Consumer Motivation and Behaviour

Why do consumers want what they want? Why do they buy what they buy? The standard marketing view draws on a wide variety of research concerning individual motivations and social influences to answer these questions.

Psychological theories of motivation can shed light on why people come to desire certain things. One frequently used categorization breaks down human perceived needs into five categories:

· Physiological needs, such as hunger and thirst.

· Safety needs, for security and protection.

· Social needs, for a sense of belonging and love.

· Esteem needs, for self-esteem, recognition, and status.

· Self-actualization needs, for self-development and realization.

A consumer’s recognition of a need—step 1 of the decision process—can include one or many of these categories.

Psychological theories can also shed light on why people sometimes consume in unpredictable, even seemingly irrational ways. It is no secret that sex is used to sell everything from cars to magazines or that soft drink ads appeal more to a desire for a sense of belonging and self-esteem than to a desire to relieve thirst. People know, at a conscious level, that the tie between such advertising campaigns and what they actually will get by buying the product is tenuous at best. But that doesn’t stop such campaigns from being successful!

Psychologists have noted that the degree to which people perceive a need is clearly related to two important factors: our own past experience, and the experience of groups to which we compare ourselves. These create reference points and reference groups, in light of which people evaluate their own well-being and state of need.

Humans seem to be more tuned in to changes in our perceived satisfaction than to the absolute level of satisfaction we experience. We take as our reference point, in judging what we want and need, any situation to which we have become accustomed. If we are used to eating out once a week, that seems normal to us. We may not feel any particular joy in eating out once a week. If we change, and start eating out three times a week, we will feel a surge of pleasure. But once we have adapted to the new situation, the pleasure tapers off and we come to think of the new situation as normal. (We will even feel deprived if cut back to “only” twice a week!) For this reason, as marketers well know, to the extent that we seek jolts of happiness, we can be continually attracted by stimuli that promise us something more, new, or different.

The picture of consumer behavior that comes out of the marketing synthesis of social science research is one that sees consumption behavior as very much a social behavior, in far-reaching ways. Reference groups are particular groups of people who influence the behavior of a consumer, because the consumer compares himself or herself with them. Membership groups are groups to which the person belongs, such as families, student communities, and groups of co-workers. Membership groups are important sources of information and also sources of pressure to conform to group practices and norms. Another kind of reference group, an aspirational group, is a group to which a consumer wishes he or she could belong. People often buy, dress, and behave like the group—management personnel, rock stars, sports teams, or whoever—with whom they would like to identify.

The modern consumer is not an isolated individual making purchases in a vacuum. Rather, we are all participants in a contemporary phenomenon that has been variously called a consumerist culture and a consumer society. To say that some people have consumerist attitudes or values means that they always want to consume more, and that they find meaning and satisfaction in life, to a large extent, through the purchase of new consumer goods. Consumerism has emerged as part of a historical process that has created mass markets, industrialization, and cultural attitudes that ensure that rising incomes are used to purchase an ever-growing output.

II. Answer the following questions:

1. Is consumption a trial-and-error process?

2. Is the modern consumer an isolated individual making purchases in a vacuum?

3. Why do consumers want what they want?

4. Does each step give marketing professionals opportunities to try to sway consumer choices toward their organization’s products?

5. What forms the basis for the standard marketing view of consumer behaviour?

III. Find the sentences in the text that prove the following statements and comment on them:

§ information search is not sufficient way of getting acquainted with the product

§ intention is a trade mover

§ shopping is often more of a will than of a need

§ our past influences our choice

§ nowadays consumer society is a complex multy-structured system

§ it’s hard to forsee the demands of society.

IV. Circle the most appropriate synonym according to the contextual meaning of the word:

1) recognition

a) identification

b) acknowledgement

c) appreciation

2) overwhelming

a) enormous

b) very strong

c) astonishing

3) sway

a) manipulate

b) win over

c) influence

4) surge

a) rush

b) rise

c) outburst

5) tenuous

a) slight

b) delicate

c) doubtful

6) taper off

a) decrease

b) reduce

c) ebb

7) barring

a) discounting

b) other than

c) excluding

V. Read the text and point out the main ideas which are discussed in it.

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