Consumer Roles in Marketing Communications Objective: Introducing and discussing the significance of consumer behavior and motivations in communications in tourism and hospitality.

Consumer Buying Behavior Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying behavior of the individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption. Consumer market refers to the combination of all these individuals and households. These diverse consumers make their choices among various products based on several factors.

Model of Consumer Behavior How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts that the company might use? The company that understands how consumers will respond to product features, prices, advertising has a great advantage over its competitors. According to the “model of buyer behavior”, marketing (4Ps) and other

macro environmental (economic, technological, political and cultural) stimulus starts the response model. All these enter into the buyer’s head (black box) and then turn into responses as product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount. The buyer behavior is affected by; (1) the buyer’s characteristic - cultural, social, personal, psychological; (2) the buyer’s decision process.

Model of Buyer Behavior Marketing & Other Stimuli Buyer’s Black Box Buyer’s Response Product Economic Buyer Price Technological characteristic Place Political Buying Promotion Cultural decision process Product choice Brand choice Dealer choice Purchase timing Purchase amount

Roles of Consumers Included in the 4Ps, consumer behavior is affected by marketing communications. Consumers are influenced by media representations and messages; based on how they interpret and evaluate information. Consumers may react in different ways to certain types of messages or media channels or sources. Therefore, companies need to research to understand what forms of communication work best and produce the desired results.

However, this is not an easy process as marketing communications are delivered in an integrated fashion. Consumers are aware of products or brands through various forms of communications including advertising, sponsorship, public relations, word-of-mouth, exposure to places through film and television, etc. As a result, it is difficult to evaluate how, where, when a person becomes familiar with a brand, organization, destinations, ...

In addition, consumers themselves actively buy into or identify with certain brands, images, or organizations. Modern consumers often act as advocates for certain products, places, brands, and so on.

Consumer Behavior Theory Consumer beavior theory is based on the discipline of psychology. Accordingly, consumers are perceived as rational beings whose buying choices are directed to satisfy a need.

Different paradigms in consumer behaviour; The cognitive approach: recognizes puchases as problem-solving decisions The reinforcement approach: recognizes consumption as learned behavior Habit: recognizes routine production of behavior for particular purchases. While the first has a cognitive perspective, the last two have behaviourist perspectives.

The Cognitive Paradigm Focuses on consumer decision making process involving need arousal information processing brand evaluation purchase Post-purchase evaluation Does not explain repeat-buying behavior, spontaneous or impulsive “walk-by” decisions.

Need Recognition The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes that he has a problem or need. The need can be felt because of internal stimuli (hunger, thirst...) or external stimuli (the buyer may feel hungry when he passes by a bakery, the buyer may need to have a vacation when he watches a commercial about Caribbeans on TV). At this stage, the marketer must identify the factors that most trigger interest in the product and develop marketing programs that involve these factors.

Information Search When the consumer feels his need, he satisfies his need with a product near at hand. But, if there is not such a product, he starts to search for information. The consumer can obtain information from several sources; personal sources: family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances (more important for the consumer to evaluate)

commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, dealers, packaging, displays (more important for the consumer to get information) public sources: mass media, consumer rating organizations experiential sources: handling, examining, using the product Here, the marketer is responsible to identify the consumer’s sources of information and their importance, then design its marketing efforts in the way that would increase the awareness and knowledge of the potential consumers.

Evaluation of Alternatives After gathering information, the consumer evaluates each alternative and makes a brand choice. Consumers pay attention to certain issues when evaluating the alternatives; product attributes: consumers see products as a bundle of product attributes (e.g. quality, size, price...) Consumers pay the most attention on the attributes that satisfies their need the most.

degrees of importance: consumers give different degrees of importance to different attributes according to their needs and wants. brand beliefs: consumers develop a set of brand beliefs about where each brand stands on each attribute. The set of beliefs that are held about a particular brand is known as the brand image. total product satisfaction: consumers combine the attributes that give them the highest perceived satisfaction and create their ideal product. evaluation procedure: consumers approach different brands through some type of

evaluation procedure which depends on the individual and specific buying situation. In some cases, consumers use logical thinking, and at other times, emotional. Sometimes, they may decide on their own, or ask their friends, or salespeople for advice. Here, the marketer should study the buyers to understand how they evaluate each alternative - e.g. which attribute receives the highest attention.

Purchase Decision The consumer ranks all the brands and intends to purchase one. However, sometimes the consumer does not buy the one he intended. Two factors can come between the purchase intention and decision; attitudes of others; e.g. family may claim that the alternative is better. unexpected situational factors; unexpected events may change the purchase intention e.g. the consumer may loose his job so that he have to purchase a cheaper brand, a friend my report his dissatisfaction about the product, a competitor may drop its prices...

Postpurchase Behavior After purchasing the product, the consumer will be satisfied or dissatisfied and will engage in postpurchase behavior of interest. Whether the buyer is satisfied or dissatisfied is determined by the relationship between the consumer’s expectations and the product’s performance.

The marketer’s job does not end when the product is bought The marketer’s job does not end when the product is bought. The marketer must do research in order to understand whether the consumer is satisfied about the product or not. Responding to consumer complaints help to reduce the number of dissatisfied consumers. E.g. Toyota contacts the new car owners and congratulates them. In addition, places advertising with the favorable words of the new car owners. “I love what you do for me Toyota”

The Reinforcement Paradigm Focuses on the way behavior is modified by the environment, therefore managers try to change the consumer’s situation. Past behavior teaches consumers and after learning they shape their future puchases. There are a number of ways to learn about products and brands including trial and error, brand extention, use of stimuli (packaging, colors, etc.).

The Habit Paradigm Focuses on established patterns of behavior. Mobilised in response to relevant stimuli.

Consumer behavior for tourism and hospitality services?

Consumers and Markets for Tourism and Hospitality Services A market is defined as all those willing and able to purchase tourism and hospitality services. A market includes both current and potential customers. Organizations need to know how their services are positioned in the mind of both current and potential customers.

Markets and customer-base of organizations change in time due to changes in socio-economic circumstances, attitudes (e.g. organic products) Consumers atttudes toward company’s products and offers may also change. Marketing communications is basically directed towards developing sales. The messages must be created and delivered having target audiences in mind.

Generic Versus Variant Service Markets Before preparing their marketing communications, marketers need to distinguish between generic needs of markets for tourism and hospitality services and the range of offers (variants) within that generic category. For instance, while a package holiday is a generic service category, there are subcategories or services product classes under it; winter sun, summer sun, lakes and mountains, activity as safari holidays (which may even have a range of different types like day safaris, 1-3 nights short-break safaris, luxury safaris, budget safaris...

Marketing Analysis In order to understand more about their customers and develop the right marketing plans and communications strategies, managers should break down a market into more discrete market groups or segments. Therefore, they do a great deal of analysis on customers and markets. This type of market analysis is sometimes called market analysis-competitor analysis.

Such analysis look at the following factors: Total number of people in a population who ay be purchase the products/services Total number of customers actually buying these types of products/services Size of sales of the company’s products/services relative to competitors’ Relationship between the company’s products/services relative to competitors’ Ability of people to buy company’s offer over other types of products/services.

In developing marketing communications, first markets are analysed. Market analysis Identification of stakeholders Customer analysis Segmentation and targeting Marketing communications mix Customer relationship management Service quality and satisfaction

What the Organization Needs to Know about Consumers’ Behavior Marketing communications must consider that consumers are open to influence from external environmental factors which influence consumer behavior and how they process marketing messages. In order to develop attractive messages, organizations need to answer the following questions about their customers;

Who: what type of person, their socio-demographic characteristics and situational influences. When: do people buy and when they receive and/or receptive to messages. Why: their motives for buying and also how they react to the messages through perception. What: their preferences, attitudes and beliefs about the services they buy and their purchase behavior; also their reactions to marketing messages, the frequency of purchase and use. Where: the place they buy the products or receive the messages from. Which methods: they use to purchase the products/services.

Consumer Characteristics – Who? In order to better target their marketing communications, when analying markets, it is important for organizations to collect information on the following; Demographics Socio-economic characteristics; employment status, social class, lifestyle, etc. Feelings, beliefs and values Decision-making units; children Buying center roles; initiator, influencer, gatekeeper, decider, puchaser, user.

Decision and Purchase Characteristics – When? Organizations should understand when customers buy their porducts/services by checking their sales data, when they search for information, when they make their decision to buy and what infleunce those decisions, so that they can determine the timing of their marketing communications.

Consumer Motivations – Why? If organizations understand why customers choose their products/services over competitors’, then they can direct their marketing communications to stimulate new demand (extend the market) or remind. Motivation; physical, social, personal, cultural motivations for tourism and hospitality products/services Perceptions Identity

Buying Behavior Patterns – What? This question is about the types of things people buy, e.g. Short breakes vs. long holidays etc. Attitudes; marketing communications managers are interested in understanding how attitudes to places and services can be influenced.

Distribution and Access – Where? This relates to how consumers access marketing messages, e.g. Online booking, etc. Orgenizations need to know where consumers access marketing communications and under which circumstances they react favourably in relation to the content of the message.

Purchase Characteristics – Which Methods? Organizations also need to know how consumers purchase their products/services e.g. cash or by credit card, etc.; how they book, whether they get help or not, whether they pay in advance or not.

Resources McCabe, S. (2009). Marketing Communications in Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts, Strategies and Cases. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford. Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (2010). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (5th. ed.). Prentice Hall: New Jersey. Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles of Marketing (13th ed.). Prentice Hall: New Jersey.