Consumer Behavior Project: Social Media and Marketing Strategies

This project examines consumer behavior within the context of the bottled water industry, specifically focusing on The Aqua Containers, a company introducing organic bamboo bottles. The project begins with an introduction to consumer behavior, defining the concept and emphasizing its im...Read More

Consumer Behaviour -
Project 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Analysis and Validity of Statement........................................................................................1
Importance of understanding consumer attitudes for marketers............................................3
Importance of Social Media and its influencers.....................................................................5
Range of social media channels for consumer demographics................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour can be referred to as the concept involving two main terms. Hereby,
consumer is regarded as the individual who is the end user of organisational offerings while
behaviour can be defined as the pattern in which individuals react to a particular situation
(AlAwadhi and Al-Daihani, 2019). Thus, consumer behaviour can be said to be the manner in
which end users behave within a specific situation. It is important for each and every corporate
sector to gain comprehensive knowledge of matters associated with consumer behaviour in order
to make anticipations regarding their decision making. Through the stipulation of effective
marketing strategies, an industry is able to analyse and segment the market. This helps in
ascertaining of target audience, thereby determining who the end users would be.
In this regard, the present report is based on The Aqua Contains which is a renowned
water bottle manufacturer. The entity is now coming up with organic bottles made from Bamboo
and containing sanipolymer to filter water. This is done with a view to meet the health related
demand of customers across the globe. The project covers understanding of consumer attitudes
within the confines of bottled water sector. Along with this, it comprises of a variety of social
media channels and their importance in marketing. Lastly, the suitability of these channels for
each consumer demographic is given.
Analysis and Validity of Statement
Social media can be referred to as a computer or mobile based technology which is keen
on exchange of views, opinions and thoughts on information by way of development of virtual
networking as well as community (Ansari and et. al., 2019). In terms of design, social media can
be deciphered as an internet based technology which provides its users with rapid form of
electronic correspondence of information. Hereby, the information may consist of personal
details of individuals, important documentation, video, image and so on. In this regard, it can be
seen that users participate on this platform owing to a number of reasons, one of the most
important of which is to carry out leisure activities. These include usage of social media for the
purpose of instant messaging.
In the light of statement, it has been determined that social media originally emerged as a
means to set interaction with friends, family members, acquaintances etc. However, with the
passage and evolution of time, it can be seen that it is being increasingly used by corporate giants
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with a view to capitalise upon this over popular and commonly used communication channel
(Bouwman and et. al., 2018). Social media provides businesses with the scope to extensively
reach out to their customer base with a view to set an effective communication with them. This is
a platform that has the power of connecting people across the globe within a fraction of second.
Across the global periphery, it has a base of 3 million users who are using either using desktop or
mobile social media to exchange personal or corporate information.
Social media has largely helped small and big corporate houses to make use of the tech-
enabled activities like photo or video sharing, blogging, business networking, reviewing and
many more to gain success and growth in the long run. It is regarded to be a crucial as well as an
indispensable tool for companies as they make use of this platform for finding and engaging with
its customer base, thereby driving its sale volume by a significant manner. Hereby,
communication is set by businesses with people across the globe in order to communicate them
about the features, USP and creativity involved in products and services offered by entity at
market place (Social Media Marketing for Businesses, 2019). Thus, social media hereby tends to
serve as a promotional and advertising technique that is capable of communicating information
to millions of users at any point of time. This makes customer engagement an easier task for
companies across the globe. Organisations captivate people via the usage of strong and impactful
content that can appeal to individuals and persuade them to have a consumption experience of
the offerings rendered by a corporation.
Social media has also inflated the usage of e-commerce sites by customers, thereby
providing assistance to business organizations in increasing their sales and profits. Social media
is also used by corporate giants to distribute timely, targeted and exclusive sales vouchers as well
as coupons to potential customers (Iankova and et. al., 2019). Also, development of healthy
relationship with people take place via loyalty programs that are largely linked to social media
channels.
As per the report of small businesses across the globe, 77.6% of them are making use of
social media to reach out to customers in a significant and appealing manner and promote their
offerings among them. Further, 41% of small business entities use this platform to drive their
sales (SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STATISTICS, 2019). Further, it has been ascertained that
approximately 54% of the overall social browsers across the globe make usage of social media
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for researching about products offered by businesses (45 Essential Social Media Marketing
Statistics for 2019, 2019).
The Aqua Containers would also make use of social media for promoting their new
organic bottles. Social media is a large marketing platform having millions of users who will
simultaneously gain knowledge of the features of the new bottles and get persuaded to make a
purchase. As a result of usage of this bottle, users would get access to filtered water which would
be purified owing to the coating of zinc having sanipolymer in it.
Thus, it can be said that the statement is valid and justified on the basis of above
stipulated discussion.
Importance of understanding consumer attitudes for marketers
Consumer attitudes can be said to be an integration of beliefs, behavioural intention and
feelings (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017). All of these elements are seen in an
accumulated manner as they are largely interrelated to each other. These together exert influence
upon the manner in which consumer reacts to a product or service offered by organisation.
Consumer attitude can be regarded as being a facet which has the capacity to act both as
obstacle and advantage for the marketing manager of a company. In this regard, deciding to
avoid or take less consideration of attitudes of consumers in relation to a product or service,
during the time of development of a marketing strategy may tend to imply limited growth as well
as success for an enterprise (Tuten and Solomon, 2017). On the contrary, perceptive marketing
managers take advantage of their comprehensibility of consumers’ attitudes to make predictions
regarding the behavioural pattern of consumer. Such kind of knowledgeable marketing managers
possess the ability to differentiate between the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour while integration
all of them together for the development of an effective marketing strategy.
Consumer attitude in marketing terminology can be defined as the procedure of
evaluation of an organizational offering developed with the passage of time (Albarran, 2013).
This attitude satisfies a personal motive and simultaneously impacts upon the shopping as well as
buying behavior of a consumer. In this regard, the main constraint faced by a marketing manager
of any company is to understand the reason behind the existence of a specific consumer attitude
towards a product or service developed by the company.
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The attitudes of consumers are created as an outcome of an affirmative or adverse
personal experiences gained by them during their life. In this relation, external forces exert
influence upon the manner in which an individual perceive a commodity (Chang, Yu and Lu,
2015). Thus, consumer attitudes can be regarded as a learned disposition for proceeding towards
or against a specific product or service offered by company at market place. With respect to
marketing, attitudes of consumers are regarded as the filters in the light of which each
commodity is scrutinized.
Katz Functional Theory of Attitudes
This is a theory which tends to provide a detailed explanation of the functional motives of
consumers’ attitudes. As per the assumption of this theory, there are 4 types of functions of
attitudes whereby each and every function tends to provide an overview of the source as well as
purpose a specific attitude may have for consumers (Godey and et. al., 2016). Gaining
comprehensibility of the attitude of individuals is the route map to bringing about positive
alterations within them. Water bottle manufacturing sector is one of the fastest growing and
evolving sectors across the globe with a variety of products pertaining to it. It is important for
firms pertaining to this sector to gain knowledge of consumer attitudes with a view to plan and
control the marketing activities in an effective manner. This is aimed at development of healthy
relations with customers with a view to retain them for long period of time in future context.
The 4 functions pertaining to functional theory of Katz are explained as below:-
Utilitarian function: This is regarded to be one of the most crucial and renowned
functions devised by Katz. This function works on the principle given by ethical theory of
utilitarianism which is that a person takes decision which implies greatest good for all (Stephen
and et. al., 2019). Thus, consumers’ attitudes are based upon the respective function when their
decision revolves around the extent of pleasure or pain it gets along with it.
Value-expressive function: This is applied by an individual when a consumer intends to
base their attitude towards an industrial or organizational offering on the basis of their central
values or self conceptualization (Wang and Kim, 2017). Hereby, the reflection which a certain
commodity has upon consumer is the main concern behind a person embracing respective
function. It means that this function is undertaken in case consumers accept an item with the
intent of having an impact upon their overall social identity.
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Ego defensive function: This is a function which is generally employed whereby
consumers feel that usage of a commodity may lead to comprise with their self image. This kind
of attitude possessed by consumers is difficult to be altered by a marketing manager (Sajid,
2016).
Knowledge function: This is a function that persists within personnel when they are
careful regarding provision of a structure to their attitude towards an industrial or organizational
offering. It is relatively easier for a marketing manager to alter this type of attitude by making
use of fact-based comparison along with realistic statistics within a marketing communication
strategy.
By gaining knowledge of the consumer attitudes and the reasons underlying behind them,
it becomes easy for the marketing manager of a corporation to take key decisions related to
establishment of effective promotional strategies. This implies that gaining comprehensibility of
consumer attitudes makes it easier for firms to conduct planning and monitoring of marketing
activities in an effectual manner. It is significant for The Aqua Containers to gain knowledge of
the reason behind any particular consumer behaviour towards the bottles manufactured by them
in order to devise effective marketing strategies. This will assist the enterprise in inflating the
profits associated with organic bottles and thereby enhancing its market share.
Importance of Social Media and its influencers
Social media acts as an effective tool for organisations pertaining to each and every
sector as it provides them with the opportunity to build healthy relationship with customers. This
helps the entity in communicating the features and star attractions of products to people so that
they can be persuaded to make a purchase. Almost each and every corporate sector makes use of
social media with a view to enhance customer engagement (Ketonen-Oksi, Jussila and
Kärkkäinen, 2016). In this regard, many companies even make use of influencers to boost their
content posted on social media accounts. Influencers are acknowledged to be personnel having
who possess an extensive fan following and are usually trusted by people at large.
In context of social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn
etc., they can aid in assurance of success of a post, tweet, event or product by lending their
authority to it, in turn influencing the beliefs and opinions of others. Marketing through the usage
of social influencer is regarded to an effective strategy for corporations as the chances of its
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failure as negligible or nil. It is a tactic which is used by entities operating within any sector to
sell their offerings to people persisting at market place (Tuten and Solomon, 2017).
(Source: Influencers help in building Brand Trust, 2019)
There are some commonly used ways through which brands can capitalise upon
influencers on social media. One of the most common ways in this relation is regarded to be
product promos. Yet another way to make use of influencers is through usage of hashtags.
Influencer involvement can provide aid in making the viral campaigns popular among people
across the globe. Some companies even carry out influencer marketing through making them
Brand Ambassadors (9 of the Most Attractive Benefits of Social Influencer Marketing, 2019). All
of these ways provide aid to a company in reaching out to maximum number of persons and
influencing them to purchase the organisational offerings.
Social media and its influencers would prove to be an effective strategy for The Aqua
Containers while launching organic bottles. Both the ways of marketing are quite strong and
effective in gaining the attention of large base of audience at any point of time and thereby
communicating the message or features of the product to them. Once the people get convinced
about the quality and features of these organic bottles, they would start purchasing it. This would
provide The Aqua Containers with the opportunity to inflate its market reach and thereby, its
revenues related to sale of organic bottles.
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Illustration 1: Influencers help in building Brand Trust

Range of social media channels for consumer demographics
There are a number of social media channels that are used by entities with a view to
promote and advertise their products and services among people. In this regard, bottled water
sector consists of wide range of companies which enhances the level of rivalry. With respect to
this, it is seen that organisations pertaining to the concerned industry select social media
channels for reaching out to people in accordance with the consumer demographic on the basis
of which segmentation is done by marketer (Thomas and Woodside, 2016). In this relation,
consumer demographics are regarded to be categories of population which are formed on the
basis of aspects such as age, gender, income, race, mobility etc. Some of the social media
channels along with the consumer demographic that The Aqua Containers would target to
enhance the reach of organic bottles, are explained as follows:-
Facebook
Facebook is a platform whereby people visit to relax and chat with friends in order to
have a pleasurable time (Shawky and et. al., 2019). In this regard, this social media channel can
be linked to the consumer demographic named age. This can be said on the basis of the fact that
it is the most widely and commonly used platform among all the age groups. Having a base of
1.6 billion monthly users across the globe, this is the biggest social media platform.
(Source: Facebook Usage Statistics, 2019)
Illustration 4: Facebook Page Statistics of Bottled Water Companies
(Source: Facebook Page Statistics of Bottled Water Companies, 2019)
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Ill
ustration 1: Facebook Usage Statistics

Over the course of time, many bottled water companies have leveraged the platform of
Facebook for conducting marketing and generating awareness among people about their offering.
Thus, it can be said that Aqua Containers can capitalise upon Facebook to reach out to customers
belonging to all age groups. This would aid the firm in communicating the unique feature of
these organic bottles to people effectively and gaining appreciation from them for taking
initiatives to maintain people’s health.
LinkedIn
This is regarded to be one of the most professional social media channel which is used by
business organisations to enter into a corporate dialogue with personnel pertaining to same
sector. This platform provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. It's also
great for posting jobs and general employee networking. This social media channel can be linked
to the consumer demographic named income level. Generally, this platform is used by people
having an income over $75000 to build corporate networking.
(Source: LinkedIn Usage Statistics, 2019)
Thus, this social media platform would serve as yet another target for The Aqua
Containers to create awareness among business persons about its organic bottles. Such personnel
can order the same in bulk for the purpose of meetings, product launches or any other large
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I
llustration 1: LinkedIn Usage Statistics

corporate event. When large corporate events would use these bottles, the respective firm would
also benefit from word of mouth marketing.
From above analysis, it can be said that different social media channels are targeted by
bottled water sector as per the consumer demographic on the basis of which they segment the
market. This provides assistance to water bottle manufacturers like The Aqua Containers in
developing marketing strategies which have the capability to cater to the needs and demands of
consumers and retain them for a long period of time.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion, the products and services are designed keeping in mind
the needs and wants of consumers at market place. Further, it has been analysed that it is
important for marketing manager of an organisation to determine and analyse consumer attitudes
for effective planning as well as control of marketing activities. In addition to this, it has been
acknowledged that social media is an important tool which has evolved from being a leisure
activity of individuals to being regarded as the most important marketing technique for small and
large corporate houses. Apart from this, it is recognised that bottled water sector is an industry
whereby the needs and attitudes of people keep on changing in accordance with the latest and
emerging market trends. Thus, it is inferred that by gaining comprehensibility of consumer
attitudes within the concerned corporate sector, an entity can decide the social media channel to
be used for each consumer demographic.
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