2.1 PSYCHOLOGY CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY Relationship between marketing and psychology The link between marketing and psychology is very strong. To effectively build connections with consumers it is necessary to understand their and the motivation/s behind consumers’ decisions. That’s why marketing managers have turned to behavioural sciences , in particular social psychology, to understand the complexities of consumers’ choices. behaviour purchasing 1 An individual’s preferences and purchasing decisions are influenced by many factors including age, education, socio-economic status, peers and geographical location. By taking these factors – and many others – into consideration , advertisers are then able to create campaigns and messages that can influence the behaviour of target consumers favourably. 1 2 Emotional marketing Our choices are far from being rational and emotions influence our decisions very much. This decisional process is studied and by emotional marketing, which links a brand to human emotions. However, not all emotions are the same. The ones advertisers are interested in are those which can make us act and buy a product instead of another. exploited To prove emotions do influence purchasing choices, some researchers made an experiment: they manipulated the background design of a website to see if and how it would consumers’ product choices. Participants were asked to choose between two products in one category. The researchers found that visitors who had been exposed to a background money (green with pennies on) looked at price information longer than those who had been exposed to a background safety. Similarly, consumers who had been exposed to a comfort-inspired background looked at comfort information longer than the others, thus proving that it is possible to influence the decisional process of a consumer. affect alluding to hinting at indeed MORE Behavioural sciences: disciplines dealing with the subject of human actions and including the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology and the behavioural aspects of other sciences. 1 DO What other factors can you think of? 1 DO Can you consciously think of a product/service you bought because of its ad? 2