CONSUMER MOTIVATION

Introduction
• The foundation of marketing is identifying and satisfying needs.
• Marketers do not create needs, although in many instances they strive to make
consumers more keenly aware of unfelt or dormant needs.
• Savvy companies define their business in terms of the consumer needs they
satisfy rather than the products they produce and sell.
 Introduction Cont`d

• Because consumers’ basic needs do not change, but the products that satisfy them do,
a corporate focus on developing products that will satisfy consumers’ needs ensures
that the company stays in the forefront of the search for new and effective solutions.
• By doing so, such companies are likely to survive and grow despite strong
competition or adverse economic conditions.
• In contrast, companies that define themselves in terms of the products they make may
suffer or even go out of business when their products are replaced by competitive
offerings that better satisfy consumers’ needs.
 Definition of Motivation

• Motivation – the driving force that impels people to act. It represents the reasons
one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
• It occurs when a need is aroused that the consumer wishes to satisfy. The need
creates a state of tension that drives the consumer to attempt to reduce or
eliminate it. This need may be utilitarian (i.e., a desire to achieve some functional
or practical benefit) or it may be hedonic (i.e., an experiential need, involving
emotional responses or fantasies).
 Motivation Process

Personality,
Perception,
Learning
Attitude

Unfulfilled
Goal or Need
Wants, Needs & Tension Drive Behaviour Fulfillment
Desires

Tension
Reduction
 Motivation Process

Needs – the basic human requirements such as for air, food, water, clothing, and
shelter. There are two types of human needs:
• Physiological needs are innate (biogenic, primary) and fulfilling them sustains
biological existence. They include the need for food, water, air, protection of the
body from the outside environment and sex.
• Psychological needs are learned from our parents, social environment, and
interactions with others. Among many others, they include the needs for self-
esteem, prestige, affection, power, and achievement.
 Motivation Process

• Both types of needs affect our buying decisions. For example, all
individuals need shelter and therefore buy homes. However, the kind of
homes they buy is the result of psychological, learned needs
 Motivation Process Cont`d

Goals – are the sought-after results of motivated behaviour, and all human
behaviour is goal-oriented.
Types of Goals
• Generic goals are outcomes that consumers seek in order to satisfy physiological
and psychological needs.
• Product-specific goals are outcomes that consumers seek by using a given
product or service.
 Motivation Process Cont`d
Need Arousal -
• Most of an individual’s needs are dormant much of the time. The arousal of any
need at a specific moment in time may be caused by biological stimuli, emotional
or cognitive processes, or stimuli in the outside environment. A drop in blood
sugar level or stomach contractions will trigger awareness of a hunger need.
• Most of these physiological cues are involuntary, but they arouse needs that cause
uncomfortable tensions until they are satisfied. Physical changes in the body
caused by biological cues trigger need arousal.
 Motivation Process Cont`d

• In cognitive arousal, random thoughts can lead to a cognitive awareness

of a need to act. It is tied closely to the environment because
environmental situations and stimuli often trigger cognitive arousal.
• For example, seeing your room-mate’s new pair of shoes may remind you
of how old your own shoes are and trigger the need to shop.
• Many promotional messages are cues designed to arouse consumer needs.
Without these cues, consumers’ needs may remain dormant.
 Need Arousal Cont`d

• Thus, creative marketing messages arouse needs by stimulating a psychological

desire or imbalance in consumers’ minds.
• Once a need is aroused, a state of tension is created that energizes a person to
reduce or eliminate the need, returning to a preferred state, called the goal.
• This tension is called a drive, and the degree or amount of tension influences the
urgency with which actions are taken to return to the desired goal-state. Thus,
motivation focuses attention on goals and drives us to act.
 Need Arousal Cont`d

• A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of

intensity to drive us to act. For example, hunger is a basic need that
all of us must satisfy; the lack of food creates a tension state that we
reduce when we eat cheeseburgers, raw fish, or bean sprouts.
 Needs Vs. Wants

• The particular form of consumption used to satisfy a need is termed a want.

• For example, two classmates may feel their stomachs rumbling during a
lunchtime lecture. If neither person has eaten since the night before, the
strength of their respective needs (hunger) would be the same. However, the
way each person goes about satisfying this need might be quite different.
 Characterization of Motivation

• Motivation can be described in terms of its strength and its direction, and
can also be in conflict despite having a direction and strength.
• Because a purchase decision can involve more than one source of
motivation, consumers often find themselves in situations in which
different motives, both positive and negative, conflict with one another.
Motivational Direction - Motivation is goal-oriented in that it drives us to satisfy a specific
need.
• Most goals can be reached by a number of routes, and the objective of a company is to
convince consumers that the alternative it offers provides the best chance to attain the goal.
• For example, a consumer who decides that she needs a pair of jeans to help her reach her
goal of being accepted by others can choose among Levi’s, Wranglers and many other
alternatives, each of which promises to deliver certain benefits.
Motivational Strength – The degree to which a person is willing to expend
energy to reach one goal as opposed to another reflects his or her underlying
motivation to attain that goal.
• Psychologists share the basic idea that people have some finite amount of
energy that are directed towards certain goals.
 Motivational Conflicts

• A goal has valence, which means that it can be positive or negative.

• A positively-valued goal is the one towards which consumers direct their
behaviour; they are motivated to approach the goal and will seek out products
that will help them to reach it.
• However, not all behaviour is motivated by the desire to approach a goal.
Consumers are, therefore, motivated to avoid a negative outcome.
• There are three types of motivational conflicts: approach-approach;
approach-avoidance and avoidance–avoidance.
Approach–approach Conflict – occurs when a consumer must choose
between two attractive alternatives. The more equal the attractions, the
greater the conflict, i.e., when someone must choose between two or
more equally desirable options that fulfil different needs.
 Approach–approach Conflict

• For example, a consumer who is invited to a career-night function might

experience an approach-approach conflict if he is invited to see a basketball game
with friends on the same evening. This person will experience conflict if he views
both options as equally desirable.
• This conflict could be resolved by a timely ad designed to encourage one or the
other action. Or a price modification, such as “buy now, pay later,” could result in a
resolution whereby both alternatives are selected.
 Approach–Avoidance Conflict

 Approach–Avoidance Conflict – occurs when a consumer faces a purchase

choice with both positive and negative consequences.
 That is, a given behaviour or outcome can be seen as both desirable and
undesirable if it satisfies some needs but fails to satisfy others. The result is
called an approach-avoidance conflict because you both want to engage in the
behaviour and want to avoid it.
 For example, consumers who want a tan but do not want to risk skin damage
and health risks associated with extended sun exposure face this situation.
 Neutrogena’s Instant Bronze sunless tanner resolves this problem by allowing
consumers the aesthetic and social benefits of having a tan (approach) without
the risk of skin cancer (avoidance).
Avoidance – avoidance Conflict – occurs when the consumer must choose
between two equally undesirable options.

• For instance, the option of either spending more money on an old car or
buying a new one. To deal with this situation, some car dealers offer you the
option to trade in your old car in part payment for a brand new one.
 Typology of Needs

• Needs can take many different forms depending on whether they are natural or
artificial or learned.
• Some needs are biogenic; they arise from physiological states of tension such
as hunger, thirst, or discomfort.
• Other needs are psychogenic; they arise from psychological states of tension
such as the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging.
• Besides, some needs are utilitarian which emphasise the objective, tangible
attributes of products, such as the amount of fat, calories and protein in kebab;
or the durability of a product.

• Others are hedonic which are subjective and experiential, i.e., a search for a
product that meets our needs for excitement, self-confidence, or fantasy –
perhaps to escape the routine aspects of life.
 Maslow’s Theory of Motivational Needs

• Abraham Maslow formulated a theory of human motivation based on the

notion that there is a hierarchy of human needs.
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs consists of five levels of human needs, which
rank in order of importance from lower-level (biogenic) needs to higher-level
(psychogenic) needs.
• The theory states that individuals seek to satisfy lower-level needs before
higher-level needs.
• The lowest level of unsatisfied needs motivates a person’s behaviour. When that
need is fairly well-satisfied, the individual is motivated to fulfill a need in the
next level of the hierarchy. When that need is satisfied, the need in the next
level is one’s primary motivator, and so on.
• However, if a person experiences renewed deprivation regarding a formerly met
lower-level need, that need becomes the dominant factor in the person’s
motivation, even if only temporarily.
 Maslow’s Theory of Motivational Needs

Physiological Needs – are the first and most basic level of human needs.
• These primary needs, which are required to sustain biological life, include
food, water, air, shelter, clothing, and sex – all biogenic needs.
• According to Maslow, physiological needs are dominant when they are
chronically unsatisfied: for an extremely hungry man, no other interest exists
but food, e.g., he dreams, remembers, thinks, perceives, and wants only food.
 Maslow’s Theory of Motivational Needs

Safety and Security Needs – are concerned not only with physical safety, but
also with order, stability, routine, familiarity, and control over one’s life and
environment. For example, health and the availability of health care are
important safety concerns. Savings accounts, insurance policies, education, and
vocational training are all means by which individuals satisfy the need for
security.
Social Needs – consists of love, affection, belonging, acceptance and
others.
 Maslow’s Theory of Motivational Needs

Egoistic Needs – which can take either an inward or an outward orientation become
operational.
• Inwardly directed ego needs reflect an individual’s need for self-acceptance, self-
esteem, success, independence, and personal satisfaction.
• Outwardly directed ego needs include the needs for prestige, reputation, status, and
recognition from others.
Need for Self-Actualization – an individual’s desire to fulfill his or
her potential – to become everything that he or she is capable of
becoming.
 Marketing Applications of Maslow’s Theory

• Maslow’s needs hierarchy is readily adaptable to market

segmentation and the development of advertising and other
marketing communications appeals, because there are consumer
goods designed to satisfy each of the need levels, and because most
needs are shared by large segments of consumers.
• For example, individuals buy health foods, medicines, and low-fat products to
satisfy physiological needs.
• They buy insurance, preventive medical services, and home security systems to
satisfy safety and security needs.
• Consumers buy personal care and grooming products (e.g., cosmetics,
mouthwash, shaving cream), as well as most clothes to satisfy social needs.
 Marketing Applications of Maslow’s Theory

• They purchase high-tech and luxury products, such as elaborate sound

systems, high-end wristwatches, sports cars, and expensive furniture, to fulfill
ego and esteem needs.
• Postgraduate college education, hobby-related products, and exotic and
physically challenging adventure trips are often sold as ways of achieving
self-actualization.
• For developing positioning strategies because different appeals for the same
product can be based on different needs. For example, a study that tested the
appeal of different military recruitment slogans found that the two slogans that
resonated well with potential recruits were “Be All You Can Be” and “The Few,
the Proud, the Marines.” Clearly, egoistic and self-actualization needs are the
prime motivators behind joining the armed forces.
 Consumer Involvement

Consumer involvement – degree of personal relevance that the product or

purchase holds for the consumer based on his inherent needs, values, and
interests.
High-involvement purchases are very important to the consumer (e.g., in terms
of perceived risk) and thus provoke extensive problem solving and information
processing.
• Under this scenario, both automobiles and dandruff shampoo can represent
high-involvement purchases. Buying an automobile involves high perceived
financial risk (to most people), and the shampoo also has a high perceived social
risk (to some people).

 Low-involvement purchases are not very important, hold little relevance, have
little perceived risk, and provoke limited information processing.
 Forms of Involvement

• Involvement can be cognitive, as when a consumer who loves the game of cricket is
motivated to learn all he can about the latest rules, fixtures, results and even what is
happening in the player transfer market.
• It can also be emotional, as when the thought of a new travel deal gives a travel
enthusiast a sense of excitement. Indeed, the consensus is that there are actually several
broad types of involvement related to the product, the message, or the perceiver.
 Forms of Involvement

Product Involvement – a consumer’s level of interest in a particular product.

Many sales promotions aim to increase this type of involvement.
• Promotions such as point of purchase displays (POP), contests, or rebates are
intensively used to develop interest, trial and purchase.
• Perhaps the most powerful way to enhance product involvement is to invite
consumers to play a role in designing or personalizing what they buy.
 Forms of Involvement

Message-response Involvement
• Devotion to creating a consumer-generated commercial is an extreme example
of message– response involvement (also called advertising involvement), which
refers to the consumer’s interest in processing marketing communications.
• Vigilante marketing, freelancers and fans film their own commercials for
favourite products and post them on Web sites or other social networking sites.
 Forms of Involvement

 Purchase Situation Involvement - differences in motivation when people buy

the same product but in different contexts.
• For example, when you want to buy a gift to impress someone, you may try to
buy a brand with a certain image that you think reflects good taste but a gift
bought for someone in an obligatory situation, such as a wedding gift for a
cousin you do not really know, you may not care what image the gift portrays.
• Again, some smart retailers are waking up to the value of increasing purchase
situation involvement when they appeal to hedonic shoppers who are looking to
be entertained or otherwise engaged in addition to simply “buying stuff.”