Consumer behaviour from the advertising perspective

Because their job is to match people and products, advertisers are keenly interested in consumer buying behaviour. The objectives of consumer advertising are to be interested in consumer buying behaviour. The objectives of consumer advertising are to motivate, modify, or reinforce consumer attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and behaviour. This requires the effective blending of the behavioral sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology) with the communicating arts (writing, drama, graphics, photography). The behavioral characteristics of large groups of people give directional force to advertising aimed at those groups. Thus, advertising uses trends in mass-consumer behaviour to create fashion or habit in specific consumer behaviour.

Social scientists have developed many sophisticated theories of consumer behaviour. They have given the marketing community a wealth of data and a variety of theoretical models to explain the sequence of behaviours involved in making a purchase decision. For our purposes, we shall look at this information from the viewpoint of the advertiser.

The primary mission of advertising is to reach prospective customers to influence their awareness, attitudes, and buying behaviour. To do this, an advertiser must make the marketing communication process work at its highest level of efficiency.

The moment a medium delivers an ad message to the consumer, his mental computer runs a rapid evaluation program called the consumer decision-making process.This involves a series of subprocesses that are affected by a variety ofinfluences.

First, three personal processes govern the way the consumer discerns raw data (stimuli) and translates them into feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. These include the perception, the learning, and the motivation processes. These processes determine how consumers see the world around them, how they learn information and habits, and how they actualize their personal needs and motives.

Second, an advertiser needs to understand how the consumer’s mental processes and behaviour are affected by two sets of influences. Interpersonal influences on consumer behaviour include the consumer's family, society, and culture. Nonpersonal influences—factors often outside the consumer's control— include such things as time,place, and environment. All of these further affect the personal processes (perception, learning, motivation) mentioned above.

After dealing with all these processes and influences, the consumer faces the pivotal decision, to buy or not to buy? But taking that final step typically requires yet another process, the evaluation of selection alternatives—where brands, sizes, styles, and colours are chosen. And even if the purchase is made, the consumer’s post-purchase evaluationwill have a dramatic impact on all his subsequent purchases.

Like the marketing communication process, the decision-making process is circular in nature. The advertiser who understands this process can develop messages that are more capable of reaching and being understood by consumers.

1.Explain, in your own words, why advertising people must understand the complexity of human behaviour.

2.What three processes is consumer behaviour governed by?

3.Explain your understanding of perception, learning and motivation.

4.What are the two sets of influences having an impact on consumer’s behavior?

5.What kinds of decisions does a consumer make?

TEXT 8

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public relations (PR) is a term that is widely misunderstood and misused todescribe anything from selling to hosting, when in fact it is a very specific communications process. Every company, organization, association, and government body deals with groups of people affected by what that organization does or says. They might be employees, customers, stockholders, competitors, suppliers, or just the general population of consumers. Each of these groups may be referred to as one of the organization's publics. The process of public relations manages the organization's relationships with these publics.

Companies and organizations know they must consider the public impact of their actions and decisions because of the powerful effect of public opinion. This is especially true in times of crisis, emergency, or disaster. But it is just as true for major policy decisions concerning changes in business management, pricing policies, labor negotiations, introduction of new products, or changes in distribution methods. Each of these decisions affects different groups in different ways. Conversely, effective administrators can use the power of these groups' opinions to bring about positive changes.

In short, the purpose of everything labeled public relations is to influence public opinion toward building goodwill and a positive reputation for the organization. In one instance, the PR effort might be to rally public support; in another,to obtain public understanding or neutrality; or in still another, simply to respond to inquiries. Well-executed public relations is a long-term activity that molds good relationships between an organization and its publics.

Many firms use public relations activities such as publicity (news releases, media advertisements, feature stories) and special events (open houses, factory tours, VIP parties, grand openings) as supplements to advertising to inform various audiences aboutthe company and its products and to help build corporate credibility and image.

Advertising is generally described as openly sponsored and paid for mediacommunications between sellers and buyers. Certainly, like public relations, thepurpose of advertising is to affect public opinion. However, this is normally accomplished through the open attempt to sell the company's products or services.

Public relations activities, like product advertising, may involve media communications, but these communications are not normally openly sponsored or paid for. Usually they take the form of news articles, editorial interviews, or feature stories. One means of relaying a public relations message, though, is through corporate advertising.

Public relations is less precise than advertising. Advertising can be strictly controlled so that its reach and impact can be charted in advance, but public relations communications are not so easily quantifiable: "PR's results depend more on the experience, ingenuity, and tenacity of the people engaged in its day-to-day execution". Although PR communications may be less controlled than advertising, such communications often have greater credibility.

1. Give a definition to PR

2. What is the main purpose of PR?

3. What means do PR activities involve?

4. Differentiate between PR and advertising. Give your own examples of both.

Ex.9.Read the following passage attentively. Fill in the gaps with the wordspublicity, advertising or public relations .

The terms … and … are often thought of as being synonymous. Or even worse,…..is often called “free … .” The simplest explanation for the difference between the two is this: with … , you’re saying good things about yourself in media space you’ve paid for, whereas with … , someone else is saying those good things about you in space that can’t be bought at any price.

You might have hard time finding … pros who cal themselves marketers. Most will firmly declare, “We are communicators and … people, not marketers.” If they’d only think about it for a minute, they would realize that communications and … together (with … being the most visible part of …) make up one of the biggest components of marketing. …and … practitioners need to recognize that they are part – a very large part of the marketing process. And they are capable of substantially increasing marketing returns by increasing the value of the … attained. But they can only do this if their client’s message is as fully integrated throughout … efforts as it is throughout all of the client’s …, direct marketing, and promotion operations.

Also confusing is when … professionals give … the alias of ‘…’ and vice versa.

… is the information activity of … . But … plays a part in …, promotion, and all forms of communication. … is a great deal more than … . It is employee relations, community relations, sponsorships, the tone of an ad or a direct-mail letter, the attitude portrayed by a business, and the way a company’s people greet the public in person and on the phone.

Ex.10.The key-words of the following text are the derivatives to the wordadvertise.Use them to fill in the gaps.

Usually we speak only about the … of commercial organizations. But nonprofit organizations also … . The government, charities, trade associations, and religious groups, for example, use the same kinds of creative and media strategies as their counterparts in the for-profit sector to convey messages to the public. But unlike commercial …, whose goal is to create awareness, image, or brand loyalty on the part of consumers, noncommercial organizations use … to affect consumer opinions, perceptions, or behavior—with no profit motive. While commercial … is used to stimulate sales, noncommercial … is used to stimulate donations, to persuade people to vote one way or another, or to bring attention to social causes.

If a specific commercial objective for a new shampoo is to change people's buying habits, the analogous noncommercial objective for an energy conservationprogram might be to change people's activity habits, such as turning off the lights. The latter is an example of demarketing, which means the … is actually trying to get consumers to buy less of a product or service.

Read the text once again. Summarize its content in 3-4 sentences. Explain, in your own words, the meaning of the words in bold.

Ex..11.Make up the sentences. Put them down into your note-books. The first word ofeach sentence is given to you.

1. N.W. Ayer, in1877, to offer, the nation’s, ad, agency, oldest, established, clients, ‘full service’, was. 2. ‘Full service’, using, artists, and, to create, preparing, an advertising, writers, plan, the ads, means, producing, them, and, staff, writers, placing. 3. So the “agent”, the way, had, from, the publication, of, as, space, shifted, all, the interests, salesman, the needs, to serving, the advertiser, of, serving. 4. And publications, more, just, now, included, than, newspapers. 5.A young, named, had, theforesight, that, should, advertising, man, advertising, to realize, J.Walter Thompson, literary, sell, magazines, space. 6. By the turn, Ladies Home Journal, general, he, of, compilation, the century, Harper’s, women’s, and, magazines, had,Cosmopolitan, an exclusive, “List of Thirty”, developed, including, and. 7. This move, brought, industry, media, truly, Thompson’s part, national, into, the advertising, on.

Read the text that you have just written down. Give a title to the text. What is it about?

Ex. 12.Insert the appropriate words.

Action, static, value, top, preceding, aware, percentage, creating, product, advertising, pyramid, unawareness, objective, coupon, comprehension, desire, conviction, information, company, additional.

The Advertising Pyramid: A Guide to Setting Objectives

A simple way to understand the tasks … can perform is to think of advertising as building the … . Before a new … is introduced, prospective customers live in a desert of

… totally oblivious to the product's existence. The first … of any advertising, therefore, must be to lay the foundation of the pyramid by … an awareness block—to acquaint some portion of those unaware people with the …, good, service, or brand.

The next task, or level of the pyramid, is to develop the … block—to communicate enough information so that some … of that foundation group is not only … of the product but also recognizes it purpose and perhaps some of its features.

Next, advertising needs to communicate enough … about the product and its features to persuade a certain number of people to believe its … . This is called the … block. Of those who become convinced, some can be moved to the next block of people who actually … the product. And finally, after all the … steps have been accomplished, a certain percentage of those who desire the product will reach the … of the pyramid, the

… block. These people may request … information, send in a …, go to a store to see the good, оr even purchase it.

At this point, it's important to understand that our pyramid is not

Ex. 13.Logically organize the following sentences to make up the text. The firstsentence is given to you.