CONSUMER MOTIVATION

Consumer Motivation

•Represents the drive to satisfy both

physiological and psychological needs through
product purchase and consumption.
•It gives insights into why people buy certain
products. Stems from consumer needs:
industries have been built around basic
human needs.
 Motivated Purchase

•Conspicuous consumption: Purchases

motivated to some extent by the desire to
show other people how successful they are.
•Companies reinforce the consumer
motivations notion that products enable users
to communicate their social status.
•In general, marketers try to create an image or
personality for their brands.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
• In a choice between products, consumers
usually choose the product that satisfies the
most needs.
 Motivational Intensity

• Depends on: How strongly consumers are

motivated to satisfy a particular need.
– Importance of
• Involvement: Degree to which an object or
behaviour is personally relevant.
• Motivational intensity and involvement
determine the amount of effort consumers
exert in satisfying needs.
 Motivational Conflict
• Motivational conflicts can take one of the three principal forms.
 Approach – Approach Conflict: This type of conflict occurs when a
consumer is faced with two desirable alternatives, such as either
to buy a good music system or a computer.
 Approach – Avoidance Conflict: This type of conflict occurs when a
consumer is facing a purchase choice that has both positive and
negative consequences.
 Avoidance – Avoidance Conflict: This involves deciding between
two or more alternatives that are perceived as undesirable.
Such situations are somewhat stable and consumers tend to
vacillate between the undesirable choices.
 Motive Arousal
• Physiological Arousal: Deprivation of any bodily need such as food, water
and other life sustaining necessities activates the need. Most of the
physiological cues are involuntary and often arouse some related needs.
For example, a person may heat up water to take a bath and may also
make a note to buy a geyser.
• Emotional Arousal: Sometimes latent needs are stimulated because a
person gets involved in thinking or daydreaming about them. For
example, a young man who wants to become a cricket player may identify
with Sachin Tendulkar and use products endorsed by him commercially.
• Cognitive Arousal: Sometimes just random thoughts may stimulate
arousal of needs. An ad “home away from home” may remind a person of
home and he may suddenly become aware of his need to call his wife or
children.
• Situational Arousal: A
certain situation
confronting a consumer
may also trigger arousal.
This can occur when the
situation attracts attention
to an existing bodily
condition. For example,
seeing an ad of Coca-Cola
or a display suddenly
makes one aware of being
thirsty. The need would
have been present but was
not strong enough to
trigger arousal.
Difficulties in Studying Buying
Motives

• Variability of Customer
• Ignorance of Customer
• Variety and Complexity of motives
• Difficulties of expression
• Limitations of Sampling method