138 The Marketing Book
accompanying promotional mix might aim to
increase users’ awareness of the range of
possible applications available. More special-
ized individualized software for each applica-
tion could then be offered as experienced
innovative users sought more specialized or
higher quality applications. It is probable that
the adaptor segment would appreciate separate
software packages for specific applications,
acquired one at a time. These items should be
promoted on the basis of their efficiency and
reliability. More prestigious outlets, perhaps of
a specialized nature, might be appropriate here,
and mail order is also likely to appeal. The sales
literature should contain detailed specifications
and comparisons with other computers which
stress the advantages in terms of precision and
accuracy, the general acceptability to other
users, and the extensively tried and tested
application of the advertised brands.
Once again, there may be no need for the
campaigns aimed at different segments to be
hermetically sealed from one another, so long
as each is created and presented with sensitiv-
ity to the coexistence of alternative cognitive
styles among the recipients. Selective percep-
tion makes it entirely possible that adaptors
will not notice the advertisements aimed at
innovators sufficiently to be alienated by them;
innovators may receive no more than initial
brand or product awareness from the messages
directed towards adaptors.
Summary and conclusion
Our understanding of both consumer behav-
iour and the capacity of marketing activities to
influence it rest on knowledge of the ways in
which consumers choose. Three aspects of
consumer decision making require careful
attention: the decision process itself, differ-
ences in the level of consumer involvement
that surrounds and shapes decision making,
and differences in the style of decision making.
Most research has been concerned with the
first of these. Several models describe in detail
the stages consumers may pass through in
coming to a decision point and the psycho-
logical procedures that accompany them.
Questions about the influence of involvement
on consumer decision making have been
addressed only comparatively recently, yet the
issues of intellectual level of information pro-
cessing and the consumer’s level of involve-
ment with the process have far-reaching impli-
cations for managerial intervention in the
marketplace. Finally, the way in which a con-
sumer characteristically processes information
has come on to the agenda of consumer
researchers very recently indeed. Again,
because consumers do not pass homogene-
ously through a preordained decision sequence
but behave at each stage in accordance with
their individual cognitive styles, any attempt
by marketing managers to influence the proc-
ess must take account of the manner as well as
the matter of decision processes.
This chapter has taken a consumer-ori-
entated approach to the role of consumer
behaviour research. Rather than simply the-
orize about the likely nature of consumer
choice, it has shown how actual consumer
behaviour differs from that described by the
formal models. It has gone on to show that
those deviations in involvement and style that
mark consumer behaviour in the real world
rather than the textbook, interesting as they
are in their own right, have direct implications
for marketing management, the design and
implementation of marketing mixes that reach
consumers.References
Ajzen, M. (1985) From Intentions to Actions: A
Theory of Planned Behavior, in Kuhl, J. and
Beckman, J. (eds), Action Control: From Cogni-
tion to Behavior, Springer, Berlin, pp. 11–39.