1. Chapter 4 Motivation and Values
By Michael R. Solomon
Consumer Behavior
Buying, Having, and Being
Sixth Edition

2. Opening Vignette: Paula
What are Paula’s motivations for being a vegetarian?
How is vegetarianism being promoted and who is promoting it?
How is the beef industry responding to this movement toward a meatless diet?
How are values influencing individuals’ choices in consumption?

3. The Motivation Process
The processes that lead people to behave as they do. It occurs when a need arises that a consumer wishes to satisfy.
Utilitarian need: Provides a functional or practical benefit
Hedonic need: An experiential need involving emotional responses or fantasies
Goal:
The end state that is desired by the consumer.

4. The Motivation Process
Drive:
The degree of arousal present due to a discrepancy between the consumer’s present state and some ideal state
Want:
A manifestation of a need created by personal and cultural factors.
Motivation can be described in terms of:
Strength: The pull it exerts on the consumer
Direction: The particular way the consumer attempts to reduce motivational tension

5. Ads Reinforce Desired States
This ad for exercise shows men a desired state (as dictated by contemporary Western culture), and suggests a solution (purchase of equipment) to attain it.

6. Motivational Strength
Biological vs. Learned Needs:
Instinct: Innate patterns of behavior universal in a species
Tautology: Circular explanation (e.g. instinct is inferred from the behavior it is supposed to explain)
Drive Theory:
Biological needs produce unpleasant states of arousal. We are motivated to reduce tension caused by this arousal.
Homeostasis: A balanced state of arousal
Expectancy Theory:
Behavior is pulled by expectations of achieving desirable outcomes – positive incentives – rather than pushed from within

7. Motivational Direction
Needs Versus Wants:
Want: The particular form of consumption used to satisfy a need.
Types of Needs
Biogenic needs: Needs necessary to maintain life
Psychogenic needs: Culture-related needs (e.g. need for status, power, affiliation, etc.)
Utilitarian needs: Implies that consumers will emphasize the objective, tangible aspects of products, a desire to achieve some functional or practical benefit.
Hedonic needs: Subjective and experiential needs (e.g. excitement, self-confidence, fantasy, etc.)

8. A tension!
With the consideration of unmet needs, a discrepancy exists between the consumer’s present state and some ideal state. Tension is created. The consumer seeks to reduce this tension. The degree of arousal is called a drive.
Marketers try to create products and services that will provide the desired benefits and permit the consumer to reduce this tension.

9. State your ends!
The desired end state is the consumer’s goal.
Once a goal is attained, tension is reduced and the motivation recedes.
Motivation can be described in terms of:
a) Its strength
b) Its direction

10. Strength and Direction
Motivational Strength
The degree to which a person is willing to expend energy to reach one goal as opposed to another reflects his or her underlying motivation to attain that goal.
Motivational Direction:
Motives have direction as well as strength. Most goals can be reached by a number of paths. The specific way a need is satisfied depends on the individual’s unique history, learning experiences, and his or her cultural environment. Particular form of consumption used to satisfy a need is termed a want.

11. Conflicts can occur... Motivational Conflicts
A goal has valence, which means that it can be positive or negative. Therefore goals can be sought or avoided.
Not all behavior is motivated by the desire to approach a goal.
Consumers often find themselves in situations in which different motives, both positive and negative, conflict with one another - i.e. Conflicts can occur. Three different types of goal conflicts are:
Approach-approach conflict, Approach-avoidance conflict, Avoidance-avoidance conflict.

12. Instant Gratification of Needs
We expect today’s technical products to satisfy our needs – instantly.

13. Motivational Conflicts
Approach-Approach Conflict:
A person must choose between two desirable alternatives.
Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A state of tension occurs when beliefs or behaviors conflict with one another.
Cognitive Dissonance Reduction: Process by which people are motivated to reduce tension between beliefs or behaviors.
Approach-Avoidance Conflict:
Exists when consumers desire a goal but wish to avoid it at the same time. Many products and services we desire have negative consequences attached to them.
Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict:
Consumers face a choice between two undesirable alternatives.

14. Three Types of Motivational Conflicts
Figure 4.1

15. A Gentle Approach...
In approach-approach conflicts, marketing communications should emphasize a “no-lose” and/or “win either way” message(s).
In approach-avoidance conflicts, messages should accentuate the positive aspects and either downplay the negative or provide some additional counterbalancing information about the choices.
In avoidance-avoidance conflicts, messages should emphasize the need for making a choice and link it to some other more attractive value held by the consumer.

16. Solutions to Approach-Avoidance Conflict

17. approach-avoidance

18. Discussion Question
Do sporting events, such as a college football game, satisfy utilitarian or hedonic needs? Which specific needs do they address?
Give some other examples of utilitarian and hedonic needs.

19. Negative Consequences
The Partnership for a Drug-Free America points out the negative consequences of drug addiction for those who are tempted to start.

20. Classifying Consumer Needs
Henry Murray need dimensions:
Autonomy: Being independent
Defendance: Defending the self against criticism
Play: Engaging in pleasurable activities
Thematic Apperception Technique (TAT):
(1) What is happening?
(2) What led up to this situation?
(3) What is being thought?
(4) What will happen?
People freely project their subconscious needs onto the stimulus

21. Theory of cognitive dissonance
An illustration—a person purchases an expensive automobile with the expectation that it will increase his or her status within his or her social set. However, the increased status does not occur and he or she begins to doubt that the purchase was a wise idea. If unchecked, this doubt can create grave negative feelings about the automobile and the dealer that sold it to the person. However, dissonance reduction will occur if friends compliment the person or make it known to them that the purchase was a good one. In lieu of friends performing this role, the marketer must sometimes perform the confirmation role by running reassurance ads for their customers.

22. Classifying Consumer Needs (cont.)
Specific Needs and Buying Behavior:
Need for achievement: To attain personal accomplishment
Need for affiliation: To be in the company of others
Need for power: To control one’s environment
Need for uniqueness: To assert one’s individual identity
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
A hierarchy of biogenic and psychogenic needs that specifies certain levels of motives.
Paradise: Satisfying Needs?
Distinct differences regarding the conceptualization of paradise between American and Dutch college students

23. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Figure 4.2

24. Dutch Conception of Paradise
A Dutch respondent’s collage emphasizes this person’s conception of paradise as a place where there is interpersonal harmony and concern for the environment.

25. Appeal to Affiliation Needs
All you need is love...
Appeal to Affiliation Needs

26. Criticisms of Maslow’s Hierarchy
The application is too simplistic:
It is possible for the same product or activity to satisfy every need.
It is too culture-bound:
The assumptions of the hierarchy may be restricted to Western culture
It emphasizes individual needs over group needs
Individuals in some cultures place more value on the welfare of the group (belongingness needs) than the needs of the individual (esteem needs)

27. Involvement
Involvement refers to the level of perceived personal importance and/or interest evoked by a stimulus (or stimuli) within a specific situation. Involvement can be: product involvement, message-response involvement, and purchase situation involvement. Degree of involvement becomes a means by which to segment a market and, therefore, devise strategies to reach different involved segments.

28. Are you involved?
Involvement can be viewed as the motivation to process information.
As involvement increases, people devote more attention to ads related to the product, exert more cognitive effort to understand these ads, and focus their attention on the product-related information in them.

29. Your Attention Please....
It is known that consumers differ in their level of involvement with a product message. Marketers use attention-getting factors to ensure that messages get through the clutter that constantly bombards the consumer’s senses

30. Technically Speaking....
The techniques cited in the text that can be used to enhance the consumer’s motivations to process product information and increase their involvement:
(a) Appeal to consumers’ hedonic needs (e.g., ads using sensory appeals generate higher levels of attention).
(b) Use novel stimuli in a commercial, such as unusual cinematography, sudden silences,or unexpected movements.
(c) Use prominent stimuli, such as loud music and fast action, to capture attention in commercials. In print formats, larger ads increase attention. Also, viewers look longer at full-color pictures than at black-and-white.
(d) Include celebrity endorsers in commercials to generate higher interest.
(e) Develop a bond (i.e., brand loyalty) by maintaining an ongoing relationship with consumers.

31. Consumer Involvement Involvement:
A person’s perceived relevance of the object based on his/her inherent needs, values, and interests.
Object: A product or brand
Levels of Involvement: Inertia to Passion
Type of information processing depends on the consumer’s level of involvement
Simple processing: Only the basic features of the message are considered
Elaboration: Incoming information is linked to preexisting knowledge

32. Conceptualizing Involvement
Figure 4.3

33. Increasing Involvement through Ads
The Swiss Potato Board is trying to increase involvement with its product. The ad reads, “Recipes against boredom.”

34. Consumer Involvement (cont.)
Involvement as a Continuum:
Ranges from disinterest to obsession
Inertia (Low involvement consumption):
Consumer lacks the motivation to consider alternatives
Flow State (High involvement consumption):
Consumer is truly involved with the product, ad or web site
Cult Products:
Command fierce consumer loyalty and perhaps worship by consumers who are highly involved in the product

35. Example of a Cult Product

36. The Many Faces of Involvement
Product Involvement:
Related to a consumer’s level of interest in a particular product
Message-Response Involvement:
(a.k.a. advertising involvement) Refers to a consumer’s interest in processing marketing communications. Television is considered a low-involvement medium. Print is considered a high-involvement medium.
Purchase Situation Involvement:
Refers to the differences that may occur when buying the same product for different contexts. Social risk is considered.

37. Emotions versus Cognitions
Many marketing messages, such as this ad for a cosmetic company in Taiwan, focus on emotions rather than cognitions.

38. Customizing for Product Involvement

39. Measuring Involvement
Teasing out the Dimensions of Involvement:
Involvement Profile:
Personal interest in a product category
Risk importance
Probability of making a bad purchase
Pleasure value of the product category
How closely the product is related to the self
Segmenting by Involvement Levels:
Involvement is a useful basis for market segmentation

40. High Involvement

41. Underlying values
Consumer motivations are often driven by underlying values. In this context, products take on meaning because they are seen as being instrumental in helping the person to achieve some goal that is linked to a value (such as individuality or freedom)

42. Strategies to Increase Involvement
Appeal to hedonic needs
e.g. using sensory appeals to generate attention
Use novel stimuli
e.g. unusual cinematography, sudden silences, etc.
Use prominent stimuli
e.g. larger ads, more color
Include celebrity endorsers
Build a bond with consumers
Maintain an ongoing relationship with consumers

43. Values Value: Core Values:
A belief that some condition is preferable to its opposite (e.g. freedom is better than slavery)
Core Values:
General set of values that uniquely define a culture
Value system: A culture’s unique set of rankings of the relative importance of universal values. What sets cultures apart is the relative importance or ranking of universal values. This set of rankings is a culture’s value system.
Every culture is characterized by its members’ endorsement of a value system.
Enculturation:
Process of learning the value systems of one’s own culture
Acculturation:
Process of learning the value system of another culture
Cultural beliefs are taught by socialization agents (i.e., parents, friends, and teachers)

44. Core Values
Cleanliness is a core value in many cultures.

45. Application of Values to Consumer Behavior
Useful distinctions in values for consumer behavior research
Cultural Values (e.g. security or happiness)
Consumption-Specific Values (e.g. convenient shopping or prompt service)
Product-Specific Values (e.g. ease-of-use or durability)
Virtually all consumer research is ultimately related to identification and measurement of values.

46. Emotions versus Cognitions
The positive value we place on the activities of large corporations is changing among some consumers who prefer to go “anticorporate.” This ad for a coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado reflects that sentiment.

47. Measuring Cultural Values
The Rokeach Value Survey
Terminal Values: Desired end states
Instrumental Values: Actions needed to achieve terminal values
The List of Values (LOV) Scale
Developed to isolate values with more direct marketing applications
Identifies nine (9) consumer segments based on the values they endorse
Relates each value to differences in consumption

48. The Means-End Chain Model
Laddering:
A technique that uncovers consumers’ associations between attributes and consequences
Hierarchical value maps:
Show how product attributes are linked to desired end states
Means-End Conceptualization of the Components of Advertising Strategy (MECCAS):
Message Elements
Consumer Benefits
Executional Framework
Leverage Point
Driving Force

49. Advertising uses the laddering concept to develop advertising strategy
Elements include
a. Message elements—which attributes or product features.
b. Consumer benefit—positive consequences of use.
c. Executional framework—style and tone of ad.
d. Leverage point—how to link terminal values with product features.
e. Driving force—end value on which the advertising will focus.

50. Chained to a Model...Hm...
The Means-End Chain Model assumes that very specific product attributes are linked at levels of increasing abstraction to terminal values. The person has valued end states, and he or she chooses among alternative means to attain these goals. Products are thus valued as the means to an end. Through a technique called laddering, consumer’s associations between specific attributes and general consequences are uncovered. Consumers are helped to climb up the “ladder” or abstraction that connects functional product attributes with desired end states.

51. The Weight of your Chains....
Example: a young man purchases a diamond ring to symbolize an upcoming marriage to a young woman. Concrete attributes like size and clarity of the stone are parlayed into abstract and emotional values of love and self-esteem (yes, carat weight and quality do matter--especially to women).

52. Syndicated Surveys Large-scale commercial surveys
Voluntary simplifiers:
Believe that once basic needs are sated, additional income does not add to happiness.
Examples:
VALS 2
GlobalScan
New Wave
Lifestyles Study

53. Laddering
Advertising uses this concept to develop advertising strategy. Elements include:
a. Message elements—which attributes or product features.
b. Consumer benefit—positive consequences of use.
c. Executional framework—style and tone of ad.
d. Leverage point—how to link terminal values with product features.
e. Driving force—end value on which the advertising will focus.

54. Materialism Materialism:
The importance people attach to worldly possessions
Tends to emphasize the well-being of the individual versus the group
People with highly material values tend to be less happy
America is a highly materialistic society
There are a number of anti-materialism movements

55. Values of Materialists
Materialists value visible symbols of success such as expensive watches.

56. Discussion Question
Materialists are more likely to consume for status. Can you think of products and brands that convey status?
There is a movement away from materialism in our culture. Can you think of products, ads, or brands that are anti-materialistic?

57. Consumer Behavior in the Aftermath of 9/11
Following 9/11, ads addressed people’s fears in various ways. This ad was created as part of the Advertising Community Together initiative.