Motivation & Values

Motivation and Values

• Consumer Behavior • Buying, Having, and Being

The Motivation Process • Motivation: – 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.

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

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.

Motivational Strength • Drive Theory: – Biological needs produce unpleasant states of arousal. We are motivated to reduce tension caused by this arousal.

• Expectancy Theory: – Behavior is pulled by expectations of achieving desirable outcomes – positive incentives – rather than pushed from within

Motivational Direction • 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 – Hedonic needs: Subjective and experiential needs (e.g. excitement, self-confidence, fantasy, etc.)

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.

• Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict: – Consumers face a choice between two undesirable

Three Types of Motivational Conflicts

Figure 4.1

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

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

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Figure 4.2

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

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)

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

Conceptualizing Involvement

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

The Many Faces of Involvement • Product Involvement: – Related to a consumer’s level of interest in a particular product

• Message-Response Involvement: – Refers to a consumer’s interest in processing marketing communications

• Purchase Situation Involvement: – Refers to the differences that may occur when buying the same product for different contexts

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

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

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

Values • Value: – 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. – 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)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.