Contents

Chapter Objectives........................................................................................................ 2
Background.................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction................................................................................................................... 2
Advertising Audience Analysis......................................................................................... 3
Types of Advertising Audience...................................................................................... 3
The Consumer Audience............................................................................................. 3
The Organizational Audience........................................................................................ 4
WHY PEOPLE BUY....................................................................................................... 5
Psychological Influences.............................................................................................. 5
Needs and Motives.................................................................................................. 5
Attitude and Lifestyle................................................................................................ 6
Personality and Self-concept..................................................................................... 7
Social And Interpersonal Influences........................................................................7
Culture................................................................................................................. 7
Social Status.......................................................................................................... 8
Reference Groups................................................................................................... 8
Word-of-Mouth Communication.................................................................................9
Household Buying Behavior...................................................................................... 9
Situational Influences.................................................................................................. 9
HOW PEOPLE BUY..................................................................................................... 10
The Consumer Perception Process............................................................................. 10
Learning.................................................................................................................. 13
Decision-Making Process.......................................................................................... 13
The Non-Rational Side Of Decision-Making.................................................................16
Summary.................................................................................................................... 17
Key terms................................................................................................................... 19
Questions................................................................................................................... 20
References:................................................................................................................ 21

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Advertising Audience and

Buyer Behavior Analysis
Chapter Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Explain the importance of understanding of an advertising audience

Describe the organizational and consumer markets
Identify the psychological influences on buyer behavior
List the social and interpersonal influences on buyer behavior
Explain the consumer perception process and its importance in advertising
Describe the rational decision model and list several type of nonrational purchase
decisions

Background
The field of buyer or consumer behavior is rooted in a marketing strategy that evolved
in the 1950s when some marketers began to realize that they could sell goods more
easily, if they produced goods that had already determined that consumers would buy
instead of trying to persuade customers to buy what the firm had already produced,
marketing oriented firms found that it was a lot easier to produce only those products
they had first confirmed, through research that consumers or buyers wanted. In the
mean time advertising was used to persuade those customers who had intentions to
buy the products. So advertising was used to influence and persuade the targeted
customers.

Introduction
For the past hundred years, advertising and marketing experts have been struggling to
understand and analyze their audience. A target audience is a specific group of
consumers within the pre-determined target market, identified as the targets or
receivers for a particular advertisement or message. In this modern era, the
advertisers and marketers have a limited budget for advertising, the completion, and
accountability of budget by managers give advertisers less room for error and less time
to work.
For each product, today advertisers must discover which audience are the best people
get information about new products, how they respond to various styles of advertising,
and where they shop: then advertisers can be reached them before their competitors
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jump on this opportunity. Its a big challenge as well as big opportunity for the small
advertisers to move ahead their competitors.
Clear insight into your audience gives you several key advance targets:
Less waste. Advertising can be expensive, and its wasted when its directed towards
the wrong people. Audience insights help advertisers choose their audience with great
precision.
Great Effectiveness. You have probably recognized or heard that the better you know
someone, the easier is to make yourself understood the same thing is being applied in
advertising; improved audience insight leads to better advertising. For example
Improved seller-buyer relationships. Most successful advertisers try to build a longterm relationship with their customers. Because keeping your current customers is less
expensive than getting new customers.

Advertising Audience Analysis

Audience can be defined as a gathering of spectators or listeners at the performance
Audience Analysis is defined as the understanding of the consumer group for which
the design is targeted. This would include the demographics, physical location, the
amount of time available to view the design, and interest in the subject matter.

Types of Advertising Audience

The advertising audience can be divided into two types
1. The Consumer Audience
2. The Organizational Audience

The Consumer Audience

The consumer market is made up of individuals and households who buy goods and
services for private use. The consumer market is complex. In the United States alone,
you will find a bewildering diversity in economics, culture in economics, lifestyle and
attitude and the situation and situation grows even more complicated as you move from
country to country around the world. Advertisers describe the structure of consumer
markets through demographics, that categorizes people by age,occupation,income,
race/ethnicity, and other external and objective variables.
For all the information, it can provide, the demographic analysis does have a distinct
limitation: it does not get inside consumers heads or hearts to tell you what they think
and feel. Consumers thoughts and feeling determine their response to advertising and
their overall purchasing behavior.Demographic data provide a great framework for
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understanding and audience , but by themselves , they are not effective in predicting the
consumer behavior. For example, senior citizens rarely shop for skateboards. And
desert inhabitants will not be a good market for raincoats. Demographics cannot tell you
the behaviors of the two neighbors having identical income and education one will
drive Honda city and another one will drive Toyota corolla. Such behavior explained by
psychographics will be explained later.

The Organizational Audience

The counterpart to the consumer market is the organizational market consists of
nonprofit organizations, governments, and businesses of all sizes. Advertising to such
market often referred to as business-to-business advertising. They purchase goods and
service to use in operations, to resell to others, or to use as raw material or as a
component in their products.in other words, organizational market represents all buyers
other than customers. The organizational audience includes Nike, Adidas, and KFC,
McDonalds and all other manufacturers, banks wholesalers, retailers restaurants,
schools, police departments, federal agencies and so on.
Advertisers can divide the organizational audience into four parts:
1. Industrial/commercial market: it consists of businesses that provide goods and
services to other businesses or to consumers. These companies spend billions of
dollars a year on raw materials, equipment, machinery, components, parts,
supplies and services which make them a major advertising audience.
2. Reseller market: it consists of businesses that buy finished products to resell
either to businesses or to consumers. This market includes retailers such as
department stores, specialty stores and mail-orders companies and wholesalers .
for example hyper star , metro cash and carry, amazon.com etc. much of the
advertising in organizational sector is aimed to be at resellers because firstly
they are responsible for providing products to customers directly and secondly
they represent themselves as a major customer segment for business services
and other organizational products.
3. Government Market: it consists of agencies and institution at the federal, state
and local level. Governments purchase both goods and services from the private
sector. Governments purchase both goods and services from the private sector.
Government customer spends on the schools , hospitals ,law enforcement and
military. half of the government spending done at the federal level. For example
spending done by the government of Pakistan in Pakistan Army by providing
them machinery , equipment, facilities supplies, and services.
4. Non-Profit market: it consists of the organizational customers in the nongovernment sector or non-profit sector. These markets include religious
institutions private hospitals museums, colleges and universities, charities,
foundations, and political parties.
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WHY PEOPLE BUY

Consumers are influenced by the forces that can be divided into three groups.
1. Psychological Influences involve the complex emotions, motivations , attitudes
and other internal forces that persuade people to make decisions. These
psychological factors are themselves influenced from the outside by the
remaining groups of forces
2. Social and Interpersonal Influences cover a wide variety of external factors
such as families, friends, ethnic groups and co-workers.
3. Situational Influences cover the circumstances a purchase, such as the time of
the year or the reason for making a particular purchase.
Naturally, financial resources both financial and credit affect purchase behavior to a
large extent as well. Many of us have psychological factors that want us to buy a
Mercedes Benz or Ferrari but we dont have enough available money to buy it.

Psychological Influences
Age, income, and other demographic factors assist advertisers to understand an
advertising audience but such factors dont explain the thoughts and feelings that
motivate consumers to buy anything. For example, a movie star does not buy an
expensive car because he is rich. His vast income only provides means to
purchase. It is not the driving force that influences his decision to buy. He may
but it because it supports the image he has of himself or because it makes him
feel better about himself.
The study of lifestyles, attitudes, motivations, personalities, and self-concepts as they
relate to buying behavior is called psychographics. The psychographics factors of
most interests to advertising researchers are :
1) Needs and motives
2) Attitude ad lifestyle
3) Personality

Needs and Motives

All purchases are driven by needs, which buyers sense as gaps between their current
condition and their ideal condition. If you are hungry you will feel a need for a food. If
you feel the lack of excitement in your life , you might try to fill that need by buying a
sports car,going to play cricket or a football match. Motives are being created by these
need which can be defined as the internal factors that guide your behavior to satisfy
those needs for example if you are hungry, your hunger will create a motive to acquire
and eat a massive amount of food to satisfy your need.

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In some case, the needs that will generate sales of a particular product are easy to
identify. To get to work or to school , you might need a car. Sometimes consumers will
need a semantic distinction between a need and a want. For example, I dont really
need a rs 2500 shoe , I just want them. Researchers usually describe wants as the
particular choice consumers make to satisfy their needs (as in needing shoes and
wanting a pair of Nike brand shoe).

Attitude and Lifestyle

Many aspects of buyer behavior are related to attitude, defined as a lasting, general
evaluation of products, issues, companies , people, colors and many other elements.
attitudes show up as tendencies to respond ads or products in positive or negative
ways. This an important topic for advertisers because attitude can make or break
products and companies.For example, You may have a negative attitude about a
particular car model or fast-food chain. If enough people share your attitude, that
manufacturer or that restaurant chain will be in trouble. If you have a positive attitude
the advertiser is halfway in the line of success.
Every attitude has three major components:

The affective component involves the audience positive and negative feelings.
Burger Kings researchers uncovered negative feelings about the harsh
consistency of fast food: even if consumers would not actually request any
modifications in their Hamburgers still they were displeased by the lack of
choices. Burger King responded first with the Have It Your Way ad campaign
and later with the Yout Way Right Away campaign.
The Behavioural component involves the audience translating its beliefs and
feelings into action. The behavior may be explained as buying a product,
avoiding it, using it or recommending it to others, of course , if you simply have a
positive attitude towards as product it does not mean you will run to buy that
product. Because you may r may not need it, may not be able to afford it, may
have other priorities.
The Cognitive component the beliefs and includes knowledge a person has
about a particular subject, product or organization. Sometimes customers
develop wrong beliefs, incorrect knowledge or fall on beliefs that ar no longer
valid. It forces the advertiser to try to change to a cognitive component. For
example, Khaadi (women clothing company) want to view its suits as a highquality available product not simply an another expensive suit. In many other
cases, the audience has more or less correct information thats why advertiser
are forced to provide new information in order to change the attitude of the
audience toward their products.

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Attitudes figure prominently in lifestyle, which can be defined as a persons activities,

interests, opinions, and consumption patterns. The basic approach of this type of
research is to create and al profile of various consumers types, according to lifestyle
has proved to be one of the more reliable predictors of consumer behaviors and it is
important in selected target market.

Personality and Self-concept

Another psychological element has attracted the attention of advertisers is personality,
a persons characteristic and consistent patterns of behavior. Personality theorists
characterized people in different personality types and traits. However, advertising
researchers have found a little relationship between personality categories and buying
behavior.
It is likely that buying behavior is driven less by personality and more by self-concept,
which is the sum of the perceptions, beliefs and feelings that people hold about
themselves. Self-concept has divided into four elements: how you see yourself, how
others see you, how you really are, what would you like to be.
Some purchases and possessions (such as clothing, cars, furniture, and houses) are
more dominant to self-concept than others because they become extensions of
yourself. Advertisers of products that contribute strongly to self-image need to assess
the self-concept of their target customers and develop a brand image that maintains or
enhances those self-images.
The Cosmetic and fashion industries provide classic examples of advertising to selfconcept. For example, most people want to avoid looking older than they feel, Nivea
and Olay makes a creative appeal to this self-concept. Most of us need to feel that we
are attractive and on this base of this need industries are making their ads.

Social And Interpersonal Influences

People can influence on individual response and on the purchase choices he or she
makes. for issues of top concern to advertisers are culture, social status, reference
group, and word-of-mouth communication.

Culture
The beliefs,values, and symbols that society shares and passes from generation to
generation are called culture. There is a French culture , Chinese culture , Pakistani
culture, Indian culture. Loke most other countries, united states also has many culture
segments, means a group of people within a large culture who share beliefs, values,
and customs that differ al least in some aspects.
First, Culture can influence audience and buyer behavior in ways that are obvious (e.g.
the types of foods that people buy) and in ways that are more refined ( e.gi response to
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certain colors and images shown in ads). Second, cultural mistakes can ruin an ad
campaign, either by causing the ads to miss their target or by insulting or offending the
audience. Third, behavioral patterns result in a part from a certain cultures core values.
A culture's core values define how product are used , determine whether products has
been seen negatively or positively and determine customer relationships.
In te united states, for example, core values include material comfort and wellbeing,
progress, individualism, and freedom of expression and choice.

Social Status
Social status is another important factor in buying behavior, every society has social
classes, groups of people who share similar lifestyle,values,interests and behaviors.
The class is a factor virtually all over the world. The desire to job or stay in a real or
perceived class can affect an individuals purchase behavior regarding quality and style
of clothing , homes, and furniture,use of leisure time, choice of media, shopping habits
and choices and financial management patterns.
An ad that appeals to living a status-conscious good lifewill be influenced by people
who have their social sights aimed upward. On the other hand, it turns off the people
who dont have value status. For example, Apples iPhone uses as a luxurious product
by high social status people.
Social classes are being determined by occupation but it is also based on income,
education, possessions, personal success , social skills, community involvement and
other factors.

Reference Groups
Buyer behavior can be influenced by a reference group, which is one or more people
who have a direct influence on the buyers decision making. There are three types of
reference groups : those to which the individual belongs (such as a family, a club, or a
cultural segment), those to whose he or she hopes to belong and those that he or she
ignores. Or example, Nike uses specific ads in which they aimed women who want to
identify with performance and personal success.
Reference group influences peoples decisions by providing information, by pressuring
them to conform to group norm or by offering a set of values for people to identify with
and express.the implication on advertisers are clear; if your customers are influenced by
those groups , youd better find a way to get those groups on your side. For example,
using a celebrity in advertising assumes that the celebrity's endorsement will appeal to
the target audiences desire to identify with that person.

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Word-of-Mouth Communication
Sometimes a marketers best and worst advertising comes from other customers. When
the communication between customers and potential customers, it influences purchase
decisions, the interaction is called word-of-mouth communication.
Opinion leaders,people who are knowledgeable about products and who command the
attention and respect of other customers and potential customers. They play an
important role in word-of-mouth process. You may probably know someone or you may
be the one to whom people comes when they want to buy a computer, a car, or a cell
phone. Advertisers should view opinion leaders as a key audience because they can
increase the impact of the advertising message.

Household Buying Behavior

Buyer behavior takes on some new characteristics when a group of people in a
household makes a purchase decision. In a household of two or more persons, many
day-to-day purchases involve decision making. This can be as simple as the family
trying ti decide where to go for dinner or something as important as to buy a new car or
to build a new house. Advertisers can get benefits by understanding these group
interaction.
Children also play an important role in the family purchase decision and advertising to
families and households. First , successful advertisers seek to better understand family
decision making in order to develop more effective ads. Second, advertisers must have
the concern of advertisement on children and that ad may have effects on family
spending patterns. We see often children demand particular brands, and we see these
brands are linked with TV shows and they are heavily advertised

Situational Influences
The final group of influences on buyer behavior involves the circumstances
surroundings the purchase. These situational factors can have a wonderful impact on
buyer behavior, so it is important to understand them by advertisers.these situational
influences can be grouped into five categories:

Physical surroundings are the location, weather, sounds, aromas, lighting and
other factors that make up the physical situation in which consumers are
exposed , purchase them, or to use them. One way advertisers can use such
information by presenting products in surroundings that are most like the
consumers real or desired surroundings. For example, advertisers of Ford
Explorer often create ads that show the vehicle being used in a beautiful
mountain setting and in other places that prospective buyers would like.
Social surroundings of a situation consist of the other people who are present
when a product is purchased or consumed. For instance, when entertaining
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influential guests, consumers often but better-quality foods than they would
normally eat; an advertiser of such products would want to take this fact into
account.for example, if you want to promote gourmet food you must create ana d
that shows ambiance environment and food should be served in an elegant way.
Temporal perspective is not only the amount of time available to customers to
learn about or to use or to shop a product, but it also includes the amount of time
since the product was used, the amount of time until payday, and the time of the
year. For example, 75% of all bicycle purchases are made between June and
July, but many buyers make their minds over the winter when they have more
time to check over owners and pursue over advertisements. As a result, a bicycle
maker, armed with such information might choose to run ads in the middle of the
winter, when people are thinking about which brand to buy.
Task Definition is the reason that buyer is seeking information about buying or
using a product. For example , items chosen a gifts depend on the reason for the
gift and on the relation of the recipient to the giver. For example, a woman buys
silk pajamas for her husband but not for her boss. Such factors should be
considered when ads are designed
The antecedent state is the consumers state of mind before and during a
purchase.for example, the mood can be changed on the spot purchases,
therefore, an advertiser who has already staked out a place in the consumers
mind has the best chance to get impulse sales.

Advertisers have collected extensive information about consumer behavior, it is

important not to assume that purchasing is always predictable or even rational. For
example, some purchases are made on the spot and no planning at all.

HOW PEOPLE BUY

After grasping why people buy, the next step is understanding how they buy - a process
involves perception, learning and design making

The Consumer Perception Process

perception is everything.perception helps a buyer perceives different brands in a
category determines which one he or she uses. Therefore, perception is a big challenge
and a hurdle advertisers must face in their job. That is way advertisers spend millions of
dollars on advertisement like sales promotions, the point of displays , national
advertising , local advertising, public relations and on other marketing communications
tools, so that if a buyer forgets their product they will perceive it by seeing its ads.

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Therefore, perception referred to as the way we sense,interpret,comprehend various

stimuli.this above definition show perception has many key elements which have been
shown in the diagram below.

Stimulus
a stimulus is a physical information that we receive through our senses.for example,
when we look at an expensive car , we receive hundreds of stimuli. We might notice the
color of the car, the smell of leather, the purr of the engine. Similarly , we see a theater
ad in the newspaper, we see a collection of art photography arranged in a wellmannered form that interprets that ad. That is a stimulus. The stimulus in advertising
can appear in a number of variety such as at the local departmental store, on a window
display, bright colors on a soda can, the price tag on the pair of shoes or at the sports
car. These objects are physical in nature and they stimulate our sense that can vary
person to person.

Perpetual Senses
The second element in the perception is personalized a way of senses and interpreting
the stimulus data. Before receiving any data, buyer must penetrate a set of perceptual
screens, these are the subconscious filters that protect us from unwanted messages.
There are two types of screens : physiological and psychological.
The physiological screens include five senses: hearing ,sight , touch, tase and smell.
If the advertiser does not interpret the message properly then the process of sensing
will be suffered. For example, a movie ad in the newspaper is too small for the average
reader.it will not be read and perception will suffer. Similarly, if the music in a tv
commercial for a furniture store is not matching to the message. The viewer may
change channels or turn off the tv. The advertiser message will not be effective, the
perception will not occur.as a result, furniture remains unsold.
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We are limited not only by our physical capacity as well as by feelings and interests.
Every buyer uses psychological screens to evaluate, filter and personalize information
according to their emotional standards. These screens include inner factors such as
personality, self-concept,interests,attitudes, beliefs, past experiences and lifestyles.
Advertisers are facing a major problem that is consumers perceptual screens. With the
bombardment of advertising on the buyers , the consumer may reject our product. So
we simply focus on some things and ignore the others . this is called selective
perception. for example, Panasonic runs a series of outstanding ads for its new digital
camcorder in the tv, website, newspapers. But they will not penetrate the psychological
screens of the buyers who dont need or want a new a camera.as a result of people
later will not remember this ad.

Cognition
The third element in the perception process is cognition: understanding the
stimulus.once we detect the stimulus and then allow it to the perceptual screens, we
can comprehend it and accept it. Now perception has happened and stimuli have
reached in the consumers mind.
The perception of one person is different from the other one. For example , you have
considered tacos advertisement by Taco Bell to be Mexican food. That is your
perception. But someone from Mexico tells you that taco bells' taco has little
resemblance to authentic Mexico food. That persons reality is another perception.
Therefore, advertisers seek to commonly share perceptions of reality as a base for their
advertising message.

Mental files
The mind is like a bank of memory,and the stored memories in our mind are called
mental files. Due to the bombardment of advertising , similarity between messages ,we
find it difficult to understand which ad is belonging to which product. To cope with this
complexity, we rank products in our mental files by their importance, price, quality and
brand loyalty. This reminder in our mind also get discarded or some other similar files.
For example,how many brands of running shoes you can quickly remind.
Due to our limited mental files, we try to resist opening new mental files and avoiding
accepting new information which is already filed.but when a new perception is entered ,
the information changes the database on which psychological screens nourish.
Because perceptual screens is a major challenge to advertisers . it is important to
understand what is in the mind of the customer and modify it according to the
company's product. That brings us to the second process called learning
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Learning
Advertisers are also interested in the theories related to human beings. Because
learning is the essential to the whole idea of persuading people to change their
purchase behavior. Learning can be formal defines as any change in the contents of
a persons long-term memory in the way those contents are organized, particularly as
changes relate to those changes in behavior
There are two general learning theories: conditioning and cognition, help advertisers to
understand how buyers respond to advertisers and make their purchase decisions.
Cognition Theory. Cognition is learned through mental activity. According to this theory,
buyers treat purchase decisions as a problem that needs to be solved. Buyers process
the information inputs (advertising messages), combine this information recovered from
memory( good and bad experiences with products and suppliers), and draw conclusions
by weighing the mix of information available. The fact that buyers combine information
from various sources emphasizes the benefit of integrated marketing communications
(IMC): the more coherent and unified your messages are, the better chance you have
leading prospects of choose your products.
Conditioning Theory. Conditioning is learning to respond to a given stimulus in a
certain way. Classical conditioning theory asserts that by repeatedly associating
stimulus X with stimulus Y. , the advertisers can induce the same response from X that
is associated with Y. this is the reason why advertisers incorporate the popular songs in
t tv and radio commercials, they want that their products arouse the same response
that the song arouses. In divergence, instrumental conditioning is more a case of
learning by trial and error. Buyers who are satisfied with their one brand will continue to
use it. Whereas dissatisfaction stimulates buyers to avoid brands.this highlights the
importance of product quality and customer satisfaction; it means that the cleverest ads
imaginable won't be persuaded people to keep using their products that have failed in
the past.

Decision-Making Process
Whether a purchase involves a new car, a new shirt , or a and expensive cell phone,
both rational and nonrational elements are usually being considered in the purchase
decision. Cars are the very good example of this. The choice you made involves
rational factors such as mileage , reliability, size, and cost. And some non-rational
factors such as your friends view about the car or how you will feel and view the car.
Some buyers perceptions, learning patterns, and decisions can be more easily
understood by placing then in a purchasing model. The rational decision-making model
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can involve up to six steps although not all purchases cover all six steps. In some case,
avoids one or more steps for a variety of reasons. In other words, the more expensive,
complex and important the product, the buyer will take more time in the purchasing
process.

Step 1: Recognize A Need

The first step of buyer towards a purchase has recognized a need, which means buyer
perceives a discrepancy between the desired state and an actual state. This
discrepancy can be as simple as craving a salad at lunchtime, or realizing that your cell
phone is out-dated now. The discrepancy must be significant enough to activate the
decision process, otherwise, no purchase will be made.
Successful advertisers know that the recognition of need can be prompted from two
directions. Either a decline in the buyers actual state (your car keeps breaking down)
or from increasing in the desired state ( you just saw an ad of splendid car ou think you
must have it).
Step 2: Collect and Analyze Information.
In many cases, when buyers recognize the need but do not have information about all
possible solutions or any solution. In some cases, solutions are presented even before
perceiving the need. Such cases can be seen when personal computers come out on
the market, many people did not think they need any, when they understand what a
computer can do for them , they develop a need to have one.
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The buyers next move is gathering information about potential solutions. Part of the
information search is external and internal and the buyers memory can be key aspects
of the process; First, dissatisfied buyers will not buy your products who were
disappointed last time. On the other hand, satisfied customers may need an only little
reminder from advertisement to make another purchase from them., second, buyers are
no always ready to buy when they seed ad, so if an ad is stuck in buyers memory can
keep selling long after the ad is gone. Third, positive memories of a particular product
may keep the buyer away from other alternatives.
Step 3: Evaluate Potential Decisions
With the information in hand , buyers then work through the possible solutions to their
need, looking for the best choice in terms of, price,quality,reputation and whatever other
factors them consider important. Again advertising plays an important role here. The
advertiser has to survive the three stages of evolution and elimination . the first is simply
to be known to the prospective buyer, a process of building awareness for a brand or
company. The second is to be considered acceptable and to be remembered when the
buyer is moving toward a purchase . Brand falling into this fortunate category are called
evoked set,those products are finalists in the evolution of the process. The third stage
is to be selected from the evoked set; those brand that is not chosen make up the inert
set.
Studies show that 66 percent of purchasing decisions are made right in the store. This
highlights the importance of in-store advertising, free in-store samples, and product
packaging.

Step 4 : Select And Evaluate Potential Suppliers

In many product categories, the buyer has to decide not only which product to buy but
also where to buy it. This is especially true in retailing, where a given product might be
available from a half dozen stores inside the same mall.It is also important to realize
that steps 3 and 4 in this model are often done in reverse order or even simultaneously,
instead of saying I want to buy a Gucci jeans; I wonder who might have one on sale,
you will often say, I want new jeans, lets go to Liberty market or Anarkali and see what
they have. National advertising can build demand for a particular product,but local
advertising is often the key to steering buyers to particular suppliers.

Step 5 ; Make The Purchase

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Making the actual purchase is a simple step in some cases, not so simple in others.
Particularly, with large purchases , the buyer and seller must work out delivery, payment
terms, installation and so forth. Advertising can continue to play a role at this stage. For
example, a significant delay between the purchase decision and the actual purchase
can allow competitive advertisements to change the buyers mind sometimes the buyer
may have second thoughts and back away from the purchase entirely. However , if your
advertising continues to provide positive input, the sales might be saved.
Step 6: Evaluate the Outcome
Whether they undertake a formal evaluation process or simply live with the product,
customers evaluate the outcome of their purchases. In United states, one-third of all
households have had trouble with a purchase and roughly one-quarter of all purchases
result in dissatisfaction. We already know that dissatisfied customers will more likely to
tell others, creating negative word of mouth. Whether the object of their displeasure is a
movie , a vacation destination, or a new home, word of mouth can be more powerful
than advertising. If you are an advertiser ,whose products are not satisfying customers,
dont try to fix the problem with more advertising; fix the product first.
Buyers often experience cognitive dissonance, a sense of discomfort or doubt created
by knowing that there were other choices and not knowing for sure whether on of the
other choices might have been better. For example, you are going to buy Samsung
Galaxy S7, but if you look on the other premium handsets like Huawei Nexus 6P,
iPhone 6s and galaxy note 5. You might experience cognitive dissonance. Whether
galaxy S7 is better than others or not. Or nexus 6p might be better. Advertisers can help
buyers overcome dissonance if it continues to reinforce the reasons for making a
particular choice.

The Non-Rational Side Of Decision-Making

Not all purchases are made logically as the rational decision-making model suggests. In
fact, many purchases seem downright illogical to an outside observer and its important
to understand how these nonrational elements affect decision making and responses to
advertising.
Feeling And Intuition. Particularly when competing products are close in terms of price
and quality, decisions can be influenced by how confident the buyer is the seller. A
feeling that deserves special attention is fear. For consumers, fears can be range from
physical safety to social acceptance. For organizational customers , fears can range
from peer humiliation all the way up to job security.
Impulse buying. How many times have you walked out of a store with some item that
you had no intention of buying when you walked in? Such is the nature of impulse
buying when the buyer sees a product and buys it on the spot. Procedures and policies
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tend to limit impulse buying in organizations, but consumers dont usually have such
constraints.
Information Overloaded. On of the ironies of the information, age is a decrease in the
quality of decision-making that sometimes occurs when people have too much
information. Particularly in the consumer market, buyers are often bombarded with so
much advertising information that they no longer try to organize and process it. They
begin to rely on perceptions formed by bits and pieces of information they have
gathered from here and there.
Postdecision Rationalization. Buyers have often made up their minds before then
even being a buying process they continue through the steps of collecting and
evaluating information,often to confirm their initial feelings or to sell their ideas to
members of the family or to the organizational buying center.
Example: Harley-Davidson is a good example of and advertiser that recognizes the
nonrational side of buying decision making. In fact, the companys ads even play up the
idea. One print ad showed a new exquisitely polished Harley parked next to an old, tiny
trailer house. This conclusion is that the person spent a lot more on Harley than on the
house, not a choice that all consumers would make.These nonrational aspects of
decision making highlight the supreme importance of understanding your advertising
audience. Only by knowing who the people in your audience are, why they buy what
they buy, and how they reach those purchase decisions will you be successful in
tomorrow's competitive markets

Summary
The importance of understanding and advertising audience stems from the fact that
more you know about an audience, the more effective your ads will b, the more youll
save by not advertising to the wrong people, and the better your relationship will be with
your customers. Three forces in todays markets make audience analysis especially
important to advertisers: increased demand for performance and accountability from the
advertising budget , increased fragmentation in markets and media and increased
competition both at home and abroad.
The consumer market encompasses all the individuals and households in the world. In
the contrast, the organizational market is made up
of businesses, nonprofit
organizations, and government bodies- groups that buy goods and services to use in
creating other goods and services. The key differences between consumer and
organizational buying behavior are an acceptable level of risk., the role of emotion and
logic, the number of buyers for a given product, the primary promotional method,
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buyers-seller relationship, the nature of buying process, the number of people involved
in the purchase, the time spent on decisions and purchase motivations.
The psychological, social and interpersonal, and situational forces that influence
consumers explain why people buy. The psychological factors of most interests to
advertising researchers are needs and motives, attitude and lifestyle, and personality
and self-concept. Needs creates motives, which determine buyer behavior. Attitudes are
tendencies to respond to ads or products in certain ways and are composed of
cognitive, affective and behavioral components. Lifestyle is a combination of activities,
interests, and opinions and it's influenced by important demographic variables such as
income. Personality is persons characteristic and consistent pattern of behavior. Selfconcept is the sum of the perceptions, beliefs and feelings people hold about
themselves.
Social and interpersonal influences include cultural forces, social status , reference
groups and word-of-mouth communication. Ind addition group buying behavior is more
complex than individual buying behavior and must be considered when developing an
advertising strategy. Situational influences are the circumstances that surround
purchases. These include physical surroundings, social surroundings, timer perspective,
task definition(why the buyer is looking for information about the product).
Who people buy involves perception, learning, and decision-making. Its hard to
overstate the importance of understanding audience perception: advertising works only
if right people are exposed, pay attention and interpret it. The rational decision-making
model covers six steps: recognizing a need, collecting and analyzing information,
evaluating potential solutions, selecting and evaluation potential suppliers, making the
purchase and evaluate the outcome.

Attitude

Make/ buy decision

Buying center

Motive

Cognition

Need

Cognitive dissonance

Opinion leader

Conditioning

Organizational market

Consumer market

Perception

Core values

Personality

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Cultural segments

Psychographics

Culture

Reference group

Demographics

Selective perception

Derived demand

Self-concept

Evoked set

Situational influences

Learning

Social classes

Lifestyle

Word of mouth

Key terms

Questions
For Review:
1) How can an advertiser use audience analysis to gain an advantage over its
competition?
2) How does self-concept influence purchase decision?
3) What are the two types of major learning?
4) Explain the non-rational side of decision making?
5) Explain the consumer perception process?
For Analysis And Application:
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1) Computers are sold to both consumers and organizations; when the product is
identical, will the purchase behavior be identical as well? Explain your answer.
2) Should advertisers try to get buyers to act logically when they make a purchase
decision ? why or why not?
3) How might a life insurance firm use demographics analysis to improve its
advertising?

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References:

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