The Relationship Between Advertising Models And Consumer Behaviour

Magazines are popular in the United States; they can be found in stores, offices, and houses. They are popular for advertising. Television, news, radio, billboards and online websites are just a few forms of media that companies use to advertise their products or services. Companies use advertisements to influence the consumer to either buy or use their products and services. Advertisements are used to manipulate consumers in many ways.

A customer’s buying behaviour is also influenced by social factors, such as the groups to which the customer belongs and social status.

2.Social Factors: A consumer's behaviour is influenced by such social factors as reference groups, family and social roles and statuses. A person's reference group consists of all the groups that have a direct or indirect influence on the person's attitudes or behaviour (Kotler, 2000, pp.163). Reference Groups create pressures for conformity that affect actual product and brand choices. The MiZone and Aqua Blue range of bottled water is aimed and is consumed by people who do considerable exercise and are concerned about their fitness and well being. Consumers in this group would notice that their peers consumed MiZone or Aqua Blue and would then purchase it themselves.

It is possible to further classify reference groups into four types, depending on the function they perform and the kind of influence they exert reference groups operate by establishing certain norms, roles and status within the group for members to follow. As explained earlier, norms are unwritten codes or, standards of conduct that are assigned to individuals within the group. In addition, specific roles have been identified in group purchasing behavior in the attempt to select the best among alternative brands or makes of a product. These are described as those of the influencer, the gatekeeper (i.e. the individual who has the maximum control over the flow of information), the decision maker, the purchaser and, the final user. Status positions have also been designated within a group. High status of members within a group implies greater power and influence. Products are sometimes purchased to demonstrate status, for example an elegant dress or, an expensive car. The influence exerted by the group depends on the type of reference group it is. There are four general types of groups namely, normative, comparative, status and dissociative groups.

Social factors refer in the trend of customer which keeps changing their trend, and what the trend of their purchase. For example nowadays due to people’s work, they are really busy so they often decide to buy already cooked food.

There are also two types of social influences, normative and informative, that can affect a consumer’s purchase decision. A normative influence is the desire to conform to the expectations of another. An informative influence is to accept and trust information obtained as reality. (Bishop & Myers 1974). According to Lam & Meyers 1978, normative and informative influences are both relevant when purchasing a car as an individuals opinions can be influenced by group discussion. It is evident that normative social influences have a greater influence on groups as this is when an individual believes that conforming may have positive consequences and not conforming may have negative consequences. Whereas, informational social influences is often when we care about getting the right answer and trying to be rational. Both normative and informative influences affect the consumer purchase decision of purchasing a car.

Therefore friends and family have a critical inflence on consumer decisions as influencers. These influencers are subject to conformity within their social and cultural circles and provide guidance to the consumer as to what is acceptable for purchase in line with traditions and beliefs.

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 Stimulus consist the six P’s of marketing which are price, product, payment, place, packaging, and promotion while the Organism is referred to as the consumer or potential customer which could also be referred to as the black box and lastly, Response is a behavior. Therefore, S-O-R deals with how an organism (consumer) reacts to a stimulus.

Taking a closer look at our social class, we can see all of the social factors that are involved in the purchasing of consumer goods. Factors such as relationships, personal roles, and economic stability. Relational influences often tend to be one of the largest factors in looking at a product. Normally, a family member, friend, or coworker might convey their approval for a product, in

Consumer behavioural models describe the decision-making or choice process of consumers. Comprehensive models of consumer’s behaviour include Nicosia model13, Howard Seth model14, Sheth family decision making15, Bettman information processing model and the Seth-New-Gross model16.

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;

The black box model shows the interaction of stimuli, consumer characteristics, and decision process and consumer responses. It can be distinguished between inter personal stimuli (between people) or intrapersonal stimuli (within people). The black box model is closely related to the black box theory of behaviourism, where the focus is not set on the processes inside a consumer, but the relation between the stimuli and the response of the consumer. The marketing stimuli are planned and processed by the companies, whereas the environmental stimulus is given by social factors, based on the economic, political and cultural circumstances of a society (Chuahan, 2013). The central aim of effective marketing management is to discover what goes on in the mind of the customer- the black box (source).

Kover et al. (1995) defines effectiveness in advertising as ‘‘the ability of an announcement to produce interest in purchase or use the good or service it is promoting’’ (Kover, Goldberg and James, 1995). Many researchers have tried to establish a link between the content and effectiveness of advertisements, and this will help us to identify some general factors that affect advertising, in order to recognize which one can maximize the desired effectiveness.

A broad and thorough literature review has been conducted on the association of stimulus and brand purchase decision. The literature review consists of the evolution and definitions of individual, technology and societal groups and brand purchase decision, a classification of available literature, and various factors which constitute Stimulus in S-O-R model. Based on this basis of this review, gaps, and a research agenda was identified which provided a sound base to conduct the present study.