Applied Buyer Behavior Project

Overview and Guidelines

Project Objective

To analyze the consumer decision making process involved in the purchase of an high value item.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

Sample Interaction Table

Interaction Classification of Interaction

Salesperson helped understand difference between CD-R and CD-RW

ME C

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.

Sample Means-Ends Chain

Carl Zeiss Lens Concrete Attribute

I Can keep precious

memories clear

Better picture quality and

imagingFunctional Attribute

Terminal Value

You can make this more elaborate, and are encouraged to do so.

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)

Sample Problem-Solving Process

Problem Recognition

Search for Relevant Information

Evaluation of Alternatives

Choice Decision

Purchase

Post-purchase Use and Re-Evaulation

Need camcorder to tape son’s soccer games

Checked Best Buy, amdv.com, and with a friend

Sony TRV 530 has 2.5” screen, regular lens, $699, but DC-TRV 20 has Zeiss lens, 3.5” screen for $799

DC-TRV 20 b/c of lens, FireWire port

Purchased at Best Buy b/c of price and service

Could send digital videos to Grandparents, who very much enjoyed it. I am happy that I bought it

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).

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.

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

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.