Lesson 2 – INTERNAL INFLUENCES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Unit 3 – Motivation and Affect
Overview
To understand motivation is to understand why consumers do what they do. We do everything for a reason, even if we can’t articulate what that reason is. We teach marketing students from Day 1 that the goal of marketing is to satisfy consumers’ needs. However, this insight is useless unless we can discover what those needs are and why they exist.
Learning Objectives
• Products can satisfy a range of consumer needs.
• Consumers experience different kinds of motivational conflicts that can impact their purchase decisions.
• Consumers experience a range of affective responses to products and marketing messages.
• The way we evaluate and choose a product depends on our degree of involvement with the product, the marketing message, or the purchase situation.
Course materials
Products can satisfy a range of consumer needs.
Marketers try to satisfy consumers’ needs, but the reason any product is purchased can vary widely. The identification of consumer motives is an important step to ensure that a product will meet the appropriate need(s). Traditional approaches to consumer behavior have focused on the abilities of products to satisfy rational needs (utilitarian motives), but hedonic motives (such as the need for exploration or fun) also guide many purchase decisions. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates that the same product can satisfy different needs.
Consumers experience different kinds of motivational conflicts that can impact their purchase decisions.
Motivation refers to the processes that lead people to behave as they do. It occurs when a need is aroused that the consumer wishes to satisfy. A goal has valence, which means that it can be positive or negative. We direct our behavior toward goals we value positively; we are motivated to approach the goal and to seek out products that will help us to reach it. However, we may also be motivated to avoid a negative outcome rather than achieve a positive outcome.
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Consumers experience a range of affective responses to products and marketing messages.
Affective responses can be mild (evaluations), moderate (moods), or strong (emotions). Marketers often try to elicit a positive emotional response via advertising or other communication channels so that consumers form a bond (or lovemark) with their offering. A lot of the content on social media reflects affective responses that people post, so these platforms are a rich source of information for marketers to gauge how consumers feel about their brands.
The way we evaluate and choose a product depends on our degree of involvement with the product, the marketing message, or the purchase situation.
Product involvement can range from low where consumers make purchase decisions based on inertia, to high where they form strong bonds with favorite brands (cult products). Marketing strategies also need to consider consumers’ extent of engagement with the messages about their products and the environments in which consumption of these products occur.
Read:
Chapter 5 – Motivation and Affect
Consumer Behavior 12e
by: Michael R. Solomon
Activities/assessment:
Answer the following Review Questions:
1. What is motivation and why is this idea so important to marketers?
2. Describe three types of motivational conflicts. Cite an example of each from a current marketing campaign.
3. Explain the difference between a need and a want.
4. What is cognitive dissonance?
5. What are some of the key problems with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
6. List three types of perceived risk, and give an example of each.
7. What is the difference between a mood and an emotion?
8. What is mood congruency and how do advertisers use it?
9. What is it about a cult product that allows a higher price point?
10. What are some strategies marketers can use to increase consumers’ involvement with their products?