Essay Sample on Consumer Psychology

Introduction

Marketing in the 21st century is not only science but also an art. Both science and art plays a critical role in marketing strategies in determining either it will succeed or fail. This implies that creative expressions are used in developing marketing campaigns that appeal to the people thus capturing their attention. It is of great importance to note that marketing strategy is highly based on theories that are dependent on economies, in psychology and most noteworthy, in studies especially those that concern human behaviors (Schmitt, Josko Brakus, & Zarantonello, 2015, pp. 166-171). On the other hand, scientific insights assist the marketers in design campaigns that target the fundamental needs of the target customers. Subsequently, the impact of marketing materials is emphasized. The key components of consumer Psychology are consumer behavior which determines the purchasing power.

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Consumer behavior includes why the consumers choose to buy certain goods and reasons behind why they act that way. The theories of consumer behaviors seek to uncover these queries. Additionally, it seeks to uncover how consumers buy goods and services as an individual relative to the way they purchase in groups. Besides, theories of consumer behavior outline the impact of emotions in purchasing decisions, the role of object utility as well as the significance of post-purchase attitudes. Comprehending on issues that affect the marketing campaign's effectiveness and how it affect the consumers is of great significance (Xiong, So, Wu, & King, 2018). This paper discusses three psychology/behavior principles and theories. It includes Consumer Decisions-Making, Psychology of Charitable giving and altruism as well as Psychology of Experience vs. Material Goods.

Marketing Communications and Social Media

With the growing technology, social media is becoming an essential tool for marketing communications. In marketing strategies, social media refers to effectiveness rather a variety of tools and technologies. Marketing communications and social media are two aspects in the current world that inseparable. Social media is an emerging phenomenon in the field of marketing communications. Surprisingly, social media for marketing communication is revolving at faster than people are even ready to embrace it. A good social media for marketing communication ought to communicate the intended information clearly. Most noteworthy, it should allow people to interact with other consumers suing network technologies (Scott, 2015). It is important to note that social includes online communities, media-sharing technologies, groupware, peer-to-peer and many more. There exist multiple channels for marketing communication in social media.

Each channel serves a specific type of consumers especially owing to the fact consumers are continually changing their preferences. Effective marketing communication highly depends on having knowledge about consumers' behaviors, their needs, and capability. Comprehending on these factors will guide in providing the right information at the right time and at the most appropriate place, which in this case comprise of appropriate media platform. Choosing media is relative to consumer preferences, needs and wants. However, research shows that multiple communication channels confuse the marketers in making a decision on which social media platform to use to reach their target audience (Scott, 2015). In simple terms, the social media choose ought to be reliable to the consumers, easy to use and most importantly, accessible. Traditional media such as radio, magazines etc. are losing their significance as they have been replaced with new media over the internet.

Consumer Psychology of Brands

Consumer Psychology of brands tries to evaluate consumer perception judgment and how they relate to a wide range of brands. Exclusively, they focus on particular characteristics of brands. This concept of consumer psychology is composed of five critical elements which include identifying, signifying, integrating, experiencing as well as connecting. Anytime a new product is introduced into the market, the burden usually lies on the organization to convince the customers to accept new brand. Identification refers to the process of searching for information about a given brand. This information might be available on the Company's website and more commonly provided over social media (Xiong, So, Wu, & King, 2018). Apart from accessing information about the product, it is important to have knowledge of brand category together related products. Based on the psychological engagement of the consumer, the identification process refers involves categorization, associations with the brand as well as Interbrand relations.

The second process is brand experiencing which involves sensory discernments of the brand as well as the participating experiences that the consumer anticipates when identifying a given brand. Also, it includes brand effect, brand participation, and brand personality. Another process is integrating the product which involves brand concept which is concerned with certain information in the brand intended to target a particular group of consumers. Apart from that, there is a brand personality and brand relationship. Signifying refers to the process of which a product represents an important idea to the consumers (Xiong, So, Wu, & King, 2018). Based on the consumer's engagement, the brand may represent informational cue, cultural symbol or even personal identity signal. Last but not least, connecting refers to a model of distinguishing three psychological constructs which include brand attitude, brand attachment as well as the brand community.

Consumer Decisions-Making

Theories of rationality offer an essential framework in microeconomic decisions making. In general, resource allocation decisions are based on utility maximizing functions which translated to expected satisfaction. However, it is important to note the idea of full gratification is rarely attained. Instead, the majority of the consumers for things that they perceive good from previous experience. There exist various utility-based theories of rational decision-making. Most noteworthy, these theories offer exceptional useful features that important for consumers when making decisions on which goods or services are essential for them. However, needs and wants of the customers differ from one individual to the other and for this reason, rationality on decision-making among them might vary as well (Chen, 2018). Remarkably, consumer decision making allows people to translate theoretically vague inclinations into quantifiable units of products. Correspondingly, qualitatively varying preferences might be converted into the collective currency of utility units, commonly referred to as utils.

Afterward, it is now possible to values of different items when they in them are in the same form. At this point, it is quite easy for customers to make a comparison, therefore, making the most informed decisions. On the other hand, some rational decision making models offer parsimonious mathematical notions and through it, people can easily compare their preferences as well as resource allocation decisions. It also of great importance to note that microeconomic theories of utility optimization have undergone various revolution while taking into considerations the constraints of human thinking that includes limitations on computational capability together with costs of receiving relevant information. Research shows that consumer decisions based on optimization might not be effective relative to those decisions that result from simple computational heuristics (Chen, 2018). However, this hypothesis is formulated while holding other constraints constant. Interestingly, it is perceived that people preferences because people usually try to match themselves with other people.

Similarly, evolutionary economics compares utility with fitness. Different products have utility for some people while others do not. For instance, some people adore spending time on socialization while other love spending most of the time watching over their business. Irrespective of the preferences, comprehending on the roots of utility give significant insights main resource-allocation choices that people make. Fitness in biology is defined as the ability of an organism to pass its genes to the next generation. In a similar way, preferences which affect consumer decision making is rooted back to our forefathers. Based on this, it is worth to acclaim that people decisions on goods are rationally connected with biological goals defined by the genetic component of an individual (Chen, 2018). In general, the decision-making process correlates with the notions that fitness is equal to the utility. Nevertheless, it is of great importance to note that individual fitness constantly changes depending on biological aspects.

Domain specialty and deep rationality hold that people are usually motivated by a desire to maximize utility as well as avoid punishment. However, this perception applies to parsimony but this view contradicts to previously done research on learning and cognition process of consumer decision making. Most noteworthy, different people seek various types of pleasures to evade varying kinds of punishment through distinctive and occasionally dissenting, rules. To be true, people will always settle on what they perceive useful to them and those of the people that surround them (Chen, 2018). Another important element of consumer decisions is risk aversion in relation with risk seeking. In most situations, the decision to invest in certain products entails some sought of uncertainty.

Nonetheless, this kind of investment is mostly based on prior knowledge on the product and its molecular composition. For instance, a person might decide to risk on retirement portfolio but at some point, an individual should be concerned and be ready to accept the outcomes as the stock market might all over the sudden crash. Another concept that plays a significant role in consumer decision is temporal discounting relative to probability discounting. In most situations, an individual will tend to diminish uncertain benefits as the future welfares might take time to realize (Chen, 2018). Well, temporal discounting holds that decrease assessment of rewards might imply a longer period of waiting while probability rewards hold that decrease assessment of rewards imply less certainty that an individual will receive them.

Psychology of Experience vs. Material Goods

Although some people emphasize that persuasiveness during marketing is important, there is little that is known about a new mechanism that impacts customers' decision during the purchasing process. However, it is supposed that changes in the price of products or services influence representation of experienced pleasantness. Most noteworthy, it is of great importance to note that customers differ from one another but experts in consumer behavior can collectively outline how marketing actions can influence neural representations of experienced pleasantness (Schmitt, Josko Brakus, & Zarantonello, 2015, pp. 166-171). People suppose that an increase in the price of goods and services ultimately discourage a number of customers. Nevertheless, increase in price has a varying implication. For example, if the price of wine is increased, there is a high possibility that its nutritional...