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 an “researcher”, 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 analysis.

4. Detailed Instructions – Step 1 • Form your team. • Decide on team by Wednesday, February 19th. • 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 “researcher”. • If that is not the case, then assign larger last 4 digits of SSN as “consumer” and the other, “researcher”. • 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 a sheet with the following information: • Project title • Consumer and Researcher (SSN last 4 digits, 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: Feb 24th, 2003 in class.

6. Step 3 – Field Activity • Consumer initiates the shopping process. • The researcher 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 researcher makes note of all significant events in the shopping process. • When the researcher 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 researcher is call “Field Notes”. • Make this in clean sheets of paper. • Using the 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 researcher should have a brief interview with the consumer, asking him/her questions that will elicit the above information. • After the interview, the consumer and researcher 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 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 17th, 2003, in class.

10. Step 7 – Begin Stage 2, WC Analysis • Take the shopping story, 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 • Researcher 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 researcher 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 Attribute 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. Step 12 – Stage 2 Turn-in • Turn in your project with the following, in the following order: • Title page with a title, the last four digits of consumer and researcher, 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.

19. 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

20. Concluding Comments • The only point of difference between consumer and researcher 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 23rd, 2003.