Psychological Factors

Marketing Management 3(2+1)

Lesson 08 : Marketing Process

Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior -Psychological Factors

A person’s brand choices are influenced by the following psychological factors:

• Motivation
• Perception
• Learning
• Beliefs
• Attitudes

Motivation

• Need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient intensity and motive is a need that makes a person act.
• According to Freud’s- (a Psychologist’s) theory- Consumers react not only to the primary features of some brand, but also to other less conscious signals such as color, shape, size etc. So marketers should aim at these signals also to be successful
• Another theory states that

The absence of dissatisfying factors is not enough in a product; only satisfying factors can motivate purchase. This theory emphasizes that marketer should avoid dissatisfying factor and offer consumers satisfying factor to induce customer to purchase.
For eg. Hair colouring products which state that they do not contain harmful ammonia is not simply sufficient to induce customer to purchase but the tag that states that ‘it contains natural ingredients that keeps the colour long lasting without damaging hair’ would add to consumers satisfaction.

Perception

The process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world is called perception.

Perception of a product depends not only on a product but also on the surrounding circumstances and conditions within the individual

Individuals can have different perceptions of the same product because of

Selective attention:

A part of the available information is selected by every person and received. Marketers should work greatly on this part of information to attract the customers. Research indicated that people are likely to perceive information related to actual needs and so this has to be given primary importance.

Eg. Horlicks a general beverage with added calcium is targeted for women who need that extra supplement of calcium, would certainly be received by women of that age group.

Selective distortion:

People have a tendency to interpret information in his/her own way based on the personal opinion and ignore message that disproves it. Advertisements that compare products may distort facts and may perceive that it was meant for competition. Ex: Shampoo products.

Selective retention:

When information is supported by a person’s belief, it is retained by the person and is remembered. Similarly good points of a brand they like are retained more than good points about a brand they do not like.

Learning

The changes of an individual’s behavior arising from experience are called learning.

Learning involves changes in a person’s behavior from experience. Through learning people attain beliefs and attitudes

Belief

A belief is a thought that a person and people act based on the opinion about products

Attitude

An attitude is a person’s favorable or unfavorable evaluations of something and is very difficult to change. Marketer should aim to fit in a product to the beliefs and attitudes that are existing than trying to change the buyers attitude.