Consumer Psychology Flashcards
What is consumer psychology?
Employs theoretical psychological approaches to understanding consumers
E.g. which product, which brand, where do they buy it etc
Linked closely to marketing but distinct fields
What are consumer attitudes and what role do they play?
Put consumers into frame of mind (liking/ disliking) about an object, moving to/ away from it
Important to inform how to market products/ services
Assumption attitudes predict purchasing behvaiour
What is the multi attribute model?
Consumers assumed to be rational thinkers
Attitudes affects by beliefs, affect & behavioural intention
Questioned by Wicker, 1969 as found attitude-behaviour correlations can be weak
What is the theory of planned behaviour (Azjen, 1985)?
Intention to perform behaviours - behavioural, normative & control beliefs
Attitudes, subjective norms & perceived behavioural control affect intention, which affects behaviour
Stronger intention = more likely to perform behaviours
What are 2 theories explaining consumer attitudes?
Functional theory - memory based, people form attitudes to order, structure & summarise large amounts of information about objects
Constructive theory - attitudes formed on the spot, affected by context, experience etc
What is the “of 2 minds” idea in the psychology of advertising?
System 1 - automatic & quick, no/ little effort & no sense of voluntary control
System 2 - allocate attention to effortful mental activities (e.g. complex computations). Operations often associated with subjective experience of agency choice & concentration
What influences peoples perceptions of products?
Heuristics - conscious processing of activities is slow & laborious, use rules of thumb to interpret incoming data (faster, error-prone)
Human memory - relies on recall & recognition (easier)
Other unconscious cues e.g. social norms, perceptions of own knowledge, attitudes
What is nudge theory (Thaler & Sustein, 2008)?
By shaping the environment, can influence likelihood of an option being chosen over another
Individual maintains freedom of choice
E.g. scarcity & urgency, social proof & reciprocity
What is neuromarketing?
Study of physiological responses to advertising & other brand-related messages (eye tracking)
Aim to gain night into customers motivations, preferences & decision making processes
What was Lindstrom’s (2008) study on neuromarketing?
Smokers & former smokers shown images followed by explicit image related to smoking
MRI scans look for activity in nucleus accumbens
Pronounced responses for all images - logo free images create more activity
What is the psychology of influencer marketing?
Draws upon social influence, cognitive bias, trust, authenticity & emotional connections
Persuade & engage consumers
How to appeal to psychological factors that significantly impact the success of marketing campaigns on social media
What did Jordan (1997) propose about product design?
Pleasure with products - emotional, hedonic & practical benefits
Rooted in Freudian theory
4 pleasures include physio-pleasure, socio-pleasure, psycho-pleasure & ideo-pleasure
What is the impact of product design?
Superior design can differentiate products by creating & communicating values to customers
Aesthetics design may be strong indicator of willingness to buy (Gilial et al, 2018)
Emotional play role
What are challenges in consumer research?
Can lead to risk-adverse outcomes
Asking the customer what they want is backwards looking, rather than innovative
What are the 7 sins of consumer psychology (Pham, 2013)?
Narrow scope
Narrow lens
Narrow epistemology
Disregard for content
Over-generalisation
Research by convenience (selective reporting)
Confusing studies/ theories
What caused Pham to develop the 7 sins of consumer psychology?
Research field not tackling major issues to consumer welfare e.g. obesity, tobacco consumption, TV violence
What is the validity & reliability of consumer research?
Sampling bias - important to engage target market in research
Outcome measure of consumer research is often purchasing intention - proxy for buying behvaiour
Azjens theory - may not translate into actual purchasing
Ecological/ external validity concerns - artificial
