Consumer Behavior and Advertising

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND ADVERTISING

Every product in the market seeks to be noticed by it's potential customers hence it is essential to know how people derive satisfaction from a product. At this point, the concept of consumer behavior proves very useful. It refers to a body of knowledge about the consumer and his decisions towards products. Various factors influence a consumer's decision to purchase a product. These factors include lifestyle, taste and income. Advertising is aimed at motivating and modifying consumer's perceptions, beliefs and behaviors. The attitudes of people influence advertisements and go a long way in defining new markets.

The factors that affect consumer behavior are divided into internal and external influences. Internal influences consist of the consumer's perception of the world, personal motives and habits. External influences, on the other hand include the consumer's culture, family and social structure. It is important to note that marketers are very interested in consumer behavior as it enables them decipher effective means to communicate with consumers.

Let us now go ahead to analyze the concept of market segmentation. First of all, what does this term mean? Well, it can lucidly be defined as a process of dividing markets into smaller groups for the purpose of locating target markets, identifying the needs of the target market and creating products to satisfy those needs. The various methods of segmenting markets can broadly be grouped into geographic, behavioristic, demographic and psychographic terms. Markets are segmented geographically according to region, climate and density. Behavioristic segmentation is characterized by variables such as purchase occasion, benefit, user status, usage rate, readiness stage and marketing factor sensitivity. Demographic factors are characterized by variables such as gender, age, nationality, race, religion etc. Lastly, markets are segmented based on psychographic factors which refer to divisors based on social class (lower class, middle class and upper class), status, experiences and personalities.

Another vital aspect of advertising is searching for creative ad ideas. it is crucial that advertisers stay in touch with life and keep up with current trends and cultures. Advertising copy writers also need to visit a lot of places, talk to a lot of people and get covers opinions on concepts and ideas. Creativity in advertising is not solely about creating something new but utilising old ideas and more importantly, solving a consumer problem.

Three categories of information are typically recognized in advertising; they are background, functional and result-of-use information. Background information involve data on the company's reputation, history, successes, failures, branding, pricing etc. Functional information comprises of data focusing on operating the product itself. Here, speed, reliability and so simplicity play important roles. The result-of-use