Many characteristics and situations (cultural, social, personal and psychological) experienced throughout an individual's life will influence their buying behaviour, for example an older person who has lived through the war, experienced rationing and who was brought up in a completely different society to the youth of today will have their own distinct needs, without having the constant pressure to boost their ego and create a socially acceptable figure of themselves. They are more likely to visit the same shop, purchase the same products and live by the same routine week after week. With this in mind it is clear to understand that each individual has many different requirements which will determine their unique buyer behaviour. Kotler's Black Box Model of Buyer Behaviour looks at a stimulus-response aspect in which the consumer processes certain stimuli, including the four P's and other major forces and events in their environment. The stimuli experienced by the consumer will enter the black box where they will be turned into a set of responses that will be individual to each consumer based on their past experiences/decision making processes and beliefs.
'Heuristics are the mental rules of thumb that lead to a speedy decision' (Solomon et al, 2006), 'making quick decisions when there is a lot of choice' (Williams, 2001). When we see advertisements that present too much information to us at one time, we often take the quickest route to arriving at decisions without considering all of the relevant information. These mental shortcuts which facilitate decision-making are called heuristics. There are four possible heuristics that may be processed by the consumer when making a purchase decision: recognition which focuses mainly on the branding of products, the consumer is more likely to buy the one they know; minimalist, which tends to be aimed at advertising, uses recognition plus one random criteria such as a nice label; take the last uses the last criteria applied to a similar situation (habit); and take the best which assesses the options in order of perceived importance of criteria (branding/USP).
'Nostalgia has been described as a bitter-sweet emotion, where the past is viewed with both sadness and longing' (Solomon, 2000).
'When a stimulus is capable of recreating a personal event, even after many years, there often follows a bitter-sweet sentiment known as nostalgia' (Dubois, 2000).
Nostalgia has been defined by Solomon et al as a bittersweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing; many 'classic' products appeal to consumers' memories of their younger days. Advertisers use many references to 'the good old days' in their campaigns, nelping to call up memories of distant youth in the hope that these feelings can be translated into the products they are selling today. Stimuli, such as a song or photograph, can provoke nostalgia in the form of an instantaneous reaction in a person's body language whether it be foot tapping, goosebumps, smiling, getting more animated or speaking louder and faster. It is reactions such as these that the marketer and advertiser aim to recreate for the target audience of a product in order for them generate a sense of relationship and a bond with brand/product and also to get them talking about it too.
The picture collage below demonstrates certain stimuli that provoke a nostalgic reaction from my parents. The images are based on their youth in the 1970's when then where newly married and enjoying life to the full - jet setting to Tunisia and Greece, clubbing in Brimpton Grange (now the Oxford Belfry), boat trips and road trips with family and friends, even memories of the types of clothes they used to wear sparked a reaction of hysterical laughter and uncontrollable chatting!
Memory
'Memory involves a process of acquiring information and storing it over time so that it will be available when needed. Contemporary approaches to the study of memory employ an information-processing approach. They assume that the mind is in some ways like a computer: data are input, processed and output for later use in revised form' (Solomon, 2006).
'Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of internal representations of that knowledge' (Blakemore, 1988).
'Without memory we would be servants of the moment...relying on reflexes...Civilisation itself is the distillation of human memory.'
It is a known fact that the more familiar the consumer is with a product, the more likely they are to recall it in the future. This is one of the basic fundamentals of marketing where the advertiser aims to build awareness of a product. Salience is predominantly used in advertising in order to create certain stimuli that are likely to stand out in contrast to their environment to generate more attention. Examples of this could be the use of distinct, contrasting packaging or unusual forms of advertising (such as the Gorilla advert or the more recent eyebrow advert used to promote Cadbury's Dairy Milk). This, in turn, will increase the likelihood that the product will be recalled by the consumer.
'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier: 'If only there could be an invention', i said impulsively, 'that bottled up a memory, like a scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again'.
