Need Recognition: And Consumer Behaviour

Need Recognition

In this stage first the buyer would recognize the need for a product, which will satisfy particular desire than they would think about his position. He sets the product and his position without that product usually by external or internal stimulus.

Information search

Once the consumer recognizes the need he may or may not search for more information if the need is so intense, the consumer would get should of the particular products which world satisfy the need whereas is not so intense, then he simple store the need in his money.

Evaluation of alternatives

• In this stage buyer has information about different brand of some production in this process of evaluation.
• First: The consumers see a bundle of attributes in a product then he would pay maximum to these attributes that are connected with his needs.
• Second: He would assign weight or importance to each one of the attributes.
• Third: The consumer develops a set of brand belief where each brands stands on each attributes. This may either buy comparing with actual product attributes.
• Fourthly and fifthly buyer: Arises at judgment or preference towards the brand alternatives using same evaluation procedure.

Purchase decision:

Based on evaluation stage the consumer will rank the product of his preference he will then from purchase intention usually he will buy the most preferred product among the several alternatives. Purchase decision is also influenced after considering risks cost involved, that amount of uncertainly about the product attributes etc. Post purchase decisions: – After purchasing the product the consumer may either he satisfied with the product or dissatisfied. This depends on the relation and the products perceived consumers. If the product matches with the consumers he is highly satisfied the consumers expectation is mostly based on the information he received from the producers and so any exaggeration by the later will mean the consumer will be dissatisfied about the product after the purchase of course.

Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behaviour is defined as all psychological social and physical behaviour of potential customers as they become aware of evaluate, purchase, consumer and tell other about products and services each element of this definition is important. Buyer behaviour involves both individual (psychological) processes & group (social) process.

• Consumer behavior is reflected from awareness right through post purchases.
• Consumer behavior includes communication purchasing and consumption behavior.

Importance of consumer behaviour:

• The importance of studying consumer behavior is routed deeply in the modern concept through studying the consumer behavior business can help consumer solve their consumption problems by understanding them and trying to analysis the buying process and factors influencing it.
• The Emerging buyer movement necessitates market to understanding buyer behavior, their needs aspirations. Expectations and problems it will be useful in exploiting marketing opportunities and meeting challenges of the markets.
• The marketing is consumer oriented consumer is the king of the market the marketers must try to offer the product favored by the customer at the price he is to pay through the distribution channel convenient to him with the right type of promotion to do this a study of buyer behaviour is necessary.

Scope of consumer behaviour

The study of the consumer behaviour is the study of how individuals make decision to spend their available resources on the consumption related items. It includes the study of what they buy why they buy it and how after they buy it.

Need For Consumer Behaviour Study

Each individual has a different reason and motivating factors in his or her choice of tubes the consumer may commit his resources on a particular brand of tubes for reasons of economy. His decision encompasses various repurchased actual purchase and post purchase.

Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour:

The major factors influencing a consumers buying behavior are:-

1. Cultural factors
2. Social factors
3. Personal factors
4. Psychological factors

1. Cultural Factors;

Cultural factors have the deepest influence on consumer behavior.

Cultural

Is the most fundamental determinant of all people’s wants and behavior the growing child acquires all sets of value, perception. Preferences and behavior through his or her family and other key institution. It includes value of achievement, success, activity efficiency freedom and progress material comfort.

Sub culture

Each culture consists of smaller sub culture that provides more specific identification and specialization for their members. Sub culture includes nationality, religion, races, geographical area and social group.

Social Class

Social class is relatively homogeneous and society is divided hierarchically. All human societies’ exhibit social satisfaction, stratification sometimes takes from of a caste system where the members of difference castes are record for creation roles and cannot change their caste membership.

2. Social Factor

Reference group:

A person’s reference group that which have a direct or indirect influence on the person’s attitude or behavior there are different types of group they are:-

• Membership group are those group which have direct influence on the group.
• Aspiration group are those group where people like to become a member of that group.
• Dissociate group are those group where people do not like to become the member of that group.
• Family is the most important consumer buying organization in the society and it has been researched extensively. Family constitutes a primary reference group.

3. Personal Factors

(1) Age:

People by different goods and services over a life time. Infant consumes baby foods, young adults may have variety food and old age people consume special diet food in the later years.

(2) Family life cycle:

Consumption is shaped by family life cycle there are 9 stages of family life cycle depending on financial institution and product interest.

(3) Occupation and Economic Circumstances:

Occupation:-

It also influences a person’s consumption pattern. A blue collared worker will buy work cloths. Shoes lunch box etc. A company president wills expensive suits, air travel and country club membership. Marketers will have to identify which occupational group will be interested in their products and work out marketing strategies to communicate about their product and services.

Economic Circumstances:

Product choice is affected by economic circumstances marketers are concerned about the level of spend able income. Savings and assets, debts borrowing power and attitudes towards spending v/s saving.

Life Style: It is the people’s pattern of living and it can be understand by referring to AIO (Activity interest & Opinion) Life style of a person conveys more than the person’s social class or personality. An understanding of a person’s life style will help in giving a profile of whole person’s pattern of living and interacting with the world.

Personality and Self Concept:

Personality :

Is usually described in terms of such traits as self confidence. Sociality, defensiveness, dominance and adoptability.

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• Self – Concept:It can be defined as complex mental pictures of us. Self concept consists of mainly three divisions namely.
• Actual self – concept – What you think of yourself
• Ideal self – Concept – What you want others to think about yourself
• Other self – concept – What others actually think about you?

Psychological Factor:

Motivation:

It can be said to be the inner drive that is sufficiently pressing and direct the person to seek the satisfaction of the need satisfaction of the need reduces the felt tension.

Perception:

It is a process by which an individual selects organizes and interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. Perception depends not only on the physical stimuli but also on the stimuli’s relation to the surrounding field and on condition within the individual.

Belief and attitude:

Belief:

A belief is a thought that a person holds about something. People act based on their belief these beliefs help in building up product and brand image.

Attitude:

An attitude can be said as persons enduring favorable or unfavorable cognitive evaluation, emotional feeling & action tendencies towards some object or idea.

Here will be the comparison and buying behavior of soaps of two different brands:

Overview of HUL

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India’s largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods company with a heritage of over 80 years in India. On any given day, nine out of ten Indian households use our products to feel good, look good and get more out of life – giving us a unique opportunity to build a brighter future.

HUL works to create a better future every day and helps people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others.

With over 35 brands spanning 20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and water purifiers, the Company is a part of the everyday life of millions of consumers across India. Its portfolio includes leading household brands such as Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond’s, Vaseline, Lakmé, Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, etc.

The Company has about 18,000 employees and has sales of INR 37660 crores (financial year 2018-19). HUL is a subsidiary of Unilever, one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home Care, Personal Care and Refreshment products with sales in over 190 countries and an annual sales turnover of €51 billion in 2018. Unilever has over 67% shareholding in HUL.

The Brand –Dove

Unilever was established in 1930 and since that time, the brands introduced by Unilever are attaining the leading position in the International markets. Among all those brands by Unilever, Dove is one of the most famous brands in the consumer industry and they use Dove daily for their skincare and hair care. There is a wide range of brands of Dove including soap bars, face washes, shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, moisturizing creams etc. that are used in 1 in 3 houses all over the world.

Unilever’s brand name used for many years on toilet soap became so successful its name was extended to other products. However, being the consumers’ best choice, Dove is enjoying the leading position in the market with the largest market shares in 75 countries and is a 2.5 billion Euros brand. The goals of Dove brands are to comply with the needs of the consumers all over the world and to work together in effective manner to adopt the advanced ideas while working out on the existing ones.

Dove is a personal care brand owned by Unilever. Dove products are manufactured in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey and United States. The products are sold in more than 35 countries and are offered for both women and men. The Dove trademark and brand name is currently owned by Unilever. Dove’s logo is a silhouette profile of the brand’s namesake bird, the color of which often varies. Products include: antiperspirants/deodorants, body washes, beauty bars, lotions/moisturizers, hair care, and facial care products.

The major competitors of Dove brands are Palmolive by Colgate-Palmolive and Ivory and Oil of Olay by P&G, but Dove is still at the top because of the consumers’ confidence in it, its best quality and curative advantages that keep the skin moist and beautiful and hair healthy and shiny by the advanced formulae of ¼ moisturizing cream, conditioners, vitamin B5, Vitamin E and nutrients used in Dove brands that also helps for the aged people to keep their skin protected from wrinkles.

Hence the success of Dove brands is attributed to just one thing that Unilever goes extra miles to give the loyal consumers high-quality, competitive products and services

The products under the brand Dove can be listed under the following heads

Shampoos and Conditioners

• Dove intense repair
• Dove hair fall rescue
• Dove daily shine
• Dove dryness care
• Dove dandruff care
• Hair Treatments
• Heat defense mist
• Intensive repair overnight mask
• Intensive repair regenerating mask
• Body lotions
• Essential nourishment
• Go fresh nourishment
• Indulgent nourishment
• Bar and body wash
• Crème
• Fresh moisture
• Gentle exfoliating
• Antiperspirants
• Original
• Silk dry
• Clear Touch anti-white marks

The gathered data is then processed, analyzed and interpreted in a systematic and objective fashion to understand what reasons influence the loyalty of the consumers being studied towards the brand.

Analysis of the results

The survey was undertaken on customers of Dove products and 60% of the respondents rated Dove positive in terms of quality which indicates that a majority of the consumer base uses Dove products because of the quality it provides to them. In addition to this a good 48% people think that it is a good value for money brand and the amount that they pay for the products gives them the kind of satisfaction they require out the products they buy.

Also 50% of the people surveyed believe that the products are different in terms of quality as compared to other brands providing similar kind of products. This number reinforces the results of question number 1 in which people rate Dove positive in terms of quality and therefore we can say that as far as quality is concerned Dove as a brand has an affirmative image in the minds of its users . Looking at the results of question number four we can see that more than 50% percent of the people feel that their family members also value the brand, the brand suits them, the brand is trustworthy and credible, they will spread positive word about the brand. These results insinuate that the users as well as peers value the brand highly they trust the brand and are readily willing to recommend it to other people.

They think that the brand suits them and no other brand available in the market is able to satisfy them then way Dove does. On the other hand people don’t feel that Dove products are any different from their competitors, this can mean that people use the products just for the fact that it satisfies their needs and is a good value for money but incase some competitor launches products that is perceived better than Dove products it is possible that the customers might switch to the competitors products.

Also, from looking at the responses of question number 6 through 9 we can say that a major chunk of the people surveyed regularly buy Dove products and other things being equal people are most likely to repurchase the brand even if the brand increases price, there is a stock out situation or even if a competitors lowers his price or comes up with similar lower priced products people are loyal enough to stick to the brand. However, when consumers were asked about whether Dove products were better than its competitors only a small percentage of 18% agreed to it, this means although people are highly satisfied with the quality of products they still don’t find other brands inferior.

Findings and recommendations

Similar to any other brand’s customers Dove’s customers also fall in various consumer categories, which are explained below along with the percentage in each category:

1. Hardcore loyal: These are those customers which are satisfied with the brand will not switch to other brands in any situation. In Dove’s case this percentage is close to 30 percent.
2. Switching loyal: This is that category in which people are not emotionally attached to the product and if they feel that there is a brand which is better in terms of quality they will switch to the other brand in no time. But if they find that the second product is not living upto there expectations than they might switch back to the first product again. In Dove’s case this percentage is a 26 percent. This is a segment that Dove really needs to work upon and turn them into hardcore loyal.
3. Not loyal: This is category which is not loyal at all and is more than ready to switch to other brands in case of a fall in the price of other brands. These people are very price sensitive and are using dove just because it suits them and is easy on their pocket. The percentage of this category for Dove is a whopping 28%. For these people the brand does not need to bother much because they are price sensitive and will not stick to the brand in any way except lowering the price.

Overall the brand enjoys a fairly good reputation in the minds of the customers and the customers feel that it’s a value for money brand that gives them great benefits and enough satisfaction. The survey concludes that Dove has a strong loyal customer base but at the same time it also has a segment of customers which are price sensitive and not loyal in the true sense, therefore it should make constant efforts to retain the customers it already has and make efforts to turn the not so loyal switchers into hardcore loyal.