Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sc in Marketing Management
Customer Behaviour & Decision Making
R e p o r t
SPYROS LANGKOS
ID: 100285557
Tutor: Mrs. Aggeliki Kotsolaki
Athens, January 2014
Customer Behavior & Decision Making | Report 1
about
the
benefits
and
drawbacks
of
consumers,
by
providing
academic
1. Table of Contents
1.
Contents..................................................................................3
2.
Acknowledgements................................................................4
3.
Introduction.............................................................................5
2. Acknowledgements
The development and the implementation of this report was made possible by
the appreciation of my family and friends, who constantly helped me and
offered their support.
I also want to thank Andreas - the Mediterranean College Librarian, who was
always eager to help me find my references, in times which I was facing some
difficulties.
Most of all, I would like to thank, our module leader Mrs. Aggeliki Kotsolaki for
her continuous guidance, so that I can bring closure to our assignment work.
Still, I would like to thank my business supervisor at work, Mrs. Markaki
Anastacia, Marketing Director at iNFODATA,, for her patience towards my
academic needs and her guidance towards the English Culture.
Without the help of these people, my research could not have taken place.
Therefore I thank you all again for your contributions to my effort, by stating
that you have my appreciation and respect.
Facing the New World
3. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of multiple actors in the
customer behaviour and STP process, while observing the impact of key
areas,
such
as:
culture,
globalisation,
current
marketing
trends,
People are changing from time to time, so do their tastes and preferences.
Marketers are always concerned about cultural shifts and keen to discover
new products or services that consumers may want. Understanding the
ingredients and drivers of global consumer culture is the key to gaining insight
regarding consumer behavior. In a diversified country like UK, culture not only
influences consumer behavior but also reflects it. Marketing strategies are
unlikely to change cultural values, but marketing does influence culture.
In the postmodern world the basic dogma is: I shop therefore I am. However
we need to reflect on the question of what happens to those who cannot shop
and are therefore excluded from the basis of social identity.
5. Consumer Culture
Historical Development
Just a few centuries ago before the Industrial Revolution consumption
patterns were very different from those that exist today. People had limited
time and other sources to spare for shopping for goods, particularly those
produced far from home with the exception of a very few elite who had long
enjoyed higher consumption standards. Then the Industrial Revolution
drastically transformed production. Production levels in England soared
significantly. In the early 19th century about two-thirds of the increased output
was sold to other countries around the world. However, growth through
expansion into foreign markets had its limits that required the rise in the
domestic consumption. English patterns of consumption were changing and
leading to a growing middle class and working class, allowing these classes to
become consuming classes. Workers would no longer prefer to work just to
earn their traditional weekly income and stop to enjoy more leisure; rather
they would prefer longer hours to earn and spend more. The former attitude
was not compatible with mass production and mass consumption (Goodwin,
Nelson, Ackerman and Weisskopf, 2008).
The ideology of consumerism is not limited to those who can actually afford
goods, but surrounds those who can dream about them, who can have
access to that dream-world.
experiences
that
spread
through
modern
capitalism.
Differentiable. Segments
Positioning
In the "Note on Marketing Strategy" (HBS No. 598-051), positioning is defined
as the marketer's effort to identify a unique selling proposition for the product.
It is arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive, and attractive
position relative to competing products in the minds of target consumers.
In finding a desirable positioning, the firm has to consider, for each potential
segment, how it would approach serving that group of customers and how it
would want to be perceived by those customers. The answers should be
based on a thorough understanding of the customer, the competitive
environment and the conditions of the market in which it operates.
7. Branding
The concept of brand has spread far beyond consumer marketing where it
originated, to enter into management (corporate branding), welfare, politics
and the construction of local identities (Olins, 2003; Van Ham, 2001).
Like the factory in times of Fordism they present an exemplary embodiment of
the prevailing logic of capital (Lash, 2002: 142). This logic consists in an
extended recourse to forms of unpaid immaterial labour as a source of surplus
value. This way, brands can be understood as a capitalist response to the
condition of post-modernity, marked by an intensified mediatization of the
social identity and community. (Adam Arvidsson, 2005).
Brand management
In consumer marketing, brands often provide the primary points of
differentiation between competitive offerings, and as such they can be critical
to the success of companies. Therefore it is important, that the management
of brands is approached strategically. However, the lack of an effective
dialogue between functions that are disparate in philosophy and do not have a
common and compatible use of terminology may be a barrier to strategic
management within organizations. ( Wood L., 2000)
Brand equity
An attempt to define the relationship between customers and brands
produced the term ``brand equity'' in the marketing literature. The concept of
brand equity has highlighted the importance of having a long-term focus within
brand management. Although there have been significant moves by
companies to be strategic in the way that brands are managed, a lack of
common terminology and philosophy within and between disciplines persists
and may hinder communication. Brand equity, like the concepts of brand and
added value has proliferated into multiple meanings. The concept is to be
defined, both in terms, of the relationship between customer and brand
(consumer-oriented definitions), or as something that accrues to the brand
owner (company-oriented definitions). (Wood L., 2000)
8. Globalisation of Culture
Definition of Culture
Culture, as Williams pointed out in 1958, is one of the two or three most
complicated words in the English language. The complications arise because
the concept has evolved differently in different European languages and in
different disciplines. The word derives from the Latin colere, which had
various meanings, including to cultivate, protect, inhabit and honor with
worship. Williams noted that some of these meanings dropped away although
they remain linked through derived nouns such as cult, for honor with worship
and colony for inhabit. The Latin noun cultura evolved and its main meaning
was cultivation in the sense of husbandry. Much later after it passed into
English early in 15th century, it came also to include cultivation of the mind.
(Harvey and Stensaker, 2008).
Each individual gets exposed a large number of thoughts, values, norms, and
cultures and thus learns to differentiate between the good and the bad ones,
thereby choosing a certain belief system that keeps on changing with more
and
more
experience
(Kim,
Lee,
Kim
and
Hunter
2004).
In the light of globalization consumers in almost every corner of the globe are
increasingly able to eat the same foods, listen to same music, wear the same
fashions, watch the same television programs and films, drive the same cars,
dine in the same restaurants and stay in the same hotels (Ger and Belk,
1996). The rise of a global culture doesn't mean that consumers share the
same tastes or values. Rather, people in different nations, often with
conflicting viewpoints, participate in a shared conversation, drawing upon
shared symbols. Global culture, is eclectic, timeless, technical, universal and
cut-off from the past; unlike national cultures which were particular and time
bound (Smith, 1990).
the
new
era,
numerous
challenges
have
already
appeared.
(Wielki J , 2002)
It seems that in the case of most companies, the basic problem is that
although they have used various new marketing tools and techniques, havent
redesigned their marketing processes, in order to adapt them to the new
conditions. Since these processes are adjusted to the mass marketing reality
it srequire implementing to them to deep changes, otherwise companies will
fail to exploit numerous opportunities offered by the electronic environment.
Customer Behavior & Decision Making | Report 18
10. Conclusions
It seems that for the time being opinions that marketing has already entered
the new era are obviously mature. Although it can be commonly observed
that, relatively low number of marketers perceive specificity of the new
medium and the whole opportunities it provides, while the majority of them
follows stereotypical mass marketing approaches. Instead of utilization of
these new tools and techniques, for building long-term relationships with
customers, which is undoubtedly difficult and arduous process, they prefer to
use them for interruptive marketing, by bombarding clients more heavily
(Onlinre & Ofline).
not the right way to achieve success in the new reality, e-reality.
Only those of them, who will understand peculiarity of the new business
environment and redesign their marketing process can succeed. (Janusz
Wielki, 2002)
Cultivating Customers
Not long ago, companies looking to get a message out to a large population
had only one real option: blanket a huge swath of customers simultaneously,
mostly using one-way mass communication. Information about customers
consisted primarily of aggregate sales statistics augmented by marketing
research data. There was little, if any, direct communication between
individual customers and the firm. Today, companies have a host of options at
their
disposal,
making
such
mass
marketing
far
too
crude.
11. Appendices
A] NEW INTERACTIVE MARKETING MODEL
D] VALS FRAMEWORK
12. Bibliography
Rosenbaum-Elliot
R.,
Percy
L.
Pervan
S.
(2011).
Strategic
Brand
Customization:Segmentation,Targeting,
Massachusetts.
Harvard
Business
and Positioning.
School
Press.
(2006).
Available:
Wright N.T. (Aug. 2000). THE BIBLE FOR THE POST MODERN WORLD.
Latimer
Occasional
Paper
No
6.
[Online].
Available:
11-13.
M.
(2002).
From
Cultural
Imperialism
to
transnational
[Online].