MBA404 Consumer Behaviour And Marketing Psychology: Survey Sample And Analysis Assessment 2 Answer

Answer :

Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Psychology

Goal of Project

The goal of the project report is to identify consumer behaviour and determine market psychology based on it. The detailed analysis of consumer behaviour and market psychology has been demonstrated with the help of a survey conducted on consumers who buy Pantene shampoo from the retail company Woolworths. Pantene, being one of the most popular shampoo brands, it is, however, necessary to determine the market trends and customer demands to increase the sales and also make improvements in the product itself. This can be achieved by making changes in the selling procedure as well.

The current market trend and consumer demands can be well understood with the help of their direct feedback and how they react to certain products is also an integral part of the study. Hence, this project report uses theories like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, consumer behaviour theory to influence the purchase decision of customers. This can be clearly understood with the insight of the culture and demographics of the consumers that have been explored in the report.

Development of a Survey Instrument

Gathering data through scientific tools is essential to analyse and evaluate consumer behaviour about certain products, and through the retail company channel, they are sold through. A customer survey is an example of such a tool, and the data can be gathered through a set of close-end questionnaires. Analysing the results help to understand customer behaviour and market psychology in a clear and statistical manner.

The chosen shampoo of Woolworths is Pantene shampoo, and a questionnaire has been developed to determine the opinion of customers and how they are influenced to purchase the shampoo based on demographics and cultural aspects. The questionnaire consists of 10 close-ended questions and data analysis has been done on them to get a statistical result on consumer behaviour and market psychology. 

The survey questionnaires are as follows: 

Q1: What is your age category?

• Below 18 years of age 
• 18-27 years of age 
• 27-45 years of age 
• Above 45 years 

Q2: How frequently do you use shampoo in a week? 

• Once in a week 
• Twice in a week 
• Thrice in a week 
• Almost every alternative day 

Q3: Which of the following brands you would like to use other than Pantene ?

• Tresemme 
• Extra care fibre therapy 
• Head & Shoulders 
• Sunsilk 
• Garnier

Q 4: Which type of shampoo you usually prefer? 

• Silky 
• Nourishing
• Anti-dandruff 
• Repair Damaging Hair 
• Oil control

Q5: Do you have a preference for 2 in 1 or individually functioned products?

• 2 in 1 product
• Individual functioning products 
• Does not matter 

Q6: What of the following factors usually influences the choice of purchasing a shampoo? 

• Price 
• Effectiveness 
• Branding 
• Spokesman 
• Packaging 
• Offers and discounts 

Q7 what is the medium through which you prefer to purchase a shampoo?

• Direct outlets 
• Retailing shops 
• Online shopping
• Salon 

Q8: How do you acquire information about shampoo brands? 

• Television advertisement 
• Social media 
• Word of mouth 
• Print media 
• New Media 
• Sales brochures and hoardings 

Q9: Compared to rival brands, what benefits do you think Pantene provides to its consumers? 

• Lower price 
• Natural 
• Addressing the  changing needs and demands of consumers 
• Product varieties 

Q10: In regards to Australian culture, do you believe Australian females consume more shampoo products than males? 

• Yes 
• To some extent 
• Not at all 

Data Analysis

Question 1: The very first question is a reflection on the age demographics of the customers who participate in the survey. According to Mohanty (2012), it is a well-known fact my market analysts that age demographics plays a crucial factor in how certain products are perceived and consumed in the market and can also influence how many future consumers are likely to get attracted by it. In the case of shampoo, younger are more likely to be inclined to grooming, and hence, it is more obvious younger people more consumers of shampoo. When asked about their age group, it was found that about 26% of the respondents were below the age of 18, while almost 40% was between the age group of 18-27. The age group of 27-45 years were about 27%, and the remaining 7% were 45 or more in age. This clear distinction of age demographics will be useful in understanding consumer behaviour based on their psychology and culture and how it influences them to purchase Pantene shampoo from Woolworths.

Question 2: As stated by Solomon, Russell-Bennett and Previte (2012), if people are influenced that the more, they use grooming products, the more quickly they would get desired results from them. It is also true for products like shampoo, although studies have shown that excessive use of shampoo can weaken the root of the hair and result in hair fall. However, due to excessive marketing, people often use shampoo more than they are supposed to, and this can be understood based on the survey results. When asked about how often they use shampoo every week, the number of people who used once and twice a week were almost similar with about 33% of the total respondents. About 13% replied that they washed their hair with shampoo thrice a week, and the remaining 21% used to shampoo every alternate day. This clearly states the consumer demands about this specific product and how much consumers are influenced to use them as a way of keeping their hair clean and healthy.

Question 3: As mentioned in Foxall (2014), market competition between brands always help to make the competing products better and effective as companies compete to attract the most customers with better quality, cheaper pricing and attractive packaging. As it is necessary to understand the demand of other rival brands to determine the areas Pantene needs to improve, customers were asked about their preference of shampoo brand other than Pantene. The choices of the most popular brands were provided to the participants. About 27% of the respondents stated they preferred Tresemme as their choice of shampoo, while both Head & Shoulders and Extra Care Fibre Therapy had 33% of users each. 7% of the participants stated they preferred Sunsilk. However, surprisingly, Garnier despite being a popular brand had no customer that would choose it instead of Pantene.

Question 4: D'Souza and Rathi (2015) argue that shampoo types are based on the skin, scalp and hair type of consumers, and they are preferred by the customer based on their requirements. Not all product types suit every customer, and that is why companies and brands launch multiple product types in the market to cater to as many consumers as possible. Shampoo brands also provide multiple product types so that consumers with varied needs can choose their preference based on the type of skin, scalp and hair. Only about 7% of the participants they preferred silky shampoo, while 33% chose nourishing type over others. The highest type of shampoo chosen by participants was the anti-dandruff type, with almost 54% using them. Similar to silky type, only 7% preferred repair damage type hairs, and there were no users of oil-control shampoo type. 

Question 5: Apart from shampoo types, the effectiveness of shampoos and how consumers perceive them are also determined by the functions every shampoo brand cater to. As stated by Lochhead (2012), it is assumed that shampoos with 2 in 1 function would cater to more hair issues but would not be as effective as individual functioning shampoos. Individual functioning shampoo, on the other hand, might be effective for a specific function but does it more effectively than other multi-functioning products. As a unique selling point, some shampoos have multi-functioned shampoos while others specialise in one type of function. When the participants were asked what their preferences were in terms of multi-functioning shampoo, only 20% stated they preferred such types while 54% stated they would rather use individual functioning shampoo than multi-functional. The remaining 26% had almost no preference at all and used either of the two types.

Question 6: Consumers buys products, in this case, shampoo, for various reasons, and each preference has its justification. According to Shah et al. (2012), the size and price of products almost always influence consumer behaviour and how they purchase it. To make products easier to purchase for all economic classes, products are sold in various quantities so that consumers can purchase them based on their financial convenience. As shampoo comes in all sizes from pouches to bottles, the price was not an essential factor for purchasing a specific shampoo brand. None of the participants stated the price as the deciding factor, and instead, 7% of them chose effectiveness as their primary factor for purchasing the brand and type of shampoo. About 40% of the respondents stated that branding was their main factor for choosing a shampoo, while 33% stated they were influenced by the spokesman or celebrity advertising for the brand. The remaining 20% preferred the packaging as it seemed attractive, and none of the participants purchased it for the offers and discounts shampoo brands provided.

Question 7: As companies use multiple channels to sell their products, it is the type of channel that also influences which shampoo brand is sold the most in the market. This is true for almost all products. As mentioned in Furey and Friedman (2012), the channels through which products are sold can influence the total sales value of the company. This is why, companies use multiple sales channel so that even if one channel fails to attract customers, the other channels make up for the loss. When offered with the preferred form of purchasing a medium, the results were almost similar for all the provided channels. Direct outlets, retail shops and online shopping all had 33% of purchases done by the respondents. However, none of the participants purchased shampoo from the salon they visit for their hair care. 

Question 8: Consumer brands use various methods and techniques to reach out to customers and gain the maximum consumer reach for increasing their sales. This is mainly the type of advertising every brand prefers to promote its products. Apart from choosing the right medium for promoting products, companies also use other strategies like publicity through celebrities, public events, etc. to gain the attention of most consumers possible and surge its sales figures. When asked about their ways of acquiring information about shampoo brands, 13% said television advertisement was their chief source of knowledge while 33% preferred the word of mouth of other people who have used the product. Both news media and sales brochures and headings had 6% of participants as their preferred source of knowledge. Not very surprisingly, due to the rapid increase of social media usage and internet availability, almost 40% of the respondents stated that social media is their primary source of information acquisition about shampoo brands. None of the participants was informed by print media about their choice of a shampoo brand.

Question 9: To better influence customers into purchasing their specific products, companies need to clearly understand their strengths over other brands and also the areas they need to make improvement. Knowing both the weakness and strength is essential to gain a competitive advantage over rivals and stay ahead in the competitive market. This was done by asking participants why they preferred Pantene over other brands. About 20% of the participants said that due to its lower price, they preferred Pantene while 40% stated it is their company feedback and the changes, they made based on customer demands that make them use Pantene compared to other brands. Product varieties and being completely natural both had 20% of participants using it as their chosen brand of shampoo.

Question 10: Culture and social structure also have a great influence on how different genders use certain products. Companies often use such tricks to build up educational tools to influence customer about certain products and reinvent the product without any gender bias, which increases their customer base from both genders and increase the overall sales. As the shampoo is considered as a grooming product in some cultures, the participants were asked if Australian culture made females use more shampoo then males. To this, about 20% stated yes as they too feel women with long hair and need to be beautiful and well groomed all the time made them use shampoo more than males. About 40% of the participants denied the statement saying both genders are equally concerned about the hair and use the same amount of shampoo. The remaining 40% was not sure about such a gender preference for shampoo and stated it might happen to some extent.

Key Findings

It has been clear from the data analysis of how consumer behaviour is influenced by the various factors like social and cultural norms as well as how the product is sold and marketed to them. Different consumer behaviour theories can further be applied to these analysis data to determine how market psychology and consumer purchasing behaviour can be influenced to increase the sales of Pantene shampoo in Woolworths. The survey instrument has been appropriately used by the researcher to identify the key factors that are essential to influence consumers and change market norms to attract more potential customers and retain the existing ones for a more extended period of time