Individual Marketing Assignment – Consumer Behavior in Group/Individual Contexts
For the analysis of consumer behavior, I visited to the local Shoppers Drug Mart on the past Friday, October 14, 2011. I was particularly interested in observing consumers that were making purchase decisions for cosmetics therefore, I went over to the Beauty section of the Shoppers Drug Mart. I was fortunate to witness a group of teenage girls (ages between 16 to 20) who were trying to decide which brand of mascara to purchase. One of the girls expressed her current mascara was not satisfactory, and her friends were there to help her choose the best one. To simplify things, we will call the girl who disliked her current mascara “A” while her friends are referred as “B”, “C”, and “D”. They began by walking along the Beauty section and checking all the different brands. As they passed by each brand, “B”, “C” and “D” would give their own comments of that brand to “A”; they commented on the price, quality, and their overall brand impression of each brand. Although the opinions and preferences of “B”, “C”, and “D” conflicted, they finally came to the same conclusion - that “Maybelline” had the best quality of mascaras with a price that was affordable for “A”. “B”, “C”, and “D” also remarked that Maybelline products are exceptional because they have heard positive reviews from their friends and also because of their cute packaging. Now that they have settled on a brand, they started comparing different varieties of mascaras and that took a very long time since they were comparing every single and trivial factor of each mascara (ie. Waterproof, color, price, effect, brush size, brush design). I remembered “A” wanted the mascara that was the most basic and cheapest one. However, her friends all disapproved of it because they said that basic mascara did not have any special effects (ie. defining, adding volume, lengthening) and they all suggested another one for “A”. After listening to her friends’ fervent protestation, “A” quickly put aside the basic mascara and examined the mascara that her friends recommended while her friends kept on persuading her. In the end, it seemed that she was satisfied with it and made the purchase. I observed several point; firstly, “A” completely had faith in her friends when they chose the mascara brand. Secondly, “A” was at first insistent on buying the basic mascara, however, when her friends all criticized her choice and suggested another, “A” did not rebut at all and quickly accepted her friends’ choice; she clearly wanted to conform to her friends (A’s reference group). Thirdly, word-of-mouth and brand perception comes into great play in this purchase decision process. Finally, the duration of this purchase decision process was very long since there was different input from three other people.
My second observation was on a woman who was between the ages of 25 to 30; her attire also suggested to me that she was financially independent. Once this woman entered the store, she ignored all other brands, and walked directly to the “Elizabeth Arden” section. She only examined the lipsticks from Elizabeth Arden, thus, I assumed that she was only interested in making a purchase on lipsticks. An assistant in the Beauty section tried to assist her but she expressed that she did not need any help. She continued comparing different factors of different lipsticks (ie. Moisture, colour, price), however this process did not take very long and she made her final decision quite swiftly. Based on this observation, I concluded the following: Firstly, since this was an individual making a purchase decision, it was very difficult to determine what she was thinking; most of my conclusions were thus based on my assumptions. Secondly, since this woman is financially independent and probably has quite an important status in her workplace (or at least she is trying to evoke this image) and she is making a purchase from a brand that epitomizes sophistication and competence, she is probably trying to associate herself with those traits to further elevate her social status. Thirdly, she had already determined the brand that she wanted before entering the store, this might imply that she had already purchased products from Elizabeth Arden from before and had deemed these products exceptional. She was very confident in the choice of her brand and product since she turned down the store assistant’s help. Finally, compared to the previous observation, this woman’s purchase decision process took a very short time. Her choices seemed to have been already made before entering the store.
Under a group context, it seems that a consumer’s choice could be easily altered, and that the reference group has a very influencial impact on the consumer’s final choice, also the consumer is most likely to conform to his/her reference group’s preference or opinions. In addition, the purchase decision process is very long when purchasing with the presence of a reference group.