Situational Decision-Making

Front 1

Name two dimensions that make up a person’s mood & give an example for each from within marketing:

Back 1

• Pleasure and Arousal
• Excitement (high pleasure and high arousal) of visiting a theme park – very positive experience
• Relaxing (high pleasure and low arousal) visit to massage therapist – positive experience
• Distressing (high arousal and low pleasantness) – high paced music and images in ads (e.g. iPod commercials – aimed at making emotional response)

Front 2

Name 3 types of time and give a marketing example for each:

Back 2

• Economic – limited resource and so efficiencies of time might be of benefit
o Marketing opportunities may be found in time saving products/ services
• E.g. home delivery/ web-based etc, replenishment processes
• Psychological
o Perceived time often varies from actual time, by filing time for consumers, time can be perceived as passing more speedily, good for queuing consumers
• E.g. mirrors distract people, keep them walking to destination keeps them occupied (e.g. airport luggage collection)
• Social
o Definition of time by our societal obligations. So, some products may more usually be used at certain times
• E.g. “Breakfast” tea, “After Dinner” Mints..

Front 3

“Atmospherics” is defined by Solomon et al as:

Back 3

• The “…conscious designing of space and its various dimensions to evoke certain effects in buyers’” – taken primarily from Kotler’s original definition.

Front 4

How might expectations alter consumers’ satisfaction with a retail service encounter?

Back 4

• If you go to a cheaper restaurant/ café and crockery is dirty, you may shrug this off as “adding to the charm of the place”, more than if it were a high class, expensive establishment, where you may expect their offering to be “perfect”.

Front 5

You’ve just bought a “new jacket” and don’t like it. Provide 2 potential routes through your disposal options.

Back 5

• Get rid of the jacket, by selling it, direct to someone else (e.g. using ad at Uni)
• Keep the item, but convert it to a new purpose (e.g. use fabric to make cushion covers!)

Front 6

Describe the nature of the decision-making in the shopping process.

Back 6

▪ Perspectives on decision-making range from a focus on habits that people develop over time to novel situations involving a great deal of risk where consumers must carefully collect and analyse information prior to making a choice. Many of our decisions are highly automated and made largely by habit.

Front 7

Give an example of a captivating technique introduced by the marketers.

Back 7

This trend is accelerating as marketers begin to introduce smart products that enable silent commerce where some purchases are made automatically by the products themselves (e.g. a malfunctioning appliance that contacts the repairer directly).

Front 8

What are the steps involved int he decision process?

Back 8

▪ A typical decision process involves several steps. The first is problem recognition, where the consumer first realizes that some action must be taken. This realization may be prompted in a variety of ways, ranging from the actual malfunction of a current purchase to a desire for new things based on exposure to different circumstances or advertising that provides a glimpse into what is needed to ‘live the good life’.

Front 9

What happens after the "problem" has been identified in the shopping process?

Back 9

▪ Once a problem has been recognized and is seen as sufficiently important to warrant some action, information search begins. This search may range from simply scanning memory to determine what has been done to resolve the problem in the past, to extensive fieldwork in which the consumer consults a variety of sources to amass as much information as possible. In many cases, people engage in surprisingly little search. Instead, they rely on various mental short cuts, such as brand names or price, or they may simply imitate others.

Front 10

What is the "evaluation of alternatives" stage?

Back 10

▪ In the evaluation of alternatives stage, the product alternatives that are considered comprise the individual’s evoked set. Members of the evoked set usually share some characteristics; they are categorized similarly. The way products are mentally grouped influences, which alternatives will be considered, and some brands are more strongly associated with these categories than are others (in other words, they are more prototypical).

Front 11

How does Internet (World Wide Web) contribute to the decision process?

Back 11

▪ The World Wide Web has changed the way many consumers search for information. Today, the problem is often weeding out excess detail rather than searching for more. Comparative search sites and intelligent agents help to filter and guide the search process. Cybermediaries such as web portals may be relied upon to sort through massive amounts of information to simplify the decision-making process.

Front 12

Is the decision-making process always strictly rational?

Back 12

▪ Research in the field of behavioural economics illustrates that decision-making is not always strictly rational. Principles of mental accounting demonstrate that decisions can be influenced by the way a problem is posed (called framing) and whether it is put in terms of gains or losses.

Front 13

What are the decision rules the consumer follows when he/she has to choose from the alternatives?

Back 13

▪ When the consumer eventually must make a product choice from among alternatives, a number of decision rules may be used. Non-compensatory rules eliminate alternatives that are deficient on any of the criteria the consumer has chosen to use. Compensatory rules, which are more likely to be applied in high-involvement situations, allow the decision maker to consider each alternative’s good and bad points more carefully to arrive at the overall best choice.

Front 14

What does "heuristics" refer to?

Back 14

▪ Very often, heuristics, or mental rules-of-thumb, are used to simplify decision-making. In particular, people develop many market beliefs over time. One of the most common beliefs is that price is positively related to quality. Other heuristics rely on well-known brand names or a product’s country of origin as signals of product quality. When a brand is purchased consistently over time, this pattern may be due to true brand loyalty, or simply to inertia because it’s the easiest thing to do.