MKT 320 Assignment 1: Measuring Consumer Involvement in a Product

GOAL: To learn how to measure Consumer Involvement and understand its role in a consumer's life

What to do: Steps:

1. Study the concept Consumer Involvement in the book (page 49).

Study its measurement (Table 2.3). That measurement has 5 items or statements.

1. Choose one of these products: sneakers; organic foods; health & fitness, electronics, clothing (only one of these; no exceptions). Choose a PRODUCT CATEGORY, not product subtypes or brands. Thus, clothing in general, not suits or ties or not MK or Calvin Klein or Gap or Old navy Or Nike, etc. (Why: Because we are researching consumer involvement is a product, not in a brand. Involvement in a brand is a topic we wil cover later when we study brand loyalty; rather now, we want to know if a particular consumer is involved in, say sneakers, or cars, or clothing, etc.2. Create a short Survey with two Parts: PART 1: Measurement of Involvement: Borrow from TABLE 2.3 only the first three items (out of a total of 5) and then write two items on your own that are similar toitems 4 and 5 in Table 2.3 but not an exact copy. Make sure your new items are sequenced #4 and #5, as the grader will look at only this sequence. The two new items that you think will show that you understood the "involvement" concept well.

You can make these five questions: Q1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5.

PART 2 of the Survey: Product Related BEHAVIOR: Now write three questions that measure "Behavior." Write them as 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3

These Qs. Are not in the book; you have to create them on your own. What do we mean by "Behavior"? Behavior is an activity or action. As you will realize, none of the five questions in Part 1 is an activity. For example, "I am very interested in" shows the "state of your mind," not the state of your action. So, let'ssay a consumer is mentally involved in cars, how will their behaviors ABOUT CARS be different from someone not mentally involved in cars? They will probably read up all the news and all the information about various new car models when these models come out; they will probably go to car shows; they will probably buy many accessories for their own car; they will probably drive their cars for leisure more (rather than just for essential travel). Another way to distinguish between "State of mind" and "Behavior" is that other personscan observe someone's behavior; they cannot observe what is in a person's mind.

With these two questions, your survey is ready. Now give this survey to two persons (try to choose a person who you suspect might have a "high involvement" state of mind in your chosen product category, and another not so high).

ANALYSIS and REPORT

Do this separately for each consumer.

Calculate Involvement (As a state of mind) score (by totaling all five items in Part1). Show these calculations on the survey form.

Report:

Report Section 1

Involvement Score for (Name of Respondent 1) ...............

Involvement Score for (Name of Respondent 2) ...............

Answer this: Whose involvement (As a mental state) is higher? ...............

Report Section 2.

Q. How does the behavior of consumers differ when they have high versus low involvement in a product category. (Based on Answers in Part 2 of your survey for the two respondents). (Onepara of 6 to 8 lines should suffice).

Report Section 3.

Q. Does the theory about consumer involvement as described in the book hold up in your survey research? (That is, do your findings confirm what the book says on the theory of consumer involvement?). First say, YES, Or NO, or Mixed. Then in a short para (4 to 6 lines), explain your answer.

(Note: A sample size of only two respondents is not a representative sample at all, so it is entirely possible that your findings will be opposite to the Theory. The Theory is correct based on large sample surveys, and it is valid also by commonsense logic). Here, you report just whether your extremely small sample size-based research validated the theory or not.

Attach the two filled-in surveys. (photos). Report and Photos should be a single WORD file. If I have to click on multiple files, you will lose substantial points. If you do not know how to do it, Google or learn in whatever way, how to do it.