Introduction
It is normally the duty of most governments of states to finance almost all sectors of their economies such as health, sport, and education just to mention a few. However, there are international and local organizations that come in to help the government ensure that the society acquires all the essential needs.
Most of these organizations are not for the aim of profit making but for the help of the society. One such organization is UNESCO, which stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
This organization seeks to ensure the sustainability of security and peace in the society through the provision of education and other important agents of success such as science and culture. There are about 197 member states of UNESCO throughout the globe together with eight Associate members. As such, regional offices of UNESCO are distributed in various parts of the world.
UNESCO has several objectives, with the main ones including poverty eradication, promotion of education, peace enhancement, and intercultural dialogue among others (UNESCO 1). In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, UNESCO has put in place programs that initiate their attainment.
The programs include communication and information, education, culture, social, and human sciences, and natural sciences. In addition to this, UNESCO has initiated projects as well as sponsored them in a bid to ensure that its goals as an organization are obtained. Some of the UNESCO sponsored projects include “the promotion of cultural diversity; technical, literacy, and teacher-training programmes; international science programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects” (UNESCO).
Having looked at a summary of the functions and objectives of UNESCO, the rest of the paper will analyze the application of consumer behavior literature and theories on this organization. Later on in the paper, the specific application of this theory on UNESCO will be discussed, as well as, how UNESCO as an organization attempts to influence its clientele.
Analysis
Consumer behavior literature and theories of learning and memory
All organizations (both the profit and the non-profit oriented) have ways through which they encourage the society learn of what they do. In order to succeed in this, all organizations are entitled to be aware of consumer behavior literature, as well as the theories of learning and memory.
Using these strategies organizations are able improve their marketing skills therefore, reaching a wide scope of consumers. According to the consumer behavior literature and the theories of learning and memory, organizations play with the psychology of the consumers hence making them like and prefer their services and/or goods to those of other organizations offering the same (Westbrook and Oliver 84).
Secondly, the organizations will be able to adopt strategies that put the consumers in the first position. For instance, the organization should ensure that the messages they convey through advertisements will be able to woe the consumers and make them potential customers.
Concisely, consumer behavior could be described as those qualities that potential consumers look for in a product or service before making the buy decision (Alba, Hutchinson, and Lynch). This behavior differs from individual to individual. As such, organizations have to make effective decisions during advertising to reach a wider scope of the society as its consumers.
As for the case of UNESCO, it ought to understand the scope of its consumers before implementing any marketing strategy. For one, UNESCO has several objectives, which are all driven towards a larger part of the society. Therefore, to ensure that the society is well receptive of their functions, projects, and aid, UNESCO as an organization has to apply the marketing strategy of consumer behavior literature and theories of learning and memory.
In doing this, the organization will attain the trust of the people in the society as they will be able to see the good work UNESCO is doing. First, UNESCO should ensure that its objectives are well defined such that the people in the society clearly understand its functions.
For example, when implementing one of the UNESCO projects mentioned earlier in the paper, the organization ought to describe in a clear manner the procedures and the aims of the objectives. This will not only help in gaining the cooperation of the people in the society, but will also ensure easier attainability of the objectives.
Application of the theory
As discussed in the previous section, the application of the consumer behavior and learning memory theory is through the objectives of the organization, in this case UNESCO. One of the main application methods is through proper marketing strategy, whereby the organization ensures proper and effective advertising of the functions and objectives of the organization to the society (Hawkins, Best, and Coney).
This can be through marketing campaigns that are widespread to reach a wide scope of consumers (Alba, Hutchinson, and Lynch). For instance, UNESCO could facilitate marketing campaigns especially to regions and nations that are not member countries to drive them to becoming members. If this is effectively managed, UNESCO will be a global organization and thus, its objectives of poverty eradication, as well as the others will be achieved globally.
Another way through which this theory could be applied is through social marketing (Hawkins, Best, and Coney). In this, the organization ensures that the consumers get the idea of the organizations’ products and services before they are sold to them. This way, consumers are able to make realistic decisions thus making them gain the trust of the marketing organization (Oliver 465).
UNESCO could apply this strategy, for instance, issuing of proposals of the projects they would like to develop in certain regions. This gives the society the chance to determine the genuineness and capability of the organization before having them start projects in their regions and then they fail in future.
Public policy is another way of applying the consumer behavior and theories of learning and memory (Hawkins, Best, and Coney). Given the publicity that UNESCO has gained through its service to the society as well as through collaboration with other non-profit making organizations such as UNDP, it has been able to apply effectively this policy. It is true to say that only a small percentage of the world’s population have no information concerning UNESCO.
Even those who do not know of its objectives and mission are aware of its existence. As such, convincing people is not a hurdle for UNESCO as an organization. From this, it can be said that UNESCO has a competitive advantage over other non-profit organizations in the same scope more so over the upcoming ones. This is because, most people are already aware of what it is and what it deals with hence, winning the trust of majority of the people.
In my own opinion, I would consider that these application methods are efficient if effectively implemented by UNESCO. In fact, implementing these strategies will create a greater influence of UNESCO as a non-profit organization.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear that UNESCO is one of the important non-profit organizations in the world. Having looked at the objectives of UNESCO, it is by no doubt that this organization carries out functions that are of dare need to the people in the society. However, all the objectives revolve around poverty eradication and peace enhancement, which are the needs of every society.
In order to achieve these objectives in an effective manner, UNESCO just like other organizations has to ensure that its marketing strategies are efficient. From the analysis, it was noted that a clear understanding of consumer behavior literature, learning and memory theories are essential for the success of UNESCO.
The various ways through which these theories could be applied were also listed in the analysis section as being market strategy, social marketing, and public policy (Oliver 465). If all the aforementioned application techniques are efficiently applied on UNESCO, it is true to say that it will lead to its success.
In addition to this, the plan of consumer strategy for UNESCO is certainly not a big issue for the organization given the great influence and publicity that it has all over the world. It can thus be concluded that, only a little enhancement is required on the marketing strategy of UNESCO in order to ensure the win of more members from all regions of the world.
Works Cited
Alba Joseph, Hutchinson Wesley, and Lynch John. Memory and Decision Making. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1991. Print.
Hawkins Del, Best Roger, and Coney Kenneth. Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy, 7th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1998. Print.
Oliver, Richard. “A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions.” Journal of Marketing Research 17.4 (1980): 460-469. Print.
UNESCO. “Living and Learning for a Viable Future: The Power of Adult Learning.” CONFINTEA VI. 1995. Web.
Westbrook Robert and Oliver Richard. “The dimensionality of consumption emotion pattern and consumer satisfaction.” Journal of Consumer Research 18.1 (1991): 84-91. Print.