• continued from previous slide
• Possible-self: this is what the person could become with effort
• Extended-self: is how a person uses products [mainly possessions and experiences] and brands to communicate his/her image to society.
• Multiple-selves: A number of scholars suggest that people have more than oneself and that they are often revealed in different social settings [e.g., you may behave different in a place of worship than a sporting arena].
• Undesired-self: this is what a person wishes to avoid becoming

The self-concept according to Babin & Harris (2009, p. 116) refers to: Quote: the totality of thoughts and feelings that an individual has about him/herself …the way a person defines or gives meaning to his/her own identity.”

Some refer to involvement as product involvement, others suggest that generally it is the customer not the product that is involved* and therefore customer involvement is a more accurate descriptor. It should be noted that customer involvement varies according to the product, for example purchasing a snack bar on impulse is quite different to purchasing  a new car. Customers can be involved with the organisation [relationships] and with the market [influence other consumers]. Therefore, involvement with all the COMP factors should be considered.

*In marketing there are always exceptions – for example when the product has a high-people- service component [e.g., nursing] or an animate product like a family pet [e.g., dog]. 

Involvement varies according to the situation, as this wine example demonstrates, however, product familiarity also influences involvement – for example – although many students have purchased a bottle of wine there are many that have never and they are unfamiliar withe the buying process.

For many people, purchasing a FMCG product like Baked Beans may be low involvement – routine decision, however, if you were the parent of a child with food allergies then the level of involvement would increase.

Imagine, you are a member of the Ford Mustang vintage car club, you attend the meetings and you are an active member, your car is your pride and joy. How would this be different to your everyday car – a Hyundai i30?

Imagine you are purchasing an established home and it is a serious investment and years of repayments – consumers would estimate the risks.

How would this influence involvement?

Should the real estate agent be mindful of the level of involvement for individual home buyers? 

In a previous slide we introduced the concept of ‘COMP involvement’. And it is the marketing practitioner’s task to manage the customer and the organisation and the influence of involvement. This will include internal and external marketing communication.

How would the level of involvement influence the design and development of product promotional brochures?

Would customer involvement increase due to an episode of dissatisfaction and when a complaint is made?

Imagine the house or the car and then consider the products that are purchased as a consequence of the purchase – think insurance and all the maintenance related products. Also imagine you are building a new home and you are engaing with an an architect and a builder –  in many ways you are co-producing the home and your involvement is extensive – see the e-book for more on the grades of involvement.

Some product [e.g., wine as a present] may have high involvement, but when you consider it against all the different types of product decisions it is soon forgotten. However, as you can see from the photograph when someone supports a team it is often multi-generational, and as people do not change their team often it is a type of enduring involvement. The same may apply to brands of cars and we can see with the demise of Holden in Australia there is often a type of involvement that is related to nostalgia.

One way in which involvement influences an organisation is through recommendations. Sometimes people are advocates for a product or brand.

We tend to think of services as ‘acts, deeds, or efforts’ by the organisation, however, one of the key determinants of satisfaction is the involvement of customers and the services of recommendation and repeat purchasing that they provide to an organisation. Services are two-way.

There are two importan words on this slide – enculturation and acculturation. In brief, enculturation refers to learning one’s own culture and acculturation refers to learning another culture. However, marketing practitioners in multicultural marketplaces should always question their world view as enculturation often leads to a scotoma [or inability to see another view]. Also it is important to realise that new employees are often enculturated to a previous organisation and need a process of acculturation to ensure the organisational philosophy and culture are adopted.

An exemplar of nurturing a culture is the Ritz Hotel in London. Of course a culture starts at the top and this is true for the Ritz. However, there are often ‘cultural champions’ who manage staff and are constant communicators of the organisational philosphy and nurture the staff. In this picture we see brothers Louis and Michael De Cozar who are cultural champions. Michael is the concierge and directs a large front-stage staff and attends to the needs of the guests.

Earlier we studied the marketing concept – the marketing concept becomes a culture through the repetition of a philosophy and actions. As we now know the marketing concept is customer centric, however, this does not ignore the needs of the organisation. At this stage it may pay to revisit profitable exchange relationships – often if you search the web you find statements like ‘the customer is king’ ‘the customer is always right’ and if this is you you may have to consider these statements a little more as it may confuse your staff.

In this slide we list some of the qualities of a marketing culture and ask you to think culture as in horticulture always nurturing and seeking improvements and taking an holistic view.

When we think of organisations with a marketing culture they are both collaborative internally and competitive externally. In a conversation with a former marketing practitioner of a large well known but now extinct business he stated that ‘the people were always competing for attention and resources and it was a culture where personal careers dominated every decision’… ‘It is now obvious why the failed so spectacularly’.

The word product comes from the Latin productum – it means to deliver, to bring forth, the result – the sum of the parts – the sum of efforts. It may be worthwhile to consider related words [e.g., production, produce, producer]. It is interesting to note how the word product in marketing is consistent/similar to product in mathematics – the sum or total. In marketing, a product is the sum of the qualities. And just as in mathematics the equation can have positive and/or negative elements within the equation

Some may recognise this line from the Life of Brian, however, I employ the acquaduct, viaduct, and airconditioning duct examples to emphasise a point. 

A product such as this fine bottle of wine is considered a quality wine, and it retails for around $1500 per bottle. It is judged as a quality wine as wine experts assess the wine qualities. However, the fact that it is a quality wine does not mean that everyone will purchase this wine – a product can be viewed as a quality product but not be of value to every consumer.

The list of consumption qualities that consumers search for is interesting, few products have all 8. You may notice that Contiki and Kiwi Experience products are often employed as an exemplar – the reason is that these products have more identifiable qualities than most products. What you may also notice is that when we are assessing qualities prior to purchase it is often the risks associated with product qualities. For that reason risks and qualities could be considered two sides of the same coin.

Although we have identified 8 consumption qualities as we continue we will discover that from an organisational perspective the literature categorises qualities as functional, technical, relational, and place qualities – the what, how, why and where.

Value is a preferred state. Wen we talk about value we are discussing a preferred state. The term value is employed in 3 ways. They are all related but it is worthwhile to be able to differentiate between the different meanings.

Value¹ – as in a value¹ or values¹ – a person’s principles, beliefs or standards; a person’s judgment of what is preferred or important in their life; as in a philosophy. In day to day conversation people of say that something conflicts with their values¹ . Widing, Sheth, Pulendran, Mittal, and Newman (2003) propose a hierarchy of values¹ you will see that each value¹ having an influence on product selection:

• Human [values¹ that all people share]
• Cultural [values¹ that we share with some people]
• Personal [values¹ that an individual has]

Earlier when we were discussing needs we saw how humans have similar needs, human values are similar to Maslow’s extended hierarchy of needs. We then look at how members of a cuture or a sub-culture have similar needs [e.g., members of a golf club], however, at another level we are all individuals and needs are personal, for example if you have a sibling you would realise how much you have in common, but on some issues you differ.

Value² –  is value for money – the outcome of a calculative process where the total qualities [what we get] and the total consumption costs [what we give] are calculated. There is also perceived value when we estimate what we are likely to get and give – a process that consumers do every time they are considering entering an exchange.

Previously, we stated that value is a preferred state. When we talk about value regarding a purchase – product value – we are discussing the relationship between the qualities we recieved and the costs incurred. We refer to a product being of value when the relationship between the qualities received and the costs incurred represents a preferred outcome.

Value is subjective, however, often people share the same preferences – a group of people that share the same preferences is referred to as a market segment. Understanding product value is important as this is the basis of developing a market segmentation strategy. There are many ways to segment the market – but the one thing they share in common is product value.

Marketing practitioners devote considerable effort to market segmentation, firstly they identify the basis of segmenting the market, develop profiles for the various segments, identify the attractiveness of the segment and the organisation’s ability to compete within the segment, identify a segment positioning strategy, and then include this strategy when designing and developing the marketing plan and the relevant marketing action plans.

In Arrowtown in New Zealand there is a beautifully presented store that caters to knitters and quilters, I have to come clean here – I am not a quilter or a knitter, but I do recognise when retailers have designed and developed a clear segmentation strategy.

Sometimes when we look at segmentation strategies we find it hard to go beyond the traditional demographic segmentation techniques, A visit to the caravan and camping show suggest that sometimes the segmentation is about values and lifestyle and crosses the entire family life cycle.

We often assume that branding is a new phenomenon, however, it is an ancient practice. According to Eckhardt and Bengtsson (2010) the first evidence of branding was uncovered by archaeologists in India, dated around 2,000 years BC and the first evidence of branding as packaging, an embossed seal, was uncovered by archaeologists, working in the ancient region of Mesopatamia [now Iraq] is dated around 600 years BC.

A brand is a longitudinal representation of the unique product value proposition of an organisation’s products [or lack off].