Marketing&Essay Essay(Only conclusion Part***) (Consumer Behavior)

PSYCH 335/MKTG 302

Baler Bilgin

Fall 2016

Group Project

Blind Test:

Conformity and Color Effects on Purchase Intentions

Ahmet Alper Koçak

Ahmet Burak Ural

Başak Layiç

Executive Summary

This report was commissioned to examine how people’s buying decisions are vulnerable for the impacts of well-known brands, aka Prototypes, even though the attributes of consumers might not be met by these prototypes. The following question we asked was if people would be able to give the ‘expected’ answers, when they are asked when blindfolded and after, not blindfolded. With this we aimed to see the perception of quality and how it changes, regarding color, texture and the look. As our final step we re-acted the famous Asch Experiment and would like to see whether people followed what ‘the society’ tell them what is right regardless of their own opinions.

The experiment was executed with 3 steps. In order to find out the correlation between what people think they like and what they really like first the participants were handled a questionnaire. The questions were formed to figure out if the Prototype brand, in this case Selpak, would be chosen or not. Also the survey included the questions to see what are the some expected features from toilet paper and how the consumers define quality. Then as a second step, the participants went blind folded and asked to touch the 4 different toiler paper tissues and declare the one they thought had best quality. Then the tissues’ positions were changed and the participants took the blindfolds off. Furthermore they answered which one looked like had the best quality and which one would they prefer to buy. Using Selpak, a not well known and comparably cheap brand, a toiler paper with Sudoku on and a red one we would like to see if color effects the quality image in the participants mind. In our third and final step, we re-act the Asch Study and set group of 3 people whom 2 of them working in the project and were instructed on what to do. With these we aimed to observe if people would follow the dominant answer or not in terms of purchase intentions according to conformity coming with social pressure, as the experiment states. We recorded all these steps with the camera, and interpreted the results with charts.

Introduction

The results of Asch experiments can be interpreted as the effects of reference group on individual’s opinions and on their decision-making processes. For the sake of not to face with peer pressure, people might have a tendency to melt with the dominant idea, which group states. This can be proved through a quick thought experiment. Do you think you would change your attitude when you go shopping alone or with your fashionable friends?

These kinds of social pressures do not only be captured in interactive groups but they can also be seen in people’s rooted consumer behaviors. Prototype Product, as we considered, might be an example of this idea. Prototype Product represents the first comer and/or the best example in its category. Therefore the features it has should give the idea of what consumers expect from the category itself. However do prototype products are the best or the brand image they carrying on, and how buying certain brands gives the idea of certain quality without a second thought. What if the prototype product does not meet the expectations of consumers have in their minds? In this experiment we wanted to see if people could really find the expected attributes in the prototype product -in our case Selpak- or not. We examined the wanted features that consumers seek in their toilet paper buying and wanted to see whether the prototype meet with the expectations or the other alternatives.

This also shows another factor which people have tendency to keep their searching time short. In his ‘ Testing Models of Consumer Search Using Data on Web Browsing and Purchasing Behavior’ the author Babur De los Santos states that there is a 25$ paid difference between people who only buy their products or services depending on the first results they reach, or the ones who go and look up for the additional pages. This can be interpreted as how prototype products can turn into automatic buying decisions for people who does not look further, and loosing the chance to have the same features (or maybe even more) with less costs.

Stereotyped behaviors can be harmful both for the marketers and the consumers. However by studying consumer behavior marketers can get the real information laid behind aware people’s buying behaviors without holding the idea of how people act on ’rationale’. The good news is with right amount of manipulation marketers can achieve to change attitudes and buying habits. On the other hand consumers can also be much more aware about what they choose and why dothey choose them. For instance, in our experiment we observed how the image of quality of our prototype product does not meet the quality image in people’s minds and how it lost it’s place to a much more cheaper alternative. Going with conformity might much more into one’s everyday life than one thinks it is.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis: People would not pick the prototype brand when the brand is removed from the equation. We are claiming that people are perceiving the prototype brands qualitative just because they are the first brand that comes to mind, and they did not become the prototype because of the quality of their products. We also thought the color of the product has an effect on people’s purchase intentions.

Experimental Design, Participants and Procedure

Our blind test was based on the puffiness’ and the images of four different types of toilet papers. We preferred to do the test by making people touch and look at the toilet papers rather than tasting in order to prevent any biased opinions (in terms of palatal delight) that may occur.

Our experiment tools were four different brands of toilet papers (Selpak, Mare, Renova and a Sudoku textured product) and questionnaires. Our sample size was 21, mostly consisted of strangers within Café Nero based on our campus and also our friends.

We purchased four different brands of toilet papers; Selpak and Mare from Migros at our campus, a red colored Renova and lastly a Sudoku textured toilet paper from Bun Design in Istinye Park. Selpak served as the prototypical brand we are testing, Mare was a close alternative to Selpak in terms of puffiness and texture which was way cheaper than Selpak (1/4th of Selpak’s price), Renova served as the colored alternative to help us test our color hypothesis and lastly Sudoku one was just there to appeal people in terms of texture since it was really poor on quality.

Before proceeding to the experiment itself, we gave each of our participants a questionnaire to compare the results of the questionnaire with the answers they provided us during the blind test experiment. After the questionnaire we blindfolded our participants and asked them to touch the toilet papers in front of them and tell us which of the products have the highest quality. After doing so, we shuffled the toilet papers’ places and asked them to open their eyes. Then we asked them which one seemed the best in terms of quality. Lastly we asked them which one they would buy if they were the same price.

After performing the experiment on 14 singular subjects, we proceeded to the second stage of our experiment. We put the different types of toilet papers in front of people in a group of three. In the group, two of the participants were our group members. They tried to influence the real participant’s opinions by choosing an obviously worse product over the other three. We asked the same questions from the first stage to the participants in the group experiment. After we are done with the group participants, we also handed them a questionnaire. Initially following the experiment done on 7 subjects in groups, we went ahead and compared the results.

Results

Our experiment was conducted on 21 participants in total. In the survey, we observed that Selpak has a great advantage over its competitors in terms of brand awareness. 11 out of 21 participants answered Selpak to the question “Which brand first comes to your mind when you think of toilet papers?” so our thoughts on Selpak being the prototype was proven. Also during the blind test, 10 out of 14 singular subjects answered the question “Which of these toilet papers give you the best feeling?” as Selpak. Also in the survey, 16 out of 21 people said that puffiness is important in their choice of toilet papers. But when it came to texture only 3 out of 14 singular subjects said that Selpak seems the highest quality among the 4 while 12 out of 21 people said that texture is important in their choice of toilet papers during the survey. Given the circumstances Selpak was the leading brand in terms of puffiness but it lacked the recognition in terms of texture. People who said they are using Selpak as their choice of toilet papers picked Mare and Renova by 9 and 9 votes respectively. As our third question of the survey, we asked if the price is a determinant in their choice of toilet papers and 13 out of 21 people said yes while when we asked in the experiment “Which of these toilet papers would you be willing to buy?” people tend to pick the cheapest toilet paper among the four. Then, we proceeded and did the group experiments to see if peer pressure is a determinant in people’s pick of toilet papers to prove that people are buying the prototype product in order to fit in, to comply with the majority of the population. During our experiment, the first three times as the fake participants we picked Selpak as the highest quality toilet paper among four and the participant complied with us all three times. We then switched to Mare to see if Selpak still wins the comparison or is it because of the participants’ desire to fit in and all three times, participants picked Mare after us. But when we went ahead to the second question, only 4 out of 7 participants complied and picked the same, inferior product that we chose.

So overall it appears that Selpak is indeed the highest quality in terms of softness yet people are not buying it because of it’s quality, but because of it’s brand image since participants were easily manipulated to pick an inferior product over Selpak while in a group. Moreover most people did not pick Selpak when they are asked “Which of these toilet papers would you be willing to buy?” in the end.

As to our second hypothesis, color didn’t seem to have a major affect on people’s perception of quality since only 5 out of 14 singular participants picked the colored Renova toilet paper when asked “Which one seems the highest quality?”. Also this goes for their purchase intentions too. Only 4 out of 14 singular participants and 3 out of 7 group participants said that they would go ahead and buy the red colored Renova toilet paper even though our decoy participants picked Renova over the other brands.

REFERENCES

Brand Awareness

Selpak Renova Mare Other 11 2 4 4

Purchase Decisions

Selpak Mare Renova 4 6 4

Is price a determinant in your purchase?

Yes No 13 8

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