Week 4: Understanding the Target Audience Flashcards
How can you define the target audience? (3)
- general - described in terms of demographics, psychographics, lifestyle variables
- domain specific - described in terms of those characteristics associated with a product or product category
- brand specific -groupings in terms of brand loyalty, beliefs about the brand, buying intentions
What is consumer behaviour?
The process and activities that people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs and desires
What are the stages in the consumer decision-making process?
- Problem recognition
- Info search
- Alternative evaluation
- Purchase decision
- Postpurchase evaluation
What are the relevant internal psychological processes?
- Motivation
- Perception
- Attitude formation
- Integration
- Learning
What is problem recognition?
Occurs when there is a perceived discrepancy between the consumer’s ideal and actual state.
What are some sources of problem recognition?
- Out of stock
- Dissatisfaction
- Related product purchase
- Marketer-induced recognition
- New needs or wants
- New products
When consumers search for info, they consult:
- Personal sources
- Market sources
- Public sources
- Personal experience
Search activity is greater when:
- the purchase is important or risky
* relevant info is easily obtained and used
Search tends to be the greatest amongst those consumers who are highly knowledgable, moderately knowledgeable or not-very-knowledgeable.
Moderately knowledgeable
What is alternative evaluation?
After gathering and selecting info, the consumer moves to evaluating the alternatives.
- A set of brands with the potential to meet the consumer’s needs is identified
What is the evoked set?
The various brands identified as purchase options to be considered.
Consumers will evaluate these brands further before proceeding to a purchase decisions.
Is evaluative criteria objective or subjective?
Both - e.g. when buying a car, consumers use object attributes such as $, warranty and fuel economy. Subjective factors include image, styles and perceived performance
What are the two types of consequences?
- Functional - concrete outcomes. e.g:
Beverage - satisfies thirst
Raincoat - keeps me dry - Psychosocial - intangible outcomes, e.g:
Sports car - cool appearance
What are heuristics? (evaluative criteria)
Mental short cuts or rules of thumb that lead to speedy decisions. Can be based on:
- product signals e.g. bottle vs. box wine
- market beliefs - e.g. if the $ is high, it must be good quality
- country of origin - e.g. if it’s Aus owned, it must be good quality
- familiarity - e.g. I’ve been buying this brand forever, why stop? Or “I’ve seen lots of ads for this thing”
- inertia - e.g. my mum bought this bread, my grandma did, I do too
Is the purchase decision the same as an actual purchase?
No. Once a consumer chooses which brand to buy, they must still implement the decision and actually buy it.
Additional decisions may need to be made like when and where to buy it, and how much money to spend
