COO Effect

Word-of-mouth is the major factor to help people make decisions on buying high-involvement products (Gu, Park, & Konana 2012, p. 182).

How will a consumer decide whether to purchase a good? When a consumer purchases a good, what does this reveal?

CompuCo is attempting to move from a domestic producer to that of an international producer. In order to achieve this feat, the company must have an international focus in regards to its overall business operations. It is quite apparent from the case, that CompuCo does not have the will or desire to be proactive with its international subsidiaries. In order to achieve greater international success, Dr. Durand must first alter the company culture. First, all international subsidiaries should be treated as a primary business irrespective of their individual performance. It seems, through reading the case, that much more emphasis is placed on French product development and applications that is given to its international counterparts. This is a detriment to business as many of CompuCo's international customers have differing tastes and sentiments in regards to product offerings. The case cites numerous examples of this between both French and American consumers. French consumers, for example, like to read product manuals and prefer complexity over simplicity. Their American counterparts however prefer ease of use, and a simple design. The company was slow to discern these changes in consumer demands and elected instead to emphasize its French product design. This created consumer ill-will and

Modern consumerism coupled with creative marketing tactics have created a vast array of advertisements designed to convince the public’s subconscious to purchase a target product. In other words, companies are making people feel like they need whatever it is they are selling, but how often is this actually true? Do advertisements actually focus on the physical aspects and usefulness of their product? Sometimes these companies stay true to the right objective, but the more common route that companies take is trying to associate seemingly unrelated characteristics and mannerisms with their product. Details such as stylish background music is added, the attractive actor or sports star is hired, or the perfect environment is presented to consumers

With advertising emphasizing what consumers can relate to on a daily basis, they also rely on brand recognition. We are more willing to buy what is familiar. For generations people have been eating quaker oats, it’s a recognized and reliable brand. Consumers enjoy eating out of the same box they did when they were kids. When Quaker Oats changed the appearance of their box, it could have resulted in loss of revenue. A focus group stated that many like the old look but a modern appearance could appear to more buyers. The brand placed on their box “New Look”, informing the buyer that the taste will never change. Many buyers may be put off by a “New Look”, it takes away that familiar feel that consumers look for in super markets. But a change in look could also entice new consumers to try the product. While older generations prefer Quaker Oats, the younger generations can always identify with eating Kellogg's Froot Loops. Kids in numerous countries recognize the famous Toucan on the front of the box. The brand itself is even recognized throughout many countries for their wide variety of products, making them a staple in the cereal aisle. These common products rely on the consumer buying them based on habit. If a consumer has to decide between two products they are more likely to chose something familiar. If you chose a product on the basis of knowing a brand or because you've seen the logo everywhere, you are letting marketers decide for

Such a bold position requires a new approach to marketing.  The authors present a thesis of the Influence Mix, which introduces that there are three influences on consumer decision-making — the individual’s prior preferences, beliefs and experiences (P), other people and information services in the form of reviews and

By reviewing the theory of perception (Little, 1999) is suitable for this study. The reason why is it explained the way that placing the view on imagery can build a recognition and change the thinking and feeling. How the consumers think of a brand and the product will define by the spark of thinking and feelings. There will be an effect on consumers’ buying idea and selection to satisfy the needs and wants by applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

The spillover effects that hit the consumer market eventually accelerate the process of positioning the product image in their minds.

As mentioned early in this study, consumers would consider COO as an extrinsic cue to identify product quality and value, especially when they have limited knowledge about particular product. However, there is no agreement by researchers about how to examine COO effect. In previous literature, researchers had examined COO effect by using several methods. More specifically, those methods could be divided into two aspects: single cue and multiple cues. Both two methods will be reviewed in the following two sections.

The research in consumer behavior and psychology shows that the brand related information determines the probability if the customer will select a particular brand (Mitchell 100). Companies have learned to play with the psychology and emotions of consumers and have succeeded in attracting even those consumers that were not motivated by the traditional advertisements. Companies these days are focusing on the basic psychological principles to understand how to plan and execute the advertisement.

The topic of consumer knowledge focuses on a consumer’s understanding of their desires, ultimately shaping their attitudes and intentions towards purchasing. Experiences can help a consumer choose a better product and make their decision-making process easier. However, if a consumer is somewhat inexperienced in this area, they look to external sources for guidance, these are called group influences. This report will systematically discuss the consumer’s knowledge of an inert brand, as well as assessing the extent and nature of their knowledge. Additionally, the report will identify where personal and group influences have occurred throughout their decision-making process and what each type of influence is. Throughout the report strategies will be discussed for the inert brand to implement.

Existing literature has covered several aspects of image referring to both tangible and intangible components (Mazurssky and Jacob, 1986). Functional Image (Dempsey, 2004) refers to the tangible aspects such as product quality and price. Affective image is linked to intangible aspects such as brand personality (Aaker, 1996; Mazursky and Jacoby, 1986), associations in memory (Keller, 1993), consumer emotions (Faircloth et al, 2001; Rossiter and Bellman, 2012), and reputation (Gossi and

Customers can make different judgements as regards a brand. Customers put together imagery and the different brand performance to make the judgement (Lane Keller, 2011).

Consumption is a process of acquiring, using and disposing of goods and services. Emotions play a very large role in consumer behavior. This behavior and emotions are affected and created by the society and the culture in which the consumer lives. For example, an American may approach the purchase of a costly car with relatively less pressure than a person in a developing country where a car could be a high unaffordable luxury. The customer will comprehend brands, offers and the meaning of the product based on the understanding that he or she has of similar brands and their experience by analogy or by hearsay from peers and form an opinion. For example a new soft drink from Pepsi may not be very informative in its advertisement but that it is from the stable of PepsiCo makes the users of Pepsi brands take it in without much research. Such an opinion is not based mostly on the complete set of facts. Where there are many alternatives or the information is scarce the customer has to make a lot of effort or 'high effort' to reach a decision and such a situation could be a turnoff. On the other hand the customer may not be inclined to devolve deep into facts in case where the brand value is established and may make a decision on little or even sometimes no information. (Hoyer;

Investigate how the three variables (i.e. similarity, overload, Uncertainty) affect consumer’s decision postponement and brand loyalty, concerning low involvement products. A conceptual framework based on consumer behavior – and consumer confusion literature, was utilized to form six hypotheses predicting the causality between the different variables. After validating and adapting the space to data gathered through a survey, regarding Indian Population purchasing habits of Biscuits, 2 standard multiple regressions revealed that one hypothesis was supported; overload confusion proneness decreases brand loyalty in a low involvement product category. All implications were then discussed from Practitioners and researchers points of view, concluding with possible limitations and further research.