Mind Mapping Consumer Behaviour — (Part 2)
In my last post, I started putting down some factors that drive consumer behavior.
To make a successful product, it is important for the designers to understand their end-users and their needs. Somethings to ponder upon — Why do people use certain brands over others offering same products? What separates their needs from wants?
Needs vs Wants
Needs are something which one cannot do without whereas wants are specific needs for satisfaction of oneself.
These can be further described as those needs that are based on necessities and those wants that make life more pleasant and which largely depend on psychological factors. An individual would not render a brand or product essential and would not needing it, if he/she does not understand its purpose and benefits.
Case study of Apple product: The launch of iPad, January 2010
The usual excitement that Steve Jobs use to build up for each of his product launch could be seen on January 27, 2010, in San Francisco. The Economist put him on its cover robed, haloed, and holding what was dubbed “ the Jesus Tablet.” For the launch, Jobs did his usual masterly job of putting a new device into context, as he has done for the iPhone three years earlier. With his final slide, Jobs emphasized one of the themes of his life, which was embodied by the iPad: a sign showing the corner of Technology street and Liberal Arts Street. The iPad was the digital reincarnation of the Whole Earth Catalog, the place where creativity met tools for the living.
For once, the initial reaction was not Hallelujah Chorus and people who had just seen the demo were not sure of what it was. Gismodo ran a contributor’s piece headlined ‘Eight things that suck about the iPad’. Even the name was ridiculed. Bill Gates insisted that the Microsoft approach of using the stylus for input would prevail.
The public carping subsided when the iPad went on sale in April and people got their hands on it. Newsweek’s cover line was “ What’s So Great about the iPad? Everything.”
In less than a month Apple sold one million iPads. That was twice as fast as it took the iPhone to reach that mark. By March 2011, nine months after its release, fifteen million had been sold. By some measure it became the most successful consumer product launch in history.(Source: Isaacson, 2012)
The users could not accept iPad at once because they were not sure of its usability and purpose. It was a radically new concept, people could not relate to it with their past experience. Soon after iPad was released and customers were quite impressed with the experience of touch screen, the ease of usability and million things that they could do with their iPad. Now, the iPad has grown from a want to need for many.
Customer satisfaction depends on service or product quality and experience which also affects customer loyalty.
Because human beings have a complex social behavior, their needs and wants are much more than just that for survival reasons. Abraham Maslow in his paper “ A Theory of human motivation” proposed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans.(“Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,”)
This five stage model can be divided into basic (or deficiency) needs (e.g. physiological, safety, love, and esteem) and growth needs (self-actualization). The deficiency, or basic needs are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the need to fulfill such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example, the longer a person goes without food the more hungry they will become.
With marketer’s perspective, at the lowest level of the hierarchy that is the basic life needs, market offers house, clothes and other basic amenity items but they are never marketed as “survival” items. At the security level, with changing lifestyle, now people look for insurance policies, security against cyber thefts and securing their personal information on a social networking platform. The belonging needs, drives people to buy brands from which they can establish their own image or fit into a group. For e.g. Teenagers are one of the most brand conscious age group, wearing right clothing and accessories has become one the prerequisite to be accepted in the group. Esteem needs includes anythings that a person buys that makes a statement. This could be subjective for various group of people depending on their location, age, income group etc. At the self actualization level, needs can be met in many ways, for e.g. quest for spiritual enlightenment, pursuit of knowledge, and the desire to give to society.
In my next and final post of the series — Part 3, I’ll be talking about some more interesting concepts behind consumer behavior which come into play while decision-making or selecting from a range of products or brands.