Consumer Motivation

Introduction:

Actions, willingness, and goals are all influenced by motivation. These needs, wants, or desires may be acquired due to cultural, societal, or lifestyle influences, or they may be innate. An individual’s motivation can be inspired by external influences (extrinsic motivation) or by their efforts (intrinsic motivation) (intrinsic motivation). The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is determined by the activities taken. Intrinsic motivation refers to an internal drive to complete a task, whereas extrinsic motivation refers to completing a work in exchange for a reward. According to studies, intrinsic motivation produces better results than extrinsic drive. One of the most fundamental reasons to continue moving forward is motivation. Both conscious and unconscious variables interact to produce motivation. High levels of achievement, such as in elite sports, medicine, or music, require a mastering drive to allow sustained and purposeful practice. Motivation determines which sorts of voluntary activities are pursued.

Dynamics of Motivation:

Consumer motivation is a psychological state that motivates us to seek out and purchase products or services that meet our conscious and unconscious needs or desires. The satisfaction of those demands may inspire us to repeat purchases or seek out alternative items and services to meet those wants more effectively.

When one goal is achieved, an individual tries to attain a new one. If they cannot attain them, either they keep striving for them or find a substitute goal. Psychologists have given specific reasons to support the statement “Needs and goals are constantly changing”—

• Needs are never fully satisfied
• New needs emerge as old needs are satisfied
• People who achieve their goals set new and higher goals for themselves

Level of Motivation:

The severity of our needs would determine our level of motivation. Our motivation levels may range from low to high, depending on how significant that purchase is to us. Familiarity with the purchase, status characteristics, and overall cost and value are all influences. Where fulfilment incentives are low, such as with everyday purchases like salt, sugar, tea, shampoo, and so on, motivation levels are equally low, and decision-making behaviour is minimal. However, the desire to get the best result is intense when it comes to a complex, dangerous, and emotionally charged procedure like buying a new car.

Individual motivation levels vary widely and are influenced by various external factors. These include the social value of making the “correct” option, brand convictions, and brand and personal value alignment. If other people are involved in the decision-making process, their motivation impacts the primary consumer’s behaviour.

Motivational Behaviour:

The actions we perform before purchasing and consuming goods or services are the behavioural aspect of consumer motivation. We may conduct extensive studies before making a buying decision, including assessing alternatives, testing, and sampling. We may decide based on which goods or services best meet and satisfy our motivational wants and needs. Marketers strive to maximise impact and sales by connecting their products and services to clearly defined consumer demands and understanding what drives consumers to buy.

Motivation explains why people or animals begin, continue, or stop doing something at a specific time. Behaviorists have attempted to explain such phenomena simply regarding the situation’s relationship to external, observable behaviour. Despite being in the same situation, the same thing frequently behaves differently. This means that explanations should refer to the entity’s internal states that mediate the stimulus-response relationship. Psychologists and philosophers are mainly interested in mental states among these internal states. Desire is the most common mental state that motivates people. However, it has been suggested that other states might motivate one, such as thoughts about what one should do or goals.

Types and System of Needs:

‘Needs’ can be defined as being deprived of some essential satisfaction. The point is that the individual must feel deprived to seek satisfaction. Everyone has requirements. These requirements are fundamental to human survival and present at birth. Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothes, and sex are among the bare necessities, also known as physiological or biogenic requirements. Physiological requirements are the most important motivations or requirements because they are necessary for survival.

Learned needs are those that we develop due to our upbringing in a culture and society. For example, self-esteem, status, affection, power, and achievement are considered learnt wants. Acquired needs, also known as secondary needs or motives, are psychological and arise from an individual’s subjective psychological makeup and relationships with others.

Needs can also be divided into two categories: utilitarian and hedonistic. Consumers’ utilitarian demands are defined by product features, such as economy or durability, that characterise product performance.

Hedonic demands are generally related to emotions or imaginations and to obtaining pleasure from consuming a product or service. Because they are so directly linked to the consumption process, hedonic needs are more experienced. A hedonic need might be the urge to be appealing to the opposite sex, for example. Emotional rather than rational factors are frequently used to evaluate brands (utilitarian).

Goals can be described as solutions that meet a given requirement. For example, any meal will suffice to fulfil hunger, yet a chicken roast may be the consumer’s aim. Human behaviour is driven by a desire to achieve a specific outcome. Marketers are particularly interested in goal-oriented consumer behaviour regarding product, service, or brand selection. They want people to think of their items or brands as the ones that will best meet their needs and desires.

The objective is chosen based on an individual’s personal experiences, physical capabilities, cultural norms and values, and whether or not the desired object is accessible.

Needs and goals are mutually exclusive because neither can exist without the other.

Needs and Goals are Dynamic:

The following are some of the most important reasons why motivated behaviour never ends:

1. Needs are never completely or permanently satisfied:

We get hungry almost regularly and require food to satisfy this continuous need. Similarly, most people have a social need and seek out other people’s companionship, affection, and praise daily. Even when it comes to more sophisticated and abstract psychological wants like the desire for power, no one ever appears satisfied with what they have and is constantly looking for more.

2. New needs emerge:

A need may be prominent at any particular time, but a new need emerges as soon as it is met. According to Maslow, there is a hierarchy of needs. As lower-order needs are met, new higher-order requirements emerge.

3. Goals are influenced by success and failure:

Research has revealed that people who accomplish their goals strive for higher ones. This is most likely due to their increased confidence in their abilities due to their accomplishment. Those who fail, on the other hand, tend to reduce their aspirations.

4. Substitute goals emerge:

This might occur when a person cannot reach a given goal to meet specific demands and instead opts for a different goal. Although it may not be as satisfying as the initial goal, it will suffice to satisfy and release tension.

System of Needs:

Many years have passed since psychologists and others sought to compile a complete list of motives. Although most experts agree on basic physiological demands, there is significant debate on specific psychogenic or secondary needs.

A. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory are included in the content theory of human motivation. One of the most commonly debated theories of motivation is Maslow’s. Abraham Maslow felt that people are naturally good and have a powerful inner drive that continually expands. The requirements hierarchy system is a popular method for categorising human motivations.  Maslow’s hierarchy of requirements highlights certain aspects that involve addressing the needs, such as family and community.  To achieve self-actualization, the individual’s basic needs, such as safety, love and belonging, and esteem, must first be addressed. The demands may overlap within the pyramid, but the lower requirements must be addressed first before moving up. Food and shelter are examples of fundamental requirements. Receiving protection is related to the need for safety.  To feel love/belonging, a human must feel some form of attachment by giving and receiving love. The demand for respect is met by having competence and control in one’s personal life. Failure to address both the lower and higher demands might hurt mental health. This could result in depressive symptoms and low self-esteem in adolescence. If adolescent safety needs are not satisfied, the individual’s confidence will suffer. According to a study, community and friend support can reduce emotional issues. It’s critical to meet these demands to alleviate emotional and mental difficulties over time.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943, 1954) is represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom

The American motivation psychologist Abraham H. Maslow (1954) developed the hierarchy of needs consisting of five hierarchic classes. According to Maslow, people are motivated by unsatisfied needs. The needs, listed from basic (lowest-earliest) to most complex (highest-latest), are as follows:

• Physiology (hunger, thirst, sleep, etc.)
• Safety/Security/Shelter/Health
• Social/Love/Friendship
• Self-esteem/Recognition/Achievement
• Self-actualization/achievement of full potential

 

1. Physiological Needs:

According to Maslow, the first and most basic level of needs is physiological. Air, water, food, shelter, clothing, and sex are all primary or biogenic requirements that must be met for biological life to continue. They become extremely powerful when physiological requirements go unmet for a long time. In his book, ‘A Theory of Human Motivation,’ Maslow writes, “There is no other interest for a guy who is terribly and dangerously hungry but food. He thinks about food, food dreams, recalls food, emotes exclusively about food, sees only food, and wants only food.”

2. Safety and Security Needs:

After physiological needs, safety and security needs are the driving forces influencing a person’s behaviour. These requirements go beyond physical safety to encompass routine, familiarity, security, certainty, and stability, among other things. In India, for example, labour unions give members job security.

3. Social Needs:

 Love, affection, acceptance, belonging, and friendship are among the third level’s social needs. Human relationships with others must be pleasant. People are motivated by love and affection and have excellent attachments to their families. Personal care product advertisements frequently include social approval appeals.

4. Ego Needs:

Ego needs are addressed on the fourth level. These demands include reputation, prestige, position, self-esteem, success, and independence. Many advertisements for ego-enhancing products, such as expensive watches, jewellery, and designer outfits, emphasise ego appeals.

5. Self-actualization Need: 

Maslow felt that most people cannot adequately satisfy their ego demands and, as a result, cannot progress to the fifth and final level. The drive to attain or become what one is capable of is called self-actualization. This urge is expressed in a variety of ways. The only thing they have in common is that they all strive for greatness in whatever they do. They devote years of their lives to achieving their goals.

• Evaluation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

Because it appears to represent inferred human motivations, the idea has gained widespread acceptance among practising managers and social disciplines. This is due to the theory’s intuitive logic and simplicity of application. The five need levels are broad enough to meet most human requirements. The primary flaw with need hierarchy theory is that research does not consistently support it. It is impossible to determine how satisfied one need is before the following higher-level need becomes active.

Despite its flaws, marketers often employ Maslow’s theory to understand how different products or services fit into potential customers’ plans, aspirations, and lives. It’s utilised to create appropriate advertising appeals, allowing marketers to focus on a need that many people in the target market share. For example, soft drink commercials aimed at the younger demographic emphasise social appeal by depicting a group of young people having fun while drinking the promoted soft drink. It also makes it easier to build product positioning so that the product is regarded as the marketer wants it to be.

B. Freudian Theory:

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory had a significant impact on the creation of modern psychology and explanations of motivation and personality. It has also been applied to consumer motivation research. He claimed that the true psychological forces influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions are frequently complex and unconscious and that a casual observer or the customers themselves cannot fully comprehend their own motivations.

Motivation researchers undertake “in-depth” interviews with a few dozen consumers to investigate unconscious intentions. They also employ “projective procedures” including word association testing, phrase completion exams, and visual interpretation, among other things. According to more recent studies, each product can elicit a distinct set of motivations among customers. For example, whisky can appeal to someone seeking social relaxation, status, or pleasure, and we frequently see advertisements for various brands that use one of these appeals.

The Freudian motivation theory is commonly used in various fields, including sales and marketing, to understand the motives of consumers better while making purchasing decisions. Freud’s theory has been applied to the relationship between a product’s attributes, such as touch, taste, or smell, and the memories that it may trigger in a person. Recognizing how the aspects of a product elicit an emotional response from a customer can assist a marketer or salesperson determine how to persuade a customer to buy.

The Freudian motivation theory explains the sales process as a buyer satisfying both conscious and unconscious desires, such as the dread of being seen naked by others outside. For example, a salesperson attempting to persuade a customer to buy furniture may inquire whether this is the customer’s first home. If the customer says yes, the salesman may comment on how warm or comfortable the furniture is, instilling a sense of security.

• Freudian Motivation Theory Tenets:

According to Freud, the conscious and unconscious minds could be separated in the human psyche. The ego comprises thoughts, memories, perceptions, and feelings that give a person a sense of identity and personality. The id, or unconscious mind, is a set of biologically programmed instincts that a person has had since birth. And, as evidenced by not everyone acting on impulse, the superego represents the moderating force of society’s conventional morals and taboos. These concepts can aid market researchers in determining why a customer made a specific purchase by concentrating on their conscious and unconscious motivations and the influence of cultural expectations.

• The Application of Freudian Motivation Theory:

When a company wants to estimate the likelihood of a new product’s success, it hires market researchers to unearth the hidden motivations of a certain group of customers to figure out what can trigger their purchasing behaviours. Role-playing, picture interpretation, phrase completion, and word association are some approaches they could use to uncover more profound meanings. Such activities can aid researchers in gaining a better understanding of how consumers react to products and how to sell them as a result best. For example, purchasing a specific brand of computer can make a person feel intelligent, successful, productive, and prestigious. Marketers can use this information to develop a brand identity.

C. McGuire’s Comprehensive Scheme of Psychological Motives:

McGuire’s Psychological Motivations is a classification system that organizes theories of motives into 16 categories. The system helps marketers to isolate motives likely to be involved in various consumption situations. William J. McGuire (“Some Internal Psychological Factors Influencing Consumer Choice,” Journal of Consumer Research, March 1976) presented a comprehensive list of 16 motive categories. He first divides motivation into four main categories based on two criteria:

1. Cognitive or affective motivation:

Cognitive motives concern a person’s desire to achieve a feeling of meaning by maintaining a cohesive and organised view of the world. Affective motives are concerned with the urge to relieve or avoid tension and the need to achieve satisfying emotional states and attain personal goals.

2. Preservation or growth motivation:

Preservation-oriented motives focus on maintaining balance, and growth motives relate to personal development.

These principal categories are further subdivided based on motivation source and motivation objective.

• Is the behaviour proactive or a reaction to something in the environment?
• Is the behaviour helping to attain a new internal state or a new external relationship to the environment?

Divisions of categories:

1. Cognitive Preservation Motives:

1. Consistency Need (active, internal): This need focuses on maintaining a consistent and coherent view of oneself and the world. These aspects include beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, opinions, self-images, and views of others. Reducing cognitive dissonance is a common motive of this category.
2. Attribution Need (active, external): This need focuses on understanding and inferring causes for various occurrences. Humans tend to attribute causes of success to themselves and unfavourable outcomes to some outside causes or forces. Attribution theory attempts to explain consumers’ need to attribute who or what causes the things that happen.
3. Categorisation Need (passive, internal): Consumers need to categorise complex information in order to organise and understand it easily. There is too much information, and almost every day, we are exposed to new experiences, so we need to establish distinct categories that facilitate processing large amounts of information.
4. Objectification Need (passive, external): Motives in this category focus on observable stimuli or symbols that help people draw conclusions about what they feel and know. We establish impressions, feelings, and attitudes by observing our and others’ behaviour to infer what we feel and think. The way people dress often communicates the subtle meaning of a desired image and lifestyle.

2. Cognitive Growth Motives: 

1. Autonomy Need (active, internal): The need for independence and individuality is essential in many cultures worldwide. People seek individuality and personal growth through self-actualization and developing distinct identities. This need is present among individuals in all cultures, only the degree of intensity
2. Stimulation Need (active, external): This need seeks stimulation through new events, circumstances, or exploration. Consumers indulge in variety seeking just for the sake of change and brand switching to satisfy this need. It is interesting to note that consumers exposed to too much change desire stability, and those in stable environments seek change to escape
3. Matching Need (passive, internal): People are motivated to create mental images of ideal situations according to their perceptions and, on an ongoing basis, match (compare) their perceptions of actual situations to these. This leads to changes in their behaviours, and results are compared in progress towards the desired ideal state.
4. Utilitarian Need (passive, external): This type of motivation focuses on the need to use different sources of information in the external environment for one’s advantage. This theory views the consumer as a problem solver who considers situations as opportunities to gain useful information and new

3. Affective Preservation Motives: 

1. Tension-reduction Need (active, internal): People face various situations in their daily lives when their needs are not fulfilled, causing undesirable stress and tension. They feel a need to avoid or reduce these situations. For example, some people avoid buying new brands.
2. Self-expression Need (active, external): This need deals with projecting one’s identity to others so that others know who they are, what type of products they use and make a statement about their Purchase of different types of products such as clothing and autos allows consumers to project an identity as these are viewed as possessing symbolic meanings.
3. Ego Defence Need (passive, internal): It is another essential motive and concerns the need to protect oneself from social embarrassment and other threats to self-concept. For example, high self-monitors consumers avoid social risk in the case of socially visible products and buy well-known brands to avoid making socially incorrect purchases.
4. Reinforcement Need (passive, external): People often feel a strong motive to behave in a certain manner because that behaviour brought rewards in similar situations in the past. This is what the theory of instrumental conditioning emphasises. For example, many sales promotions, such as contests and sweepstakes, bring tangible rewards for some consumers and excitement to all the participants.

4. Affective Growth Motives: 

1. Assertion Need (active, internal): This need leads one to compete and achieve success, power, and admiration. For those with this motivation, dominance, accomplishment, and success are important. Many nutritious products are promoted on this theme (the commercial of Butter Bite biscuits).
2. Affiliation Need (active, external): People seek acceptance, affection, and warm personal relationships with others. Group membership is important to most people, and to fulfil this need, they observe group norms, including purchase decisions. Many soft drink commercials focus on this motive.
3. Identification Need (passive, internal): This motive drives people to adopt new identities and roles to increase their self-concept. People gain pleasure by adding satisfying roles and enhancing the importance of already adopted roles. Many ads focus on encouraging a good host image by using certain brands.
4. Modelling Need (passive, external): Modelling is a major learning method by which children learn to become consumers. Children imitate the behaviour of elders, and learning takes place. It also explains the tendency of group members to adopt certain behaviours approved by group members. Many ads use endorsers who are believed to be role models using certain brands to convince

Measurement of Motives:

Several classification approaches have been proposed, each of which groups motives based on a distinctive trait of interest. One such method differentiates between physiological and psychogenic motivations. Psychogenic reasons are concerned with satisfying psychological demands such as achievement, affection, or status, while physiological motives address biological requirements such as hunger, thirst, and safety. One of the most distinguishing features of psychological motives is that they may be learned. These acquired or secondary incentives have a significant impact on people.

In another approach, motives are classed as conscious versus unconscious. People are generally aware of cognitive motives, such as hunger; however, unconscious motives are often not, such as when consumers buy expensive garments for their “excellent fit” and are unaware that they satisfy a need for status.

Positive and negative motivations have also been distinguished. Positive motives entice customers to achieve their aims, whereas negative reasons steer them away from bad outcomes.

Motive Arousal:

Motivation arousal refers to what motivates people to act in certain ways. Many of an individual’s needs go unmet for long periods. The arousal of a specific set of demands is triggered by an individual’s physiological state, emotional or cognitive processes, or situational cues at any given time.

1. Physiological Arousal:

Deprivation activates any biological need, such as food, water, or other life-sustaining requirements. The majority of physiological cues are involuntary, and they frequently elicit some connected desires. For example, a person may heat water for a bath while concurrently making a mental note to purchase a geyser.

2. Emotional Arousal:

Latent needs can sometimes be triggered by a person’s thoughts or daydreams about them. This happens when customers are desperate for their unmet requirements. For example, a young man who aspires to be a cricket player may identify with Sachin Tendulkar and use commercially supported Sachin Tendulkar merchandise.

3. Cognitive Arousal:

Even random thoughts might cause arousal of needs. For example, a “home away from home” advertisement may remind a person of home, prompting him to call his wife or children.

Motivational Research:

Consumers do not purchase goods or services. Instead, they purchase motive fulfilment or problem solutions.

“motivation research” refers to qualitative marketing research used to understand consumers’ subconscious motivations influencing their behaviour. It aims to determine and grasp what customers don’t know about them. It also tries to find forces and effects on consumers’ behaviour that they may not be aware of, such as cultural elements and social forces. Conscious intentions, societal prejudices, economic variables, and fashion trends are often intertwined and compounded by these below-aware or unconscious impulses.

Motivation research comes in handy when it’s hypothesised that underlying intentions are influencing consumer behaviour.

The methodologies utilised (observation, focus groups, and in-depth interviews are three key motivation research methodologies) use disguised and indirect strategies to probe consumers’ feelings, attitudes, and emotions about a product or service without triggering defence mechanisms that can lead to inaccurate results.

1. Observation:

Consumer observation can aid in the development of ideas regarding human motivations. It’s easier to study customers at stores than in their homes, and it can be done in person or with video cameras. Video cameras are less obtrusive than a human observer. However, human observation or video cameras cannot answer all questions. To completely understand why consumers behave the way they do, observation should be supplemented by focus groups or in-depth interviews.

2. Focus Group:

Focus groups may be a very useful research tool when conducted by an experienced moderator. The group interview is primarily non-directive in nature, and the participants must learn to engage spontaneously. The group’s energy and spontaneity exhibit behaviours that disclose underlying impulses.

3. Depth Interview:

The in-depth interview is the heart and soul of motivational research. A professionally educated motivational researcher conducts a prolonged one-on-one personal interview.

The researcher heavily uses non-directive interviewing techniques. The researcher’s purpose is to induce the respondent to talk and speak and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk Rather than asking direct questions; the researcher starts the interview by discussing broader subjects. She or he probes by raising eyebrows, offering a questioning glance, quoting what the respondent has said, or questioningly repeating the respondent’s own words. These approaches do not threaten the respondent.

Throughout the interview, the researcher looks for signs that a “sensitive nerve” has been touched. Long pauses by the respondent, slips of the tongue, fidgeting, intense emotions, variations in voice pitch, facial expressions, eye movements, avoidance of questions, preoccupation with a subject, and other body language signs are some signals the researcher looks for. Later in the interview, these “sensitive” subjects and themes are the subject of more probing and exploration.

Each interview with a respondent is taped and transcribed. During the interview, the researcher notes the respondent’s behaviour, mannerisms, physical appearance, personality traits, and nonverbal communication. These notes aid the researcher in comprehending and interpreting the interview’s verbatim transcript.

Later in the interview, the researcher can employ projective techniques to elicit more feelings, imagery, and comments from the respondent. She or he instructs the respondent to tell a tale, act out a part, draw a picture, finish a sentence, or link words with a stimulus. Photographs, product samples, containers, and advertising can all be used as stimuli by the researcher.

The researcher examines hundreds of pages of precise respondent discourse to analyse the interview and look for systematic answer patterns. The researcher looks for logical flaws or apparent contradictions, contrasts direct and projective responses, and regularly notices the use of unique terms or phrases. She or he examines the interview’s explicit content and assesses its significance in connection to the implicit material. The researcher examines hundreds of pages of verbatim respondent discourse to analyse the interview and look for systematic answer patterns. The researcher looks for logical flaws or apparent contradictions, contrasts direct and projective responses, and regularly notices the use of unique terms or phrases. She or he examines the interview’s explicit content and assesses its significance in connection to the implicit material.

The research begins at the cultural level. Culture encompasses what we wear, how we eat, how we dress, what we think and feel, and the language we use. Before understanding the behaviour of individuals within the context, one must first understand the culture. Every product or service has cultural values and rules that affect how it is perceived and used or consumed.

The next stage is to investigate the distinct motives associated with the product category. What psychological requirements does the goods or service meet? Is there any social significance or implication to the product? Is the product relevant to one’s status, desires, competitive motivations, sentiments of self-esteem, or security requirements? Is there a solid symbolic importance to the product, for example? Because respondents are often unaware of or unable to divulge their motivations, some of these motives must be assumed.

The final key dimension to comprehend is the business environment, which includes competitive dynamics, brand perceptions and images, relative market shares, the function of advertising in the category, and market trends. The respondent is most likely only aware of a portion of the business environment, yet understanding the business context is crucial to correctly interpreting consumer motives and producing effective results.

As marketers have discovered, motivation research has some flaws. Consumer sample sizes are small and barely indicative of the entire market, and the conclusions are based on subjective analysis. Two distinct analysts may provide distinct reports based on the same data, each proposing a subjective explanation for the consumer behaviour under examination.