Impact Of External Influences on Consumer-Decision Making

Impact Of External Influences on Consumer-Decision Making Consumer behaviour is a steady ambiguity and even though there has been some achievements in planning consumers behaviours, sometimes we just dont know how things going on and how some factors drives one consumer may not drive another. Sometimes Organisations took corrective measures for consumers motivations and sometimes they do not. Which have a real impact on the financial success of the organisation . The target of this report is to answer the following critical factors: 1. Impact of the external variables which are used by marketers during the various stages of the consumer decision-making process . 2. Evaluation of a specific consumer behavioural theory or model for the understanding of the consumers and the implementation of the marketing strategy for the organisation. Consumers are faced with the need to make decisions about products and services all the time. Some of them are very important and entail great effort, while others are made more or less automatically. Perspectives on decision-making range from a focus on habits, age, income, personality, level of education and tasks. Task 1 Impact Of External Influences At Various Stages Of The Consumer-Decision Making Used By Marketers Introduction In this era of rivalry, indulgent the consumer is very important for marketers. Consumer desires and preferences are constantly varying, given the changes in factors like their demographics and lifestyles. These changes can bring great business opportunities for attentive marketers and threats for marketers who fail to become accustomed. Consumers obtain, devour, consume and dispose off the products and services created by organizations. They went through a number of cognitive and behavioural processes whilst making their purchases and spending on decisions. This information is also vital to make a variety of business decisions associated with product development, packaging, pricing, distribution, promotions, communication, etc. According to Solomon, et al., (2010) consumer decision making is a central part of consumer behaviour. Typically the buyer decision process takes place in five stages. These stages are essential for a consumer in making purchases on a conscious or a subconscious level. Consumer Behaviour helps to comprehend the external variables like reference groups, family, social class, and, culture, and their influence on consumer decision-making process. Consumers are faced with many external influences, including an individuals culture, subculture, household structure, and groups that he associates with. Marketers and business owners call these external influences because the source of the influence comes from outside the person rather than from inside. Need/Problem Recognition: According to Solomon. M, Problem recognition occurs whenever the consumers sees a significant differences between the current situations and some desired or ideal state. During this stage marketers have to create need by using the different external variables. Example: Marketers are using advertisement as in Kelloggs advertisement marketers focusing on the girls by showing an female athlete to be slim and smart. So marketers using external variables of sub-culture (gender) and opinion leader for developing a need by solving their problem of getting smart. Information Search According to Solomon. M, it is the process by which consumer surveys their environment for suitable data to make a realistic decisions. Different information sources available by using internal and external search. But according to marketers point of view, external variables such as family friends opinion leaders, reference group and culture etc Example: Pharmaceutical organizations like GSK uses consultants or top level medical professionals (opinion leaders, reference group) for their products by arranging seminars, meetings and TV shows to give information about their products in particular disease the rest of their followers agreed . Because opinion leaders or reference group have adopted them after the completing all information search. Evaluation Of Alternatives According to Solomon. M, it is the stage in which a choice must be made by the available alternatives. The product alternatives a person considered comprise their evoked set. Members usually share some features of evoked set. Marketers always like their products in evoked set of consumers.According to surveys consumers often include a small number of product in their evoked set. Example: Coca cola is using Santa Clause as brand ambassador in UK. In Christmas days, marketing of coke revolves around the Santa Clause because of their cultural influence as an alternative against the different competitors especially Pepsi. Consumers evaluate the product when they go for alternatives but after the strong marketing influence for their evoked set as well they go for Coke as the main drink. Product Choice/Purchase According to Solomon. M, after the evaluation of alternatives, decision rules guiding choice can range from very simple and quick strategy to complicated processes requiring much attention and cognitive processing. Marketers play a role in educating consumers about which criteria should be used and for this purpose they use external variables for consumer decision making. Example: Marketers use friends and family members and reference group as external variables for their promotions. Like mobile phone companies i.e. Three in UK use this tool as their marketing policy and offer their loyal customers different opportunities by referring new consumers and give them discounts as well. Post-Purchase Behaviour According to Solomon. M, post-purchase behaviour involves all the consumers activities and the experiences that follow the purchase. Satisfaction is important after purchase because, usually it cost more to attract new consumer than to retain an existing. Marketers can use external variables to improve the consumers post purchase decisions to maintain their loyalty. Companies use guarantee, return policy and after sales services for the customer satisfaction. For example in UK different online and high street retail companies have all the customer satisfaction programmes to maintain their customer loyal to them in all circumstances. Like Tesco, Asda, Amazone, etc. Conclusion In the above report, I discussed all the five stages of consumer decision making in the light of external variables for marketing perspective. As consumer behaviour is affected by different external variables like culture, sub-culture, friends and family, reference group, demographics, opinion leaders and economical environment. Marketers develop different strategies to influence consumers and try to evoke them for their decision making to buy a specific products or services. Task 2 In Nokia PLC, How Maslows hierarchy of need can aid in understanding consumers actions and its practical implemention of marketing strategy in Nokia. Introdution Nokia is the top selling brand in the mobile phone market of the world. In this report I am going to explain the Maslows heirarchy of needs for the understanding of consumers actions and the marketing strategies for the future of the company. Maslows Hierarchy Of Need According to Solmon, M, Maslow formulated a hierarchy of biogenic and psycogenic needs, in which certain levels of motives are specified. Following are 5 steps of Maslows hierarchy of need and according to Maslow, 1 level must be attained before the next level. Physiological : According to Maslow, main aim of the individuals is to fulfill the basic needs food, water,shelter and warmth. After getting their basic needs individuals go for the next stage.Therefore physiological needs are must to obtain other above stages of need. Implementation Of Physiological Needs In Marketing Strategy Of Nokia PLC In the era of fastest growing smart phone market, Nokia is becoming the brand leader due to their range of mobiles. As nokia is the company offering the variety of mobiles for their consumrs which fulfill the basic needs of the consumers in a affordable price as the marketing strategy,which keep Nokia worlds largest selling mobile company.In this competitive environment and busy life mobile is the basic need for an individual so Nokia fullfill these basic needs by ranging their price for a common man to elite class as their marketing and promotional strategy. Security Needs Security is the next step according to Maslow, all consumers are basically worried about the after effects of any product or service which related to security,stability and freedom.If an individual have the basic physiological needs then they achieve this as well. Implementation Of Security Needs In Marketing Strategy Of Nokia PLC As Nokia is the well known company in the world of smart phones so consumer have the faith on them about the security of their basic needs and the stability of the product .In case of any probelm with the mobile Nokia provides full warranty fo their produts,free accessories and free repairs as their marketing strategy through which consumer get secured and proud to be Nokia customer. Social/Belonging Needs According to Maslow the next level of hierarchy are social needs, means friends and family,loveones and the communication between all individuals is a social need. According to Maslow this need will be only achieveable when the first two needs, physical and security are full filled. Implementation Of Social Need In Marketing Strategy Of Nokia PLC Nokia mobiles are very well recognized socially and fulfill all the social needs of the consumers thatswhy they very popular as users friendly in mobile market.Now a days where the social networking on internet made the world very small. Nokia mobiles offered all the features of the current scenario of smart phones by their marketing strategies to promote its product according to consumers demand. Self-Esteem Needs In Maslows hierarcy of needs, self-esteem followed by the physiological ,safety and belonging needs which means any individual feel his recognition, satisfation and achievement. For this consumers needs somewhat unique kind of products or services which feel them differnt in the society. Implementation Of Self-Esteem In Nokia PLC As Nokia is the largest phone company in the world and provide a large variety of mobiles. So according to Maslow for these kind of people Nokia introduce elite class mobiles in the consumers market,which are used as status symbol as their marketing strategy policy of place in this segment. Self-actualization According to Maslow, self actualisation is the last and the top level of hierarcy of needs.To full fill this criteria individual have their own set of principals to judge the product or service in the market.This last need is only achieveable if all other needs of the consumers are being full filled. Implementation Of Self-Actualization In Nokia PLC Nokia plc is using opinion leaders in their advertisements like Bruce Lee, Shakirra etc.so that people feel proud to have Nokia smart phones by using in the society to full fill their self actualization need. Nokia brands have a lot of variety of elite class smart phones with lot of applications free of cost for their loyal customer as their marketing strategy. For their promotional strategies they hire top celebrities in their advertisement to attract the consumers market to make them buy their products. Conclusion In the above report ,I discussed and explain the marketing implementations of the Maslows hierarchy of need, its all five stages accordinglly.How Nokia plc is using these needs to fullfill the consumer demands through applying the marketing strategies. In this Nokia plc is using all the 4Ps of marketing mix to creat the needs of the consumers and help the consumers in their decision making process. By using Maslows hierarchy of need theory, Nokia plc is able to saisfy their consumers demands and needs according to the market and attract more and more customers in the smart phone market of the world.

Parents of Pre-term Infants Essay -- social workers, parental stress,

Article Review One The first article, Parents of Pre-term Infants Two Months after Discharge from the Hospital: Are They Still at (Parental) Risk? (Olshtain-Mann, O. & Auslander, G. K , 2008), describes a study in Israel that was designed to gain further understanding of † the emotional state and functioning of parents of pre-term infants, after an initial period of adjustment following the infants’ discharge from a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)†. Specifically, this study compared the stress levels of parents and self-perceptions of competence as parents among mothers and fathers, two months after discharge of their babies from the hospital. The study compared parents of pre-term babies with parents of full-term babies. A target group of 80 pairs of parents of pre-term babies and a non-matched comparison group of 80 pairs of parents of full-term babies were interviewed for the study. Respondents were selected as follows: All couples (both mothers and fathers) in both groups were Hebrew speaking. The target group had pre-term infants who were hospitalized in the NICU of any of three hospitals in Jerusalem during 2001-2002. These premature babies weighed less than 3.85 pounds and were born in the 36th week or earlier. All were treated in the NICU for one week or more. According to the article, exclusions included parents of children who were not expected to survive or those who had congenital abnormalities. Parents of the full-term babies had infants who were born in the same time period, and in the same hospitals, as the target group. All babies in both groups were singletons. The interviews were conducted by social workers and followed a specific protocol. A further questionnaire was completed by both mothers and fa... ...e employed to develop programs that will offer support to the new parents of higher risk children. Works Cited Olshtain-Mann, O. & Auslander, G. K. (2008). Parents of pre-term infants two months after discharge from the hospital: Are they still at (parental) risk? Health & Social Work, 33(4), 299-308. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/210554738?accountid=8289 Pierrehumbert, B., Nicole, A., Muller-Nix, C., Forcada-Guex, M., Ansermet, F. Parental post- traumatic reactions after premature birth: implications for sleeping and eating problems in the infant. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2003;88:5 F400-F404 doi:10.1136/fn.88.5.F400 Dacey, J., Travers, J. & Fiore, L. (2009) Human Development Across the Lifespan. (7th ed). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Cogburn, N., Cogburn, N. personal communications, April 5, 2014.

American Has Too Many Malls Essay

Many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are being threatened with â€Å"economic destruction† by their online competition. I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time looking at this issue, and I believe we’re seeing clear signs that the e-commerce revolution is seriously impacting commercial real estate and will continue to do so. Online retailers are relentlessly acquiring success in many retail categories. As a result, many offline businesses are fighting to survive for their economic life. A number of physical retailers have already succumbed to online competition including Circuit City, Borders, CompUSA, Tower Records and Blockbuster. Many other physical businesses are also showing signs of serious economic distress. While many of these large businesses collapsed due to their inability to compete online, The shopping mall is also in danger from the â€Å"online shopping revolution. † Many malls are closing stores by the thousands, and there are few large physical chains opening stores to take their place. The recession in 2008 was the catalyst for bringing down many of these businesses, but competition from online retailers continued the financial difficulties for many offline retailers. The mall business isn’t economically healthy either. Most professionals understand that profound changes are afoot. Don Wood, CEO of federal realty investment trust, says â€Å"there is too much retail supply in this country. † The wall street journal reports: green street advisor (forecasts) that 10 percent of the roughly 1,000 large malls in the U. S. will fail within the next 10 years †¦. That’s a conservative estimate. Many mall CEOs predict the failure rate will be higher. I agree with the above perspectives. A report from Co-Star observes that there are more than 200 malls that have vacancy rates of 35 percent or higher. This is a â€Å"clear marker for shopping center distress. † In short, These malls are becoming ghost towns. They are not economically successful now and will only get less so as online business continues to steal retail sales from physical stores. Hundreds of malls will soon need to be repurposed or demolished. Strong malls will stay successful for a while since retailers are willing to pay for foot traffic and customers, but even they stand in the path of the shift of retail spending from offline to online. However, despite the decline of physical commerce, there has been a huge rise in online commerce. If I were thinking of starting a new retail brand right now, I would unquestionably start it online. many very talented entrepreneurs are doing just this. I personally shop at Bonobos for pants, J. Hilburn for sweaters, Ledbury for shirts and Warby Parker for eyeglasses. In the past, these retailers have started in the mall but they now are starting online. This is a trend that will undoubtedly continue. There will clearly be fewer new offline retailers to take the space vacated by the disappearing brick-and-mortar chains. This puts further pressure on malls to try and make money. While doing research for this article, I came across a fascinating website called deadmalls. com. it is a site that chronicles the stories of hundreds of already or soon-to-be dead malls. Unfortunately for mall owners and people who work inside them, the content on deadmalls. com is about to expand substantially. There just are too many malls in America, and this will only get worse.

To What Extent Are Our Global Consumption Patterns Harming...

The industrial revolution, around 300 years ago, has triggered the ongoing advancement of our planet and our lives concerning our consumption. We have gone a long way throughout history which has led us to a large improvement to our planet. However, this change isn’t perfect. Although it may damage the environment and our planet, our global consumption patterns are benefiting people by giving us tools that increase what we can do, and our consumption is even more beneficial because of the creation of globalization which has developed our world economy. Our increased consumption of goods is severely damaging our planet’s environment in ways that may tamper its usefulness and comfort for the future. When goods and products are created, several of Earth’s limited resources are spent. Trees are cut to create paper, mountains are blown up and metals are mined from the Earth to create products such as computers that need these metals, clean water is used up to create d rinks such as water bottles, and as a result, resources are constantly taken out of the Earth. These resources are limited because we are consuming them much faster than they can be restored. (Story of Stuff Video). Additionally, the process of creating goods requires energy which most businesses and countries use fossil fuels to generate. There are many methods of extracting oil form the Earth, and all of these methods release a large amount of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. The use of fossil fuels toShow MoreRelatedManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 Pagesearnings? As we continue to experience the twenty-first century’s economic, social, and political churning, how will these driving factors be influenced by the brutally competitive global economy in which organizations do not have any particular geographic identity or travel under any particular national passport? What will be the effect of the rapid gyrations in markets that emphasize the difficulties that accounting practices face in determining true performance costs and that forecasting programsRead MoreDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 Pagessolution for courses in Principles of Management, Human Resources, Strategy, and Organizational Behavior that helps you actively study and prepare material for class. Chapter-by-chapter activities, including built-in pretests and posttests, focus on what you need to learn and to review in order to succeed. Visit www.mymanagementlab.com to learn more. DEVELOPING MANAGEMENT SKILLS EIGHTH EDITION David A. Whetten BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY Kim S. Cameron UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Prentice