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SOME RECENT MODELS
There are two of the recent models to illustrate the developments in consumer behavior modeling. The first one is the Nicosia model which is along the consumer decision process focussing on the relationship between the marketing organization and its target consumers. Bettman’s information processing model of consumer choice, on the other hand, focusses on the strategies that consumers adapt to operationalize the complex task of information processing.
Nicosia Model of Consumer Behavior
Nicosia Model of Consumer Behavior was developed in 1966, by Professor Francesco M. Nicosia, an expert in consumer motivation and behavior. This model focuses on the relationship between the firm and its potential consumers. The model suggests that messages from the firm (advertisements) first influence the predisposition of the consumer towards the product or service. Based on the situation, the consumer will have a certain attitude towards the product. This may result in a search for the product or evaluation of the product attributes by the consumer. If the above step satisfies the consumer, it may result in a positive response, with a decision to buy the product otherwise the reverse may occur. Looking to the model we will find that the firm and the consumer are connected with each other, the firm tries to influence the consumer and the consumer is influencing the firm by his decision.
The Nicosia model of Consumer Behavior is divided into four major fields:
- Field 1: The firm’s attributes and the consumer’s attributes. The first field is divided into two subfields. The first subfield deals with the firm’s marketing environment and communication efforts that affect consumer attitudes, the competitive environment, and characteristics of the target market. Subfield two specifies the consumer characteristics e.g., experience, personality, and how he perceives the promotional idea toward the product in this stage the consumer forms his attitude toward the firm’s product based on his interpretation of the message.
- Field 2: Search and evaluation. The consumer will start to search for other firm’s brands and evaluate the firm’s brand in comparison with alternate brands. In this case, the firm motivates the consumer to purchase its brands.
- Field 3: The act of the purchase. The result of motivation will arise by convincing the consumer to purchase the firm products from a specific retailer.
- Field 4: Feedback of sales results. This model analyses the feedback of both the firm and the consumer after purchasing the product. The firm will benefit from its sales data as feedback, and the consumer will use his experience with the product that affects the individual’s attitude and predisposition’s concerning future messages from the firm.
With this model, Nicosia was able to represent consumer’s behavior when receivers of a message and has agents in the buying process generated by that flow of information from a company.
The Nicosia model of consumer behavior offers no detailed explanation of the internal factors, which may affect the personality of the consumer, and how the consumer develops his attitude toward the product. For example, the consumer may find the firm’s message very interesting, but virtually he cannot buy the firm’s brand because it contains something prohibited according to his beliefs. Apparently it is very essential to include such factors in the model, which give more interpretation about the attributes affecting the decision process.
Bettman Information Processing Model of Consumer Choice
Bettman (1979) in his model describes the consumer as possessing a limited capacity for processing information. He implicates that the consumers rarely analyze the complex alternatives in decision making and apply a very simple strategy.
In Bettman Information Processing Model, the consumer is portrayed as possessing a limited capacity for processing information. When faced with a choice, the consumer rarely undertakes very complex analyses of available alternatives. Instead, the consumer typically employs simple decision strategies or heuristics. These simplifying decision rules assist the consumer in arriving at a choice by providing a means for sidestepping the over overburden task of assessing all the information available about all the alternatives.
In Bettman Information Processing Model, there are seven major stages.
- Processing Capacity: In this step, he assumes that the consumer has a limited capacity for processing information, consumers are not interested in complex computations and extensive information processing. To deal with this problem, consumers are likely to select choice strategies that make product selection an easy process.
- Motivation: Motivation is located in the center of the Bettman Information Processing Model, which influences both the direction and the intensity of consumer choice for more information in deciding between the alternatives. Motivation is provided with a hierarchy of goals mechanism that provides a series of different sub-goals to simplify the choice selection. This mechanism suggests that the consumers own experience in a specific area of the market and he doesn’t need to go through the same hierarchy every time to arrive at a decision, which makes this mechanism serves as an organizer for consumer efforts in making a choice. No concern was given on religious motives, and how religion may motivate the consumer in his decision. Most of the general theories of motivation such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1970) emphasize self-achievement, the need for power, and the need for affiliation.
- Attention and Perceptual Encoding: The component of this step is quite related to the consumer’s goal hierarchy. There are two types of attention; the first type is voluntary attention, which is a conscious allocation of processing capacity to current goals. The second is involuntary attention, which is an automatic response to disruptive events (e.g., newly acquired complex information). Both different types of attention influence how individuals proceed in reaching goals and making choices. The perceptual encoding accounts for the different steps that the consumer needs to perceive the stimuli and whether he needs more information.
- Information Acquisition and Evaluation: If the consumer feels that the present information is inadequate, he will start to look for more information from external sources. The newly acquired information is evaluated and its suitability or usefulness is assessed. The consumer continues to acquire additional information until all relevant information has been secured, or until he finds that acquiring additional information is more costly in terms of time and money.
- Memory: In this component, the consumer keeps all the information he collects, and it will be the first place to search when he needs to make a choice. If this information is not sufficient, no doubt he will start looking again for external sources.
- Decision Process: This step in the Bettman Information Processing Model indicates that different types of choices are normally made associated with other factors, which may occur during the decision process. Specifically, this component deals with the application of heuristics or rules of thumb, which are applied in the selection and evaluation of a specific brand. These specific heuristics a consumer uses are influenced by both individual factors (e.g., personality differences) and situational factors (e.g., the urgency of the decision); thus it is unlikely that the same decision by the same consumer will apply in a different situation or another consumer in the same situation.
- Consumption and Learning Process: In this stage, the model discusses the future results after the purchase is done. The consumer in this step will gain experience after evaluating the alternative. This experience provides the consumer with information to be applied to future choice situations. Bettman in his model emphasizes on the information processing and the capacity of the consumer to analyze this information for decision making, but no explanation was given about the criteria by which the consumer accepts or refuses to process some specific information.