The Importance to Marketers to understand Human Motivation

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 72 = 1,0 (A), Oxford Brookes University (-), language: English, abstract: 'The importance to marketers of understanding human motivation' Not only due to the increasing globalisation, economies in developed countries have an existence of a large scale in differentiated products and services. Furthermore, consumers can not only distinguish between different options of products to cover their needs but also between a large variety of companies which offer often similar products. As every company tries to maximize its sales revenue and hence to extend the market share to gain a higher return-on-investment it is likely that the company which has got the best sound understanding of its customers will be the most successful. Simon (1996) underlines that a company will be the 'champion' within its industry if it knows its markets and the needs of its customers very well. There is little doubt given that a well developed corporate strategy contributes a part of this success, too. However, in satisfied markets in which products show little differences in their values of purpose, it is an imperative for companies to generate extraordinary stimuli and values in their products offered, to gain a higher attraction from consumers. But what motivates people to prefer a specific product of a certain company instead the similar product of the company's competitor? Is it possible for marketers to influence the consumer-decision-making process to gain a positive attitude of the specific consumer towards the company's products? To understand what is meant by 'human motivation' and why motivations of human-beings are important to marketers we should first put things in an appropriate order. What actually means 'consumer behaviour'? Belch & Belch (1995) define consumer behaviour as 'the process and activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs and desires'. The figure of the consumer-decisin-process, shown in the appendix, helps to understand where the unit 'motivation' can be found within this process. [...]