Role Of Consumer Behaviour In Marketing

Role of Consumer Behavior in Marketing

What is consumer behavior in marketing?

Consumer Behavior refers to the study of buying tendencies of consumers. An individual who goes for shopping does not necessarily end up buying products. There are several stages a consumer goes through before he finally picks up things available in the market. Various factors, be it cultural, social, personal or psychological influence the buying decision of individuals.

Marketers need to understand the buying behavior of consumers for their products to do well. It is really important for marketers to understand what prompts a consumer to purchase a particular product and what stops him from buying. To cope up with these differences and to bridge this gap it becomes

The purpose of mass advertisements aims to capture attention for the product, ensuring prolonged association with consumers, or for the purpose of recall of their product in customers’ mind by building a strong brand image by creating value for the customers. This give rise to the application of the AIDA theory(attitudes, actions,interses&desire). For the purpose, it proceeds to analyze the impact of advertisements in influencing the consumer’s attitude to purchase the durable products like Television and Refrigerator, etc. Today, most of the advertisements come with ‘celebrity endorsements’ This could be for the reason of their social standing. People want to wear the “right” clothes, drink the “right” beverages and use the “right” fragrances and buy “right” durables. Studying the attitude of consumers, it can be stated that if a consumer observes messages for two different firm’s products, one product’s message containing a better advertisement and the other not, believes the better advertisement’s product will definitely have more features and so be of higher

(Antil 1988; 5-16) The following stages present a simplified model of adoption process: 1. Awareness At this stage the potential adopter finds out about the existence of a product but has very little information and no well-formed attitudes about it. 2. Comprehensive This stage represents the consumer’s having knowledge and understanding of what the product is and can do. 3. Attitude Here, the consumer develops favorable or unfavorable behavioral predispositions toward the product. Termination of the adoption process is likely at this stage if attitudes are not favorable towards the product. 4. Legitimation Here, the consumer becomes convinced that the product should be adopted. This stage is predicated upon favorable attitudes towards the innovation, and the consumer may use information already gathered as well as additional information in order to reach a decision. 5. Trial If possible, the consumer tests or tries the product to determine its utility. Trial may take place cognitively that is, whereby the individual vicariously uses the product in a hypothetical situation or it may be actually used in a limited or total way, depending on the innovation’s nature. 6. Adoption At this stage, the consumer determines whether or not to use the product in a full-scale way. Continued purchase and / or use of the item