The Psychology of Buyer Behavior

Introduction

Consumer behaviour or buyer behaviour is the consumers who are purchasing for personal, group or family use. Buyer behaviour can be thought as a mixture of efforts and outcomes linked to the buyer’s needs to solve issues. Consumer behaviour is a result of thought feelings or even actions of individuals towards an act or experience as researched by Szmigin and Piacentini (2018). It means that every thought, motive, sensation and decision made on a daily basis, and it is regarded as human behaviour. According to Asiegbu et al. (2012), a connection between human behaviour and consumer behaviour were established and the research deduced that consumer behaviour is the study of human behaviour in a consumer role. According to Harris and Daunt (2011), consumer behaviour is a multifaceted variable incorporating the complexity of understanding drivers of certain purchases, preferences, and perception. For instance, questions such as why certain consumers perceive certain products differently and are willing to pay extra for other products with near similar functionality, take different viewpoints. According to Viksne et al. (2016), consumer anchor their purchasing decision on identifying their needs, information gathered, evaluation of the alternative products in the market, then making a an informed decision to purchasing. The identifying the needs stage depends on one’s needs and wants. Although, going by the economic principles of wants can never be satisfied, needs of a consumer various based on their current situation (Reim et al., 2018). The brand focuses on the personal consumer, where there are two major buyers exist; personal and organizational buyers. The latter is where goods are bought to run an organization, that entail non-profitable and profitable organizations, institutions and government bodies. The initial one; personal buyers that this analysis focus on, is where a buyer buys a product like Heineken for personal use or as a gift for someone else.

Looking into the models of human behaviour that provide reason as to what individuals buy, as they are subject to several influences, is based on those humans are immensely manipulated by their psyche that finally results to overt buying responses. In a study by Klein (2011) that tried to explain the concept of human behaviour, states that it represents the beliefs held regarding the nature of humans as well as the cause of their conduct. Thence, humans can be perceived from several perspectives, if for example, humans are perceived on an economic aspect, marketers such as Heineken have tried to influence them with economic incentives, but in this case, most of the ads and messages are not in that line of aspect but has focused on the social aspect. In this case Heineken has tried to influence me and several other buyers via appeals of group norms, references as well as values.

Models of Consumer Behaviour

Biswas (2012) identifies that in accordance with the Marshallian economic model, individual consumers will spend their resources; income on goods that are likely to provide them with the greatest satisfaction but depending on their taste and relative price of commodity. This concept of Marshallian economy that was developed by Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith, who depict that in the doctrine of economic development, human being is said to be instigated in all the actions by personal well-being. In regard to the Heineken brand, the brand as it markets its product, it showcases that it is aware and has calculated carefully and weighed expected pleasures of each contemplated action of consumers that are available in different environs like among football spectators for Champions League, or the video content delivering the message “get set for race Sunday”, with David Coulthard, former F1 driver and current Heineken celebrity endorsement fostered the experience of winning a Pit Wall bar Heineken 0.0 before the Grand Prix in Portugal as depicted in the twitter post figure below;

In a Veblenian socio-psychological model of consumer behaviour, it is based on the results acquired by Thorstein Veblen; a social thinker and he argued that a person will perceive to be so known as social creature where an individual conforms to the norms of his or her larger culture as well as to more specific principles of subculture not leaving out the face-to-face groups in which an individual function according to Daniela (2011). In particular, it implies that human behaviour as well as requirements are moulded by the current team memberships. In this theory, there is what is depicted as social class, or leisure class, and a bigger number of individuals are in this category as their consumption is based and motivated by products that seek to satisfy that particular need to belong in a social group. In this case, there is advertisements in Heineken brand targeting individuals that are sports fanatics, through the European Champion League, where a great portion of economic consumption is influenced and motivated through the event. In another model known as the Pavlovian, Lantos (2015) research that it offers an incomplete consumer behaviour due to the omission of interpersonal influences, perception as well as subconscious influences that are regarded vital phenomena of a buyer towards a product. However, the models offer the marketer insight regarding buyer behaviour as well as an advertisement strategy. The beer industry is quite competitive in the European market, and the Heineken brand needs to adjust its marketing strategies if it has to survive in the market. Therefore, Butler (2018) noted that Heineken has realized that current young generation are not into alcoholic drinks, and therefore attempts to form a contemporary habit for its new brand by extinguishing existing brand habits of former consumers that were alcoholics. But a challenge exists to the brand in persuading buyers to try the contemporary rand that has no alcohol in it by deciding on applying strong and weak cues that determine where, when and how a buyer will respond, and the other factors meant to be considered are time of day and availability of other factors linked to the new alcohol-free drink by Heineken. In another model known as the Freudian psychoanalytical model of human behaviour, Krajina and Karalić (2017) describe that Freud emphasized that am man reigned over his own psyche, that is, the psychological forces moulding an individual’s behaviour was entirely unconscious, leading to individuals not being able to fully comprehend their personal motivations. Therefore, as human beings grow, their psyche known as the id realm the source of strong drives and urges, where the id seeks to meet immediate gratification, leading to a ‘a party animal’ portion of the brain. The second section is known as the ‘ego’ that develops into a conscious planning core where outlets for urges and drives are uncovered, responsible, for meditating between the id and the superego. In this regard, the marketer, Heineken brand is aware that its consumers are motivated by both symbolic and economic-functional products concerns. For instance, the fact that Heineken is conscious of Mother’s Day, to show gratitude to all mothers depicting the efforts they put in our lives, thence deserve nothing less of a gold worth, in the midst of individuals being carried away by the efforts of the alcoholic drink as depicted in the Instagram post below.

In addition, the fact that we would like to be carried away with the effects of having fun drinking the Heineken beer now that bars have been reopened, the brand also sensitises the public of observing the Covid-19 protocols and standards so as to avoid the spread of the infections as depicted in the figure below. It depicts the philosophical divergencies, largely enriched and extended the interpretive value of the model to a wider range of behavioural phenomena of buyer behaviour.

Analysis of the Buyer Behaviour

For the consumer to choose Heineken brand according to the Marshallian model on behavioural hypothesis, the brand’s price is higher, and it being not an inferior product, greater volumes of sales will follow as promotional expenditure is heightened where it is advertised via important and expensive events like European Champions League and Portugal Gran Prix. It should however be noted that the buyer behaviour on this model promotes greater volumes of the brand sales due to the effects of the events on the psyche of the buyers. Based on the theory of Veblenian socio-psychological, we humans have sought social groups for one to belong, and they have influenced on our buying behaviour impacting on how we have and still purchase the Heineken beer to socialize with those individuals that share similar behavioural traits. Heineken has taken advantage of these social groupings and now tries to capture a contemporary social group of young individuals that do not depend on alcoholic drinks to fit into their social class. The Pavlovian model offers insight to the Heineken brand company as an advertisement strategy. It means that the brand is aware that human beings being social beings, there is need for a repetitive advertising to remind individuals to observe Covid-19 protocols now that we are in the midst of the pandemic. Through sensitization, we are compelled that the brand is conscious and concerned about our wellbeing hence we will be compelled to promote the brand by buying its product. Similar case applies with the awareness of Mother’s Day. Finally, the Freudian model seeks to explore buyer’s deep-rooted feelings hopes, aspirations as well as fears. Therefore, the advertisements on Mother’s Day seeks to explore our affections for our mothers on that special day. As we celebrate them, we could be doing so by having a cold Heineken beer to symbolize that special event. In conclusion, the decision taken by a consumer to purchase one product of the other in a same market is subject to several factors and driven by physical, psychological and geographical attributes. One can argue that, a consumer might need and desire to purchase a certain products for instance environmental friendly products but limited by the high costs of such a products. Similarly, in alcoholic market, the aesthetic nature of the drinks plays a critical role in desires but actual buying boils downs to financial capability, available information, beliefs, and environmental inclination. Additionally, the intention of purchasing a certain product might be hindered personal beliefs, social factors, and beliefs towards actual buying and using the products, in this case, Heineken

Bibliography

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Krajina, A., & Karalić, V. (2017). Drivers of consumer decision making-comparative analysis of behavioural and neuroeconomics models. In Regional studies on economic growth, financial economics and management (pp. 391-400). Springer, Cham.

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Viksne, K., Salkovska, J., Gaitniece, E. and Puke, I., 2016. Comparative analysis of customer behaviour models. In Proceedings of the 2016 International conference on Economic Science for Rural Development (pp. 231-231).