Consumer Behaviour Course Work

Manzil Madhwani (M00291693) Individual Coursework Consumer Behaviour

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Middlesex University Business School London

MKT 4005

BRANDING AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Module Leader: Dr. Simon Manyiwa

Academic Group: MA Marketing Management January 2010

Names: Manzil Madhwani (M00291693)

Assessment: Individual Coursework

Date: 9th July 2009


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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. COHORT/AGE GROUP 4

3. PERCEPTIONS 5

4. VALUES, MOTIVATION AND CULTURE 6

5. COGNITIVE LEARNING, COMMUNICATIO, RECOGNISE VS RECALL 7

6. ATTITUDES 7

7. PERSONALITY AND CONSUMPTION 9

8. MISCELLANEOUS 10

9. References 11


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Introduction:

Luxury an English word and “luxe,” a French word, are derived from a Latin term

“luxus”. The Oxford Latin Dictionary says “luxus” as “soft or extravagant living,”

“opulence,” “sumptuousness,” ”opulence,” ”luxuriousness,” „indulgence”. It is present

in the consumption patterns since the ancient age. (Dubois B., et al., 2005) and a

luxury good was meant to be as a scarce and rare item mainly available to the very

few from elite class. (Nuneo and Quelch,1998 cited in Hauck and Stanforth, 2006). In

the Industrial Revolution it reached the masses and was attainable to other social

classes. Since then the term is continually being redefined and in contemporary

period it refers to any high prestige product or service of a specific tier (Hauck and

Stanforth, 2006). It is about the product category and luxury is a differentiating factor

of the brand within a product category. (Kapferer, 1997).

Consumer behaviour can be defined as the behaviour that consumers display in

searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products and services

that they expect will satisfy their needs. (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). It focuses on

the way the individual makes decisions for spending their time, money and effort on

the specific to be consumed item. It is not as simple as it may seem in the previous

statement as it covers a lot of ground as there are lots of factors which play

dynamically in many probable combinations on the mind of purchaser before the final

decision is made. Luxury products form a big market in today‟s market place.

Consumer behaviour studies are very important for producers, manufacturers and

markets for developing effective marketing strategies as it can help to device tailored

marketing activities for the micro-segments.

This report evaluates a case study “The behaviour of the young towards luxury

products” by Danielle Allèrés. (Antonides and Fred, 1999). The case study describes

a survey research carried out on young people in France. It aimed at knowing the

spontaneous awareness, aided awareness and the perceptions of young people

about luxury and their desires of luxury goods in the near future. It gives a

summation of the research outcomes in terms of the aimed questions of the survey

mentioned above. The first section shows a list of brands listed for which many had

an instinctive awareness and the second shows their selection from a list of brands.

Further it gives a summary of their value perceptions of luxury and their dreams of

luxury. This report gives a good opportunity to summarize from the case study, the


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relevant theories and concepts of consumer behaviour in the luxury product

category. Several theories have been identified in the case study 1. Cohort/Age

group, 2. Perceptions, 3. Values, motivation and culture, 4. Cognitive learning,

communication, Recognise vs Recall, 5. Attitudes, 6. Personality and consumption,

7. Miscellaneous. They will be covered in detail in the following sections.

1. Cohort / Age group:

The era in which a consumer is born creates for that person a cultural bond with the

millions of other born during the same time period. Our needs and preferences

change with our age as we grow older and in sync with many others who are close to

our own age. (Solomon et. Al, 2009). Consumer‟s age has a significant influence on

his/her identity. Cohorts are defined as groups of individuals who are born during the

same time period and who experience similar external events during their late

adolescent and early adulthood years (Meredith and Schewe, 1994; Ryder, 1965

cited in Hauck and Stanforth). The importance of cohorts is based on the assumption

that individuals are highly influenced by events that occurred in their “coming-of-age”

years. Cohort analysis can aid in tracking and forecasting changes that will take

place. (Hauck and Stanforth, 2006).

One result in this case study shows that the items of table arts sector was least

known to the young French population and the reasons mentioned are evolution of

life cycle in which the marriage rates are low, families are disintegrated and

traditional family meals are not considered as sacred. These items might have been

more meaningful and more relevant to the perception of luxury to the previous

cohorts when the culture was different. Also all other findings that are in the case

study relate to a specific cohort which prevailed in France during 1999. The brands

that were emerging in that period might be the top and most recognised brand in the

present cohort. When we consider culture as an influencing factor in consumer

behaviour, the age group considered here will have its own nuances of the sub

culture and so different specific implications for marketer. All the perspectives that

have been held by the sample population will be specific to just that age group. The

reference to quality, beauty, aesthetics as near to the perspective of luxury and signs

of ostentation, originality and exoticism as far from the perspective of luxury items is

consistent throughout the target population and implications are limited to young

French consumers only.


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2. Perceptions:

For a specific product the perception can be described as how the people/

individuals/ consumers see it as. It can be defined as the process by which an

individual selects, organises and interprets the selected stimuli. It focuses on what

we add and take away from the stimuli sensations as they assign some meanings to

them. (Solomon, et al., 1999). Only a small amount of the total exposed stimuli

(vision, smell, sound, touch and taste) is processed as they are filtered at various

stages prior to being processed. The eventual interpretation of a stimulus allows it to

be assigned a meaning. Perception has strategy implications for marketers as the

consumers make decision on what they perceive rather than the objective reality.

(Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). This concept is very much proactive when it comes to

luxury products. A consumers perception of a product being a luxury product or not

first of all will depend on the way the word “luxury” is decoded by the specific

consumer. Weather the product is a luxury or not may vary in different situations

depending on the consumer‟s perception. (Barnier and Rodina, 2006).

Two result observations are very important additions to this concept.

1) The luxury products mentioned spontaneously, most belong to same sectors like

perfumes, clothing, fashion, leather goods, accessories, costume jewellery and

jewellery. This gives us a slight idea of the category of products which fall under the

“luxury” recognition of product. If the positioning of a product from one of these

product categories based upon the offered value is done as a luxury item, it is likely

that most respondents will perceive it as a luxury item. Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint-

Laurent are the chosen top brands belonging to the mentioned product categories.

Also when asked to select from a list of brands, Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Lauren

were recognised most frequently.

2) There was a wide disparity in their criteria referring to luxury. When asked „What

luxury mean to you?‟, various responses were observed like, opulence, beauty,

aesthetics, wealth, magnificence, splendid, sumptuous, high quality, superfluous,

useless, ephemeral, superficial, very expensive, good taste, elegance, discrete.

Results also show that youngsters perceive the luxury items as a quality product,

well known, elegant, communicating beautiful and selective quality, refined in


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distribution and high on price. A set of values was consistently far from their

perceptions of luxury goods like ostentation, originality, exotism.

3. Value motives and culture:

According to Schultz and Zelenzy (1999), values can be regarded as beliefs that

guide the selection or evaluation of desirable behaviour or end states. A customer„s

luxury value perception and the motives for luxury brand consumption are not simply

tied to a set of social aspects of displaying status, success, distinction and the

human desire to impress other people, but also depend on the nature of the

financial, functional and individual utilities of the certain luxury brand. (Wiedmann,

Hennigs, and Siebels, 2007). Weidmann, Hennings and Siebels (2007) also propose

value perception model showing that a value perception has various dimensions like

the financial dimension, functional dimension, individual dimension and social

dimension. The dimensions the values of price, quality, self-image, hedonism and

prestige lie within the previous four dimensions.

When the young people of France were asked about their views on a luxury brands,

they replied with the value perceptions i.e. the values according to them that are

attached to the item that form their perception of luxury. They seek the following

values in a luxury

item: Beauty,

aesthetics, elegance,

seductiveness and

distinction. Their

mention of foreign

designer brands the

simplicity, familiarity

of image,

commercial success,

originality and

aggressiveness are

also important values

for them. The overall priorities that the consumers attach to different products, is

determined by the culture. The relationship between consumer behaviour and culture

can be treated as a two way street. (Solomon et al., 1999) New brands chosen by


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the young people over the local luxurious brands can affect the culture too. The

culture can also have an influence on the four first order dimensions of value

perception. For example, if we take uniqueness as a value, it is very less sought

after by Europeans as compared to Russians as it is more important in their culture.

(Wiedmann, Hennigs, and Siebels, 2007). So it can be said that overall responses

from the French youngsters also reflects specific values of the culture of France.

Table sets lost its luxury connotations with a change in the culture where more

disintegrated families are seen with time.

4. Cognitive Learning, Communications, Recognition versus Recall:

Cognitive learning is a result of a mental process which views people having a

problem solving approach who use the information around them to help themselves

understand the deciding environment. In this approach, conditioning is also a

cognitive process and occurs because of development of conscious hypotheses and

evaluation and there are linkages between stimuli and responses. (Solomon, et al.,

1999). Recognition and recall are the tests conducted to determine that weather or

not the consumer‟s remember the brand. (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). Recall tests

are unaided and recognitions are aided and same stands for this case.

Communications from a brand and knowledge of the activities of that brand help the

cognitive learning. Both spontaneous awareness (recall) and aided awareness

(recognition) results showed that, brands like Dior, Chanel and Yves Saint-Laurent

were the most frequently mentioned and frequently recognised brands. Also the

awareness of the activities of the brands confirmed. Hermes too was recognised

frequently and also their activities were known to people. The same with Loris

Assaro, Guy Laroche and Givenchy brands being less frequently mentioned and also

the awareness of activities of the brands was low. This indicates the communications

and advertisements by this brands having direct effect in the cognitive learning

process of consumers and helping the recall and recognition. Results showed that

very less of the youngsters perceive fur as a luxury product which may be indicating

that they already have enough of cognitive lesson about the ecological reasons.

5. Attitudes:

Attitude is a learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favourable or

unfavourable way with respect to a given object. The attitudes relevant to purchase


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behaviour are made up by the direct experiences of product, word of mouth

information, media exposure, internet and direct marketing activities. (Schiffman and

Kanuk, 2004). There are various theories in the area of attitudes of consumers

towards products and brands.

First we will discuss first, the tricomponent attitude model. (Schiffman and Kanuk,

2004). The tricomponent attitude model is formed of cognitive, affective and conative

components. The first part is formed of cognitions of a person. As explained in

cognitive learning a perception is formed based on the prior and existing knowledge.

The emotions and feelings about a product or a brand form the affective component.

The third component of conation is the likelihood or tendency that an individual will

undertake a specific action or will behave in a specific manner towards the attitude

object. For example, fur items are being virtually rejected by the young people of

France shows their negative attitude towards fur. Reasons being ecological and

ostentatious signs of wealth which show us their prior knowledge of product,

negative feelings and it implied the tendency of not buying fur items. American and

English brands were found to be appealing to the students and Italian brands were

obtaining popularity which shows the overall positive attitudes towards certain

foreign brands. There is also theory of reasoned action that shows the cognitive,

affective and the conative components. (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). But this theory

takes into consideration also the subjective norms which act within the

circumstances to alter the behavioural outcome of a purchase situation. A need

generation is the actuating point in this model of attitude formation. Some brands

were mentioned by many people and the best known brands were actually those

which were favoured by the interest of consumption. The perceived usefulness of

brands of certain product categories imparted the overall positive attitudes towards

such brands. For example, Lacoste for sports-wear, Weston for shoes, Benetton and

Chevignon for young and casual clothing. When asked about products that they

dream of or have a wish for consuming in near future, the responses included good

restaurants, nice cars, fashionable and quality wardrobe, beautiful jewels, exclusive

perfumes, exclusive beauty products and living in most fashionable areas. This

response suggests that as they are willing to consume these products, their attitude

towards the products is positive. Certain brands with these product offerings will also

be looked upon by positive attitudes. Attitudes do change with time as cognition is a


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continuous process. A result shows that brands like Boucheron, Gien and Lalique

had comparatively weak image in the past but are improving every year and are

becoming clearer.

6. Personality and consumption:

Marketers try to make appeals to consumers on the basis of their personalities. The

researchers tend to see consumer consumption situations as a reflection and an

extension of the consumer‟s own personality. Personality can be defined as those

inner psychological characteristics that both determine and how a person responds

to his or her environment. (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). The inner characteristics

that constitute an individual‟s personality are in a unique combination and so the

personality makes one human different from other and personality reflects individual

differences. Despite the personalities being consistent, the consumption behaviour

often varies according to other factors that affect the behaviour like environmental,

situational and sociocultural factors. The personality is consistent and enduring.

Personalities can also change under certain circumstances.

Brand Personality: Consumers can also subscribe to the notion of brand personality.

This means that they attribute various descriptive personality-like traits or

characteristics to different brands in a wide variety of product categories. Christian

Lacroix is considered as young, funny and outlandish and has a focused image in

media. Jean-Paul Gaultier is considered as famous, atypical and very linkable.

Kenzo is considered as young, modern and very characteristic. All the above brands

have their own personality and they are admired by many young people of France

and are becoming increasingly popular.

Self Image: Self images are the perceptions of self of the consumers. They try to

approach products with images that could enhance their self-concept and avoid

those products that do not enhance the self image. So some strange selections

against the market perceived personality can be justified by the selection made on

the basis of self image of the consumers. When asked about the qualities or

attributes of a person who is a luxury enthusiast, consistent responses were found.

According to the French students, someone who likes luxury tends to be a man or

woman of taste, who is elegant and stylish and cultivates a certain way of life.

Sometimes they were considered as a „snob‟ or a „show-off‟. If the young French


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consumer will like to enhance his/her self image with one of the attributes, will fall

into consumption of luxury items. Those who perceive luxury item users as pompous

and do not want to let themselves to be considered like that will keep away from

falling into luxury consumption.

Gender Response: Product personality or persona, frequently endows the product or

brand with a gender. (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). Many products are sex-typed

and they take on masculine or feminine attributes and consumers often associate

them with one sex of another. (Solomon et al., 1999). Gender also seems to

influence the instrumentality of products we buy.

Miscellaneous:

Hedonism - Derived from Greek word hedone, meaning pleasure is the only good in

life. In a rational sense, it argues that the pursuit of pleasure makes action rational by

making it purposeful.(O‟Shaughnessy and O‟Shaughnessy, 2002 ) The behaviourism

whose categories stress materialistic satisfactions is hedonistic. It is not popularly

conceived as a sustainable experience. When hedonism dominates the consumer

society, the pleasures are uncertain and fleeting. When asked about luxury

consumption dreams, the responses which were collected showed their focus on

hedonistic values which gave them a sense of well-being, example housing and

restaurants and some individual pleasures like clothing and perfumes.

Counterfeiting - The luxury industry is particularly hard-hit by the counterfeiting of

goods, which unlawfully takes advantage of the prestige of its brands and harms

their tradition, identity and image. (LVMH Group, 2010). When asked about luxury

items being copied, they regarded the act with horror.


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References:

Barnier, V., and Rodina, I. (2006). “Which luxury perceptions affect most consumer

purchase behaviour ? A cross cultural exploratory study in France, The United

Kingdom and Russia.” Conference: Venice, 20th-21st January. International Congress

"Marketing Trends" (online). Available at: http://www.escp-

eap.net/conferences/marketing/pap.html. (accessed date 7th July 2010).

Danielle Allèrés (1999). “The behaviour of the young towards luxury products.” In:

Antonides, G. And Gred, W. (1999). Cases in Consumer Behaviour: John Wiley &

Sons, Ltd, pp 123-131.

Dubois, B., Czellar, S., Laurent., G. (2005). “Consumer Segments based on attitudes

towards luxury: Empirical evidence from twenty countries”, Marketing Letters,

Voulme 16(2), pp 115-128.

Hauck, W.E. and Stanforth, N. (2007). “Cohort perception of luxury goods and

services.” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management. Volume 11(2), pp 175-

188.

Kapferer, J.N. (1997). “Managing luxury brands.” Journal of Brand Management

Voulme 4 (4), pp 251–260.

LVMH Group. (2010). “LMVH FAQ, Brand Protection.”. (online). Available at:

http://www.lvmh.com/fonctionalite/pg_faq_lutte.asp. (Accessed on 4-7-2010).

O‟Shaughnessy, J. and O‟Shaughnessy, N.J. (2009). “Marketing, the consumer

society and hedonism.” European Journal of Marketing, Volume 36 (5/6), pp524-547

Schiffman, L.G. and Kanuk, L.L. (2004). Consumer Behaviour, 8th Edition. NJ, USA:

Pearson Education Inc.

Schultz, P. Wesley and Lynnette C. Zelezny. (1999). “Values As Predictors of

Environmental Attitudes: Evidence For Consistency Across 14 Countries.” Journal of

Environmental Psychology. Volume 19(3), pp255-265.

Solomon, M., Bamossy, G. and Askegaard, S. (1999). Consumer Behaviour, A

European perspective.4th Edition. NJ, USA: Pretince Hall Inc.

http://www.escp-eap.net/conferences/marketing/pap.html

http://www.escp-eap.net/conferences/marketing/pap.html

http://www.lvmh.com/fonctionalite/pg_faq_lutte.asp


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Wiedmann, P., Hennigs, N. and Siebels, A. (2007). “Measuring Consumer‟s Luxury

Value Perception: A Cross-Cultural Framework”. Academy of Marketing Science

Review , Volume 2007(7).

Consumer Behaviour Course Work

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