspects of psychology o Two key types of interviews conducted in carrying out qualitative studies are depth interviews & focus groups DEPTH INTERVIEWS: depth interviews are referred to as one-on-one interview, somewhat lengthy non-structured interview • Interviewer minimizes their time talking in order to provide as much time for the consumer to express their thoughts • Depth interviews provide marketers with valuable ideas about product design or redesign, and provide insights for positioning or repositioning products FOCUS GROUPS: usually consists of 8 to 10 participants who meet with a moderator-researcher-analyst to focus on or explore a particular product or product category • Usually takes about two hours, a researcher can generally conduct two or three focus groups a day • For focus groups. Respondents are recruited on the basis of a carefully drawn consumer profile that is detailed in the form of a questionnaire called a screener DISCUSSION GUIDES: step by step outline that sets out the line of questionaing that the researcher needs to cover with the respondent in a depth interview or a group of respondents in the case of a focus group session • An agenda of sorts PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES: projective techniques are a useful tool borrowed from psychanalytic theory and practice, and adapted for studying the unconscious associations of consumers who may be concealing or suppressing some of their thoughts and reactions • Sometimes administered as part of focus group research METAPHOR ANALYSIS: stream of consumer research that suggests that since most communication is nonverbal and that people do not think in words but in images, it is important to use a set of engaging tasks and exercises to get consumer participats to get in touch with their own inner feelings • Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique - first patented marketing research tool in the U.S. GROWING PRESENCE OF ONLINE FOCUS GROUPS LOOKING-IN (ONLINE RESEARCH) o
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Established stream of consumer research that considers ways in which consumer-oriented web sites can be systematically studied to add to our understanding of the importance of contemporary consumers online activities • Looking-in research is conducted by researchers performing a key phrase search of the stored threads and related postings o Commonly used qualitative projective exercises: word associations, sentence completions, photo/visual storytelling, role playing DESIGNING AND CONDUCTING QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH • Used to better understand the acceptance of various products or brands • OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH o Watching or observing, best way to gain in-depth understanding of the relationships between people and products is by watching them i the process o Marketers use physiological observation devices that monitor respondents patterns of information processing • EXPERIMENTATION o Controlled experiments of this type (manipulating only one variable) ensures any difference in the outcome is due to different treatments of the variable under study and not to extraneous factors o Major application of causal research is test marketing • SURVEY RESEARCH o Personal interview surveys most often take place in a public space or a retail shopping arena o Telephone interview surveys are used to collect consumer data o Mail surveys: conducted by sending questionnaires directly to indviduals at their homes o Email surveys: increasingly popular alternative to using the postal service as a means of distributing questionnaires to target consumers QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS • Data collection instruments are developed as part of a studys total research design to systematize the collection of data and to ensure all respondents are asked the same questions • A study has validity if it does collect the appropriate data needed to answer the questions or objectives stated in the first stage • A study has reliability if the same questions produce the same findings • Primary data collection isntrument is the questionnaire • Attitude scales are a way to gain the relative feelings o Liket scales are the most popular form of attitude scale because it is easy for researchers to prepare and to interpret and simple for consumers to answer o Semantic differntial scale is relatively easy to construct and administer, scale typically consists of a series of bipolar adjectives anchored at the ends of an odd numbered continuum o Behaviour intention scale measures the likelihood that consumers will act in a certain way in the future
Rank-order scales subjects are asked to rank items such as products in order of preference in terms of some criterion CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT o Customer satisfaction measurement includes quantitative and qualitative measures as well as a variety of contact methods with customers o Customer satisfaction survwys measure how satisfied the customers are with relevant attributes of the product or service, and the relative importance of these attributes of the product or service o
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