消费者行为研究留学dissertation

消费者行为研究留学dissertation

消费行为是对消费者的一项研究，研究消费者使用或选择商品的过程，也是研究消费者在不同情况买或不买某一个商品的原因。消费行为可以帮助我们很好的理解购买者的决策过程，购买者不仅是个人，也可以是不同的群体。所有营销决策都是基于知识和消费者行为的假设而制定的。（马勒斯堡和霍金斯，2007年）这篇文章论证了什么是态度，态度的成分以及如何使态度改变。本文将着重讨论如何改变消费者的态度，以及这些变化如何影响消费者行为；它将以广告作为例子进行论述。
 

据吉纳维芙霍金斯和西蒙(2006年)研究表明，态度是一定环境下的动机、情感、感性和认知过程的一个组合。换句话说，态度是人们思考和感觉的一种方式，也是人们根据他们的所思所想做出的适当反应的过程，态度可以促使人们作出不同的决策。例如，当有人提到苹果时，首先在你脑海中出现的是iPhone 4以及它的多功能现代设计。这就是当有人提到苹果时，人们持有的态度，而这种态度是积极的。(吉纳维芙霍金斯&西蒙,2006年)
 

Consumer behavior is a study of consumers and what the processes they would like to use or choose, it is also a study of why people do or do not buy a product based on different situation. It can help us to have a good understanding about the buyer decision making process, not only for individual, but also for different groups. All the marketing decisions are based on knowledge and assumptions of consumer behavior. (Mothersbaugh and Hawkins, 2007) The article demonstrates what is attitude, attitude components and how to make attitude change. On the other hand, the article will focus on how to change attitudes and how these changes can affect consumer behavior; it will use advertisement as a example.
 

According to Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone (2006), an attitude is a combination of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some extent of environment. To put it differently, an attitude is the way people thinking or feeling and act properly based on their thinking or feeling, making different decision. For example, when someone talking about Apple, the first thing appears in your head is iPhone 4 and its multifunctional modern design. This is the attitude people hold when someone talking about Apple and it is positive. (Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone, 2006)
 

Moreover, attitude also acts as an important influence on, or picture of an individual’s lifestyle. That is to say, attitudes are, to some aspect, both the result and source of behavior. For example, as mentioned before, when you saw iPhone 4 in retail store and your attitudes tell you that it is a good product and it is worth for you to buy it. Oppositely, the behavior you act before tell you that although iPhone 4 is a good cell phone, there are too many people already have it and you do not want to have a cell phone that almost every person have the same like you, so finally, you may not buy it. Notwithstanding, it is important to note that attitudes and behavior are not equally. (Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone, 2006)#p#分页标题#e#
 

In addition, attitude has three components, which referred to as the tri-component attitude model. The first one is the cognitive component, which is an attitude including a consumer’s knowledge and beliefs about an attitude object. The cognitive evaluations about an attitude object may be more subjective or objective. For example, when it comes to orange juice, subjective view tell you that it tastes good, while objective view says it contains different vitamin. The second one is the affective component, it is about what the consumer feels or the emotional reactions they hold about an attitude object. Such as a consumer who states ‘I like “Nike”’ or ‘“Nike” is a bad brand’ is the results of expressing an affective or emotional evaluation of the product. The last one is the behavioral component; it means what is the tendency of previously attitude keeper in a proper manner towards an attitude object. This component is teaching you make a series of decisions to purchase or not to purchase a product, or recommend the product to your friends or your family. Above all, a change in one attitude component will tend to produce related changes in the other component, namely the principle of cognitive consistency. (Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone, 2006)
 

As mentioned before, attitude is a study predisposition to act in a consistently favorable or unfavorable mood with respect to a given object. Moreover, the attitude change leaded to by operating the marketing mix can be illustrated by many government agencies’ aims to reduce socially irresponsible behaviors. For example, the national Tobacco Campaign in 1997 put a lot of commercials on television, saying that ‘Every Cigarette is Doing You Damage’. After this advertisement appeared, it generated a significant increase in quitting intentions and doubled calls to the Quit line. To let smokers know that cigarette is damage their body. The other way is to show how much tar can collect in a smoker’s lungs over a year, give a brief feeling for the smoker to make them change their behavior. (Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone, 2006)
 

Attitude change aim is to affect alteration of consumer attitude and reinforcing the existing positive attitudes about their brands. Recently, it is increasingly common for a company to influence consumers’ liking of its brand without influencing either beliefs or behavior directly, which means the company should only need to change the affective component. If the company is successful, to increase favorite will bring more positive beliefs, which means it could lead to more customer to buy this product. But commonly, increase favorite will just bring more consumers to buy this product. In this situation, marketers use three basic approaches to increase affect directly, which are showed as follows: The first one is classical conditioning, which is the process of using an known relationship between a response and a stimulus, to bring about the learning of the same response even have different stimulus. For example, if an advertisement uses a well-known music as their background music, it repeats again and again in the television. Someday, when someone walk through the street, and listen to this music, it may also bring this brand image in their head and let them familiar with this brand. The second one is affect towards the advertisement. Positive affect towards the advertisement may advance liking for the brand through classical conditioning, or it may be a more high-involvement, conscious process. The use of celebrities, humor or emotional appeals will increase liking to a brand through advertisement. For example, Yao Ming is the spokesperson represent to Coca Cola, because of this; some fans of Yao Ming may choose Coca Cola rather than choosing Coke. The main reason is just because they like Yao Ming. The third one is mere exposure, is a way to simply repeatedly presenting a brand, wherever the consumers goes, they can see this brand and get familiar with them. For example, when a freshman firstly come to UTAS, they do not know which bank is better and convenience for them to use, but after several days, they find almost everyone open an new account in Commonwealth Bank, so they get familiar with this bank. Finally, they decided to build a new account in Commonwealth Bank. On the other hand, it is important to know that even classical conditioning or mere exposure have more than an effect on attitude formation rather than on attitude change. However, they would be more useful to those consumers who already have either a positive or a neutral attitude to a product comparing to consumers who hold a negative attitude. (Genevieve, Hawkins & Simone, 2006)
 

Changing the behavioral component is another way to make the attitude change. For example, if P does not like drink soft drink, but one day P went to T’s house and T said that soft drink is really nice. Because T is a friend of P, so they may be glad to have a bottle of soft drink. After that, P find out that soft drink really taste good and changing to like it. Changing the cognitive component, which means changing the belief to a brand, is also a good way to make the attitude change. It is easier to change brand belief than desired benefits. There are four basic marketing strategies are used for changing the cognitive structure of a consumer’s attitude: which are changing beliefs about the attributes of the brand, changing the relative importance of these beliefs, adding new beliefs and changing beliefs about the attributes of the ideal brand.
 

Above all, using advertising to change consumer attitudes is very useful. Advertising communication is aim to increase the awareness of or serve as a change mechanism of consumer attitudes. A good advertisement will change consumer attitudes for a period or make a long-term attitude towards a brand or a product. Moreover, the objective of advertising communication is to affect consumers to make at least one trial purchase. Buying one thing again and again can be affected by many factors, such as how well product benefits satisfy needs or the response of the consumer’s reference groups. In addition, advertisers try to change negative attitudes to a positive factor; some of those attitudes are steady and related to personality. In this situation, change of beliefs will not be sufficient to change attitude. For example, the consumers who have higher education levels, their attitude will change according to they get the new information (Hashim, 1985). Advertisers also need to think about what the consumers react to their different surrounding environment, which can influence ultimately attitudes and beliefs.
 

According to Berkowitz (1989), there are five ways to change attitudes towards a particular product through advertising. The first one is the advertiser can show how to use their product in an appropriate social context if consumers attitudes are related to a social occasion. For example, 7-Up demonstrate that young people always drinking this product at the party. The second one is advertisers can say they have added a remarkable attribute to the product; some consumer may feel that they may have a good quality and turn to buy it. For example, 7-Up advertisements highlight the “no-caffeine” attribute. Followed by advertising can make consumers pay more attention to the attribute, even change their beliefs to one product. 7-Up appeals to consumers who do not like caffeine or who trust the “no-caffeine” attribute is the key point to their consumption decision. The fourth one is advertising can change consumer feelings about different product. Last but no the least, advertising can change consumer feelings by using the comparative advertisement to show the different price, quality or benefit, such as Nike and Adidas.
 

As mentioned before, it demonstrates that advertising plays a main role to influence a consumer who has a positive attitude towards a product. Moreover, advertising can also play a role in changing the negative attitudes to positive attitudes, which means that attitude is one of the elements that the advertiser try to influence, to change their beliefs and behavior. To put it like this, the key role of advertising is to keep a consistent attitude with the consumer, after that, the primary role of any advertiser is to create a way that can enhance this consistency overtime.
 

Draws in conclusion; there are three attitude component which are the affective component, the behavioral component and the cognitive component. And there are also three ways to change attitude, which are change the affective component, change the behavioral component and change the cognitive component. According to the article, advertisement is a best way for a company to make attitude change.