MBA404 Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Psychology Report 1 Sample

MBA404 Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Psychology

Your Task

Individually, you are required to submit a 100-word validation step and prepare a 1200-word written analysis, in which you must critically analyse your recent purchase of a product or service based on the 5-step Consumer Decision-Making Process. Please note that you will need to use the same product or service in the second and third assessments in this subject as all assignments in this course are interrelated.

Assessment Description

In this individual assessment, students will be given an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and ability to explain consumer behaviour determinants by analysing the role of perception, attitude, and motivation in consumer behaviour.

Assessment Instructions

To help you start all three assessments in this subject on the right track, over the first three weeks of the trimester, your workshop facilitator will engage you and the rest of the class in preliminary discussions about the product or service you would like to choose. Please pay specific attention to your workshop facilitator’s instructions regarding products/services that are not permissible. By the end of week 3, you are required to submit a validation step via MyKBS, under the ‘assessments tab’ > ‘Product/Service Validation’ icon. In preparing this step, you must explain which product or service you will focus on in all three assessments, when and where you bought this product or service, and what ‘need’ and ‘want’ your chosen product or service fulfilled. You will also need to take a selfie of yourself and your selected product or a selfie of you experiencing the chosen service and upload it in the validation step.

The validation step is worth 5% of your grade in this subject, with 0% awarded for a rejected choice, 2.5% awarded for a partially approved choice, and 5% for an approved choice in full. Please note that you will not be able to submit any other assessment in this subject until your workshop facilitator has approved your choice, so be wise and don’t be late.

Once your workshop facilitator has validated your product or service choice, you are required to prepare a 1200-word written analysis by providing the reader with an in-depth analysis of how you have moved through each of the consumer decision-making steps.

In preparing your written analysis, you will also need to identify any possible issues that may have occurred during this process. Please use ‘Workshop 2 Student Handout’ as a starting point for your analysis.

More specifically, you must:

1. Analyse the need and want that led you to purchase the chosen product or service.

2. Examine the internal and external sources of information you used to purchase the chosen
product or service. Please include screenshots of external sources of information to support your analysis and indicate your awareness set at the end of this section.

3. Evaluate alternatives and narrow down the chosen product or service attributes that satisfy your need and want. Please provide a detailed evoked set diagram to present your findings.

4. Analyse available purchase methods to determine how these methods impacted your decision-making process.

5. Analyse your post-purchase behaviour by identifying the chosen product or service features that reduce your cognitive dissonance. Please note that in this step, customer satisfaction should not be considered.

Solution

Introduction:

The paper analyses the reasons of purchasing a specified product depending on the consumer’s 5-step decision-making process. As per the MBA Assignment Experts, The selected product is Nivea deep impact freshness deodorant, a well-known brand, which can be purchased easily from any retail shop or supermarkets. In the following section, the study tries to explain the role of consumer behaviour determinants for purchasing the product through analysing the role of attitudes, perception and motivation of consumers. 

Analysis:

Need and Want:

In classrooms, conference, cinema halls, meeting rooms or interview room, I remain worried due to my body odours. Thus, the external stimuli here smell. In any closed environment, this odour reduced my confidence level, diverted my concentration and forced me to make distance from others and hence I needed a deodorant that can control body odour. Moreover, price also remained a major concern for me as I did not want to spend too much for purchasing a deodorant. Hence, I desperately wanted any long-lasting deodorant that can protect the body odour for the entire day and smell would be soft. I recently find Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant that fulfils my need. The feasibility of the product and reasonable price also encourages me to purchase the item. 
Decision-making process of consumers:

A consumer’s decision-making process depends on 5 major steps, which are:

1. Need recognition
2. Information Search
3. Evaluation of alternatives
4. Purchase
5. Post-purchase behaviour

All of these factors are influenced highly with social, cultural, psychological and individual factors. The first step is to identify the need of the product for fulfilling customer needs. The next step is to search information of the product from both internal and external sources that are available (Qazzafi, 2019). Followed this, the next step is to evaluate alternatives that the consumer considers to make comparison and to select the most suitable one. After getting enough information, the consumer makes purchase decision by selecting a particular product among many. The last step indicates post-purchase behaviour of the product that tells whether the consumer faces cognitive dissonance or not. 

Internal and External Information Search:

Internal information regarding a product or service is stored in customers’ memory. I was searching for the correct smell that would suit by smell and personality and can be budget-friendly. For this, I started to collect information from various internal and external sources. Internal sources that I consider are my own knowledge and analytical skills. At first, I consider deodorants of different brands that are available in the market. After that, select only those products, which have reasonable price. By using my knowledge and senses including smell and touch, I select Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant due to its soft smell and long-lasting capability. Moreover, I also find that the product is applicable on my skin as I do not face any skin itching after using it for the first time. 

External search is the process of collecting information regarding the product from outside of the environment. My sources of external information were advertisements in TV, magazines, e-commerce and Facebook. Using laptop and mobile phone, I collect information from social media and e-commerce sites. I also consider feedbacks given by other users on social media platform or e-commerce sites as external information. After doing analysis, I have found that most of the customers feel satisfied with the product. They agree that the smell of the Nivea Deep Impact Freshness stays for long hours. Here, I am attaching the screenshot to support my statement.
 

Source: (Home Tester Club 2022)

Preferred Alternatives:

Preferred alternatives that I have found after collecting information can be identified as Awareness Set. Within it, the selected products that are considered as alternatives are called Evoked Set. For me, the Evoked set were Weleda 24H Roll on Deodorant for Men, Rexona men Antiperspirant Aerosol Deodorant, Adidas for Men Antiperspirant Deodorant and David Beckham Intimately Men body Spray (Mybeautyspot.com.au. 2022). Each of these alternatives is competitive in the market and hence it becomes difficult to select a particular deodorant among many. I have found that Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant has the best smell for me and hence I have selected these. The soothing touch, too strong but fresh and cool fragrance attracts me to buy this product. 
 

Figure 1: Evoked Set
Source: (Chivandi, Samuel & Muchie, 2019)

The diagram above describes the evoked set that falls under known brands. All brands that are mentioned above are acceptable brands for me. Among these, I only purchase one brand, which is Nivea by rejecting others. 

Available Purchase Methods:

There are various available methods that can help me to purchase the selected product. Some methods that I can apply as a consumer to purchase products are credit cards, personal secured loans, revolving credit, rent agreement and AfterPay. Depending on my evoked set of alternatives, I prefer to purchase Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant using cash from my income, debit card or credit card. Purchasing a product is a crucial step for a consumer. Depending on the availability of the product and the way of purchasing it, customers are got attracted for it. It is seen that the selected product is easily available in in any retail store, supermarkets and online e-commerce sites. Hence, as per my convenient, I can purchase the product either from online or offline mode. Sometimes, online shopping through Amazon, Ebay etc give me discount offer. Therefore, all of these available alternative purchasing methods of Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant attract me as a potential customer.

Post-Purchase Behaviour:

The last step of consumer decision-making process is the post-purchase behaviour. Here, cognitive dissonance implies the inner tension that a consumer faces after identifying an inconsistency between behaviour and values (Marikyan, Papagiannidis & Alamanos, 2020). Such cognitive dissonance can be reduced by making effective communication, guarantees, warranties and follow-up, provided by the brand. After purchasing the product, I have not experience any cognitive dissonance after purchasing Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant. The product successfully fulfils all of my needs and wants with its look, fragrance, price and quality. After using the product, I regain my confidence to meet with people even after a long day and can easily interact with people. The product also gives rid of skin irritation even after using it for many times. The price and availability of it in the market also satisfy my need. Hence, by selecting the product through applying my decision-making process, I become highly satisfied. I will recommend other people as well to purchase and use the product. 

Conclusion:

After conducting product analysis based on 5 major steps of consumer-purchasing behaviour, it can be concluded that these steps are helpful to select the correct product from the market. Instead of similar products available in the market, I become highly satisfied after using Nivea Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant as it fulfils all of my needs. The long-lasting and soft smell with budget-friendly price fulfils all of my needs. Moreover, I do not also face cognitive dissonance after purchasing it. 

References:

Chivandi, A, Samuel, M O & Muchie, M 2019, ‘Social media, consumer behavior, and service marketing’, Consumer Behavior and Marketing, in M. Reyes (ed.), Consumer Behavior and Marketing, IntechOpen, London. 10.5772/intechopen.85406.

Home Tester Club 2022, Nivea Men Deep Impact Freshness Deodorant Spray - For Men Reviews | Home Tester Club, retrieved 18 August 2022,  <https://www.hometesterclub.com/in/en/reviews/nivea-men-deep-impact-freshness-deodorant-spray-for-men>.

Marikyan, D, Papagiannidis, S & Alamanos, E 2020, ‘Cognitive dissonance in technology adoption: a study of smart home users’, Information Systems Frontiers, pp.1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10042-3

Mybeautyspot.com.au. 2022, Shop Deodorants Online in Australia | My Beauty Spot, retrieved 18 August 2022,  <https://www.mybeautyspot.com.au/shop-online/1183/deodorants>.

Qazzafi, S.H.E.I.K.H 2019, ‘Consumer buying decision process toward products’, International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development, vol.2 , no. 5, pp.130-134.