Assessment - Consumers as individuals and decision making

Task

There are many individual factors that can influence the behaviour of consumers (needs, motivations, personality, consumer perception, learning, involvement and consumer attitudes.

1. You are required to identify at least two individual influences that are relevant to the consumers of your firm or the firm you intend to work for (choose one product/service if more than one is offered by your firm) and analyse, specific to your firm, how these individual influences (e.g. needs, attitudes, personality) impact on the consumer purchase decision process.

2. Show how these two individual influences should be considered along with consumer decision making and experiences as discussed in chapter 10 or 11.

3. Drawing on the theories in chapters 5-11, discuss how marketers (in your organisation) can apply this critical understanding of individual influences on either consumer decision making or to help implement social change or on the acceptance of new innovation, to improve/enhance your firm's marketing strategies (4 Ps or 7 Ps, targeting, market segmentation, etc.).

Provide at least two sets of conceptual/theoretical evidence and relevant examples comparing and contrasting your firm and another in the marketplace to support your discussion of each question (1-3).

Rationale

This assessment task mainly covers topics 5-11 and has been designed to ensure that you are engaging with the subject content on a regular basis.

An understanding of consumer behaviour can play a vital role in helping companies or organisations develop and refine marketing strategies. Internal factors such as motivation, attitudes, learning and memory and personality are important determinants of choice. This assignment gives you the opportunity to examine particular internal influences in a situation of your choice. This may be in a situation related to your work or in another area of interest.

After completing this assessment, you should:

• be able to analyse the buyer decision process and critique effects of situational influences on consumer purchases;
• be able to compare and contrast consumers and organisations in terms of their markets and buying behaviour;
• be able to critically examine the stages of information processing and the internal factors that influence each stage in relation to consumer behaviour;