1.
Self-image concerns how an individual views him or herself and how others view them, which will impact one’s self-esteem and self-criticism (Mantilla, Clinton & Birgegård 2018, p. 304). According to Schiffman et al. (2014, p. 133), self-image is categorised into five different categories, which are Actual Self-image, Ideal Self-image, Social Self-image, Expected Self-image, and lastly Ideal Social Self-image. Assuming we are marketing health food such as avocado milkshake and yogurt, thus we need to understand
Actual Self-image is how people actually sees themselves, which is related to how they behave because they tend to act consistently with the image they assume they are having (Suh, Lee & Kim 2018, p. 106).
Ideal Self-image is the desired image that people want to see themselves within, which also means the image that people want to portray (Schiffman et al. 2014, p. 133). Social Self-image is the assumed image that the individual thinks that others have on him or herself, which is related to social contexts such as social roles (McLeod 2008). Expected Self-image is the state of image between Actual Self-image and Ideal Self-image, which is the assumption of own image in future (Schiffman et al. 2014, p. 133). Lastly, Ideal Social Self-image is the desired image that the individuals want others to see them in (Schiffman et al. 2014, p. 133).
We have decided to use Expected Self-image and Ideal Social Self-image as main segmentation of our target market, because we believe that people usually consume healthy food because they want to achieve certain level of good health or physique, thus the Expected Self-image that involves their future health condition or appearance will be crucial to attract customers to try our products, whereas Ideal Social Self-image is linked to how one wants to be viewed by others. Therefore, in terms of both Ideal Social Self-image and Expected Self-image, we classified the market into five categories of health-concerning image, slim appearance image, clean-eating image, affluent lifestyle image, and the image of being early adopters to healthy food. By targeting people’s Expected Self-image and Ideal Social Self-image, our business can better understand customers’ motivations and consuming behaviours specifically to gain higher market share.
2a.
Motivational Research is a type of marketing research that attempts to explain why consumers behave as they do. Motivational research include all types of research into human motives, that is generally used to refer to qualitative research designed to uncover the consumer’s subconscious or hidden motivations.
2b.
The strength of Motivation Research is the positive impressions that are developed in the field of marketing, which increase its reliability and trustworthiness. Technically, Motivational Research encouraged marketers to study beyond traditional demographic analysis like income level and gender differences. Secondly, Motivational Research provides foundation to understand the reasons of consumer actions and the extent to which the behaviours of consumers varied over time.
The weakness of Motivation Research is the usage of intensive methods, which require longer period of time and effort, thereby the sample size can’t be too large, as it will take days or even months to acquire certain sampling results. Thus, the accuracy of the data may be questionable, as it is not rational to generalise the results on populations before further examinations are done. Secondly, it is believed that the techniques used in Motivational Research such as in-depth interviews and psycho-analytical techniques may not fully explain or probe the consumers’ motivations, thereby reducing the validity of the answers.
2c.
Ernest Dichter applied Freudian theory to consumer behaviour by using Freudian theory to understand the unconsciously held beliefs and attitudes among consumers to understand why certain consumer behaviours happen. The foundation of Freudian theory is the unconscious drives like sexual and biological drives, that are centre to certain consumer behaviors. He had gathered several small groups of people to carry out interviews and discussions in order to uncover people’s desires that are related to certain products or brands, which involves the probing of people’s early childhood experiences and their dreams. For example, he tried to understand why people use cigarette lighters, which the results showed that people use lighters because unconsciously the usage gives them mastery and power.
2d.
In 1950s, motivational researchers acquired some of Freudian ideas to understand the deeper meanings of products and advertisements, by emphasizing on unconscious motives. They rely heavily on in-depth interviews by asking general questions regarding product usage and further probes deeply into respondent’s purchase motivations. Therefore, the capability of the interviewer is crucial to extract and interpret the important information from respondents. Due to the heavy influences from Psychoanalytic Theory by Freudian, there are large numbers of interpretations involve sexual themes, which are highly unacceptable in present days. By comparing the theory in 1950’s and the practices in 2015, it is seen that there are many researchers that criticised the practices of containing sexual undertones in the interpretation of consumers’ motivations. Therefore, the researchers these days abandon the Freudian theories that were lacking in rigorous testing and validity, because the interpretations are viewed as being too subjective.
2e.
Motivational Research is carried out through many different methods, such as conducting in a lab condition and also in normal environment such as focus group, interviews, and simple observation. In a focus group, a researcher will become the moderator to monitor the flow of conversation and also lead the group of people that are being studied to reveal their feelings and motivations. The usage of In-depth Interviews are similar but the conversation flows between the interviewer(s) and the single individual interviewee. Simple observation can be a very useful tool as people may behave differently in real life than in a research setting, thus the observation of behaviour allow the researcher to examine the behaviours more realistically.
Motivational Research allows researchers and also businesses to gain insights on why people do and don’t purchase their product, thereby increasing the efficiency of marketing activities to gain more market share. Moreover, Motivational Research lists out the differences among consumers, and allow better segmentation of market to be targeted with tailored marketing techniques. It is becoming more and more important in the area of marketing and branding. This is because the more scientific approach is the marketing techniques, there will be higher probability of more successful approach in gaining sales.
Written by:
Melissa Lee Ka Mun 5619300
Wong Zhao Li 5617649
Simin Chen 5694450
Lee Yi Sin 6316931
References
Mantilla, EF, Clinton, D & Birgegård, A 2018, ‘Insidious: The relationship patients have with their eating disorders and its impact on symptoms, duration of illness, and self-image’, Psychology And Psychotherapy, vol. 91, no. 3, pp. 302–316, accessed 25/4/2019,
<https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mnh&AN=29080248&site=eds-live>.
McLeod, S 2008, Self Concept, accessed 25/4/2019, <https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-concept.html>.
Schiffman, LG, Cass, AO, Paladino, A & Carlson, J 2014, Consumer Behaviour, 6th edn, Pearson Australia, Frenchs Forest, New South Wales.
Suh, J, Lee, Y & Kim, SH 2018, ‘The effects of collaborated character’s image congruence on cosmetic products evaluation: The relative importance of ideal and actual self-image congruence’, Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 103–115, accessed 25/4/2019,
<https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edselc&AN=edselc.2-52.0-85041608195&site=eds-live>.
MBA 