Applied Buyer Behavior Project

1. Applied Buyer Behavior Project Overview and Guidelines

2. Project Objective • To analyze the consumer decision making process involved in the purchase of an high value item.

3. A Brief Overview • Field Activity: • One person, the “consumer”, actually goes through the process of purchasing (without finally purchasing) the item. • Another person acts as a “observer”, making notes of the consumer’s behavior. • Based on the notes, you generate a consumption story and analyze it. • In Stage 1, you engage in the field activity and generate the consumption story. • In Stage 2, you perform the consumer behavior analysis.

4. Detailed Instructions – Step 1 • Form your team. • Decide on team by Monday, March 1st, 2006. • Make the following assignments and decisions: • The team members • Two members per team – you choose based on your schedules. • If one of you is planning to buy a large ticket item for which you intend to do some research before buying, then that person should play “consumer” and the other “observer”. • If that is not the case, then you make your own assignments. • You choose the product, as long as it is a reasonable large valued item for which you are planning to do research before buying.

5. Step 2 • Turn in the “Project Outline Document” with the following information: • Project title • Consumer and observer (class time) • Product chosen • A brief outline of how you plan to go about the shopping • This should be one-page. It should be formatted as follows: • One-inch margins on all sides • Double line spacing • 12-point times-roman font • Normal paper • When and Where: March 1st, 2006 in class.

6. Step 3 – Field Activity • Consumer initiates the shopping process. • The observer follows the consumer through the process. • Make notes of consumer’s thoughts, actions, feelings and the interactions he/she has with the decision environment. • The observer makes note of all significant events in the shopping process. • When the observer is unsure what the consumer is thinking simply ask the consumer and document the question and response. • The consumer stops when he/she has arrived at a final decision.

7. Step 4 – Summarizing Field Activity • The notes made by observer is call “Field Notes”. • Make this in clean sheets of paper. • Using the field notes, reconstruct a typed-up version, focusing on significant events and disregarding insignificant events. This can be a set of bullet points, organized chronologically. • This typed-up version is called “Shopping Log”, about 5-8 pages.

8. Step 5 – Generating the Shopping Story • Using the shopping log, create a seamless story from start to finish, of the shopping activities. • Begin with a short introduction. • Conclude with a paragraph on what the consumer set out to do, and the extent to which the consumer was able to achieve his/her goal. • To do this, the observer should have a brief interview with the consumer, asking him/her questions that will elicit the above information. • After the interview, the consumer and observer jointly produce this paragraph. • Sections of shopping story: • Introduction, shopping story details, shopping summary • 3-5 pages, standard formatting.

9. Step 6 – Turn in for Stage 1 • The following “Field Activity Document” should be turned in: • Title page (title, last 4 digits of SSN, class time, course number) • Field notes (photo copy, retain original) • Shopping log • Consumption story • Keep an exact copy for yourselves. • When and Where: March 27th, 2006, in class.

10. Step 7 – Begin Stage 2, WC Analysis • Take the shopping story from the Field Activity Document, and identify elements of the WCA. • Take the original document and insert superscripts as follows: • A for affect • C for cognition • B for behavior • ME for marketing environment • This includes products, ads, coupons, salespeople, store layout, price etc. • E for general environment

11. Step 8 – Identify Key WCA Interactions • In this stage, you examine the shopping story and identify central interactions between elements of WCA that you identified in Step 7. • E.g., The salesperson helped me understand the difference between a Recordable CD drive and a Re-writable CD drive. • In this example, the salesperson is part of the “marketing environment” and understanding the difference between CD-R and CD-RW is “cognition”. • This is a ME  C interaction. • Simply list the central interactions that had an impact on the consumer choosing the product he/she eventually did. • Do so in the form of a table (max 12 to 15 interactions).

12. Sample Interaction Table

13. Step 9 – Means Ends Chains Analysis • Observer should ask the consumer to list a set of three key attributes that caused him/her to choose the final product. • For each attribute, the observer and consumer should jointly derive the means-ends chains. • You do this by focusing on one attribute at a time, and asking why that is important…you will end up with an abstract attribute, or a consequence. • Then ask why that is important…and so on until you identify as much of the components of the means-ends chain (please refer to my discussion on assignment 2 in the website for more details). • This you should repeat for each of the three attributes.

14. Sample Means-Ends Chain Concrete Attribute Carl Zeiss Lens Better picture quality and imaging Functional Consequence I Can keep precious memories clear Terminal Value You can make this more elaborate, and are encouraged to do so.

15. Step 10 – Identify Problem Solving Process • Refer to the generic problem solving process. • Identify the following elements based on the shopping story: • Problem Recognition • Search for Relevant Information • Evaluation of Alternatives • Choice Decisions • Purchase (imaginary) • Post-purchase Use and Re-evaluations (imaginary)

16. Sample Problem-Solving Process Problem Recognition Need camcorder to tape son’s soccer games Search for Relevant Information Checked Best Buy, amdv.com, and with a friend Evaluation of Alternatives Sony TRV 530 has 2.5” screen, regular lens, $699, but DC-TRV 20 has Zeiss lens, 3.5” screen for $799 Choice Decision DC-TRV 20 b/c of lens, FireWire port Purchase Purchased at Best Buy b/c of price and service Post-purchase Use and Re-Evaulation Could send digital videos to Grandparents, who very much enjoyed it. I am happy that I bought it

17. Step 11: Suggestions for Marketer • In this section, using the consumers’ experience as a basis, come up with suggestions for the marketer. • How can things be done to: • facilitate things that will help the consumer • remove obstacles that hinder the consumer • Suggested length, ½ a page to 1 page. • Also write a short conclusion on what you learned from the project (suggested length ½ page to ¾ page).

18. The CB Analysis Document • Now you should have the following: • WCA analysis of shopping story (shopping story with appropriate superscripts) • Key interactions among elements of WCA (as a table) • Means-ends chains • Problem-solving process • Suggestions for the marketer • A short conclusion. • We will refer to this as the Consumer Behavior Analysis Document

19. Step 12 –Turn-in Final Project Document • Turn in your project with all of the following, in the following order (the first three are from the Field Activity Document, and the last six are from the CB Analysis Document) : • Title page with a title, the last four digits of consumer and observer, class time, course name and number, semester. • Shopping log (from stage 1, with any corrections) • Shopping story (same as above) • WCA analysis of shopping story (shopping story with appropriate superscripts) • Key interactions among elements of WCA (as a table) • Means-ends chains • Problem-solving process • Suggestions for the marketer • A short conclusion.

20. Page Length Suggestions for Sections • Title Page 1 page • Field Notes No restriction • Shopping Log 5-8 pages • Shopping Story 3-5 pages • Shopping Story with WCA Same with superscripts • WCA Interactions 1-2 pages • Means-ends chain 3 pages (1 per attribute) • Problem-solving process 1 page • Suggestions for marketer 1 page • Conclusion 1 page

21. Document Submission Deadlines • Project Outline Document – March 1st, 2006 • Field Activity Document – March 27th, 2006 • Complete Project Document – April 19th, 2006

22. Concluding Comments • The only point of difference between consumer and observer is the role they play in the field activity. • Past that point, every portion of the project document should be generated jointly. • Start every section on a new page. • The final project is due on April 19th, 2006.