consumer behaviour

Over the past three months we have been looking at consumer behaviour patterns and have carried out research at Asda, Sainsbury’s and the co operative. One of our aims from this research was to find out how the global recession is affecting the way people shop.

This report outlines our research into how people behave differently in these stores and if the recession is changing the way these stores are advertising themselves to the consumer.
Our group has chosen five emotive brands (Pepsi, Pampers, Lloyd Grossman sauces, Warburton’s and Lynx) our aim was to discover how they connected with the mind of the consumer. This report will look at theories such as collectivism, individualism and globalisation. It will comment on our findings from the consumer research that was undertaken.
Consumer behaviour is the study of why people buy what they do, and can be explained by researching into the following-
*The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products)
*The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, media);
*The behaviour of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions;
*How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer.

All of this research helps marketers to see how they can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and strategies to effectively reach the consumer.

Consumption is a common concept in economics. As human beings we continually consume different products throughout our lives, some of these are basic needs and some of these are desires. Most marketers focus on our desires when introducing a new product for example - you already have a perfectly good car but you want a new one. It may be aspirational or appeal to our emotional side, or insecurities often we feel we have to have it but cannot justify why. One way which advertisers manipulate consumers is through Consumer capitalism - an economic and cultural condition where by the consumer demands are manipulated by the seller to their advantage, this will involve mass marketing techniques and will be on a large scale. People like to feel as though they have free choice over any decision they make, the reality is that they are subconsciously herded towards certain products, Edward Bernays became the “father of public relations” and used psychology and sociology principles together with motivational research techniques to manipulate public opinion and persuaded people to buy products such as cigarettes, which are damaging to ones health. Influences such a PR, past experiences with a brand and peer pressure can change people’s behaviour and views about certain subjects.

Other factors that effect what we buy are the theories of individualism and collectivism these are conflicting views of the nature of humans, society and the relationship between them. Individualists hold the view that the individual is the most important and although they do not deny that societies exist people who hold this view believe that society is made up of individuals.
Collectivist’s hold the view that the group - the nation, the community, the race, etc.
Are the primary unit of reality and the ultimate standard of value. People who hold this view do not deny the reality of the individual. But ultimately, collectivism states that the groups we interact with determine our identity, that our identity is composed of relationships with others.
Different brands can be marketed in both ways e.g. Lynx may make you feel the brand is talking directly to you as a 16 year old male but it is also talking to teenage males as a large group.
Identity is very important “it is not just a set of computerised data that distinguishes one person from another, identity is something much deeper and personal; ultimately it's about personal worth. Our identity is about how we perceive ourselves in relation to our families, our society, our gender, and our beliefs. It's also about how we perceive and value each other.” The brand preferences that we form a young age can distinguish who we are and can feel as though they are part of us.

Pepsi taps into these young people’s minds and connects with them at an early age, Pepsi’s markets itself towards young people with slogans such as “generation next” and “be young have fun drink Pepsi”. Pepsi originally found success by marketing itself as better value than Coca Cola when it introduced a 12 ounce bottle for 5 cents. Coca Cola was twice the price of Pepsi it was a strategy that worked in a time of depression, it boosted Pepsi’s status and by 1936 their profits doubled. This worked for Pepsi when it was first launched, and today Pepsi is using promotion again to try to outsell coca cola, supermarkets are consistently selling Pepsi at a lower promotional price. They seem to be using the strategy of price promotion again. Carbonated drinks tend to struggle with older consumers during recessionary times as they are considered discretionary purchases.
Pepsi still have their own base of loyal customers, who will always choose Pepsi over Coca Cola or any store alternative. It is made up of primarily a younger demographic.
Pepsi’s advertising campaigns frequently use celebrities to endorse their products they spend huge amounts of money to get the product into the minds of the consumers these celebrities can often be in the back of the mind of the consumer when making a purchasing decision.
Pepsi has become a global brand through the process of globalisation. This explained simply it is the process, by which the capitalist world-system spreads across the globe. It has brought about the choice of thousands of products to the masses. Globalisation has brought about free trade broken down barriers of social and cultural differences and meant that it has become easier for brands to have one global identity This has meant that some brands for example Jif have changed to Cif for the European market, and more recently Norwich union which is a very British brand has changed to Aviva, this is so it appeals to the European market.

In 2008 Britain entered the global recession, which has meant that people have had to re evaluate their shopping habits people have cut back on luxury items as their disposable income has shrunk.
They have had to rationalise their purchases the housing market has collapsed and the car industry is struggling everyone is being effected down to supermarket brands which have suffered because people are switching to the store’s own brand.
We carried out an experiment into items that were on promotion versus full price items and watched consumers to see whether price would effect their decision
We carried this experiment out in the crisps and snack aisle.
We found that Walkers were still the most popular product and most people decided to buy the large multipack which were on promotion, however larger families were choosing to buy the store brand multi-pack, which was considerably cheaper, these results are not isolated and show a trend towards people choosing cheaper store brands.

The recession has meant that advertisers have had to think of new strategies to get people spending.
“In advertising, different creative strategies are used in order to obtain consumer attention and provoke shoppers to purchase or use a specific product. Advertisers use different ways of thinking to create catchy slogans that capture consumer attention. Creative strategies promote publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.”
I have looked at how supermarkets have changed their advertising strategies during the recession. Asda have always been well known for their low prices, in 2008 they introduced a new slogan “why pay more?” Asda knew that its customers would be thinking about how they could save money and they knew most of Britain would be thinking the same. They wanted to attract consumers who currently shopped elsewhere by making price comparisons between all the major supermarkets. They used an independent price checker - my supermarket.com to show people that it wasn’t just false claims.

Sainsbury’s didn’t want to lose their customers to cheaper stores like Asda they knew that they were a higher priced supermarket, so they introduced “feed your family for a fiver”- which involved buying Sainsbury’s own brand products to make recipes.
They also introduced “switch and save” where they encouraged their consumers to switch to Sainsbury’s own brand and save 20% they started to advertise their basics range which they had not done previously.

People can be influenced by their peers into buying or using products or services. It is often more effective than advertising as people know that companies want to sell their products and wouldn’t ever highlight the negative aspects of their product. So consumers often trust family member and friends over any advertising they may have seen.
Peoples buying behaviour is also affected by their economic means, when people have less money they alter their behaviour accordingly they will cut back on discretionary purchases and even though their individuality is important to them they may hold back on large purchases that they want to make because they simply cannot afford them.

Buying behaviour we observed:
We counted people as they went into each store, Asda had the most customers compared to Sainsbury’s, showing that people are aware of Asda’s pricing position and I saw a lot of families and students who may be on a limited budget.
In Asda I was aware that people were much more aware of price, also there wasn’t the same stigmas around choosing economy brands that there were in Sainsbury’s- some people would have trolleys full of smart price food.
Couples- the man would push the trolley and the woman would fill it
I observed an argument over branded Chinese sauce the woman wanted the Sharwoods brand and the man wanted the Asda brand, as it was cheaper. They chose the Asda brand in the end.
I saw people put items back that they had in their trolleys when they saw similar branded items on promotion one example of this was Coca Cola and Pepsi. This was probably to do with the price difference rather than a particular brand preference as they were placed next to each other on the shelves.
People were still buying branded products but they were more aware of price and
promotion played a part in their purchase decision.
Some of the people shopping in Sainsbury’s were young professionals just picking up something for lunch so it was difficult to predict which brands they would buy in a weekly shop.
The majority of people that I observed in Sainsbury’s were older (probably due to the time of day and it was mid-week) but they weren’t as concerned about price, I saw a lot of people continue to buy Andrex toilet roll and McCain’s chips these items were not on promotion. Had it been a family doing a weekly shop I suspect that they may have been more price conscious, as Sainsbury’s money saving campaigns seem to suggest families are concerned about the rising cost of living.
To conclude consumer behaviour changes dramatically in times of economic trouble, people become a lot more aware of the purchases they are making (even if usually the decisions are processed at low attention, with little thought) when money is tight people start to cut back on non essential items and look at cheaper alternatives, brands such as Pepsi have been able to form emotional attachments with their younger more loyal audience, but may have to work hard to attract new ones who may choose lower priced store brands.