CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

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CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

• Dr. Domen Bajde

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Consumer Imagination Communicating Value

• Creating/moving Meanings
• Cognitive Science
• Branding Implications

Peter Olson 2007, p. 278-309 FauconnierTurner
39-67 Brown, Kozinets, Sherry (2003)
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2 Approches to Exploring MEANING

• 1. The content approach (mapping cultural
  meanings related to products and brands)
• Cultural content analysis, Etnography, Semiotics,
  Laddering, etc. (ZMET)

• 2. The process approach (creation and movement of
  cultural meanings)
• Product design, Marketing communication,
  Distribution and Pricing

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Movement of meaning (McCracken)
Model of the cultural process in a highly
developed consumer society creation and movement
of cultural meanings
Cultural meaning is present in three locations
1. Social and physical environments (rituals,
beliefs, shared emotion)
2. Products and services (the meaning of
products, brands, etc.)
3. Individual consumers (meaning of ones life
and ones role/position)
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Movement of meaning (McCracken)
Model of the cultural process in a highly
developed consumer society creation and movement
of cultural meanings
1. Social and physical environments (meaning of
parenthood giving to children)
2. Products and services (brand meanings
Kinder, the chocolate that mothers give to their
children)
3. Individual consumers (self-image a good
parent)
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Movement of meaning
Meaning is transferred in a consumption-oriented
society in two major ways
1. Marketing strategies are designed to move
cultural meanings from the physical and social
environments into products and services in an
attempt to make them attractive to consumers
2. Consumers actively seek to acquire these
cultural meanings in products in order to
establish a desirable personal identity or
self-concept (WHY this obssesion with self and
identity?)
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Constructing identity through consumption
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EX Products as symbols of who we are and who
want to be
Status goods. (showing off/impressing) Self-actual
ization goods. (becoming/being someone)
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Implications

• Products, stores, and brands express cultural or
  symbolic meaning (buying products as a way to
  acquire cultural meanings to use in establishing
  their self-identities)

• The cultural meanings of products are likely to
  vary across different societies and different
  periods of time

• Some of the cultural meanings in products are
  obvious to anyone who is familiar with that
  culture, but other meanings are hidden

• Many products contain personal meaning in
  addition to cultural meanings

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Marketing involves

• Exploring cultural meanings

• Managing cultural meanings

• Helping consumers obtain cultural meanings

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Dilemma
Is it really all about identity
construction? Does the product-vehicle metaphor
do justice to reality?
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Some answers

• People consume products not only to construct
  themselves (their identity), but the world in
  general

• Consumers consume not only to relate to them
  selves, but to the OTHER (other people, the
  Other, nature, etc.)

• Meanings are not a property of the product but
  rather derive from the consumer interaction with
  products meaningful experiences

• Consumers have a lot of freedom to create
  different meanings

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The Chevy Tahoe lesson
http//news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-6056633.html
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Meaning MYTHS

• AROGANT thinking
• marketers are the creators and owners of meaning
• meaning is independent of the past and the
  environment
• meaning can be easily produced and managed
• meaning is a boundless/unlimited resource just
  like the human imagination

Meaning capacity --- The struggle over meaning
The workings of human imagination?
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Meaning MYTHS

• DUALISTIC thinking restricts the relevance of
  meaning

reason
emotion
functional quality
image surface
think products
feel products
natural value
fake value
S Y M B O L I C
F U N C T I O N A L
real
fantastic
Produced by science and engineering
Produced by marketers and artists
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Consequences

• Creative block (unscientific, artsy, girly)
• unable to create value and meaningful
  experiences

• Authenticity problem (fake, empty, shallow)
• trasparency of meaningless ad-ons

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Leasons from Cognitive Science (The How of
Human Imagination)
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Fauccounier Turner

• Meaning is actively constructed by complex mental
  operations in the brain
• These task are largely hidden (unconscious
  instant processing)
• The process of blending conceptual integration

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Example Same spot same time?
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The Network Model

• Mental spaces small conceptual packets for
  local thinking (short-term working memory)
• sets of activated neuronal assemblies
• Frames long-term schematic and specific
  knowledge

input
output
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Example
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Summary

• Input spaces first and last day
• Organizing frame walking along a path
• Cross-space mapping (projectioncompression)
• Blend emergent structure (walking towards
  oneself)
• Running a blend simulated encounter

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Thinking involves blending
Setting up mental spaces, matching across spaces,
projecting selectively to a blend, locating
shared structures, projecting backward to inputs,
creating new structure, running operations in the
blend
CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION (CREATION OF MEANING)
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Meaning involves blending
Meanings are not fixed. They depend on the
context and the people involved in creating
them.
The same goes for products. Meanings do no
exist independent of context and people!
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Meaning involves blending
Blending is metaphorical (projection) metony
mic (compression)
The projection and compression guides our
thinking by giving emphasis to some aspects and
hiding others.
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Meaning involves blending
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So what?

• Well, you dont have to know all this to
  communicate (automatic, intuitive, stable)
• But there is a huge difference between
  communicating and actively managing meaning
• Marketers are professional meaning creators and
  meaning communicators
• They often work with new meanings and try to
  change the dominant meaning structures (branding
  innovation)
• Marketing implications?

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Application to Branding
Every brand has its own story. The job of brand
managers is to nurture this brand story, fitting
it into consumers lives (Bruce)

• Brand story (or narrative) a coherent set of
  meanings attached to the brand, related to
• the origin of the brand (myth of origin)
• the distinction points of the brand (brand
  essence)
• the brand/user/others relationship

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EX VW BEATLE
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Application to Branding
The 4 As of branding Allegory Brand
allegories are essentially symbolic stories, or
extended metaphors (moral) Arcadia idealized
community (utopic) Aura powerful sense of
"authenticity (brand essence) Antinomy
ambiguity and paradox (consumers can insert their
hopes and dreams into products)
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Application to Branding
A good brand story Has weight. (higher values
moral certainty) Fuels our dreams. (hope
appeal) Is authentic and makes sense. (brand
roots essence) Involves conflict and diversity.
(paradox, freedom)
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EX Memory Foam

• Brand story
• NASA, G-force
• Memory foam
• A good nights sleep

CONFLICT ?
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GROUP PROJECT (step 2)Brand analysis

• Use the brand story approach to analyze the ways
  in which the company communicates sustainability
  and incorporates it into their brand
• (Analyze their communication by using FT
  blending framework search for metaphor and
  metonymy)
• Consider the ways to improve the brand narrative
  and better incorporate the sustainability message
  into the overall brand essence (What is Gorenjes
  brand essence to begin with?)