Marketing 2 1 2
– Now we are going to look
at the psychological factors that affect consumer behavior. The reason we give it a special module is because it is a very
complicated process to look at. There are four things
in that kind of factor: motivation, perception,
learning, beliefs, and attitudes. Let's start with the motivation process. What is motivation? Basically, motivation is what makes us get out of the house and
go and buy something. Basically, motivation is
something that makes us move.
Now, let's see how motivation
is described in psychology. This is also how we use it in marketing. We have first what we
call the present state. The present state is where I am now. I just took an example of
Jennifer Hudson at the time, but it obviously can relate
to anyone and anything. In this case I'm looking at the weight. The present state,
let's assume that I feel that I'm a bit overweight, and my desired end state
is to look thinner. Maybe in her case it's because she knew that she was going
to be in the spotlight. She knew she was going to perform and she felt that this would
be a better situation for her. But motivation will happen
when there's discrepancy between where I want to be and where I am now. This discrepancy will cause tension, and this tension will then cause the drive that will make me move. Now different products
and different services can try to help me achieve the desired end state that I want. Motivation, then, is a need that I need
to complete or satisfy, and I'm trying to see
how can I satisfy it, how can I reach that desired end state.
Now those kind of motives
can be physiological, like I'm hungry, like we discussed before. I'm hungry, what am I going to eat? Or they can be psychological. For example, I want to
have higher self-esteem. I want to be stronger personality. I want to be able to achieve more and so forth. Now many different motives also involve different type of purchases. For example, I want to
look better than I look now but let's say I don't have the money. So what am I going to do? I'm going to try to look for better value maybe on eBay, maybe on Amazon. Now Maslow is a very famous
psychological researcher that present the hierarchy of needs that try to help understand what kind of motives come first, physiological or psychological, and also, is there a
relationship between a few goals.
What happens if I want to look good but I also want to lose weight, but I also want to save money? Which goal will be the one that I will achieve first? This is an example of how a product can help me achieve my desired end state. We know that there's a
lot of magazines out there that talk about the perfect
diet, the perfect exercise, and so forth, because
that desired end state, to look perfect, is
something that many people in the United States strive for, and hence, they will buy those products that will promise them
assistance in closing that discrepancy between the current state and the desired end state.
Going back to Maslow hierarchy of needs, there are two types of needs that Maslow discusses. One is psychogenic and
the other is biogenic. One is psychological and one is physical. Now one of the main thing that we need to understand
when it comes to Maslow is that he believed that first there's the physiological needs, and only then there are
the psychological needs. Let's look at the diagram. Here, if you look at those two, those two are basically physiological. One has to do with being able
to eat and sleep and drink, and the other one has to do
with safety, being protected. Then belongness, ego needs,
and self-actualization are more psychological needs. Now based on Maslow hierarchy of needs, if you're hungry, you
will not be interested in achieving any of these goals.
However, if you achieved already hunger and you achieved already safety, then this is the time where
you can start thinking about psychological needs. Now in general, one can see that, because if I'm hungry, why would I care about buying a Gucci bag? However, in reality,
there's a lot of cases where we see that Maslow
hierarchy of needs not necessarily work in
the sense of hierarchy. But it is something to keep in mind and it is one of the bases
of motivational goals that we study in psychological
as well as in marketing. Perception now is another factor that we want to consider when we're talking about psychology.
The reason is that in marketing we don't care about reality. We care about how consumers
perceive the situation and how they perceive the brand. This actually will have
to do with the senses, the way we see things, the way we smell, the way we taste, the way we touch, but also what is the interpretation of what we see and what we smell and what we hear, and so forth. This diagram basically show me, first of all, the sensory stimuli.
If we are healthy human beings, all of us will have the
ability to see, to hear, smell, and so forth. Why? Because we all share the
same types of body parts. The difference, though,
starts in those three factors. One of them is exposure. Obviously, if I can't see something, then I can't see it. If I am watching a TV show
and commercials come up, but I went to the bathroom
or I went to get a snack, I was not exposed to that commercial, so I've never seen that commercial. Hence, I can never pay attention to it and I can never interpret
what the marketer was trying to tell me. One of the things that
we pay a lot of attention in marketing is what are the media habits of our consumers. Where will they see our media? Where will they see the commercials? Another is where will
they see the product. When we do Google search, it's very important that our
company will pop up first, because without exposure, there will be no attention and no interpretation.
However, the fact that
I saw a commercial on TV doesn't mean I paid attention to it. Maybe I was talking to someone. Maybe I was texting on my phone. The fact I was in the room
while the commercial was showing doesn't mean I paid attention. Again, if I didn't pay attention, there's not going to
be any interpretation. Finally, let's assume I did pay attention. How does the marketer know that I interpret what I saw the right way? This is where really culture comes in and social factors comes in.
Because interpretation means what meaning do we give
to different stimuli that we see, hear, smell, and so forth. Then what might affect perception? To sum basically up what
I just talked about, the level of attention we give to different pieces of information
is extremely important. In marketing, we like to divide it into selective attention,
selective distortion, and selective retention. Selective attention is
when people pay attention to some information but
not necessarily to others. For example, if you're in a classroom and the teacher is talking, there could be a lot
of other noises around. Maybe someone is moving a chair. Maybe a car is passing by. However, your brain decides
to pay attention only to the teacher, hopefully.
Hence, you will not pay
attention to the other noises and you might actually
not even be aware that there was an ambulance crossing
the street, for example. Selective distortion is when people tend to interpret something in a way that support what they want to believe is true. For example, remember that smoking example which I mentioned before? The fact that it can
give you health issues is not something that actually
frightened a lot of people. That's because of selective distortion. You hear that let's say
there's a higher probability of getting lung cancer if you smoke, but then you say, "Well,
I know this person "and he smoked, and he lived till he's 90.
"And I know this person who smoked "and he didn't get lung cancer." That's called selective distortion. You pay more attention to the information that fits with what you want to do, and you try to ignore the information that contradict what you like to do. Then selective retention is how much do I really remember what was said to me. For example, when it comes to brands, let's say that I'm a Verizon client and I see an AT&T commercial. I might not remember what AT&T tells me as much as remembering
what Verizon tells me because Verizon is my company and I'm a loyal customer, and I want to make sure that it fits with the fact that I'm their client. Psychological factors, then, cannot be completed without understanding what beliefs and attitudes are. Belief is basically
something that the consumer think is true without any ability to actually prove or disprove it. It can be knowledge, it can be opinion, and it can be faith. It's a little bit like I believe in God.
Do we have a proof that God exist? Well not an objective one. Because, if you did, then
it wouldn't be a belief. It would be a fact. The same is in marketing. I believe that Gucci
sells higher quality bags as compared to, let's say, ZARA. Can someone really prove it? Well maybe if someone did an experiment, but usually there's no
marketing research about that and you just believe
it because you pay more and you are told that of course I pay more because this is handmade as compared to, let's say, machine made.
Attitudes, on the other hand, follows beliefs. Attitude is how much I
like or dislike something on a continuum. For example, I can say I
like Coke better than Pepsi. That will be a positive
attitude toward Coke more than it is toward Pepsi. I can also say, though, why do you like Coke more than Pepsi, and I'll say because I believe
Coke is healthier than Pepsi. Now this is a belief. There's no way I can prove that Coke is healthier than Pepsi, again unless someone
did marketing research.
However, because of that belief, I have influenced the
attitude toward the brand. Now one of the things
that are very difficult is to change attitudes. Why? Because they are based on beliefs. And how can you refute a belief if you can't do marketing research? Volvo, for example, for many years was the car known to be the safest car. When it started, it was the safest car. Because of the way it was built compared to the rest of
the cars at that time, relatively, it was safer. However, today, there's really no research to show if Volvo is better
in its safety features than other cars that exist still. Yet many consumers still believe that Volvo is the safest car, and if you are looking for a benefit that's safe, you will go to Volvo, and hence you will have a better attitude. PC, for example, is not
as creative as the Mac. A lot of people believe that even now. Even though both of them sort of can do both things, there is
still a big perception that Mac is cool and Mac is move creative.
That's the reason why
people sometimes pay double or even triple for a Mac laptop as compared to a PC laptop. If a company can, they want to fit their existing attitudes instead
of trying to change them. Because changing attitude
means changing beliefs and changing beliefs is very difficult..
