Global Business Management

Introduction:

The report aims at providing an insight into global business management in the context of understanding the psychological concepts underlining consumer behavior. Consumer behavior revolves around the aspects of life that relates to the consumption of services and goods. The consumer behavior field covers wider base since it focuses on the process of consumption that involves issues influencing the consumer before and after the purchase. In most cases, the behaviors portrayed by people are in one way or the other linked to the consumption. Either individuals are directly or indirectly linked to the consumer behavior be it either shopping, travelling or watching television. Thus, consumer behavior is defined as the process where the individuals purchase, select and use the products or services for fulfilling their desires and needs. Here the report compresses the broader subject of consumer behavior into more specific field known as the consumer psychology and selected in accordance with the interest of the consumer. Consumer psychology deals with the ways in which the individuals or the group remains involved with the consumer activities and the personal impact. It is difficult in comprehending the consumer psychology without clear understanding of the manner in which the individuals make decisions or process information. Extensive research of the consumer psychology portrayed individual aspects that made up consumer engagement. The report puts forward a critical analysis of how the luxury brand Off White uses the concepts of consumer behavior such as motivation, perception, personality and lifestyle in influencing repeat purchase and building of consumer loyalty. Off White represented a luxury fashion label and Italian street wear found in Italy in the year 2012 by an American creative designer Virgil Abloh.

Critical Analysis of Consumer Behaviour in Influencing Repeat-Purchase and Build Customer Loyalty

According to Juster (2015), the analysis of consumer behavior lies in the use of the behavioral principles gained experimentally for interpreting the human economic consumption. Academically it stands at the intersection point of the economic psychology on one end while marketing science on the other end. While the behavioral principles remain central to the theoretical and the empirical research program, the quest for interpreting the naturally occurring consumer behavior such as saving, gambling, purchasing, adoption of innovations, brand choice and consumption of services that raise the philosophical and the methodological issues that  goes beyond academic discipline known as the behavior analysis. Moreover, as the usual approach of the marketing scientist and the consumer researchers in explaining and predicting the consumer behavior remains overwhelmingly cognitive in procedure and scopes, it moves beyond the present interest of academic marketing. It is therefore a vital concern for both the marketing and the behavior analysis. The analysis of consumer behavior analysis refers to the analysis of the mature research program and the report puts forward a definitive account of the scope and the nature. Here the focus lay in describing implications of the consumer behavior analysis and understanding its psychological concepts and put forward suggestion as to how the interactions of the communities can be beneficial for both (Solomon et al. 2014).

According to Fullerton (2013), motivation is considered as one of the influential factors that influence the decision making of the consumers as well as the marketing strategy. In other words, motivation is the energizing force that helps in activating certain behaviors which provides a direction and purpose to the behaviors. In other words, it is seen as the process that leads to specific behaviors and answers the question as to why the consumers are engaged in specific manner. The question that has pondered the psychologist for years has been the question as to what motivated the humans. This question can be analyzed in multiple angles and many different theories can be portrayed that will help in explaining why the consumers remains motivated in purchasing the goods and the service. Motivation actually acts as the driving source of the behavior and has three features, effort, direction and persistence (Griskevicius and Kenrick 2013). Effort refers to the amount of the energy that the individual applies to the job for achieving the objective. Direction represents what an individual targets in achieving. The features states that everything starts with the underlying need that is activated when there exists a discrepancy between the desired state of the being and actual state. The increase in discrepancy results in the activation of the arousal known as the drive. The urgency of the response depends on the power of the drive. Over the period of time specific behavioral patterns represents thoughts that are more effective than the others in receiving satisfaction that then become wants.

Figure 1: Motivation Process

Source: (Oliver 2014)

The simple illustrated demonstrated the dynamics of motivation process and the manner in which needs led to the action or the behavior. Motives and needs influence the perception of the consumer of what seems relevant and thereby can influence the emotions and feelings. DuBrin (2013) stated that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs provided useful insight into the consumer behavior. It is a macro theory that emphasized how the human needs represented the underlying factors of the consumption. It depends on the four premises even when the product is a luxury brand like Off White. The first premise represents the fact that all the humans acquire similar motives through social interactions and generic making. The second premise represents that some of the motives are critical compared to the others. The third motive focuses on the satisfaction of the basic motives before the other motives get activated. The fulfillment of the basic motive results in more advanced motives.

Figure 2: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Source: (Lester 2013)

The figure put forward a brief description of the hierarchy and represents the levels from the basic psychological needs to the increasingly advanced psychological needs. The psychological needs refer to the water, food, psychological motives and sleep. This in fact covers the basic necessities of the human for survival. The next level represents safety that includes not only the physical safety but the stability, security and the familiar surroundings. This focuses on the feeling of satisfaction and security in the environment. The next level refers to the psychological requirement which represents belongingness and is reflected through the desire of loving, holding friendship and remains accepted within the society. This level is closely linked with esteem as it highlighted self respect and higher status that in a way relates to the feelings of achievement and accomplishment of the individuals. The last level represents self actualization which refers to the self fulfillment and complete potential through the individual yearning. Hence, the theory of Maslow put forward an innovative and newer way of motivation and analysis of the human behavior. It has been found that the decisions of the consumers are led by needs of self actualization that can be used for explaining the reason for purchase of some of the items (Taormina and Gao 2013).

Foxall (2014) stated that consumers constantly synthesize information about a brand in forming a decision about whether it offers value. In other words, consumer perception represents an approximation of the reality. Luxury brands seem to influence the perception to the reality through manipulation and trickery thereby presenting them in best possible light. For instance, advertisement often acts as the trumpet of convenience and quality of the brand that helps in fostering higher consumer perception leading to increased amount of sales.

One of the key factors influencing the consumer perception has been exposure(Fall Diallo et al. 2013). The more the information about the luxury brand Off White, the more comfortable they remain in buying it. Therefore, businesses do all things required for publicizing the offerings. However, to influence consumer perception and ensure repeat purchase, brands should have an exposure to the consumers and must stand out from crowd. In addition the risk perception of the consumer is another key factor that business must consider while trying to encourage the buying behaviors. A riskier proposition finds more difficulty in getting the consumers for acting. If the consumers are not familiar with the brand then they are also not able to access the involved risk. Brands like Off White can overcome this by offering as much products as possible that would also allow the customers in handling the products in the stores or try it at home thereby decreasing the risk of perception.

However depending on the perception of the consumer the brand should distinguish the message from the competitors for grabbing the attention of the consumer(Rani 2014). Consumers decide to pay for the Off White products as they perceive them as better. There are however various factors that influence the perception of the consumer behavior. This includes the exposure to the stimuli, interpretation of the stimuli and the ability of identifying changes in intensity of the stimuli. Exposure determines the levels in which the consumers encounter stimuli through commercial messages; interpretation refers to the consumers making sense of the received messages through recognition of the brand recognition. On the other hand, as stated by Weber, the ability of the consumers in identifying the stimulus intensity depends on original intensity that makes it more noticeable towards the consumers.

Tuskej, Golob and Podnar (2013) stated that there are number of aspects that influences consumers’ perception of the brand. The relevance of the brand to the lives of the consumers influences the attention that the consumers provide to the perception of the luxury brand. Pleasant stimuli in the form of advertisements command the attention of the consumer. Besides, surprising stimuli with substantial prominence also helps in gaining consumer attention.

Ahmad and Thyagaraj (2015) stated that personality reflected behavioral tendencies that the individuals displayed across different situations. It assists the marketers in the sense that it helps in answering the question as to what the consumers must choose in becoming satisfied. Personality of the consumer helps in driving the behavior of the individual and in accomplishing the goals in varied situations (Mullen and Johnson 2013). Analysts consider personality as the variable that helps in predicting the impacts of the individual traits on the consumer behavior and the purchase.  The differences enable the marketers in providing clearers understanding of characteristics possessed by consumers that determines the behavior.

Personality is defined as consistent responses towards the environmental stimuli. It defines the characteristic response tendencies of the person that gets repeated in the similar situation (Sandy, Gosling and Durant 2013). The way in which the consumer responds to the environmental stimuli remains subjected to the psychological makeup of the individuals.  Two consumers are never the same. They might possess equivalent tension reduction capabilities but possess different levels of extroversion that leads them in engaging in different behaviors. The key theories dependent on the personalities and important to the marketers are the trait theories. These theories allow the marketers in segmenting the consumers based on the differences of the personality. The theory states that the personality of the individual comprises of the pre-dispositional attributes known as the traits. In other words, a trait remains defined as the distinguishable manner in which the individual remains differentiated from the other (Gunter and Furnham 2014). Luxury brands such as Off White identify self consciousness and risk taking while planning the strategies. There however exist three assumptions that help in describing trait theory. The first includes that each of the consumers possess traits different from the others that allows the marketers in segmenting the consumer markets. Secondly, such trait remains stable throughout the lifetime of the individual and thirdly, the trait can be gathered from measuring behavioral signs. The Five Factor Model represents a multi-trait personality theory that the luxury brands like Off White have used for capturing considerable amount of the consumer personality.

Figure 3: Five Factor Model of Personality

Source: (Andreassen et al. 2013)

The table portrays that there are five core traits that gets manifested in certain behavior caused by the different situation. The modem helped the luxury brand in understanding the consumer behaviors related to complaining, bargaining and obsessive shopping.

Lantos (2015) put forward lifestyle that represents people from similar social culture and class. In the present society, people always remain free in selecting the brands they like to consume that defines themselves and helps in creating their social identity. Off White is one such brand. In other words, lifestyle defines a pattern or the way of living where decision is taken by person based on the psychographics. It is in fact a pattern representing consumption thereby reflecting the choices of the person in spending his money and time. Such pattern of consumption depends on major dimensions such as interest, activities and opinion. Based on the  interest, opinions and the activities possessed, there exists eight groups of classification based on the major dimensions of self orientation and resources. Self orientation includes the principle-oriented consumers who make the purchase decision for the luxury brand based on the views across the world. These are people who place importance on their preferences and choice. This category of consumers is brand loyal and it is very difficult in changing the buying behavior as they do not remain influenced by the opinion of the people. Besides, self orientation also includes the status oriented buyers and action oriented buyers.  Status-oriented buyers represent people who make their decision of purchasing the luxury based on the actions and the opinions of the other people. For such people it is vital in maintaining certain image or status within the society. Hence, it becomes easier for marketers of Off White in targeting these consumers as they seem to follow the current trends. While the action oriented consumers seem to represent people who make purchase decisions based on diversity, activity and risk taking. They represent the easier targets for newer products put forward by the luxury brand Off White.

Conclusion:

On a concluding note, it can be said that the purpose of the study remained in exploring the different aspects of the consumer behavior through the magnifying glass of the psychological aspects. The report put forward the different ways in which the consumers influences the individuals and the purchasing behavior. The report also tried to put forward a broader understanding behind the reasons of consumer behavior and their thought process.

References:

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