How Consumer Attitudes & Behaviors Affect Their Purchases Essay

How Consumer Attitudes & Behaviors Affect Their Purchases - Essay Example These savvy marketers understands their consumers’ behavior and thus able to distinguish between attitudes and beliefs. Every year, firms (through their marketing departments) heavily invest in researches to identify consumers’ attitudes which are more likely influence their purchasing behavior. Marketers go ahead to persuade consumers through promotions and advertising in order to win consumer loyalty. Consumer Attitudes In marketing, attitude is defined as â€Å"the general evaluation of a product or service formed over time† (Maxfield, 2012). Attitude greatly affects the purchasing and buying habit of consumers as well as satisfying personal motives of the consumers. As such, consumer attitude is defined as a composite of beliefs, behavioral intention and feelings. On the other hand, behavioral intention of consumers is defined (in marketing content) by consumers’ beliefs and feeling about a given product. Consumer feeling and behavior are treated toget her as they are relatively interdependent, thus collectively representing purchasing force of the consumer. This relationship and interdependency can be represented as below: Attitude is majorly a psychological term that applies in all fields involving human beings. Attitude refers to the inner feelings and understanding of individuals towards certain object or concepts. Attitude may be either negative or positive depending on the existing environmental factors triggering the feeling. Behavior on the other hand, refers to individuals’ reactions or actions towards certain environmental elements in response to the internal or external stimuli. Attitudes and behaviors of customers have almost similar effects on the buying trend of certain product. Attitudes exist in three main components that include cognitive, affective and behavior. Cognitive component of consumer attitude relates to the general consumer’s belief about a certain product. Affective component of the consu mer attitude attributes to feelings and emotional response of customers towards particular objects. Behavior component on the other hand, entails learned tendency by consumer to react in particular manner towards particular activity or objects. In this way, the psychological effects that drive the understanding of consumer/rational choice are clearly understood and noted. Beliefs Belief is a fundamental component of consumer’s purchasing powers and influences. A consumer may either hold a positive or negative belief towards a product or a store. For instance, some consumers may belief that coffee tastes good while those with negative belief towards this product will say that it stains papers and is easily spilled. Though rare, some consumers have a neutral belief on a product (e.g. coffee is black). Other group of consumers may have an indifference belief about a commodity. Notably, the beliefs consumers carry on products have no to be accurate and at times may be very contra dictory. Since consumers hold a number of beliefs towards the range of products, it is quite had to reach the ‘bottom line’ of such variations in beliefs. Brand equity and consumer attitude Brand equity is an important concept in building and developing marketing strategy. Brand equity is an indication of profitability index as perceived by marketers. However, brand equity depends on brand attitude. From consumers’ point of view, brand equity entails positive brand attitude founded on