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			Yes, this section is empty and as noted in my edits, my plan is to add content to it. However, this page needs a LOT of work and I cannot do it all in a day! I have now been working on this page for two solid days - but there is much more that needs to be done to make it readable, interesting and accurate.

	== Brand-switching ==		== Brand-switching ==

Revision as of 08:32, 6 October 2016

Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, marketing and economics, especially behavioural economics. It attempts to understand the decision-making processes of buyers, both individually and in groups such as how emotions affect buying behaviour. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics or personality and behavioural variables such as re-purchase intentions, loyalty, brand advocacy, willingness to provide referrals, in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, sports, reference groups, and society in general.

The study of consumer behaviour is concerned with all aspects of purchasing and consumption behavior as well as all persons involved in purchasing and consumption activities. Research has shown that consumer behaviour is difficult to predict, even for experts in the field.

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) databases have become an asset for the analysis of customer behaviour. The voluminous data produced by these databases enables detailed examination of the factors that contribute to customer re-purchase intentions, consumer retention, loyalty and other behavioural intentions such as the willingness to provide positive referrals, become brand advocates or engage in customer citizenship activities. This type of information can be used to develop tightly targeted, customized marketing strategies on a one-to-one basis.

The Purchase Decision

Understanding purchasing and consumption behaviour is a key challenge for marketers. Consumer behaviour, in its broadest sense, is concerned with understanding how purchase decisions are made and how products or services are consumed or experienced.

Some purchase decisions involve long, detailed processes that include extensive information search to select between competing alternatives. Other purchase decisions, such as impulse buys, are made almost instanteously with little or no investment of time or effort in information search.

Some purchase decisions are made by groups (such as families, households or businesses) while others are made by individuals. It is customary to think about the types of decision roles; such as (a) The Initiator - the person who proposes a brand for consideration; (b) The Influencer- someone who recommends a given brand; (c) The Decider- the person who makes the ultimate purchase decision; (e) The Purchaser - the one who orders or physically buys it; (f) The User - the person who uses or consumes the product. All of the decision roles are normally performed, but not always by the same individual.

To understand the mental processes used in purchasing decisions, some authors employ the concept of a black box. The black box is a figurative term used to describe the mental processes used by a consumer during a purchase decision. The model includes the interaction of stimuli, consumer characteristics, decision process and consumer responses. The model assumes that purchase decisions do not occur in a vacuum. Rather they occur in real time and are affected by other stimuli, including external environmental stimuli. The elements of the model include: interpersonal stimuli (between people) or intrapersonal stimuli (within people). The black box model is related to the black box theory of behaviourism, where the focus extends beyond processes inside the consumer, but also include the relation between the stimuli and the consumer's response. Marketing stimuli include actions planned and carried out by companies, whereas the environmental stimulus include actions or events occurring in the wider operating environment and include such factors as social factors, economic, political and cultural dimensions. In addition, the buyer's black box includes buyer characteristics and the decision process, which influence the buyer's responses.

Environmental factors		Buyer's black box		Buyer's response
Marketing Stimuli	Environmental Stimuli	Buyer Characteristics	Decision Process	Buyer's response
Product Price Place Promotion	Economic Technological Political Cultural Demographic Natural	Attitudes Motivation Perceptions Personality Lifestyle Knowledge	Problem recognition Information search Alternative evaluation Purchase decision Post-purchase behaviour	Product choice Brand choice Dealer choice Purchase timing Purchase amount

The black box model considers the buyer's response as a result of a conscious, rational decision process, in which it is assumed that the buyer has recognized a problem, and seeks to solve it through a commercial purchase. In practice some purchase decisions, such as those made routinely or habitually, are not driven by a strong sense of problem-solving. Such decisions are termed low-involvement and are characterized by relatively low levels of information search/ evaluation activities. In contrast, high involvement decisions require a serious investment of time and effort in the search/ evaluation process. Low involvement products are typically those that carry low levels of economic or psycho-social risk. High involvement products are those that carry higher levels of risk and are often expensive, infrequent purchases. Regardless of whether the consumer faces a high or low involvement purchase, he or she needs to work through a number of distinct stages of a decision process.

Overview of the Purchase Decision

The consumer buying process: is usually depicted as consisting of 5 distinct stages:

The purchase decision begins with the problem recognition occurs when the consumer identifies a need, typically defined as the difference between the consumer's current state and their desired state. The strength of the need drives the entire decision process. Information search describes the phase where consumers scan both their internal memory and external sources for information about products or brands that will potentially satisfy their need. The aim of the information search is to identify a list of options that represent realistic purchase options. Throughout the entire process, the consumer engages in a series of mental evaluations of alternatives, searching for the best value. Towards the end of the evaluation stage, consumers form a purchase intention, which may or may not translate into an actual product purchase. Even when consumers decide to proceed with an actual purchase, the decision-process is not complete until the consumer consumes or experiences the product and engages in a final post purchase evaluation; a stage in which the purchaser's actual experience of the product is compared with the expectations formed during the information search and evaluation stages. The stages of the decision process normally occur in a fixed sequence. However it should be noted that information search and evaluation can occur throughout the entire decision process, including post-purchase.

Problem Recognition

The first stage of the purchase decision process begins with problem recognition (also known as category need or need arousal). This is when the consumer identifies a need, typically defined as the difference between the consumer's current state and their desired or ideal state. A simpler way of thinking about problem recognition is that it is where the consumer decides that he or she is 'in the market' for a product or service to satisfy some need or want. The strength of the underlying need drives the entire decision process.

Consumers become aware of a problem in a variety of ways including:

Out-of-Stock: When a consumer needs to replenish stocks of a consumable item e.g. ran out of milk or bread

Regular purchase: When a consumer purchases a product on a regular basis e.g. newspaper, tobacco

Dissatisfaction: When a consumer is not satisfied with the current product or service

New Needs or Wants: Lifestyle changes may trigger the identification of new needs e.g. the arrival of a baby may prompt the purchase of a cot, stroller and car-seat for baby

Related products: The purchase of one product may trigger the need for accessories, spare parts or complementary goods and services e.g. the purchase of a printer leads to the need for ink cartridges

Marketer-induced problem recognition: When marketing activity persuades consumers of a problem

New Products or Categories: When consumers become aware of new, innovative products that offer a superior means of fulfilling a need. Disruptive technologies such as the advent of wireless free communications devices can also trigger a consumer need for products or services

Information Search and Evaluation of Alternatives

During the information search and evaluation stages, the consumer works through processes designed to arrive and a number of brands and products that represent viable purchase alternatives. Typically consumers first carry out an internal search; that is a scan of memory for suitable brands. The evoked set is a term used to describe the set of brands that a consumer can elicit from memory and is typically a very small set of some 3- 5 alternatives. Consumers may choose to supplement the number of brands in the evoked set by carrying out an external search using sources such as the Internet, manufacturer/brand websites, shopping around, product reviews, referrals from peers and the like.

Consumer evaluation occurs continuously throughout the entire decision process. The fact that a consumer is aware of a brand does not necessarily mean that it is being considered as a potential purchase. For instance, the consumer may be aware of certain brands, but not favorably disposed towards them (known as the inept set). Such brands will typically be excluded from further evaluation as purchase options. For other brands, the consumer may have indifferent feelings (the inert set). As the consumer approaches the actual purchase, he or she distills the mental list of brands into a set of alternatives that represent realistic purchase options, known as the consideration set.

Traditionally, one of the main roles of advertising and promotion was to increase the likelihood that a brand name was included in the consumer's evoked set. Repeated exposure to brand names through intensive advertising was the primary method for increasing top-of-mind brand awareness. However, the advent of the Internet means that consumers can obtain brand/product information from a multiplicity of different platforms. In practice, this means that the consideration set has assumed greater importance. The implication for marketers is that relevant brand information should be disseminated as widely as possible and included on any forum where consumers are likely to search for product or brand information. Thus, marketers require a rich understanding of the typical consumer's information search strategies.

Consumers evaluate alternatives in terms of the functional and psycho-social benefits offered. Functional benefits are the tangible outcomes that can be experienced by the consumer such as taste or appearance. Psycho-social benefits are the more abstract outcomes such as the social currency that might accrue from wearing an expensive suit or driving a 'hot' car. Brand image is an important psycho-social attribute. Kotler et al., (2014) note that the consumer applies certain beliefs to a given brand. The consumer’s beliefs may differ depending on the consumer's prior experience and the effects of selective perception, distortion and retention.

The marketing organization needs a deep understanding of the benefits consumers value and therefore which attributes are most important in terms of the consumer's purchase decision. It also needs to monitor other brands in the customer’s consideration set to prepare the right plan for its own brand.

During the evaluation of alternatives, the consumer ranks or assesses the relative merits of different options available. According to Kotler et al., (2014) no single evaluation process is used by consumers across all-buying situations. Instead, consumers generate different evaluation criteria depending on each unique buying situation. Thus the relevant attributes vary according to each product category and across different types of consumers. For example Koestler et al., (2014) explain that attributes important for evaluating a restaurant would include food quality, price, location, atmosphere, quality of service and menu selection. Consumers depending on their geographic, demographic, psycho-graphic and behavioural characteristics will decide which attributes are important to them. After evaluating the different product attributes, the consumer ranks each attribute from highly important to least important. These priorities are directly related to the consumer’s needs and wants (Kotler et al., 2014). Thus, the consumer arrives at a weighted score for each product - representing the consumer's subject assessment of individual attribute scores weighted in terms of their importance, to arrive at a total mental score or rank for each product under consideration.

Purchase decision

Once the alternatives have been evaluated, the consumer is ready to make a purchase decision. Sometimes purchase intention does not translate into an actual purchase. The extent to which purchase intentions result in actual sales is known as the sales conversion rate. Organizations use a variety of techniques to improve conversion rates. The provision of easy credit or payment terms may encourage purchase. Sales promotions such as the opportunity to receive a premium or enter a competition may provide an incentive to buy now rather than later. Advertising messages with a strong call-to-action are yet another device used to convert customers. A call-to-action might include an offer that is only available for a limited time (e.g. 'Offer must expire soon'; 'Limited stocks available') or a special deal usually accompanied by a time constraint (e.g. 'Order before midnight to receive a free gift with your order'; 'Two for the price of one for first 50 callers only'). The key is to provide consumers with compelling reasons to purchase promptly rather than defer purchase decisions.

Post-purchase evaluation

(Engel, Kollat, Blackwell, 1968) and Rice (1993) have suggested the purchase decision model should include a feedback loop. Foxall (2005) further suggested that post-purchase evaluation provides key feedback because it influences future purchase patterns and consumption activities.

Following purchase and after experiencing the product or service, the consumer enters the final stage, namely post-purchase evaluation. This stage involves examining and comparing product features, such as price, functionality, and quality. Post purchase evaluation can be viewed as the steps taken by consumers to correlate their expectations with perceived value, and thus influences the consumer’s next purchase decision for that good or service. For example, if a consumer buys a new phone and his or her post-purchase evaluation is positive, he/she will be encouraged to purchase the same brand or from the same company in the future. This is also known as "post-purchase intention". On the contrary, if a consumer is dissatisfied with the new phone, he or she may take actions to resolve the problem. This could involve requesting a refund, making a complaint, or deciding not to purchase the same brand or from the same company in the future.

After acquisition, consumption or disposition, consumers may feel some uncertainty in regards to the decision made, generating in some cases regret. Post-decision dissonance (also known as cognitive dissonance) is the term used to describe feelings of anxiety that occur in the post purchase stage; or a concern as to whether or not the correct decision was made after a purchase. Some consumers, for instance, may regret that they did not purchase one of the other brands they were considering.This type of anxiety can affect consumers' subsequent behaviour

Consumers use a number of strategies to reduce post purchase dissonance. A typical strategy is to look to peers or significant others for validation of the purchase choice. Marketing communications can also be used to remind consumers that they made a wise choice by purchasing Brand X.

When consumers make unfavorable comparisons between the chosen option and the options forgone, they may feel post-decision regret. Consumers can also feel short-term regret when they avoid making a purchase decision, however this regret can dissipate over time. Through their experiences consumers can learn and also engage in a process that’s called hypothesis testing. This refers to the formation of hypotheses about the products or a service through prior experience or word of mouth communications. There are four stages that consumers go through in the hypothesis testing: Hypothesis generation, exposure of evidence, encoding of evidence and integration of evidence.

Internal influences on purchase decision

Purchasing behaviour is also influenced by a range of psychological, demographic and personality factors such as demographics, psychographics (lifestyle), personality, environment, motivation, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Psychological factors include an individual's motivation, attitudes and beliefs, while personal factors include income level, personality, age, occupation and lifestyle.

Motivation - The consumer's underlying motivation drives actions, including information search and the purchase decision. In order to understand consumer behaviour, it is important to investigate factors that motivate consumers to take a particular course of action. One approach, to understanding motives comes from Abraham Maslow. The Hierarchy of Needs is based on five levels of needs, organized accordingly to the level of importance. The five needs are:

Physiological - basic levels of needs such as food, water and sleep
Safety- the need for physical safety and security
Belonging- the need for love, friendship and also a desire for group acceptance
Esteem- The need for status, recognition and self-respect
Self-actualization – The desire for self-fulfillment

Physiological needs and safety needs are the so-called lower order needs. Consumers typically use most of their resources (time, energy and finances) attempting to satisfy these lower order needs before the higher order needs of belonging, esteem and self-actualization become meaningful. Part of any marketing program requires an understanding of which motives drive given product choices. Marketing communications can illustrate how a product or brand fulfills these needs.

Perception

Part of marketing strategy is to ascertain how consumers gain knowledge and use information from external sources. The perception process is where individuals receive, organize and interpret information in order to attribute some meaning. Perception involves three distinct processes: sensing information, selecting information and interpreting information. Sensation is also part of the perception process, and it is linked direct with responses from the senses creating some reaction towards the brand name, advertising and packaging. The process of perception is uniquely individual and may depend on a combination of internal and external factors such as experiences, expectations, needs and the momentary set.

When exposed to a stimulus, consumers may respond in entirely different ways due to individual perceptual processes. A number of processes potentially support or interfere with perception. "Selective exposure" occurs when consumers decide whether to be exposed to information inputs. "Selective attention" occurs when consumers focus on some messages to the exclusion of others. "Selective comprehension" is where the consumer interprets information in a manner that is consistent with their own beliefs. "Selective retention" occurs when consumers remember some information while rapidly forgetting other information. Collectively the processes of selective exposure, attention, comprehension and retention lead individual consumers to favour certain messages over others. The way that consumers combine information inputs to arrive at a purchase decision is known as integration.

Demographic Factors

Prior Experience The consumer's prior experience with the category, product or brand can have a major bearing on purchase decision-making. Experienced consumers (also called experts) are more sophisticated consumers; they tend to be more skillful information searchers, canvass a broader range of information sources and use complex heuristics to evaluate purchase options. Novice consumers, on the other hand, are less efficient information searchers and tend to perceive higher levels of purchase risk on account of their unfamiliarity with the brand or category. One study, for example, found that as consumer experience increases, consumers consider a wider range of purchase alternatives (that is, they generate a larger consideration set, but only at the product category level).

External influences on purchase decision

Purchasing behaviour can also be affected by external influences, such as culture, sub-culture, social class, past experience reference groups, family and situational determinants.

Culture Culture is the broadest and most abstract of the external factors, they are the complexity of learning meanings, values, norms, and customs shared by members of a society. It is important to study the impact of culture on consumer behaviour as marketers expand their international marketing efforts.

Subcultures Subcultures may be based on age, geographic, religious, racial, and ethnic differences. These racial/ethnic subcultures are important to marketers because of their growth, size, and purchasing power.

Social Class Social Class refers to relatively homogenous divisions in a society into which people sharing similar lifestyles and interests can be grouped. These social classes are important to marketers because these consumers have similar buying habits. Reference group is defined as "a group whose presumed perspectives or values are being used by an individual as the basis for his or her judgment, opinions, and actions." As consumers we use three different types of reference groups including, associative, aspirational and dissociative as a guide to specific behaviours. Marketers uses these groups to create advertisements. Finally, situational determinants or purchase and usage decisions. Three types of these may have an effect: specific usage situations, purchase situations, and the communication settings.

Reference Groups In order to understand consumer behaviour it is essential to analyse the aspects of group influence and how it can affect consumer’s decisions. The definition of a group is when two or more individuals share common beliefs, values and set of forms. A group that is used for individual’s guidance in order to assist with their knowledge and attitudes are called Reference Groups.

A number of distinct types of reference groups can be identified:

Aspirational Reference Groups classified as non-membership groups, where individuals often admire these groups. Associative Reference Groups are groups where individuals in fact belong to, such as friends, family and work groups that can generate a positive reaction to consumers.

"Disassociative Reference Groups" have a negative image and their values, attitudes and behaviours are disapproved by individuals.

The types of reference groups might have some influence when brands are creating their advertisement. The use of informational influence enable brands to show members of a certain group using their product which could generate some positive influence on consumer’s behaviours.

Opinion Leaders Information is an important tool that influence consumer behaviour. Opinion Leaders can exert considerable social influence because of their product knowledge, expertise and credibility. Opinion leaders are specific to a product category, so that an opinion leader for computers is not likely to be an opinion leader for fashion. Typically, opinion leaders have high levels of involvement with the product category, are heavy users of the category and tend to be early adopters of new technologies within the category. Journalists, celebrities and bloggers are good examples of an opinion leader due to their broad social networks and increased ability to influence people’s decisions . Indeed, recent evidence suggests that bloggers may be emerging as a more important group of opinion leaders than celebrities.

In order to make use of opinion leaders in the marketing strategies, it is important to be able to identify the opinion leaders in each situation which can be challenging. Some techniques that can be used are through key informants, socio-metric techniques and self-questionnaires.

Brand-switching

Brand-switching occurs when a consumer chooses to purchase a brand that is different to the regular or customary brand purchased. Consumers switch brands for a variety of reasons including that the store did not have the regular brand or a desire for variety or novelty in brand choice. In the fast moving consumer goods market (FMCG), the incidence of switching is relatively high. A great deal of marketing activity is targeted at brand-switchers. Rossiter and Bellman have proposed a classification of consumers based on brand-loyalty/ switching behaviour:

Brand Loyals: Purchase preferred brand on almost every purchase occasion

Favourable Brand Switchers: Exhibit moderate preference for the brand or brands that they buy and can be readily enticed to purchase competing brands

Other Brand Switchers: Normally purchase a competing brand, possibly because they are unaware of our brand or due to a negative experience with our brand

New Category Users: Those who are unaware of a category but have potential to become new users

Channel-switching

Channel-switching is the action of consumers switching to a different environment to purchase their goods, such switching from brick-and-mortar stores to online catalogues, or the internet. A number of factors have led to an increase in channel switching behaviour; the growth of e-commerce, the globalization of markets, the advent of category killers (such as Officeworks and Kids 'R Us) as well as changes in the legal/ statutory environment. For instance, in Australia and New Zealand, following a relaxation of laws prohibiting supermarkets from selling therapeutic goods, consumers are gradually switching away from pharmacies and towards supermarkets for the purchase of minor analgesics, cough and cold preparations and complementary medicines such as vitamins and herbal remedies.

For the consumer, channel switching offers a more diverse shopping experience. However, marketers need to be alert to channel switching because of its potential to erode market share. Evidence of channel switching can suggest that disruptive forces are at play, and that consumer behaviour is undergoing fundamental changes. A consumer may be prompted to switch channels when the product or service can be found cheaper, when superior models become available, when a wider range is offered, or simply because it is more convenient to shop through a different channel (e.g online or one-stop shopping). As a hedge against market share losses due to switching behaviour, some retailers engage in multi-channel retailing.

Impulse buying

Impulse buying can be defined as “a sudden and powerful urge to buy immediately” and occurs when a consumer purchases an item which they had no intention of purchasing prior to entering the store. Impulse buying can be influenced by external stimuli such as store characteristics and sale promotions, internal stimuli such as enjoyment and self-identity, situational and product related factors such as time and money available, and demographic and socio-cultural factors such as gender, age, and education. Stern introduced the four broad classifications of impulse buying including pure impulse buying, reminded impulse buying, suggestion impulse buying, and planned impulse buying.

Pure impulse buying - Occurs outside of the normal purchase behaviour where a consumer experiences a strong emotion of desire towards a product that he/she did not initially plan to buy. This is type of impulse buying is commonly influenced by low prices and even the approval to touch the product as this will create the imagine of actually owning the product.

Reminded impulse buying - Occurs when a consumer remembers the need for a product by seeing it in a store. This is triggered through various techniques such as in-store advertising or sensory marketing. For example, a consumer may be reminded to buy ingredients for a barbecue when he/she drives past a butcher store.

Suggestion impulse buying - Occurs when a consumer sees a product that they have no prior knowledge about, envisions a use for it, and decides that they need it. An example of suggestion impulse buying is when a consumer is encouraged to purchase an electric hand-mixer after having picked up a brochure from the baking department of a home-ware store. The brochure convinces the consumer of the hand-mixer's superiority over the wooden spoon she has been using. Marketing techniques that can also trigger suggestion impulse buying include long-term warranties or a free trial period.

Planned impulse buying - Involves a partially planned intention of buying, however specific product or categories are not yet determined. In this case, the consumer’s purchasing decision can be encouraged by retailing staff, or even their peers who can persuade the consumer to purchase a substitute or provide reassurance about an alternative brand choice.

Consumers who is seeking to buy a product is more susceptible to sales pitches. Techniques used to close the sale include ‘social evidence’, where the salesperson refers to previous success and satisfaction from other customers buying the product. ‘Scarcity attraction’ is another technique, where the salesperson mentions that the offer or amount of products are limited, as it forces the consumer to make a quicker decision because consumers feel that they have limited time to carefully reflect on their decision before purchasing the product.

Psychologists have analysed the ingrained drive in the brain called ‘loss aversion’ which allows consumers to respond to these techniques. Loss aversion refers to “the tendency to be more concerned about the prospect of losing something than the prospect of gaining something”, and encourages consumers to take action on their desire to purchase.

Emotions and Mood

Emotion plays an important role in advertising. Consumers often had some previous experience with the brands through advertising or communication. These experiences can have some impact in the way consumers interpret advertising. The feelings caused by the advertising can shape attitudes towards the brand and to the advertisement.

One of the strategies that brands use is emotional arousal, which is the motivation to stimulate certain emotional levels. Consumers are often looking for some products where the primary or secondary benefit is emotional arousal. Most people do not like to feel sad, powerless or disgusted, so many products are developed in order to prevent or reduce those unpleasant emotions. Shopping malls are a good example, where some people go to try to reduce the negative emotions and to have a good experience.

To better understand how emotional communication and relationship interact it is relevant to analyse the study of interpersonal communication developed by Paul Watzlawick (2006). His studies found five axioms of communication and the most beneficial to advertising are the first three axioms. The first axiom suggests that interpersonal communication is always happening even if people are not talking but is still engaged in communication by their body language. The second axiom is based on the idea that every communication has a content. The third axiom mentioned about the two types of communications and the concept of “digital” versus “analogue”. Communication is related to rational digital message and is recognisable and clear but lacks emotional values. At the other hand metacommunication is analogue and highly emotional in character.

Paul Watzlawick (2006) studies revealed one important fact suggesting that the content of communication declines and disappears over time, and in some other areas where patterns are induced by the emotional metacommunications remain. He considered those patterns are processed and learned by people automatically and the level of attention paid is not relevant.

Customer Loyalty

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Customer Citizenship Behaviour

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Learning

Motivation enables consumers to learn about products and services. To do this, consumers generate hypotheses and look for information to confirm or negate them. Thus motivation keeps consumers active in the process of learning from experience. Consumers who are highly motivated (e.g. enthusiasts, brand advocates, heavy users, experts, opinion leaders) tend to invest considerable time and effort in learning about products or brands. On the other hand, less motivated consumers tend to generate fewer hypotheses so that lower levels of learning occur. Learning theory suggests that consumers gain experience through purchasing and consumption activities. Learning is influenced by a number of factors:

Prior knowledge or ability – High knowledge provides to consumers the chance to a well-defined belief and expectation resulting in a low chance to create new hypotheses. Besides consumers with low knowledge or skills are likely to establish hypotheses to help in the learning process, as consumers might find difficult to collect evidence without any guiding hypotheses.

Ambiguity of the information environment or lack of opportunity – when consumers do not have enough information available to confirm or disapprove hypotheses, ambiguity of information occurs. The first choice under the context of ambiguity can influence consumer’s decisions, resulting in preferences for the chosen option. On the other side when consumers have some doubts about the product quality, they would search for some facts to support their hypotheses through word of mouth or advertising.

Processing biases – When the evidence is ambiguous and bias is confirmed it can interfere in the learning process. It can cause consumers to turn aside negative and highly diagnostic information. Negative information is also important to the learning process, contributing to a better overview of the situation and allowing consumers to be more accurate towards test hypotheses.

Information Processing

Exposure to available information: Ensuring that information is reached by the consumer is of significant importance to marketers as they want their product or brand to be chosen over that of the competitors. Organizations such as the government of health and safety that want information to be communicated to the consumer about health and safety issues regarding a product or service must make sure that the information that they are providing is in fact exposed to the consumer. It’s all good and well for an organization to distribute information but if it is to have any effect on the consumer it first must be exposed to them. Klapper (1949) proposes the selective exposure theory which explains people’s tendencies to expose themselves to information that they have pre-established views on while avoiding those that are contradicting. The choosing of information that they want to be exposed to are based on a person’s values, beliefs, attitudes, perspectives and past experiences. This indicates that not all information is exposed to consumers most of which goes unnoticed.

Perception of the information provided: Information that is provided to a consumer can be effectively received depending on sensory and selectivity perception. To elaborate on sensory perception, it is the process of perceiving information using senses such as vision, taste, smell or hearing. Stefflre (1968) suggests the importance of aligning the taste and visual of a product in order for information to be effectively received i.e. the taste of coffee to the visual representation of its packaging. Visual features of a product such as the shape, colour and design communicate how a product is likely to taste and how a consumer perceives it to taste. Additionally, selective perception is the process in which an individual perceives what they wish to perceive while ignoring all other aspects. Communications are designed in a way that allow for important information to be selectively perceived. A factor of selective perception can be the use of stimulus intensity, in which an individual is much more likely to be aware of flashing lights rather than non-flashing lights or loud voices rather than quiet voices. A factor of selective perception that is centred more around the person them self than the stimulus in the environment is a person’s needs. People are more likely to selectively perceive information that has somewhat relevance to their own personal needs and interests rather than information that has no relevance at all. These aspects of sensory and selective perception indicate how information is perceived by a consumer (McGuire, 1976)

Comprehending what has been perceived: In order for information to be comprehended it must be accurately perceived by the consumer. Consumers must look past the insignificant entities and correctly decode the information in which the sender intends to get across. Information is first encoded by the sender and then decoded by the receiver, to allow effective communication to occur between the sender and the receiver the intended message from the sender must match the perceived message of the receiver. This information is often encoded using imagery. Research shows that imagery is more memorable to recall than words thus making it a lot more effective. (Pollio, 1974).

Agreeing with the information that has been comprehended: Although consumers may comprehend the information in which they have perceived it may not have the anticipated effect that marketers were hoping to achieve. It is important that consumers agree with what they have comprehended in order for the information to have any influence. Credibility is an important aspect in terms of whether a consumer agrees with the information that they have interpreted. Consumers are much more likely to agree with information that has been provided by a creditable source as there is an establishment of trust between the source and the consumer (McGuire, 1976). This creditable source is known as an opinion leader. Opinion leaders have the ability to shape peoples opinion in the area in which they are known for. They are often targeted by marketers to filter information to consumers through the media with the expectation that the consumer will make a purchase from this exposure. A good example of an opinion leader is a celebrity, they are often seen on TV promoting a particular product or brand. In addition to a creditable source, the layout of the information, the style, the structure and the form of appeal all have a significant impact on the credibility. It is important to note that the communication channel in which the information is communicated through also plays a significant role (Ferber, 1976)

Retaining what is accepted: Consumers retain the information that they comprehend and agree is valid, however this information is often forgotten or delayed. Deutsch (1975) describes the difference between short term active memory and long term memory storage. Short term active memory is the ability to recall information in an active available state for a short amount of time while long term memory storage is being able to store information for a longer period of time. It is said that learning new material can sometimes interfere with a person’s ability to retain information and over time the interference contributes to a loss of retention. Delayed processing can be described in terms of when someone is first exposed to information, not only does the consumer have the tendency to forget and learn new information but they are constantly disposing of already stored information which delays the existing process of retaining information (McGuire, 1976)

Retrieval of information: Information that is exposed to a consumer is decoded and stored in the cognitive system. Search strategies are used to recover information from the cognitive system so that when it comes to making a decision the past information that has been stored has somewhat of an effect on how the decision is made. Humans are known to have a systematic memory system in which they categorize information across various domains to be retrieved at a later date. In order to understand how information is retrieved in the search strategy process it is important to know how the cognitive system is systematized and the information within it is identified which leads to how a consumer searches their memory storage in the act of making a decision. Search strategies undertaken by consumers are not always intentional, they are often unconscious and unintentional actions. According to Guilford’s (1967) model of the structure of intellect, search strategies that recall information from the memory system in sight of the possible options while making a decision is known as divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a thought process which considers all possible options. This relates to the way a consumer processes information because they have several options to consider i.e. other products or services before they make a decision (McGuire, 1976)

The action that is taken on the basis of the decision: As previously mentioned, a consumer is often unaware of their own actions and do not recall how they reached a decision. However, in scenarios where consumers are in fact conscious and can recall making a decision the process in which they describe does not always take place the way they recall it to (Kaplan & Schwartz, 1975). For example, people in highly rational occupations who are often required to make rational decisions are sometimes unconscious of the decisions that they make. The unaware part of a person’s mind is what tries to make sense of the information that is received. People are unable to accurately explain why or how they make a decision. In fact research suggests that when people try to explain their reasoning for making a purchase decision they are likely to fabricate what they think is the most logical and reasonable answer that makes sense to them. They are likely come up with their own version of generalized justification rather than an accurate unconscious reason. This is because individuals don’t have access to the subconscious part of the brain. For this reason consumers actions are made often based on an unconscious decision (McGuire, 1976)

Congruence between personality and the way a persuasive message is framed (i.e., aligning the message framing with the recipient’s personality profile) may play an important role in ensuring the success of that message. In a recent experiment, five advertisements (each designed to target one of the five major trait domains of human personality) were constructed for a single product. The results demonstrated that advertisements were evaluated more positively the more they cohered with participants’ dispositional motives. Tailoring persuasive messages to the personality traits of the targeted audience can be an effective way of enhancing the messages’ impact.

Advertising

The use of Opinion leaders that have knowledge about the product endorse a brand. Advertising can simulate it by the use of a product testimonial. Consequently, opinion leadership can provide positive comments about the product that can be passed to others.

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