Our talented team know how to excite, inspire and engage. With backgrounds in events, entertainment and travel, we’re full of ideas for amazing prizes and unforgettable incentives!
At Fulcrum, we all come to work every day because we have a shared love of travel and delivering once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Our team meetings are buzzing with fresh ideas, brand new experiences and glowing feedback from our travellers. We know what makes a great incentive, we have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the best experiences around the world, and we have an ever-expanding ‘little black book’ of the most exclusive suppliers in the business.
In addition to our creative ideas and experience, we know that our clients value our expertise and dedication to solving problems rather than creating them. Prizes and incentives are our world, but we understand that our clients have other priorities, so we make sure we’re delivering our ideas on-time, on-budget and on-brand. We thrive on tight deadlines, logistical challenges and creating perfectly tailored solutions, without the headaches!
About us
Perfect solutions every time
As a leading marketing Agency, we’re immensely proud to work with brands and agencies across a huge range of sectors and industries, giving us an unrivalled breadth of experience.
we have created and fulfilled prizes for promotions and activations across the world.
Our aim: help our clients achieve their goals through our experience and expertise, taking the stress and hassle out of prize fulfilment.
We work for both direct brands and agencies, often in collaboration or with other specialist agencies and partners. Many of our clients have existing assets – from festival tickets to sports hospitality – which we help them to build into the best possible prize packages. Others want to create unique, eye-catching marketing and btl content around their prize winners. We can deal with winners from any country and in any language; we can provide a full btl management service; we can even source camera crews for content capture.
Whatever your brief, we’ve got it covered.
SALES INCENTIVES
Driving sales and performance through tailored, flexible incentive programmes
With pressure always on to drive sales and performance, sales incentives are an essential part of rewarding achievement within many companies. From internal staff reward programmes to dealer and channel incentives, there’s no better way to create a happy, engaged and motivated workforce.
Our main goal is to understand your people and what makes them tick. From hundreds in a call centre team to a small on ground sales team, a clear overview of your audience is the most important part of the process. By taking a best approach, offering maximum choice and flexibility, we create incentives which are targeted, effective and tailored to your team.
Whether it’s sales rewards, dealer incentives or channel incentives, drop us a line; we’d love to help you drive sales with our fresh and creative approach to prizes and incentives. From once-in-a-lifetime holidays to mini-breaks, high-street vouchers and designer goods, you can rest assured that with Fulcrum you’re in safe hands.
24 hour turnaround for urgent briefs
Topline ideas within 2 hours if needed
Competitive fixed quotes with no hidden costs
Expert Winner Management and Fulfilment
Retail Marketing Supplier | Interactive marketing Hadapsar
Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions
Chapter 3: Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions
3.1 Factors That Influence Consumers’ Buying Behavior
3.2 Low-Involvement Versus High-Involvement Buying Decisions and the Consumer’s Decision-Making Process
3.3 Discussion Questions and Activities
3.1 Factors That Influence Consumers’ Buying Behavior
Learning Objectives
- Describe the personal and psychological factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it.
- Explain what marketing professionals can do to influence consumers’ behavior.
- Explain how looking at lifestyle information helps firms understand what consumers want to purchase.
- Explain how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs works.
- Explain how culture, subcultures, social classes, families, and reference groups affect consumers’ buying behavior.
You’ve been a consumer with purchasing power for much longer than you probably realize—since the first time you were asked which cereal or toy you wanted. Over the years, you’ve developed rules of thumb or mental shortcuts providing a systematic way to choose among alternatives, even if you aren’t aware of it. Other consumers follow a similar process, but different people, no matter how similar they are, make different purchasing decisions. You might be very interested in purchasing a Smart Car, but your best friend might want to buy a Ford F-150 truck. What factors influenced your decision and what factors influenced your friend’s decision?
As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, consumer behavior is influenced by many things, including environmental and marketing factors, the situation, personal and psychological factors, family, and culture. Businesses try to figure out trends so they can reach the people most likely to buy their products in the most cost-effective way possible. Businesses often try to influence a consumer’s behavior with things they can control such as the layout of a store, music, grouping and availability of products, pricing, and advertising. While some influences may be temporary and others are long lasting, different factors can affect how buyers behave—whether they influence you to make a purchase, buy additional products, or buy nothing at all. Let’s now look at some of the influences on consumer behavior in more detail.
Situational Factors
Have you ever been in a department story and couldn’t find your way out? No, you aren’t necessarily directionally challenged. Marketing professionals take physical factors such as a store’s design and layout into account when they are designing their facilities. Presumably, the longer you wander around a facility, the more you will spend. Grocery stores frequently place bread and milk products on the opposite ends of the stores because people often need both types of products. To buy both, they have to walk around an entire store, which of course, is loaded with other items they might see and purchase.
Store locations also influence behavior. Starbucks has done a good job in terms of locating its stores. It has the process down to a science; you can scarcely drive a few miles down the road without passing a Starbucks. You can also buy cups of Starbucks coffee at many grocery stores and in airports—virtually any place where there is foot traffic.
Physical factors that firms can control, such as the layout of a store, music played at stores, the lighting, temperature, and even the smells you experience are called atmospherics. Perhaps you’ve visited the office of an apartment complex and noticed how great it looked and even smelled. It’s no coincidence. The managers of the complex were trying to get you to stay for a while and have a look at their facilities. Research shows that “strategic fragrancing” results in customers staying in stores longer, buying more, and leaving with better impressions of the quality of stores’ services and products. Mirrors near hotel elevators are another example. Hotel operators have found that when people are busy looking at themselves in the mirrors, they don’t feel like they are waiting as long for their elevators (Moore, 2008).
Not all physical factors are under a company’s control, however. Take weather, for example. Rainy weather can be a boon to some companies, like umbrella makers such as Totes, but a problem for others. Beach resorts, outdoor concert venues, and golf courses suffer when it is raining heavily. Businesses such as automobile dealers also have fewer customers. Who wants to shop for a car in the rain?
Firms often attempt to deal with adverse physical factors such as bad weather by offering specials during unattractive times. For example, many resorts offer consumers discounts to travel to beach locations during hurricane season. Having an online presence is another way to cope with weather-related problems. What could be more comfortable than shopping at home? If it’s raining too hard to drive to the GAP, REI, or Abercrombie & Fitch, you can buy products from these companies and many others online. You can shop online for cars, too, and many restaurants take orders online and deliver.
Crowding is another situational factor. Have you ever left a store and not purchased anything because it was just too crowded? Some studies have shown that consumers feel better about retailers who attempt to prevent overcrowding in their stores. However, other studies have shown that to a certain extent, crowding can have a positive impact on a person’s buying experience. The phenomenon is often referred to as “herd behavior” (Gaumer & Leif, 2005).
If people are lined up to buy something, you want to know why. Should you get in line to buy it too? Herd behavior helped drive up the price of houses in the mid-2000s before the prices for them rapidly fell. Unfortunately, herd behavior has also led to the deaths of people. In 2008, a store employee was trampled to death by an early morning crowd rushing into a Walmart to snap up holiday bargains.
Social Situation
The social situation you’re in can significantly affect your purchase behavior. Perhaps you have seen Girl Scouts selling cookies outside grocery stores and other retail establishments and purchased nothing from them, but what if your neighbor’s daughter is selling the cookies? Are you going to turn her down or be a friendly neighbor and buy a box (or two)?
Video Clip
Thin Mints, Anyone?
Are you going to turn down cookies from this cute Girl Scout? What if she’s your neighbor’s daughter? Pass the milk, please!
Companies like Pampered Chef that sell their products at parties understand that the social situation makes a difference. When you’re at a friend’s Pampered Chef party, you don’t want to look cheap or disappoint your friend by not buying anything. Certain social situations can also make you less willing to buy products. You might spend quite a bit of money each month eating at fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Subway. Where do you take someone for your first date? Some people might take a first date to Subway, but other people would perhaps choose a restaurant that’s more upscale. Likewise, if you have turned down a drink or dessert on a date because you were worried about what the person you were with might have thought, your consumption was affected by your social situation (Matilla & Wirtz, 2008).
Time
The time of day, time of year, and how much time consumers feel like they have to shop affect what they buy. Researchers have even discovered whether someone is a “morning person” or “evening person” affects shopping patterns. Have you ever gone to the grocery store when you are hungry or after pay day when you have cash in your pocket? When you are hungry or have cash, you may purchase more than you would at other times. Seven-Eleven Japan is a company that’s extremely in tune to time and how it affects buyers. The company’s point-of-sale systems at its checkout counters monitor what is selling well and when, and stores are restocked with those items immediately—sometimes via motorcycle deliveries that zip in and out of traffic along Japan’s crowded streets. The goal is to get the products on the shelves when and where consumers want them. Seven-Eleven Japan also knows that, like Americans, its customers are “time starved.” Shoppers can pay their utility bills, local taxes, and insurance or pension premiums at Seven-Eleven Japan stores, and even make photocopies (Bird, 2002).
Companies worldwide are aware of people’s lack of time and are finding ways to accommodate them. Some doctors’ offices offer drive-through shots for patients who are in a hurry and for elderly patients who find it difficult to get out of their cars. Tickets.com allows companies to sell tickets by sending them to customers’ mobile phones when they call in. The phones’ displays are then read by barcode scanners when the ticket purchasers arrive at the events they’re attending. Likewise, if you need customer service from Amazon.com, there’s no need to wait on the telephone. If you have an account with Amazon, you just click a button on the company’s Web site and an Amazon representative calls you immediately.
Reason for the Purchase
The reason you are shopping also affects the amount of time you will spend shopping. Are you making an emergency purchase? What if you need something for an important dinner or a project and only have an hour to get everything? Are you shopping for a gift or for a special occasion? Are you buying something to complete a task/project and need it quickly? In recent years, emergency clinics have sprung up in strip malls all over the country. Convenience is one reason. The other is sheer necessity. If you cut yourself and you are bleeding badly, you’re probably not going to shop around much to find the best clinic. You will go to the one that’s closest to you. The same thing may happen if you need something immediately.
Purchasing a gift might not be an emergency situation, but you might not want to spend much time shopping for it either. Gift certificates have been popular for years. You can purchase gift cards for numerous merchants at your local grocery store or online. By contrast, suppose you need to buy an engagement ring. Sure, you could buy one online in a jiffy, but you probably wouldn’t do that. What if the diamond was fake? What if your significant other turned you down and you had to return the ring? How hard would it be to get back online and return the ring? (Hornik & Miniero, 2009)
Mood
Have you ever felt like going on a shopping spree? At other times wild horses couldn’t drag you to a mall. People’s moods temporarily affect their spending patterns. Some people enjoy shopping. It’s entertaining for them. At the extreme are compulsive spenders who get a temporary “high” from spending.
A sour mood can spoil a consumer’s desire to shop. The crash of the U.S. stock market in 2008 left many people feeling poorer, leading to a dramatic downturn in consumer spending. Penny pinching came into vogue, and conspicuous spending was out. Costco and Walmart experienced heightened sales of their low-cost Kirkland Signature and Great Value brands as consumers scrimped1. Saks Fifth Avenue wasn’t so lucky. Its annual release of spring fashions usually leads to a feeding frenzy among shoppers, but spring 2009 was different. “We’ve definitely seen a drop-off of this idea of shopping for entertainment,” says Kimberly Grabel, Saks Fifth Avenue’s senior vice president of marketing (Rosenbloom, 2009). To get buyers in the shopping mood, companies resorted to different measures. The upscale retailer Neiman Marcus began introducing more mid-priced brands. By studying customer’s loyalty cards, the French hypermarket Carrefour hoped to find ways to get its customers to purchase nonfood items that have higher profit margins.
The glum mood wasn’t bad for all businesses though. Discounters like Half-Priced books saw their sales surge. So did seed sellers as people began planting their own gardens. Finally, what about those products (Aqua Globes, Snuggies, and Ped Eggs) you see being hawked on television? Their sales were the best ever. Apparently, consumers too broke to go on vacation or shop at Saks were instead watching television and treating themselves to the products (Ward, 2009).
Personal Factors
Personality and Self-Concept
Personality describes a person’s disposition, helps show why people are different, and encompasses a person’s unique traits. The “Big Five” personality traits that psychologists discuss frequently include openness or how open you are to new experiences, conscientiousness or how diligent you are, extraversion or how outgoing or shy you are, agreeableness or how easy you are to get along with, and neuroticism or how prone you are to negative mental states.
Do personality traits predict people’s purchasing behavior? Can companies successfully target certain products to people based on their personalities? How do you find out what personalities consumers have? Are extraverts wild spenders and introverts penny pinchers?
The link between people’s personalities and their buying behavior is somewhat unclear. Some research studies have shown that “sensation seekers,” or people who exhibit extremely high levels of openness, are more likely to respond well to advertising that’s violent and graphic. The problem for firms is figuring out “who’s who” in terms of their personalities.
Marketers have had better luck linking people’s self-concepts to their buying behavior. Your self-concept is how you see yourself—be it positive or negative. Your ideal self is how you would like to see yourself—whether it’s prettier, more popular, more eco-conscious, or more “goth,” and others’ self-concept, or how you think others see you, also influences your purchase behavior. Marketing researchers believe people buy products to enhance how they feel about themselves—to get themselves closer to their ideal selves.
The slogan “Be All That You Can Be,” which for years was used by the U.S. Army to recruit soldiers, is an attempt to appeal to the self-concept. Presumably, by joining the U.S. Army, you will become a better version of yourself, which will, in turn, improve your life. Many beauty products and cosmetic procedures are advertised in a way that’s supposed to appeal to the ideal self people seek. All of us want products that improve our lives.
Gender, Age, and Stage of Life
While demographic variables such as income, education, and marital status are important, we will look at gender, age, and stage of life and how they influence purchase decisions. Men and women need and buy different products (Ward & Thuhang, 2007). They also shop differently and in general, have different attitudes about shopping. You know the old stereotypes. Men see what they want and buy it, but women “try on everything and shop ‘til they drop.” There’s some truth to the stereotypes. That’s why you see so many advertisements directed at one sex or the other—beer commercials that air on ESPN and commercials for household products that air on Lifetime. Women influence fully two-thirds of all household product purchases, whereas men buy about three-quarters of all alcoholic beverages (Schmitt, 2008). The shopping differences between men and women seem to be changing, though. Younger, well-educated men are less likely to believe grocery shopping is a woman’s job and would be more inclined to bargain shop and use coupons if the coupons were properly targeted at them (Hill & Harmon, 2007). One survey found that approximately 45 percent of married men actually likeshopping and consider it relaxing.
One study by Resource Interactive, a technology research firm, found that when shopping online, men prefer sites with lots of pictures of products and women prefer to see products online in lifestyle context—say, a lamp in a living room. Women are also twice as likely as men to use viewing tools such as the zoom and rotate buttons and links that allow them to change the color of products.
Video Clip
What Women Want versus What Men Want
Check out this Heineken commercial, which highlights the differences between “what women want” and “what men want” when it comes to products.
Figure 3.2
Marketing to men is big business. Some advertising agencies specialize in advertisements designed specifically to appeal to male consumers.
Kimberly – Grandpa Reading – CC BY-NC 2.0.
Many businesses today are taking greater pains to figure out “what men want.” Products such as face toners and body washes for men such as the Axe brand and hair salons such as the Men’s Zone and Weldon Barber are a relatively new phenomenon. Some advertising agencies specialize in advertising directed at men. There are also many products such as kayaks and mountain bikes targeted toward women that weren’t in the past.
You have probably noticed that the things you buy have changed as you age. Think about what you wanted and how you spent five dollars when you were a child, a teenager, and an adult. When you were a child, the last thing you probably wanted as a gift was clothing. As you became a teen, however, cool clothes probably became a bigger priority. Don’t look now, but depending on the stage of life you’re currently in, diapers and wrinkle cream might be just around the corner.
If you’re single and working after graduation, you probably spend your money differently than a newly married couple. How do you think spending patterns change when someone has a young child or a teenager or a child in college? Diapers and day care, orthodontia, tuition, electronics—regardless of the age, children affect the spending patterns of families. Once children graduate from college and parents are empty nesters, spending patterns change again.
Empty nesters and baby boomers are a huge market that companies are trying to tap. Ford and other car companies have created “aging suits” for young employees to wear when they’re designing automobiles2. The suit simulates the restricted mobility and vision people experience as they get older. Car designers can then figure out how to configure the automobiles to better meet the needs of these consumers.
Video Clip
Car Makers Design Special Aging Suit
The “aging suit” has elastic bindings that hamper a car designer’s movement and goggles that simulate deteriorating eyesight. The suit gives the designer an idea what kinds of car-related challenges older consumers face.
Lisa Rudes Sandel, the founder of Not Your Daughter’s Jeans (NYDJ), created a multimillion-dollar business by designing jeans for baby boomers with womanly bodies. Since its launch seven years ago, NYDJ has become the largest domestic manufacturer of women’s jeans under $100. “The truth is,” Rudes Sandel says, “I’ve never forgotten that woman I’ve been aiming for since day one.” Rudes Sandel “speaks to” every one of her customers via a note tucked into each pair of jean that reads, “NYDJ (Not Your Daughter’s Jeans) cannot be held responsible for any positive consequence that may arise due to your fabulous appearance when wearing the Tummy Tuck jeans. You can thank me later” (Saffian, 2009).
Your chronological age, or actual age in years, is one thing. Your cognitive age, or how old you perceive yourself to be, is another. A person’s cognitive age affects his or her activities and sparks interests consistent with his or her perceived age (Barak & Gould, 1985). Cognitive age is a significant predictor of consumer behaviors, including people’s dining out, watching television, going to bars and dance clubs, playing computer games, and shopping (Barak & Gould, 1985). Companies have found that many consumers feel younger than their chronological age and don’t take kindly to products that feature “old folks” because they can’t identify with them.
Lifestyle
If you have ever watched the television show Wife Swap, you can see that despite people’s similarities (e.g., being middle-class Americans who are married with children), their lifestyles can differ radically. To better understand and connect with consumers, companies interview or ask people to complete questionnaires about their lifestyles or their activities, interests, and opinions (often referred to as AIO statements). Consumers are not only asked about products they like, where they live, and what their gender is but also about what they do—that is, how they spend their time and what their priorities, values, opinions, and general outlooks on the world are. Where do they go other than work? Who do they like to talk to? What do they talk about? Researchers hired by Procter & Gamble have gone so far as to follow women around for weeks as they shop, run errands, and socialize with one another (Berner, 2006). Other companies have paid people to keep a daily journal of their activities and routines.
A number of research organizations examine lifestyle and psychographic characteristics of consumers. Psychographics combines the lifestyle traits of consumers and their personality styles with an analysis of their attitudes, activities, and values to determine groups of consumers with similar characteristics. One of the most widely used systems to classify people based on psychographics is the VALS (Values, Attitudes, and Lifestyles) framework. Using VALS to combine psychographics with demographic information such as marital status, education level, and income provide a better understanding of consumers.
Psychological Factors
Motivation
Motivation is the inward drive we have to get what we need. In the mid-1900s, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed the hierarchy of needs shown in Figure 3.4 “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.
Figure 3.4 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow theorized that people have to fulfill their basic needs—food, water, and sleep—before they can begin fulfilling higher-level needs. Have you ever gone shopping when you were tired or hungry? Even if you were shopping for something that would make you the envy of your friends (maybe a new car) you probably wanted to sleep or eat even more. (Forget the car. Just give me a nap and a candy bar.)
The need for food is recurring. Other needs, such as shelter, clothing, and safety, tend to be enduring. Still other needs arise at different points in time in a person’s life. For example, during grade school and high school, your social needs probably rose to the forefront. You wanted to have friends and get a date. Perhaps this prompted you to buy certain types of clothing or electronic devices. After high school, you began thinking about how people would view you in your “station” in life, so you decided to pay for college and get a professional degree, thereby fulfilling your need for esteem. If you’re lucky, at some point you will realize Maslow’s state of self-actualization. You will believe you have become the person in life that you feel you were meant to be.
general trade marketing
Retail Marketing Supplier, Interactive marketing, Corporate Marketing Job ,
RWA Marketing agencies, Store marketing Supplier, home to home marketing operation,
engagement marketing operation , onground marketing operation, IT Parks Marketing operation ,
Restaurant Marketing operation , college Marketing operation ,
B to C marketing operation , f to f marketing operation