It’s a typical Saturday morning and you are heading towards the supermarket cashier with your trolley containing several products. Have you wondered who put them there? Of course, you physically took them from the shelves and placed them in your trolley, but why these particular items? What were the needs, wants or maybe ignorance that made your brand choices? And most importantly, why did you choose one brand over another?
What we need to explore and understand in this particular situation is the incentive of our purchases; in other words, the underlying process of brand decision, and secondly how branding and design unconsciously influence the cognitive processes that result in the selection of one product over its alternatives.
Needs vs. Wants
There are two basic categories of consumers. The first is the classic buyer who tries to buy only things that he or she needs, who thinks about it rationally and who compares products’ prices to their benefits (be they functional or emotional).
On the other hand, there is the romantic buyer who shops using his/her heart, driven by the desire for products or services that are not necessary, but which the buyer wishes for. For example, food is considered a consumer need; however, a steak dinner or dessert is considered a consumer want, as these things are not necessary in order to live. This is someone who cares less about durability or function and more about emotional satisfaction and appeal.
Customer Decision Process
The customer decision process (Fig. 1) is divided into 3 phases and consists of 5 steps which consumers must go through before they make their final decision. The process begins with the identification of the needs consumers might have. Whether they act to resolve a problem depends upon two elements: The difference between their resources and what they actually need, and the importance of the problem. This refers to the concept of consumer motivation, which is the internal incentive consumers experience to fulfill conscious or unconscious wants and needs. Once the problem is identified, the consumer initiates the action that will bring about a relevant solution.
Following the identification and definition of a problem or need, the consumers commence the search for information either internally or externally. Internal search for information refers to past brand, product or service associations driven by personal experiences, whereas external entails research for available third-party information concerning a possible solution for the identified need from friends, family, observation, consumer reports or media. In case the information retrieved is convincing that some brands, products or services can deliver the solution to the problem or cover their need, the consumers will practically initiate the next step of the process, the evaluation of alternatives.
SEE ALSO: There’s More to Consumer Engagement than Meets the Eye
The criteria considered during the evaluation of alternatives differ from consumer to consumer. The factor of price might be the most important for some while others might put an emphasis on quality or other functional and psychological benefits. During the evaluation of alternatives, the consumer evaluates all the products available on a scale of particular attributes.
The research for alternatives depends on available time, available information concerning a brand, product or service, and the risk that a wrong choice might entail.
After evaluating the available alternatives, the consumers enter the last phase of the process, the actual purchase, during which they intend to buy the most preferred or suitable brand for their needs.
The consumers’ evaluations and feelings after the purchase characterize the post-purchase phase which many companies tend to ignore as this takes place after the transaction has been done. However, this stage can be the most important one as it directly affects the customers’ satisfaction and future decision making processes (through the internal search for information or referral to a friend/family member) when facing similar needs. Therefore, this stage reflects the consumer’s experience of purchasing a product or service. From a branding point of view, the outcome of each experience defines the brand associations in the consumers’ minds and influences the decisions concerning possible further interactions with the brand.
After considering a typical customer decision process, one should not omit the fact that even if the amount of information consumers are exposed to is enormous, the brain’s processing capacity is limited. Each second people are exposed to an estimated 11 million bits of information that reach us through all the senses, yet humans are capable of processing only around 50 bits of that information, letting most of the input go by unnoticed (Wilson, 2002). How consumers represent, attend to and perceive incoming information may have a profound influence on their behavior and consequently on marketing and branding tactics.
In the next article, a further analysis will be made on how branding experts should take advantage of the human brain processes during external stimulus before or during the decision process. Stay tuned!