1. MARKETING INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT – 20marks
Write an essay on ONE(1) of the topic below.
1. Identify and understand the factors that affect consumer buying decision.
2. Describe four marketing management philosophies and support your answer with an example of
a real-life scenario.
3. Explain the importance of market segmentation and explain the reason of the different bases of
market segmentation.
4. Explain the importance of developing new products and describe the six categories of new
products.
Any plagiarism done will cause you FAIL the assignment.
Date of submission: Saturday 9th June 2012 @ 12.30PM
Late submission will be deducted 2 marks per day (included Friday and Sunday).

2. Identify and understand the factors that affect consumer buying decision.
There are five crucial steps whenconsumers want to purchase goods or services in the market.
First is the need of recognition. From the word it tells us that our ‘potential consumer’ want our
products to be as what they expected. The needs of recognition arise as a result of an imbalance
between actual and desired states. In the need of recognition, there are triggered by internal stimuli and
also external stimuli. An internal stimulus usually deals with our five senses which are our smell, taste,
touch and hearing. These generally arise because we need to fulfill our lowest level in Maslow’s
Hierarchy of needs. It occurs when we experience hunger or thirst so we ‘need’ to buy something to eat
or drink. Whereby external stimuli is the outside sources which we decode in our memory typically in
advertisements (which we can hear or see every day) as well as recommendations from friends or
families.
Secondly is the information search which then again sub-divided into two that is: Internal
information search and external information search. Internal information search occurs when we recall
our past memories about the things that we buy in the past. Whereby external information search is
when we search for information either by marketing controlled (e.g. advertisement) or non-marketing
controlled (e.g. friends recommendations). Advertisement are all around us, when we walk along the
streets we could see the billboard calling us to buy their delicious food, when we in the car there we
could hear advertisement again in the radio so basically marketers want to attract us into their ‘luring ‘
trap by repeating their advertisement over and over again. This way some of the advert will surely stick
to our brain and pretty soon enough we will recall our past memories and buy their products. And thus
marketers win.
After we gather all the information either by mass advertising or friends’ recommendations we
begin to select the best among the best by eliminating the product that does not meet the criteria by
using the cutoff the level of an attribute. They begin to choose between alternatives brands, product,
services and even price. This process we called the evaluation of alternatives. Once the evaluation is
done, consumers will take an action by purchasing the product. And once they purchase it, consumers
tend to experience the concerns after purchasing that product. They tend to feel that an alternative
would have been preferable. This will reduce the feeling of worth to buy that product and in the future
the consumer may not buy the same product brand again.

3. However,all of the five processes are being disturbed by other factor that will definitely change
the consumer decision making such as cultural factors, social factors, individual factors and lastly
psychological factors.
Culture and values is the things that defines who we are and what we ‘made’ of. It is the
standards of our lifestyle in which we interpret and communicate to the surroundings. To be more
precise, it describes the society’s way of life in which it will form our behaviors that will eventually
spread out to our next generation. For example, a father who used to shop at the bargain place where
he teaches his son to value not the quality but the quantity which means we could get ‘fake’ designer
jersey with a cheaper price. This wisdom he value eventually will go on to the next generation which is
his future son. However if he (the son) is influenced by his social class, he will eventually follow what his
friends or colleagues standards like for example his job is a lawyer and so he ‘must’ wear branded
clothes and designer begs to meet the standards. He sees it as nearly equal in the status with the people
who he regularly socialize both formal (meeting up with clients ore boss) and informal (colleagues or
close friends). This affect the problems of recognition whereby we tend to buy products based on
experience or the brand products deliver an ethical manner that are accepted by his culture.
Secondly is social factor whereby it is influenced by the reference group. It is a group in a society
that influences an individual’s purchasing power. It serves as the main sources and influence perception.
In reference group there are sub divided into three groups namely as primary membership group,
secondary membership group and lastly aspirational or non-aspirational group.As informed, this will
affect consumer buying decision because in primary membership group it is known to be the group of
society that we usually hang out with. Let get back to the first scenario of the man who work as a
lawyer, he usually hang out with his two best friends. His friends likes to have lunch break at Starbucks
coffee house and hence he will buy coffee there without awareof his choice because he is under
influenced by his friends. For the second factor, the scenario is whereby he applied a fitness zone
membership. His buying decision again disturbed by the secondary membership group whereby his
instructor who later become his friends usually will goes shopping with him and buys branded sports
equipment. This will affect the information search of the consumer buying process. From there, his mind
will think that is there any branded equipment same brand but relatively cheaper price?
In addition, he gets married and has a kid, so he will passing down the culture and value to his
daughter which is his lifestyle is very rich and sophisticated. His daughter buying decisions are affected
by her family lifestyle.

4. The third factor is individual factor; it is thefeatures that affect our buying decision process
based on gender, age and family life-cycle stage and personality, self-concept and lifestyle. For example
his daughter likes to go for partying, so she will buy dress based on her gender. She also will buy dress
based on her age and her personality. For example if she likes girly type it’s obvious she choose pink.
Finally is a physiological factor. It is a factor based on our perception, motivation, learning and
belief. For example, a father teaches his son not to buy goods based on the attractiveness (quality) but it
must be based on the quantity whether it is worth to buy at a higher price? Is there an alternative
product that delivers the same quality and also quantity? However his son refuses to learn and he is
influenced by his surroundings because his jobs require him to ‘work with a style’. He perceive it as if he
afford to buy those branded goods, people will work with him. This will motivate him to buy more of
those products and hence he’ll belief that his buying decision will affect his carrier.
Cultural, Social, Individual and Psychological Factors affect all five steps in consumer buying
decision.They can create wants on behalf of their consumers. In conclusion, marketers make an
important role of creating, influencing and delivering information in a creative way as possible.