Applied Buyer Behavior Project

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Applied Buyer Behavior Project

• Overview and Guidelines

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Project Objective

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

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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 consumers 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.

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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.

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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.

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Step 3 Field Activity

• Consumer initiates the shopping process.
• The researcher follows the consumer through the
  process.
• Make notes of consumers 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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).

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Sample Interaction Table
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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 importantyou will
  end up with an abstract attribute, or a
  consequence.
• Then ask why that is importantand 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.

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Sample Means-Ends Chain
Carl Zeiss Lens
Concrete Attribute
Better picture quality and imaging
Functional Attribute
I Can keep precious memories clear
Terminal Value
You can make this more elaborate, and are
encouraged to do so.
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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)

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Sample Problem-Solving Process
Problem Recognition
Need camcorder to tape sons soccer games
Search for Relevant Information
Checked Best Buy, amdv.com, and with a friend
Evaluation of Alternatives
Sony TRV 530 has 2.5 screen, regular lens, 699,
but DC-TRV 20 has Zeiss lens, 3.5 screen for 799
Choice Decision
DC-TRV 20 b/c of lens, FireWire port
Purchase
Purchased at Best Buy b/c of price and service
Post-purchase Use and Re-Evaulation
Could send digital videos to Grandparents, who
very much enjoyed it. I am happy that I bought it
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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).

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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.

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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

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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.