IMT-50: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

PART- A

Q1: Describe the inter-relationship between consumer behaviour as an academic discipline and the marketing concept.

Q2: What is the difference between primary and secondary research? Under what circumstance might the availability of secondary data make primary research unnecessary? What are the advantages and limitations of secondary data?

Q3: How are market segmentation, targeting and positioning inter-related? Illustrate how these three concepts can be used to develop a marketing strategy for a product of your choice.

Q4: Discuss the ethical issues related to the statement 'marketers don't create needs, needs pre-exist marketers.' Can marketing efforts change consumers needs? Why or why not? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Maslow's need hierarchy for segmentation and positioning applications?

Q5: Describe the personality trait theory. Give five examples of how personality traits can be used in consumer research.

PART - B

Q1: Discuss the differences between the absolute threshold and the differential threshold. Which one is more important to marketers? Explain your answer.

Q2: Describe in learning terms the conditions under which family branding is a good policy and those under which it is not. Why are both attitudinal and behavioural measures important in measuring brand loyalty.

Q3: Because attitudes are learned predispositions to respond, why don't marketers and consumer researchers just measures purchase behaviour and forget attitudes? How situational factors are likely to influence the degree of consistency between attitudes and behaviour?

Q4: Discuss the effects of psychological noise on the communication process. What strategies can a marketers use to overcome psychological noise? List the factors that affect the credibility of formal communications sources of product information.

Q5: As a marketing consultants you have been asked to evaluate a new promotional compaign for a large retail chain. The compaign strategy is aimed at increasing group shopping. What recommendations would you make?

PART - C

Q1: Under what circumstances would you expect income to be a better prediction of consumer behaviour than a composite measure of social class (e.g. based on income, education, and occupation)? Why would you expect the composite social-class measure to be superior ?

Q2: Distinguish among beliefs values and customs, Illustrate how the clothing a person wears at different times or for different occasions is influenced by customs. Identify the core values most relevant to the purchase and use of the toothpaste?

Q3: Discuss the importance of sub-cultural segmentation to marketers of food products. Identify, a food product for which the marketing mix should be regionalized. Explain why and how the marketing mix should be varied across geographic areas of India.

Q4: Why is an opinion leader a more credible source of product information than an advertisement for the same product. Are there any circumstances in which infirmation from advertisement is likely to be more influential than word of mouth?

Q5: Define extensive problem, limited problem solving and routinizes response behaviour what ate the differences among three decision-making approaches? What type of decision process would you expect most consumes to follow in their first purchase of a new product or brand in a luxury car?

CASE STUDY-1

It's a Whirpool, from Schorndorf

Go to any store selling top-of-the-line appliances and you'll see a number of brands that are imported from Germany, such as Miele and Bosch-Siemens. But neither of these companies is the leading exporter of German-made washing machines to the United States. That accomplishment belongs to Whirpool. While Whirpool's top-loading washers are made in Clyde, Ohio, the front loaders are made in Germany, where Whirpool had been manufacturing front loaders for the European market before the design caught on in America (the design has been popular in Europe for many years because it uses less water and less electricity). Since Whirpool began importing the washing machines to the United States, it has csold almost two million of them, at about $1,200 each.

While labor costs at its U.S. plants, including benefits, run $23 an hour, Whirpool's labor costs in Germany are $ 32 an hour. So the front loaders are not being manufactured in Germany because of lower labor costs. Whirpool already had a trained labor force and a factory in Germany when it made the decision to market front loading washing machines in the United States. To understand the even bigger picture, more than 40 percent of U.S. imports come from the overseas subsidiaries of U.S. companies.

Questions:

Q1: How do you think most consumers would react if they knew that the Whirpool front loading washing machine that they were considering was made in Germany?

Q2: Do you feel that there is really any difference, in a consumer's mind, between a Whirpool washing machine and a Bosch washing machine, if it is known that they both were manufactured in Germany?

CASE STUDY-2

Give the kid a cell phone

Cellular telephone providers are now realizing that they've made a mistake. For years, they assumed that many teens and college students could not afford to subscribe to postpaid cellular services, and so they pushed prepaid cellular to this group. Wrong!

The major cellular telephone companies have finally come to understand that members of the younger generation possess three characteristics that marketers want: (1) they have disposable income, (2) they have grown up with technology, and (3) they view the cellular phone as their No. 1 possession. Still further, young adults (age 18 to 34) are two or three times more likely to also use services such as e-mail, news, and text alerts, all of which produce additional revenue for the cellular phone company. Just think of all the photographs that teens take with their cellular phones, and all of the ring tones that they pay to download.

Questions:

Q1: Considering the teenage and college student market segments, what other features can cellular telephone companies offer these groups over the next five to ten years.

Q2: What role will innovators and opinion leaders play in this era of new cell phone enhancements?