Consumer Behaviour & Attitude
Relationship between Consumer and Customer
In marketing, consumer and customer are often interchangeably used and they are quite similar and easily confused to one another.
Consumer is the person who uses but does not necessarily pay for the products or services. A consumer is the one who purchased the product for the purpose of consumption and personal use only, without any intention to resell. For instance, a daughter purchases a reading glasses for her grandmother, her grandmother is a consumer and the daughter is the customer.
Customer is the one who pays for the products or services. He or she may have purchased the product for their own needs or, for the necessity of consumption or, for adding value to themselves or others. A customer can be a business entity, who purchases the products with the intention of reselling them to others. There are different ways of classifying customers based on the different segments of businesses, we can classify them into two categories:
- End-Customer — They are the people who buy the product/service offered for their own use, in turn becoming the consumer of the specified product.
- Reseller — They are the intermediary who buys the goods for selling it to others and hence just acting as a customer and not as a consumer of the purchased product.
The right marketing mix to the potential consumers leads to successful customer relationship. There are four drivers which lead to a successful relationship between brands and customers.
Nowadays, people spend most of their time in the digital world. How your customers interact and get the relevant information via the brand website, social media, track the articles or news via google search or even comments on the forums are important. All these factors may affect the decision making.
Understanding Consumers Holistically can be Key to Success
Consumer behaviour looks at how individuals select and use products and services. Understanding consumer buying behaviour is the key success to reaching and engaging your customers, and convert them to make a purchase.
Conducting consumer research can understand how consumer attitudes affect behaviour, what kind of attitudinal barriers exist in decision making and purchasing. After understanding the consumer attitudes, we can start working on the strategies through integrated marketing mix with powerful and convincing messages that will favourably influence consumers and affect their judgement.
When the name of McDonald comes to our mind, we will think of french fries, burgers, Big Macs, apple pies, sundaes etc. With the growing demond of quality coffee, McDonald’s re-positioned itself and began selling specialty coffee in 1993, the first McCafé opened in Australia. In Hong Kong, the first McCafé opened in 2008, which was 8 years later than Starbucks. McCafé is just a coffee corner in a traditional fast food restaurant, McDonald’s. Young people (aged under 30) are not preferring to visit even though they are a McDonald’s fan when they were young. They rather prefer going to Starbucks or Pacific Coffee as they offer specialty coffee with a more welcoming and relaxing environment for them to hang out with friends. Starbucks has been successfully captured almost half of the market share over the past 20 years in Hong Kong, see below market share chart.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6RSCHUNmB4&feature=youtu.be
While the coffee category in Hong Kong has shown tremendous growth, research also shows that consumers are judging coffee by coffee shop ambience, brand image and the perception that a higher price indicates better quality. In 2017, McDonald’s conducted a social experiment that took customers on a journey and experienced what is inside of McCafé coffee, aiming to change people’s perceptions and encourage them to re-evaluate their coffee criteria, by turning people’s focus to what’s inside the cup instead.
The social experiment, captured on video and released on Facebook, participants were asked to prepare a cup of coffee by themselves. However, they failed to make their own coffee and created a big mess. Then a barista came out and made professional coffee for blind tasting. All participants were satisfied with the aroma and the quality of the coffee. When they tore off the sticker on the cup, they were surprised by the McCafé coffee and also the affordable selling price at HK$14.
Following the video’s launch, McCafé returned to the streets of Hong Kong to let customers tried the coffee machine for themselves, and brewed their own complimentary cup. This coffee tour was broadcasted on Facebook Live to maximize exposure and encouraged online discussions.
By adapting the attitude-toward-behaviour model, it illustrates the attitude in consumer behaviour refers to a way of thinking or behaviour of a customer towards McCafé coffee which was developed through their past purchase experiences, knowledge, beliefs. While the attitude-toward-the-ad-model defines the effectiveness of an ad/event and it has changed the perception of McDonald’s coffee, from local tea restaurant (茶餐廳) quality coffee to freshly brewed coffee with higher quality. The message: “What makes great coffee” can really stand out from the video. This social experiment video can really persuade consumers to try out their new quality coffee beans collection at a pretty affordable price as well, at least it can persuade me to pay a visit. I think the brand took the altering components of the multi-attribute model strategies by adding an attribute that previously has been ignored by consumers and changing attitudes by altering beliefs about a brand.
