Engel Kollat – The Blackwell Model

Tuck (1976) describes that Engel-Kollat – The Blackwell Model “used the concepts of behavioural science in an attempt to model, in a way both detailed and capable of general applications, the process which the consumers must go through in decision.” This model is made up of 5 stages although it is not essential for the consumer to go through every stage.

This is shown and analysed below.

You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

This website: http://www.globalspec.com/reference/27114/203279/consumer-decision-making also explains this model quite well.

As everyone is different, there are factors which affect a person’s perception of the world around them. Different individuals will perceive the same things differently. These may arise due to factors such as attitudes, motives, expectations etc., based on the situation (time, place etc.) or the target e.g. novelty, background, sounds, size etc. (ICMR 2010). For example, cultural, age, gender, social class, family status, economy and race and ethnicity factors all have a significant impact on buyer behaviour.

Come back to see what I learned about in week 3: Sensation. Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The Howard-Sheth Model

John Howard and Jagdish Sheth introduced their buyer model in 1969. It explains the complex decision making process a consumer goes through. A diagram of this is shown below.



(Howard and Sheth 1969) - You can click on the digram above to view it larger.

A more complex version of this theory can be found at:

http://www.churcher.com/FOSM/foundations-of-senior-management-10013.htm

“Behavioural Determinants” determines the factors an individual takes into consideration before buying something. For example, people’s personalities or cultures affect their buying decision. “Inhibitors” shapes a person’s decision to purchase a product or not. For example, the financial status of an individual will take the price or brand of a product into consideration before purchasing.

“Inputs” establishes the facts, feelings and images behind a product, service or brand to grab the attention of a customer. “Perceptual Reaction” and “Processing Determinants” verifies an individual’s judgement, their filtering of the information and how they make their decision e.g. based on satisfaction, motivation, past experiences etc.

“Outputs” is the conclusion of these sections put together. It takes an individual’s purchase intention, behaviour and decision into consideration. On the whole, each of these categories forms an actual purchase or no purchase decision.

This decision makes up the “Blackwell Model” (Engel, Kollart & Blackwell 1995). An overview of this is shown in the next post.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The 5 Senses

Ruth showed us a Galaxy television advert from the 1980s (Link below) which appeals to 4 of the 5 senses: Sight, Sound, Taste and Touch. The colours used in the ad are mainly sombre colours. The use of red also stands out and catches the eye. Additionally, the music played is slow and quite sultry. The tearing of the chocolate wrapper and the woman eating the chocolate appeals to both the taste and touch senses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqCqXPiBRy4

Ruth also showed us a Marks & Spencer summer advert (Again, link is below) to highlight the importance of sound and appealing to your sense of hearing. The advertisement was advertising women’s clothing and used famous female actresses and models modelling the stores clothing in a field and having a picnic. The music used here was very girly and fit in well with what was going on in the advert. Ruth then muted the video and played a completely different song over the top. This reinforced how important sound can be and if the wrong background music is chosen, the advert may not make any sense and confuse the consumer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVivTXlaEo

We then looked at the use of the colour blue in advertisements to appeal to our sense of sight. We first looked at the advertisement below. This uses the colour blue in a very simple and manly way as it is advertising a beauty product aimed towards men. Therefore, this use of the colour blue is likely to attract them more. This colour is apparent multiple times in the advert (on the packaging, the man’s suit, the bedding in the background with his wife/girlfriend). Overall, this advertisement is definitely appealing towards men due to the use of colour and imagery used.

Secondly, we looked at Bombay Sapphire Gin, which uses the colour blue in all of their advertisements as they package all of their products with this colour, not the usual, typical colour for advertising gin (green) so this stands out from the rest and is their USP (Unique Selling Point) as it differentiates from their competition and appeals to the eye more because it is not your average type of packaging. This kind of blue is more like an aqua colour and is classier than the previous advert. The website link is below. Their website also features music which is slow and elegant to fit in with their product range. Some of their advertising campaigns are also shown below.

http://www.bombaysapphire.com/#;market=us;language=en;centralPlanet=331;detail=open;currentPlanet=383

The website link below defines how the use of colour is important when marketing and what it means and symbolises. It also looks at the use of the colour blue again and the advantages of using it as well as a number of other colours.

http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert

“Some colour combinations are powerfully tied to a company's image. For example, Kodak's product packaging has such a unique look with its gold, black and red colours, the company has been granted trade dress, a form of trademark granting exclusive use.” (Lichiti, “The Record”, 2006)

1.      Sight

 “This is the sense we use most often. We use it every single day, all day. Infact, television, magazine and internet forms of advertising are considered to be annoying by some individuals. This is why it is important for businesses to use a wide range of colour and imagery to appeal to their audiences so it will stick in their minds and not be turned away. Several surveys show that this sense is the most impressionable and responsive of all.”

2.      Sound

“Sound evokes memory and emotion. Mp3 players, iPods, earphones etc. are great examples of promotional products that engage the sense of sound, while at the same time still creating an enjoyable experience for a consumer. Through this, you are able to get your message across, which is memorable to your target audience. AOL uses a voice familiar to many young Web users. For example, Britney Spears fans found that they can hear her voice not only when experiencing her music but also when launching AOL. Britney lets you know, "You've got mail." Kellogg's has also invested in the power of auditory stimulus, testing the crunching of cereals in a sound lab to upgrade their product's "sound quality."

3.      Taste

“This is one of the senses that you can appeal to consumers with by using promotional products. This is a very effective method of getting your message to your target audience. For example, edible promotional products are widely used because of their effectiveness in creating a memorable experience for the end user.”

4.      Smell

“Ads for perfume in magazines can be very effective as they appeal to the sense of smell. It has flaps you can lift up to smell that particular fragrance. Of all the five senses, smell is the one that creates the most powerful impression in your brain. This is a proven fact based on numerous in-depth and well known scientific studies. A particular scent can trigger memories from a long time ago. This is a huge advantage as that scent is the most powerful memory trigger.Smells creates memories and appeal directly to feelings.”

5.      Touch

“Promotional products are tangible. You can hold them in your hands. You can feel them and use them. Again, you can create this by using promotional advertising. When someone writes with a pen imprinted with your logo, they are performing a useful task. It's yet another feature that separates promotional products from the rest of the pack.”

Sources:

(Lindstrom, 2002) http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1695460/sensory-brand-management-it-makes-five-senses

(Redmond, 2010) http://ezinearticles.com/?Promotional-Products---Appeal-to-All-Five-Senses&id=3701407

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

How We See the World around Us – Week Two

I have survived another week! This week, we learnt about perception. This is a procedure where stimuli selects, organises and interprets. Kotler (who people regard as the “God of Marketing”) and Armstrong (2009) define perception as: “The process by which people select, organise and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.”

Perception is how individuals perceive our surroundings or “how we see the world around us” (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2003).

More definitions and a wider analysis of perception can found on websites such as:

http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/

http://www.webinteractiveconsulting.com/marketing/marketing-perception.php

This lecture made me think that even if my friends and/or family share similar interests with me, they see things from a completely different perspective, even if we are looking at the same thing. Ruth showed us a clip from an advert by The Guardian. This shows and explains well how we can all see the same thing, but see it differently. This link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU

I wanted to find more examples of this which portrayed the same idea. I searched YouTube and found the following links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0SsgfstzDw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Keo97K9cs&feature=related

Ruth explained all of the different concepts that make up perception. These are: Sensation, attention and interpretation. Perception is a much broader concept in comparison to sensation. This is because sensation is the immediate response of our five senses through stimuli such as light, colour and sound. It also only simply involves receiving stimuli through sensory factors, whereas the perception process involves receiving raw data from each of the senses and then “filtering, modifying or transforming the data completely through the process of cognition” (ICMR 2010).

Attention is where individuals focus on stimuli when they are exposed to different products. Finally, interpretation is the process in which meanings are appointed to stimuli. No one will interpret the same stimulus as everyone is different. (Brassington & Pettitt 2007)

My prep which I completed for week 2 was making a start on my blog; I also sent my blog URL link to Ruth. In addition, I read through chapters 1 and 2 in more depth in the Solomon (2010) text book. From my outside reading I learnt that perception can impact on brand names.

This is because they usually have noticeably defined images or “personalities” created by their advertising, packaging, branding and other marketing strategies they use that focus on positioning a product a particular way or by groups of consumers adopting the product.

Therefore, individuals often chose a product, service, or subscribe to a particular idea, because they like the image they portray, or because they feel its “personality” “somehow corresponds to their own.” Perception and sensation defines marketing which appeals to our 5 senses as this is our way of how we perceive the world.

Finally within this lecture, Ruth explained how consumers process our buying decisions. Our buying decisions relate to two main theories. These are:

ü  The Howard-Sheth Model

ü  Engel Kollart – The Blackwell Model

I will create separate posts on these theories and explain them in depth in the next few slides. This is where it starts to get confusing! But first, let’s look at the 5 senses.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

“We Are What We Have”

“It’s a simple concept, and a basic premise of consumer behaviour. But, it has boggled the minds of the best psychologists, sociologists, consumer behaviourists, advertisers and marketers for half a century at the least. For, as it turns out now, this simple concept is really a combination of two others. Not only what we are seen to be (the “me” concept), we are also what is seen to be ours (the “mine” concept). It seems we, as human beings, create our identities using both these – the “me” and the “mine” – concepts.”

(http://runawaysun.blogspot.com/2006/09/posessions.html)

Also in week one we learnt about the “me” and “mine” concepts. These take the different factors into consideration which encourage individuals to purchase something. Overviews of these concepts are shown below.

Overall, these factors make up “Kotler’s Buyer Decision Process” as shown and explained below.

This is “the decision-making process by which organisations establish the need for purchased products and services, and identify, evaluate and choose among alternative brands and suppliers”. (Kotler and Armstrong 1989)

For example,

1.      Need Recognition

e.g. Need a new PC.

2.      Information Search

e.g. Internet, In store.

3.      Evaluation of Alternatives

e.g. Dell, PC World, price, customer service, software support, printer/scanner package.

4.      Purchase Decision

Choice made e.g. Epsom

5.      Post Purchase Behaviour

e.g. Use, breakdowns etc.

Again, outside of class I researched what I was required to do for my first assignment for this module. To do this, I went on blackboard and read through the brief and highlighted important sections that I needed to complete. After looking through blackboard I found the following useful information.

The packaging of a product acts as the “silent salesman” who is used as the communication tool between a business and a consumer. The benefits of this are:

ü  Grabs attention

Packaging is “crucial in consumer choice, as one product can be chosen over another in a split second” (Osborne, 2001)

ü  Recognition

Packages which deviate considerably from the standard e.g. wine in a box attract a lot of attention. However, this could be a disadvantage as it may lead to negative package evaluation.

Sources: (Schoormans, J.P.L and Robbern, H.S.J. (1997), “The Effect of New Package Design on Product Attention, Categorization and Evaluation”, Journal of Economic Psychology, 18(2), 271-87)

Dialogue VS Trigger:

ü  Dialogue

You pick it up, look at it, are intrigued by it, informed, persuaded, entertained.

ü  Trigger

Little dialogue other than the brand name.

The design is recognised through visual identifiers – Colour, name, logo, lettering etc.

May be a trigger back to other communications – Advertising etc

Reinforces brand values

The VIEW Model:

è Visibility

“This signifies the ability of the package to attract attention at the point of purchase. The main objective is to have packaging that stands out to consumers.”

è Information

“This includes the various forms of information that is on the packaging e.g. product information, claimed benefits, instructions on use and ingredients.”

è Emotional Appeal

“Package designers attempt to arouse specific feelings such as elegance, prestige, cheerfulness, fun etc.”

è Workability

Does the package protect the contents? Does it facilitate storage space? Is it easy to access and use? Does it protect against breakage? Is it environmentally friendly packaging?

I also found some useful websites which clarifies these topics in more depth. These are below.

http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/buyerbehaviour/

http://www.marcbowles.com/courses/adv_dip/module12/chapter4/amc12_ch4_two.htm

And that was my first week at university, you will have to check back to see how I get on next week, learning about perception.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Consumers Are Like Onions – Week One

Walking into class for the first time was definitely quite daunting. The first thing I noticed was that most of the class was made up of loud and rowdy boys! However, once I started talking to everyone, they all seemed extremely lovely and friendly.

During our first week, we were informed about our scary module scheme and even scarier assignment structure. We also purchased our books we would need for the year outside of class from the university bookstore.

Ruth introduced us to our course and explained that consumers can be compared to onions. We all have different layers. We were then set a fun task to draw our version of an onion on a large piece of paper. Ruth then asked us a series of questions regarding our interests, hobbies, social life, family life etc. Our page was then full of information about us along with our onion. Ruth then handed us all another person’s sheet of paper and we were then asked to write on the back, what we thought their personality was like. The student who got mine captured me perfectly I think. Girly, outgoing, likes shopping! J

Our next task was to look at 2 book covers, which both had the titles removed by Ruth. These are shown below.

As you can see, one is a fiery red colour. The images shown here is a city skyline (New York perhaps? Although we don’t know this for sure) and what appears to be a man’s smirk. The second book cover is the complete opposite as the colours used are very plain and monochrome. There appears to be a woman opening a car door with her foot stepping onto the pavement. Her foot is dressed in a fashionable high heeled shoe (This could indicate that she is glamorous/business-like?). Our task was to guess what each of the books was about, with our only clues being what was on the cover.

We had a class discussion about this and we all came to suggestions that the first book cover may be something to do with Wall Street, terrorists or city life. In comparison, the second book suggested that it could be about an independent business woman and/or romance. This task really did require us to judge a book by its cover! Our answers showed that the two book covers were given two different perceptions.

However, it was then revealed that the two books were in fact the exact same story, with both covers just being published at different times. Here, Ruth was reinforcing the fact that everyone sees the world from a different point of view.

My prep outside of the lecture room included purchasing and starting to read our textbooks for the year, in particular, Solomon et al (2010) chapters 1 and 2. From this, I learnt the following.

Consumers’ evaluations and perceptions of different products are affected by their 5 senses. These are sight, smell, hearing, taste and texture. We might be influenced by the shape and/or colour of a package, or more subtle factors, such as the symbolism used in a brand name, in an advert, or in the choice of a model for a magazine cover. “These judgements are affected by – and often reflect – how a society feels that people should define themselves at that point in time.” This can be explained as the study of the processes involved when individuals “select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.”

As well as this, I researched different blogging websites that I could create my blog on, with blogger.com being the main favourite. We were also required to read through the assignment brief for our first assignment: Perception and Packaging. I read through this thoroughly to gain a helpful understanding of what we required to do for our first assignment for Ruth.

On the whole, my initial thoughts and first impressions of my new course are very positive; I thought that the first lecture was very interesting and fun. I am the type of learner who learns best by doing activities and getting involved rather than reading textbooks and writing things down so I thoroughly enjoyed my first week at university and I am looking forward to what else is ahead.

Please read my next post to see what else I learnt in my first week at university.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The Start of Something New

Arriving at Buck’s New University on the first day of induction week or “fresher’s week” was like being 11 years old again on your first new day at school where you don’t know anyone. It was definitely quite a nerve-wracking experience. However, this was short lived. I had originally registered onto the Business and Retail Management course as I am a very girly girl and fashion and retail has always been a passion of mine and something I would be interested in getting into in the future. However, due to the lack of numbers, the university could unfortunately not continue with the course. What a start to induction week! I hadn’t even been at the university for a week yet, and there were already problems! Initially, I was quite disappointed with the university that they hadn’t informed me of this sooner and I would now have to choose a new course in the matter of days.

However, with the help of Ruth Hickmott (Head of the Marketing Department), I was able to consider other options I could enjoy. I attended a brief meeting with her and she made me feel relieved as she gave me a detailed insight into what other courses were on offer but would still catch my interest. Eventually, the course I decided to switch to was Business and Marketing Management, which I was happy with.

During the week, the university had set up a range of useful workshops and lectures to help us be more prepared for the year ahead of us. They were fun, light and enjoyable, a great way to get the new students or “freshers” involved. They gave me and thousands of other new students the opportunity to feel more confident with all the new facilities available to us. It also helped give me an easy transition into university life. It was also much easier to meet new friends this way. Also, I attended a workshop on how to use the computers and blackboard system within the university, this made me feel more confident as I was aware how everything worked and was able to take advantage of the university facilities in the best way possible.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed induction week, although it was rather shaky to begin with, I can’t wait to get started now and officially meet all my new course mates! Come back next week to see what happens.

Please do not hesitate to comment on any of my blog posts. Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.