Evaluation of alternatives and the purchase
Reducing the awareness set to a smaller group of options for serious consideration is the first step in evaluation. The awareness set passes through a screening filter to produce an evoked set: those products or services that the buyer seriously considers before making a purchase. In a sense, the evoked set is a shortlist of options for careful evaluation. The screening process may use different choice criteria from those used when making the final choice and the number of choice criteria used is often fewer. In an organizational buying situation, each DMU member may use different choice criteria. One choice criterion used for screening may be price. For example, transportation companies whose services are below a certain price level may form the evoked set. Final choice may then depend on criteria such as reliability, reputation and flexibility. The range of choice criteria used by customers will be examined in more detail later in this chapter.
Consumers' level of involvement is a key determinant of the extent to which they evaluate a brand. Involvement is the degree of perceived relevance and personal importance accompanying the brand choice. When a purchase is highly involving, the consumer is more likely to carry out extensive evaluation. High involvement purchases are likely to include those incurring high expenditure or personal risk, such as car or home buying. In contrast, low involvement situations are characterized by simple evaluations about purchases. Consumers use simple choice tactics to reduce time and effort rather than maximize the consequences of the purchase. For example, when purchasing baked beans or breakfast cereals, consumers are likely to make quick choices rather than agonize over the decision. Research by Laurent and Kapferer has identified four factors that affect involvement.
Self-image: involvement is likely to be high when the decision potentially affects one's self- image. Thus purchase of jewellery, clothing and cosmetic surgery invokes more involvement than choosing a brand of soap or margarine.
Perceived risk: involvement is likely to be high when the perceived risk of making a mistake is high. The risk of buying the wrong house is much higher than buying the wrong chewing gum, because the potential negative con sequences of the wrong decision are higher (see Exhibit 3.2). Risk usually increases with the price of the purchase.
Social factors: when social acceptance is dependent upon making a correct choice, involvement is likely to be high. Executives may be concerned about how their choice of car affects their standing among their peers.
Hedonistic influences: when the purchase is capable of providing a high degree of pleasure, involvement is usually high. The choice of restaurant when on holiday can be highly involving since the difference between making the right or wrong choice can severely affect the amount of pleasure associated with the experience.
The distinction between high involvement and low involvement situations is important because the variations in how consumers evaluate products and brands lead to contrasting marketing implications. The complex evaluation in the high involvement situation suggests that marketing managers need to provide a good deal of information about the positive consequences of buying. Print media may be appropriate in the high involvement case since they allow detailed and repeated scrutiny of information. Car advertisements often provide information about the comfort, reliability and performance of the model. The salesforce also has an important role to play in the high involvement situation by ensuring that the customer is aware of the important attributes of the product and correctly evaluates their consequences.
For low involvement situations, the evaluation of alternatives is much more rudimentary and many purchases are made simply on impulse. In this case, attempting to gain 'top-of-mind awareness' through advertising, and providing positive reinforcement (e.g. through sales promotion) to gain trial may be more important than providing masses of information about the consequences of buying the brand. Furthermore, as this is of little interest, the consumer is not actively seeking information but is a passive receiver. Consequently, advertising messages should be short with a small number of key points, but with high repetition to enhance learning. Television or radio may be the best media in this instance, since they facilitate the passive reception of messages. Also, they are ideal media for the transmission of short, highly repetitive messages. Advertising of many consumer products such as soap powder, toothpaste, tissue paper etc. follow this format.
Exhibit 3.2 This advertisement for Kentucky Fried Chicken plays on a sense of fear and the perceived risk of personal harm in a situation; it implies that the way to reduce risk is to eat chicken