Situational Influences and the effect of Individual Perception on Buyer Behaviour

1. Buyer Behaviour
Situational Influences and Perception
Dr Brian Monger
Copyright February 2014.
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Marketing In Black and White
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3. Dr. Brian Monger
• Brian Monger is the CEO of MAANZ International and a
Professional marketer and consultant with over 40 years
experience.
• He is highly active on social media – including Linked In,
where he owns, manages and moderates groups with about
1 million members
Marketing In Black and White
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4. Situational Influences in Buyer Choice
• The purchase decision and the consumption process always
occur in the context of a specific situation.
• Therefore, before examining the decision making process
in any depth it is important to develop an understanding of
situations.
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5. Situational Influences
• Marketing managers should view marketing activities
designed to affect and influence a buyer in light of the
situations that buyer faces.
• A buyer situation is a set of factors outside of, and removed
from, the individual buyer, as well as being removed from the
characteristics or attributes of the product.
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6. Continuums of Influences
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7. Situational Influences
• Types of situational influence
• Nature of situational influence
• Dimensions of the situation
• Physical
• Social
• Time (temporal)
• Task definition
• Antecedent
• Ritual Situations
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8. Physical Surroundings
• For the purpose of helping to explain buyer behaviour,
situations have been classified into a scheme of five
objectively measured variables.
• Physical surroundings include geographical and institutional
location, decor, sound, aromas, lighting, weather and displays
of merchandise or other material surrounding the product.
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9. Examples of Physical Surrounds
• Store location
• Interior decor
• Music
• Smell/aromas
• Temperature (air-conditioning or heating)
• Choice provided
(by product category or across the categories)
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10. Examples of Physical Surrounds
• Store location
• Interior decor
• Music
• Smell/aromas
• Temperature (air-conditioning or heating)
• Choice provided
(by product category or across the categories)
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11. Social Surroundings
• The concept of social surroundings relates to the presence
of other people who could have an impact on the individual
buyer's behaviour.
• Our actions are frequently influenced, if not altogether
determined, by those around us.
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12. Examples of Social Surroundings
• Types of customers in the store
• Queues and crowding
• Whether the consumer is likely to be known by
others/recognised
• Whether there are high-profile people/celebrities shopping at
that store
• Whether the product will be consumed privately or in the
presence of others
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13. Temporal perspectives
• Temporal perspectives deal with the effect of time on buyer
behaviour. This dimension of a situation may be specified in
units ranging from time of day to seasons of the year. Time
may also be measured relative to some past or future event.
• This includes concepts such as time since last purchase, time
since or until meals or payday, and time constraints imposed
by commitments.
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14. Examples of Temporal Influences
• Whether the product is seasonal
• Whether the product is urgently required
(snack between lectures)
• Time available for shopping limited/excess
(the product may be an excuse for shopping)
• How long the previous product lasted or was expected to last
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15. Task Definition
• Task definition reflects the purpose or reason for engaging in
the consumption behaviour. The task may reflect different
buyer and user roles anticipated by the individual. For
example, a person shopping for glassware for a wedding
present is in a different situation than he or she would be if
the glassware were for personal use.
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16. Examples of Task Definition
• Is the product utilitarian or used as a status symbol?
• Is it a gift or for oneself?
• Must the product be long-lasting/tough?
(e.g. an everyday watch)
or decorative?
(e.g. a dress watch)
• Is the product intended for several uses?
(e.g. a family computer for study and internet access)
• Note: Many of these definitions exist on a continuum and/or
they may not be exclusively one or the other
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17. Antecedent states
• Antecedent states are features of the individual that are not
lasting or relatively enduring characteristics. They are
momentary moods or conditions. Momentary moods are such
things as temporary states of depression or high excitement,
which all people experience. Momentary conditions are such
things as being tired, ill, having a great deal of money (or
none at all) and so forth.
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18. Ritual Situations
• A ritual situation can be described as a set of interrelated
behaviours that occur in a structured format, which have
symbolic meaning, and that occur in response to socially-defined
occasions
• Important to marketers as they define consumption, e.g.
anniversaries, seasonal gifts
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19. Direct Impact
• Situational influences may have a very direct impact of their
own, but they also interact with product and individual
characteristics to influence behaviour.
• In some cases, the situation will have no influence, because
the individual’s characteristics or choices are so intense that
they override everything else.
• But the situation is always potentially important and
therefore is of concern to marketing managers.
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20. Situational Influences and
Marketing Strategy
• Developing a situational influence matrix
• Positioning the product based on situation
• Segmenting the market based on usage situation
• alone
• in combination with other segmentation variable
• person/situation segmentation
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21. Situational Influence Matrix
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22. Usage Situations and Product Positioning
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23. Other Situation Types
• Communication situation
• Purchase situation
• Usage situation
• Disposal situation
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24. The Communication Situation
• The situation in which buyers receive information has an
impact on their behaviour.
• We all know that the degree to which we see and listen to
marketing communications is determined by whether we are
alone or in a group, in a good mood or a bad one, in a hurry or
not, and so on.
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25. The Purchase Situation
• As we have already seen, the purchase situation can also affect
product selection.
• A buyer-for example, a student trying to make a purchase
between classes-has a shortage of time, this can affect the store
chosen, the number of brands considered, and the price the
buyer is willing to pay.
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26. Usage Situation Examples
• Is the product used in conjunction with other people?
• Is the product used in conjunction with other products?
• Is the product used only occasionally or a lot?
• Are other similar (alternative) products also available to the
user at the same time?
• Does use require a high level of skills/learning?
• Is the product used many times before disposal?
• Has the product been used before.
• Does the product require additional preparation?
• Does the product require regular complex maintenance
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27. Disposal Situation
• How will the old product be disposed of?
• Consider that it is not only the physical disposal of the old
Product that needs to be considered.
• The old product may be linked to other products or
processes.
• The old product may have significant learning and experience
factors that will need to be changed.
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28. Situation and Classification of Products
• Situation and the type of product interact.
• Situational influences will vary with different product
types and vice versa
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29. High Clarity
Low Clarity
Low Specific
High Specific
Self-Confidence
Self-Confidence
Mental effeort during Mental Effort prior
Shopping via
to Shopping via
Brand Comparisons
Information Seeking
Low Magnitude
Low Ego Involvement
Low Physical Shopping
Effort
High Magnitude
High Ego Involvement
High Physical Shopping
Effort
Convenience
Goods
Preference Goods
Shopping Goods
Specialty Goods
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30. Perception

31. What is Perception?
Perception is “how we see the world around us.”
“Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organises
and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of
the world.”
Schiffman et al 2001, p. 148
“Perception is a process through which individuals are exposed to
information, attend to the information, and comprehend the
information”
J. C. Mowen 1995, p. 73
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32. The Customer as Perceiver
• Perception
– The process by which an individual selects, organises and
interprets information received from the environment
• Sensation
– attending to an object/event with one of five senses
• Organisation
– categorising by matching sensed stimulus with similar
object in memory, e.g. colour
• Interpretation
– attaching meaning to stimulus, making judgements as to
value and liking, e.g. bitter taste
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33. Individual Differences in Perception
Two people may be exposed to the same stimuli under
apparently the same conditions, but they may
• Select
• Organise and
• Interpret
these stimuli in quite different ways, depending on
their own needs, values and expectations
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34. We Perceive The Environment as
Follows:
Us
The
outside world:
external
stimuli
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35. Perception
SENSATION (EXPOSURE) - occurs when a stimulus
comes within our reach. (sensory receptors).
May be random or deliberate.
– Sensory Receptors: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin etc.
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36. Perception
• Sensitivity to stimuli varies by:
• the quality of the individual’s sensory receptors
• the amount or the intensity of the stimuli
• the interest in the stimuli
• its ability to catch attention
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37. The Way We Perceive Things Is Related To:
• Personality
• Culture
• Upbringing (socialisation)
• Economic factors
• Needs and wants
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38. Perception
•Perception is not a function of sensory input alone, but is the
result of 2 different kinds of input and conditions:-
–Physical stimuli - e.g. sight, smell, sound etc.
–Inherent predispositions - experience,
expectations, motives & learning
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39. Information Processing Stages
• Exposure
– Target customer is in proximity of message when delivered
• Attention
– Target customer allocates cognitive processing capacity
• Comprehension
– Target customer interprets the message
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40. Information Processing Stages (cont.)
• Acceptance
– Does the target customer believe, agree with, or is s/he
persuaded by message, or do they disagree and dismiss it?
• Retention
– Target customer stores the advertisement and message in
memory so can be accessed when needed.
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41. Factors That Shape Perception
• Stimulus characteristics
• Sensory characteristics:
• Information content
• Context
• Customer characteristics
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42. Perceptual Interpretation
The assignment of meaning to sensations consists of:
• both a cognitive and affective (emotional) component
• is individual and personal
• is based on what we expect to see
• stimuli is often ambiguous, may be weak due to interference
• the narrower our experience the more limited our
interpretation
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43. Perceptual Interpretation
•
Distorting Influences
 Physical Appearances
 Stereotypes
 Irrelevant Cues
 First Impression - Tend to be lasting.
 Jumping to Conclusions –
 Halo Effect (Stimulus Generalisation) - Brand name
associations tend to link a number of different
products. True of famous brands.
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44. Perceptual Interpretation
Cognitive interpretation
• process whereby stimuli are placed in known categories of
meaning
– Lexical or semantic meaning
– Semiotic meaning - symbols
– Psychological meaning
• Affective interpretation
• the emotional or feeling response triggered by a stimulus
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45. Biases in the Perceptual Process
• Selective exposure
– Customers only allow exposure to a small number of the
3000 daily marketing communications
• Selective attention
– Customers ignore ads that do not relate to their interests
• Selective interpretation
– Customers use perceptual distortion to make information
more congruent with existing beliefs
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46. Perceptual Selection
We select what we perceive influenced by:

The nature of the stimulus factor such as size and intensity, colour and
movement, contrast, position, format etc.

Individual factors such as interest, need, expectation, previous experience
etc

Situational factors such as time pressure, contrast of the stimulus etc.
We also block what we don’t want to see or to avoid overload. We have
defences against what we don’t like or wish to know about.

Marketers need to be aware of this (i.e. in the road safety advertising
campaigns).

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47. Buyer Imagery
• Buyers judge products related to their own personal
self image
• Self-Image

Actual self-image - how buyers actually see themselves



Ideal self-image - how buyers would like to see
themselves
Social self-image - how buyers feel others see them
Ideal social self-image - how buyers would like others
to see them
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48. Buyer Imagery (cont’d)
• Marketers deal with this issue by
 Positioning product - to target buyer market niches.
 Maintaining or enhancing brand image - to target consumer
self image.
 Using perceptual mapping to compare products to
competitors.
 And other aspects of marketing mix to satisfy buyer image
related to product
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49. Buyer Imagery
Positioning
• the image/perception of the Product in the mind of the buyer
• marketers position goods/services/brands to fit a specific target
market through differentiation
• different positioning strategies can be used for the same product
targeting different segments
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