A person’s buying choices are further influenced by motivation, perception, learning, beliefs
and attitudes.
(a) Motivation
A motive (drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction.
Many marketers develop adverts bearing in mind their products ability to quench the buyers
motive e.g. the Pepsi slogan “dear for more”, The Sprite advert “obey your thirst”, Nakumatt
slogan “You need it we’ve got it”, Toyota Pickup advert, ‘Shujaa wa Kazi’ etc.
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) forwarded the theory of motivation. Maslow concluded that the
needs that people are motivated to satisfy fall into a well-defined hierarchy.
Physiological needs are at the bottom of the hierarchy and they include the need for food
and shelter. Management ensures this is done by paying employees good wages.
Safety needs include assuring employees of security of tenure. Managers see to the safety
needs by paying employees well to avoid employee turnover.
Belongingness requires that employees be able to recognize with certain groups and that such
groups should equally recognize the employee. Management takes care of this level
of needs by grouping employees into departments e.g. Production, Sales and Accounts amongst
others.
Esteem needs are those that are realized when the employee is allowed to be responsible for an
activity or a group of people. Management ensures this level of need is met by giving
employees an opportunity of leading the group e.g. becoming the Production Manager, Sales
Manger etc.
Self Actualization needs are at the top of the hierarchy. Employees attain self actualization
when they are allowed to reach their highest potential i.e. when they are doing the very best
they can do under given circumstance. The motivating factor at this level of needs is
recognition. Employees will appreciate rewards such as employee of the year, Sales man of the
year, C.E.O of the year amongst others.
Maslow theory of motivation was based on three assumptions about human nature;
i) Human beings have needs that are never completely satisfied
ii) Human action is aimed at fulfilling the needs that are unsatisfied at a given point in
time.
iii) Human needs fit into a predictable hierarchy, ranging from basic, lower levels needs
to higher needs at the top.
Maslow’s work dramatized to managers that workers have needs beyond the basic
requirement of earning money to put food on the table. This concept conflicted with the
scientific management approach that emphasized the importance of pay.
(b) Perception
Perception refers to the process of receiving, organizing, and assigning meaning to information
or stimuli detected by the five senses from the environment to help to make a choice. It is a way consumers interpret or give meaning to the environment surrounding them. It involves seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling.
Consumers will perceive a certain market offering only after they have perceived sensory
stimuli. Eg
-Seeing plays a role in purchasing such items as; jewelry and fashion clothes
-Hearing plays a role in purchasing musical equipment and electronic equipments.
-Feeling plays a role in purchasing clothes/materials and even fruits.
-Tasting plays a role in purchasing sweets, food stuffs.
-Smelling plays a role in purchasing deodorants, perfumes, flowers.
There are certain factors that play a role in perception. They include
-Perception being selective whereby individuals are exposed to a lot of information
whereby they select only a relatively small percentage of it. (Perceptual defense)
-being subjective when individuals see and hear what they are
interested in because of what they are, what they believe, what their values are
etc.
-Perception being based upon individuals past experience where by the experience
has built up a relatively stable cognitive organization within the individual that
determines the meaning of a particular perception.
There are certain Perceptual defense mechanisms that consumers tend to have against
undesirable stimuli from the environment. They include:
Selective exposure
Occurs when people selectively choose to expose themselves only to certain stimuli. Eg
turning of the television when commercials come on, quickly paging through a magazine
and missing adverts.
-Selective attention
Occurs when the individual doesn’t pay full attention to the stimuli picked up by the senses. It makes or causes a consumer not to comprehend the content of the marketing message.
-Selective interpretation
Occurs when the stimuli are perceived but the message itself is not interpreted as it was
intended to be. Consumers can interpret the marketing message incorrectly by distorting
the meaning or by misunderstanding it.
-Selective recall
Refers to the individual ability to remember only certain stimuli, and to forget others
which may be important.
A marketing department may find different ways to deal with the above defense mechanisms.
1. Selective attention and recall
-Large stimuli can be offered to the market e.g. One page advertisements in newspapers, higher frequency i.e. repetition in TV and radio
-Use both color and movements when advertising which attracts attention.
-In supermarkets objects can be placed near the center of the visual fields.
2. Selective Interpretation
-Marketers should pretest their message so as to achieve correct interpretation of the message
-Marketers should determine how cultural differences influence the use of colors,
symbols and numbers so as to correctly pass the message appropriately to certain cultures, races etc.
-Marketers should not set unrealistic expectations.
3. Selective retention
-For effective retention marketers should incorporate visibility of their products through
demonstrations
-Repetition of the message is important to reinforce the message
-Marketers should make use of the consumer’s ability to learn.
(c) Learning
Learning describes changes in an individual’s behaviour arising from experience. Most human
behaviour is learned. Learning occurs through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses
and reinforcement e.g. if a consumer buys a Nokia phone, if his experience with the phone is
rewarding he will in future reinforce this behaviour by buying it again. But if it is not rewarding he will not reinforce the need for that product.
(d) Beliefs
A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about something e.g. Kenyans have an
attitude that Nissan cars are not durable on Kenyan roads and are highly in favour of Toyota
cars. These beliefs may be based on real knowledge, opinion or faith. Marketers must
understand the beliefs that people formulate about a specific product because the belief make up product and brand images. If some beliefs are wrong and prevent purchase, a marketer launches a campaign to correct them e.g. the Jik advert on detergents that bleach and tear your garments, the Nissan X-trail advert that depicts Nissan on rough roads.
(e) Attitudes
Attitude is a person’s consistently favourable or unfavourable evaluation,
feelings and tendencies toward an object or idea e.g. people have the attitude that Japanese
electronics are quality products while Chinese electronics are poor quality products.
A marketer must understand people’s attitudes and try to change them to their benefit.
Titany answered the question on November 3, 2021 at 11:09