When marketers attempt to apply the consumer decision-making (CDM) process to developing strategies, they should be aware that although the process is inherently linear, it can be complex when addressing various influencing factors. One aspect which guides the need recognition and further steps is the type of consumer, which is segmented based on characteristics. These include perfectionist, price consciousness, brand awareness, fashion-conscious, recreation, and impulsive shoppers (Rezaei, 2015).
Therefore, each type of shopper has inherently unique needs to fulfill and different perspectives on the outcome of the product purchase. This should be assessed in terms of product selection, pricing, and advertising strategies.
At certain times, the CDM process helps to identify an inherent gap between attitudes and consumer behaviors. A prominent example of this is environmentally friendly products. Although most consumers would identify themselves as eco-friendly, only a small portion would actively purchase products that are either produced or labeled as such, despite active marketing communication and heavy investment of producers to make these choices available.
This paradox was identified by marketers as the attitude-behavior gap. In practically every setting and country, the CDM process is poorly influenced by marketing in regard to eco-friendly or similar-type products. This is due to the affective stage (related to feelings) never transitioned to the conative stage of the actual purchase (Shim, Shin, & Kwak, 2018).
Apple Inc. represents a perfect example of the relation of brand image effect on the consumer decision-making process. It has evolved its brand based on ease of use, individuality, and style, which attracted regular people to use these expensive and complex devices, which were previously meant only for technology lovers. Furthermore, the brand offers a unique customer experience, which the company’s marketing communication emphasizes. The golden circle theory states that consumers do not buy the product but the purpose with which it is made. Apple is able to leverage its marketing and brand for consumers to have confidence in the excellent quality, and therefore influence their decision-making process (Almutlaq, 2016).
References
Almutlaq, H. (2016). Exploring the relationship between brand image and consumer purchasing decision: A theoretical framework. Journal of American Science, 12(5), 85-92. Web.
Rezaei, S. (2015). Segmenting consumer decision-making styles (CDMS) toward marketing practice: A partial least squares (PLS) path modeling approach. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 1–15. Web.
Shim, D., Shin, J., & Kwak, S. Y. (2018). Modeling the consumer decision-making process to identify key drivers and bottlenecks in the adoption of environmentally friendly products. Business Strategy and the Environment, 27(8), 1-13. Web.