Marketing efforts and consumer needs

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Table of Contents

Personality
Culture and Consumer Behavior
Attitude as a Predictor of Behavior
Unethical issues: marketers taking advantage of consumers
References

Consumer needs are the effects that consumers require. This does not imply that the consumers can not necessarily do without these commodities.

Some of the commonly identified needs of consumers include food, shelter, clothing and medical care: these elements form the basis of the lives of consumers which as a result make them top priority necessities in consumers lives.

Any particular consumer will thus be forced to go for these goods and services in order to sustain life. They are more like things that people can not do without.

Marketing is the act of promoting the level of sales of a commodity. Whether the commodity is a good or a service, the marketing process will seek to influence consumers into using that particular good or service that is being marketed.

One of the main objectives of marketing initiatives involves the provision of information of a commodity which in turn helps to increase the number of consumers who are willing to try out that commodity and ultimately the level of sales is likely to increase.

The fact that marketing is a step to promote a commodity into satisfaction of needs thus illustrates that needs pre-exist marketing. Marketing efforts can therefore not change consumers needs because these needs must be satisfied with or without marketing.

A consumer who is hungry at a particular time will have to look for food to eat whether there is a marketing initiative or not, unless if the consumer is constrained to temporarily sacrifice the need to satisfy the hunger.

Similarly, once the person has satisfied the hunger, it will not be possible to be immediately hungry because of a marketing initiative carried out after his/her satisfaction. Marketing efforts can similarly not arouse customer needs because the needs are primarily aroused by the human body.

Personality

Personality is defined as the way an individual behaves in regard to his or her environment. This response is a factor that depends on two elements. The first element of personality is the general social aspects that surround the person. Such social aspects constitute external factors around an individual consumer.

The factors are therefore shared by a group of consumers in a given society of geographical location. Peer influence or advertisements can thus form the basis of an individuals personality. The other element of personality is, on the other hand, genetic.

Personality acquired genetically can be said to be features that are acquired by an individual from his or her parents biologically through the recreational process. This aspect of personality is thus permanent in an individual as a character and cannot be changed.

Segmentation refers to the classification of subjects into groups based on common features. Segmentation will therefore pick out specific features that are directly identifiable among the individuals or more specifically in potential consumers.

Personality is however diverse and combines all environmental factors around an individual as well as biological factors. This means that each and every person will pose an overall difference in personality thus providing no basis for segmentation.

Basis for segmentation can however be attained through consideration of individual features, both biological and environmental, that constitute an individuals personality. The two bases of consumer personality also lead to diverse orientation of consumers.

A customer will either be oriented towards products or services with a general trend of biasness towards a particular product or a biasness with respect to relations developed with the source of the product.

Such binary biasness is also based on diverse elements of personality that must be considered independently. Personality is therefore not a sufficient tool for segmentation.

Culture and Consumer Behavior

Culture refers to the particular approach that is taken by individuals in a society when handling issues. A society can be an ethical set up or a territorial set up such as a country. Once an individual is born in a society, the individual grows to adopt the norms of that society.

A countrys culture therefore refers to a culture that is widely practiced in a given country and one that has much influence on the behavior of people from that country. The role of culture in a customers behavior is a key to understanding the marketing profession because it is significant to the success of a marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy can either bear fruits or be ineffective due to factors in a particular market with culture being one of those factors. Culture defines and shapes what people consume due to the moral values that it instills on people.

Christians will, for example, not purchase Muslim religious attires because they are opposed to the Muslim faith. An understanding of the role played by a consumers culture is thus essential to a marketer to help in the identification of the basis of that culture for a better approach to engaging the culture, if that is at all possible.

Understanding the culture of a consumer in a market can also help a marketer to make appropriate strategies. Appropriate strategies will seek to bring out the reason for a culture prohibiting the use of a given commodity after which appropriate measures can be taken to counter such values.

A marketer who intends to explore a foreign market is thus advised to seek a clear understanding of the foreign culture because it will determine the level of possible marketing success.

Attitude as a Predictor of Behavior

An individuals attitude refers to the state of mind towards a particular subject. It is the position that an individual holds at a particular time. A consumers attitude over a commodity can, for instance, be to take a step into the acquisition of a commodity.

Consumer behavior on the other hand refers to the particular action that a consumer takes. This action is shaped by the attitude that is developed by the consumer over a commodity as well as the constraining factors to the attainment of the consumers attitudes.

The extent to which attitude predicts behavior is thus a factor of the constraining elements to the satisfaction of what an individual might desire to undertake. It is however realized that consumer behavior is not at least always in line with their behavior.

There is often a realized discrepancy between attitudes and behavior of consumers based on a number of reasons. One of the factors that cause the discrepancy is the ability of a consumer to act according to his or her attitudes.

A consumer may for example develop a desire for a newly introduced brand of vehicle and long to purchase it. Lack of finances will however prevent the individual from purchasing that particular vehicle.

The range of other demands can also increase the gap between attitude and behavior as an individual can prefer to satisfy more pressing needs contrary to purchasing the brand of vehicle that he/she wishes to. Social influence can also hinder a person from implementing attitudes.

Conflicts of interest between individuals desires and norms of a society can for instance force the individual to make sacrifices for compatibility with the societys norms. Attitudes are thus not a strong predictor of behavior due to the other factors that affect behavior.

Unethical issues: marketers taking advantage of consumers

The desire of commercial institutions to ensure sales of their commodities has seen the emergence of measures to increase their sales at the cost of the consumers. Some marketers have for example resorted to capitalizing on weaknesses of consumers to take advantage of them and influence them into making purchases.

One of these advances is the move to target children as consumers. The marketers having learnt that children are not yet steady decision makers have increased products for this category of consumers and even established advertisements to influence children into the products.

Children then pressurize their parents or guardians to purchase these commodities or even turn to stealing in order to make the purchases. Some marketers also rely on weaknesses of consumers in order to develop market for their products.

Products such as drugs like tobacco and alcohol are for example generally restricted in societies especially for under age groups. Marketers however continue to make advancements for the increased consumption of such products and even take advantage of addicted individuals as market targets.

Pressurizing consumers into making decisions contrary to their opinions is also a common unethical practice that individual marketers use to influence consumers. A marketer will for example study an individual to identify their weaknesses which the marketer then capitalizes on.

The marketer then uses his or her skills to convince the potential consumer into a regrettable decision. These unethical approaches can be controlled by a joint initiative from consumers, government authorities as well as producers under social responsibility.

The government can also institute regulations to enhance consumer protection while producers can adopt fair techniques for their marketers. Consumers can on the other hand rely more on personal information contrary to that of marketers.

References

Beamish, K & Ashford, R. (2007). Marketing planning, 2007-2008. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Consumer. (2010). Attitudes. Web.

Crab. Cultural and sub cultural influences on consumer behavior. Web.

Geber, K. & Bothma, N. (2008). FCS Marketing Communication L3. Cape Town, South Africa: Pearson South Africa.

Montgomery, J. The role that personality and motivation play in consumer behavior: a case study of HSBC. Web.

Needs. Needs and wants. Web.

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