To be successful, organizations must look into the needs and wants of their customers. Because customers are the reasons of business existence . Due to this, the consequences of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction marketers face a great challenge from customers as life style of people differ from one another
Due to customer life style and behavior the concept of total product, self concept and brand personality is a great challenge for the marketers when they want to design consumer product or service
Marketers challenges on customer life style behavior
Total product
Self-concept
Marketer’s challenges from customers
Brand personality
Source: the concept adapted from Boone and Kurtz (2005) total product concept
TOTAL PRODUCT:
Total product “ is the total benefit that customers get when they purchase product or service which include three basic thing “ Kurtz 2005)
The core product, that is the benefits which are being purchased these benefit include any extra thing that customers get when they purchase the product example when you by any electronic and they offer you free installation . This can be considered as benefit to customers
the actual product, that is the tangible item(s), This include other extra things apart from the actual product example when you buy laptop they can give you free headphone , mouth , and cooler fan which all of these add benefit to customers
The augmented product which is the service components and intangibles. This is the actual products that customer get and any services that customer aimed to get apart from other extra things that may be included by the sellers to motivate customers
“ Customer does not buy products or services, they buy benefits” (Kurtz 2005) that means they make purchases not for the products themselves, but for the benefits of the problems they solve or the opportunities they offer
Consumers seek bundles of types of benefits:
Tangible benefits: example laptop offer tangible benefit example for writing and storage of document
Intangible benefits: example the “ reliability” of the laptop image and reputation of the company manufacturer;
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Therefore total product: refers to the sum of benefits offered by a product, service, outlet, and etc. example:
Basic core: bundle of benefits example design and features added-value benefits with no apparent extra cost example store reputation, manufacturer prestige, convenient location, and delivery other benefits resulting from the consumer’s feelings associated with owning/using the product example belonging, then time period or warrant : products/service “ give” or “ take” time; this can be “ good” or “ bad” example the time period that dell will take to deliver the laptop to the customer all of these factors add benefit to the customer in which we team as total product
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Boone and Kurtz (2005) total product concept
According to (Boone and Kurtz 2005) “ a product is a bundle of physical, service, and symbolic attributes designed to satisfy a customer’s wants and needs where by the benefit obtained is the total product”.
Personal Brands were born to compete: If there is a high demand for the products or services in your field; you are not going to be the only person on the planet focusing on what you do. So get over it.
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Source: star bucks company profile (2009)
Starbucks has helped smaller coffee shops to increase their business by simply becoming their competition. Your competition will either eat your lunch or make you hungry to dominate your domain. Remember to be competitive you need competitors
Coke needs Pepsi
MySpace needs Face book
Nike needs Adidas
Magic needed Bird
Example Hilton hotel provide enough total product and services to their customer in which as a return they provide benefit to the customers example room accommodation have more than customer expectation because they provide the customer with some extra service like drinks internet in all of their room quality food and other service . All this motivate customers because they get more benefit apart from their expectation .
Source: Hilton hotel accommodations (2010)
http://www. hotelblake. com/media/images/photos/accommodations/Hotel_Blake_Room_detail. jpg http://www. hotelblake. com/media/images/photos/accommodations/BEDROOM_detail. jpg Hotel Blake Chicago
Excellent bedroom, phone call, couch, TV, good and clean bathroom and time line food
BRAND PESONALTY
Aaker (1997) defines brand personality as “ the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”
Brand personality is a key determinant of brand equity. Consumers seek brands with congruent personalities and use brands’ personality to define their sense of self. However, far from being universal, previous researches found that “ European (Spanish) brand personality dimensions differ from those in America and Asia (Japan)” (Elliott and Fournier 1998).
“ A successful brand is a name, symbol, design, or some combination, which identifies the ‘ product’ of a particular organization as having a sustainable differential advantage” (Doyle 2009
In addition, “ people buy things not for what they can do, but also for what they mean” (Levy 1959). An emotional tie is important in consumer’s choice of brand, as well as in brand positioning (Hooley and Saunders 1993), and consumers use brand to construct their own self-identity (Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998; Fournier 1998).
Example many customers buy adidas brand product because of its personality and recognition
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Adidas has strong brand image, awareness , loyalty, value, and recognition which influence many customers to purchase their products.
Lifestyle Brand Bands
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Source: life style brands, Coca-Cola, Nike, Wal mart, (2009)
These bands are lifestyle brands. The Coca Cola/ Nike/ Wal Mart level brands that exist in the form of bands. They are pillars. They must exist.
Brand personality and its perception is more country specific or specific segment furthermore, the applicability of brand personality scales, developed in America, Japan and Spain, in China is investigated for developing effective brand communication.
SELF CONCEPT
According to Pervin and John (2001), self- concept is often viewed as a component of personality. A number of researchers have suggested that there is a positive association between self-concept and brand image (Sirgy and Su, 2000)
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Actual self-concept refers to the present way in which individuals perceive themselves (reality), whereas the ideal self-concept represents the manner in which they would like to perceive themselves. Social self-concept represents the way individuals believe others perceive them, while ideal social self-concept represents the way the individual desires to be perceived by others.
Self-congruity represents the degree of similarity between consumer’s self-image or self- concept and that of brand
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The student shows personal ability within himself that he is able to learn and perform better meaning that self-concept shows the ability of some one to be able to do something
Sirgy and Su (2000) suggest that consumers purchase product/brands that possess images or indicate specific types of either actual or aspiration brand images that are congruent with consumers multiplicity of self images, either actual or ideal ones.
The relationships between brand personality characteristics consumer’s self image and consumer’s personality orientations . The context that has been chosen is fashion clothes items that consumers have bought recently. There are no specific instructions about the price levels, distribution outlets or type of clothing as long as they are considered to be relevant to the young consumer’s
TO DELIVER TOTAL PRODUCT THE COMPANY SHOULD HAVE EFFECTIVE SEGMENTATION:
Market segmentation “ is the study of consumer in order to discover already existing viable groups of consumers who are similar or homogeneous in their approaches to choosing and/or consuming goods and services” kotler (2003)
Segment is a means by which marketers differentiate among consumers and among market segments
Determine the “ descriptors” of consumers in the segment example demographics, psychographics, benefits sought, product usage rate, type of retail outlet and others
To have a successful segment the following four factors must be considered which include : sufficient size , Measurable, Differentiated and Reachable
Example adidas offer different product segment example shoes for men and women track soot and hand bags this segment help to initiate brand personality which fit different life style of customers
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FOR THE MARKETERS TO UNDERSTAND BETTER THEIR CUSTOMERS THEY SHOULD CONSIDER CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Consumer behavior involves the psychological processes that consumers go through in recognizing needs, finding ways to solve these needs, making purchase decisions (e. g., whether or not to purchase a product and, if so, which brand and where), interpret information, make plans, and implement these plans (e. g., by engaging in comparison shopping or actually purchasing a product).
Consumer Benefits: People do not buy products or services; they buy benefits we make purchases not for the products themselves, but for the problems they solve or the opportunities they offer
The Consumer Decision-Making Process: “ Include the process that consumer go through when they purchase product especially new product and pensive” (Keller, 1993).
A consumer decision model is a means of describing the processes that consumers go through before, during, and after making a purchase.
Influences on Consumer Behavior
Source: principles of marketing (consumer behavior) (Lovelock and Keller, 1993).
The EKB model is comprehensive and shows the components of decision making and the relationships and interactions among them.
The five distinct parts of consumer decision making presented are: Input, information processing, a decision process, decision process variables, and external influences
Stages in Consumer Decision Making
Need Recognition: ideal vs. actual
Search for Info: internal, external, word of mouth
Pre-purchase alternative evaluation
Purchase (including decision NOT to buy) Consumption
Post-purchase alternative evaluation
Application of EKB model in service industry example in Hotel: Consumers go through different stages when they seek hotel especially when they go to foreign countries they need to search information for the hotel that they will stay unlike for the customer who is using the hotel frequently . So its shows that marketers or owners of the product or any service need to make clear awareness of their brand to the customers.
Marketing policies normally have to identify target market and segment and factors that influence customers in different countries (Doyle, Saunders, and Wong 1994) “ understanding cultural differences is considered as a prerequisite for successful international advertising” Consumers respond to advertising messages that are congruent with their culture and they seek brands with personalities that are congruent with either their own or their sought
Any market with strong brand will be very successful because brand personality could differentiate and create competitive advantage in the consumer’s minds for brands that otherwise are indistinguishable from their competitors. (Lovelock and Keller 1993). “ Brand equity is more likely to be stronger for brands that are clearly distinguished and differentiated in crowded consumer markets”.
(Lovelock and Keller1993) “ Effective market segmentation and communication strategies would be possible if brand personality characteristics could be identified with specific consumer market traits and other individual consumer characteristics”.
Self-concept relationships between brand image and consumer’s self-image would enable marketers to position and promote products more effectively with the appropriate target markets.
Conclusion: Brands have to be well known to the targeted population, and they should pertain to a variety of product categories, both symbolic and utilitarian
