MBA404: Consumer Behaviour Report - Toyota Marketing Psychology

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Toyota Motor Corporation's consumer behavior and marketing strategies. It begins with an overview of Toyota's products, market performance, and the significance of understanding consumer behavior. The report then critically examines Toyota's current marketing communication mix, including advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, discounts, public relations, and how these elements target consumer attitudes, group influences, culture, social classes, learning processes, and personal buying decisions. A critical analysis assesses the alignment of the marketing mix with consumer behavior findings. The report identifies ethical issues faced by Toyota. Finally, it offers three strategic recommendations to address any identified misalignments and improve Toyota's marketing effectiveness, focusing on ethical considerations and customer satisfaction. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and recommendations.

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Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Psychology for Toyota
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Executive Summary
The aim of this report is to understand about customers’ behaviour and marketing mix for the
organization of Toyota Motors Corporation. The product of automobile has selected for this
company and customers’ perspectives are provided for this purpose. Moreover, the issue that
had faced in their business related to design error of their product is also highlighted in this
report. Three strategic recommendations are provided for Toyota for dealing with such
complexities.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 Concise Overview of the Product or Service and its Market Performance......................3
2.2 Critical Examination of the Current Marketing Communication Mix for targeting
Consumers’ Attitudes, Group Influence, Culture, Social Classes, Consumers’ Learning
Process and Personal Buying Decision Making Procedures..................................................4
2.3 Critical Analysis of the fact that whether the Marketing Communication Mix is
demonstrating a Strong Alignment to the Findings...............................................................6
2.4 Three Strategic Recommendations for addressing Identified Misalignment...................8
3. Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11
Appendix..................................................................................................................................13

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1. Introduction
Consumer behaviour refers to the study of individual customers of a specific
organization, selecting, buying, using and finally disposing services, products and even ideas
for satisfying their requirements and needs (Kumar et al. 2016). Toyota Motor Corporation is
a popular multinational automotive manufacturer in Japan that provides its products to the
customers in the entire world. The most popular product of this organization of Toyota is
automobile and it brings out high profit to the business (Toyota Motor Corporation. 2020).
The report will be outlining a brief description on product of automobiles in Toyota with
details.
2. Discussion
2.1 Concise Overview of the Product or Service and its Market Performance
Toyota is responsible for providing several products, such as automobiles, engines,
luxury vehicles and commercial vehicles. The management of this specific organization has
focused on customer behaviour, so that they are able to identify the gaps and weaknesses
successfully for better effectiveness in the business (Toyota Motor Corporation. 2020). This
particular behaviour is required to understand whether the products and services are effective
for the organization and if they would receive high success with these products. The
production output of these automobiles was enormous and they had been enjoying high
success with these outputs. The automobile is a wheeled motor vehicle that is being utilized
for transportation by the users (Toyota Motor Corporation. 2020). With the high popularity of
the automobile product, they are able to gain maximum success. The operating income as
well as the total revenue of the organization in the year of 2019 were quite high as compared
to any other significant organization.

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Toyota Motor Corporation is producing vehicles under 5 distinct brands of Toyota
brand, Lexus, Daihasu, Ranz and Hino. One of the major reasons for which, Toyota has
gained maximum success in their products and services is that the cars are affordable for
customers in the entire world (Toyota Motor Corporation. 2020). The cars comprise of
controls for driving, parking, few varieties of lights and hence focusing on passenger comfort.
Few additional characteristics as well as controls are included in the vehicles for making
them increasingly reliable and complex, which involve rear reversing cameras, navigation
systems, air conditioning and even in car entertainment. With such distinct effectiveness and
efficiency in products, they are able to reduce the complexities easily and promptly to
consider different significant decisions in the business (Toyota Motor Corporation. 2020).
The market performance of the automobiles of the organization of Toyota is extremely high
and is responsible for dealing with all types of complexities and issues related to customer
satisfaction effectively.
2.2 Critical Examination of the Current Marketing Communication Mix for targeting
Consumers’ Attitudes, Group Influence, Culture, Social Classes, Consumers’ Learning
Process and Personal Buying Decision Making Procedures
There are five distinct and noteworthy elements of the marketing communication mix,
which include the advertising element, personal selling as well as direct marketing, discount
and promotion, public relation and messaging and finally direct marketing to the respective
targeted customers (See Appendix).
Advertising is the most significant element and it includes all types of messages that a
business pays to deliver through a specific medium for reaching to the targeted audience. For
the organization of Toyota Motors Corporation, they have involved advertising after
inclusion of all types of messages to their customers (Wang, Malthouse and Krishnamurthi
2015). The second element is personal selling and direct marketing, which is being eventually

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integrated with the direct marketing element. Toyota is making proper use of a sales force,
which can be considered for the component distinctly (Karjaluoto, Ulkuniemi and Mustonen
2015). The suppliers of distribution channel utilize sales people for the core purpose of
promoting products for selling to the respective trade buyers and on the contrary, the retail
sales individuals promote the core value of goods as well as services to the consumers within
the business (Shukla, Banerjee and Singh 2016). They emphasize on selling of the high end
products of automobile, which need extra assertive efforts for persuading consumers for
buying.
The next distinct element is discounts and promotions; these are same as the
advertising. They are often promoted through paid communication and the discounted price is
being offered to the buyer (Revilla-Camacho, Vega-Vázquez and Cossío-Silva 2015). It
involves coupons, rebates and percent off deals. The organization of Toyota has included this
specific element in their marketing communication mix for the product of automobile for the
core purpose of targeting the attitudes of the customers, learning process of the customers,
group influence, social classes, culture as well as personalized buying procedure of decision
making (Schaefers et al. 2016). Apart from the advertisements, the organizations are also
utilizing exterior signs and even with the in store signage to bring out customers’ attention
towards discounts for promoting coupon mailers and deals eventually. The major objective of
the communication mix involves incrementing revenue and even consideration of customers’
choices on top priority (Lemon and Verhoef 2016).
The fourth important and significant element in the marketing communication mix of
Toyota is direct marketing to their targeted customers. This direct marketing involves few
distinct aspects for personal selling and sales promotions (Sengupta, Balaji and Krishnan
2015). The organization has involved this element as it is an interactive communication with
the consumers, in which the message of the organization pursues a basic response from their

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targeted clients. The most common forms are the direct mails and emails and these distinct
messages are being sent to different consumers for promoting limited time deals with the
launching of the product. The management of Toyota is considering different aspects related
to customers’ buying attitudes and influences of the customers’ groups easily and promptly
(Todorova 2015). Moreover, they are able to consider the buying process of decision making
of different customers with the help of this directed marketing and were able to gain
knowledge about the issue faced by them (Revilla-Camacho, Vega-Vázquez and Cossío-Silva
2015).
The final element of the marketing communication mix is public relation and even
messaging. It is significantly similar to the advertising and it eventually involves different
messages that are being communicated through mass media (Jackson and Ahuja 2016).
Toyota Motors Corporation has been able to include and understand the entire scenario and
customers’ choices completely and hence becoming successful in eradicating the major
ethical concerns and issues related to controlling of messages (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). As
a result, there had been a brand exposure in the business.
2.3 Critical Analysis of the fact that whether the Marketing Communication Mix is
demonstrating a Strong Alignment to the Findings
Marketing is a significant business functionality, which involves research and
development of the products and subsequent distribution pricing and processes with proper
promotion and communication (Karjaluoto, Ulkuniemi and Mustonen 2015). This
communication mix eventually refers to specified methodologies that are being utilized for
promoting the organization and its products to the respective targeted consumers. The
marketing communication mix is responsible for providing maximum effectiveness and
efficiency to the business for ensuring that all types of complexities and issues are resolved
successfully. The respective risk of losing control in the business could also be considered on

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top priority and the respective business is able to deal with such situations eventually (Patti et
al. 2017). A strong alignment is being included in the business and as a result, proper brand
awareness is included for reaching to a wide audience easily and promptly.
The organization of Toyota Motors Corporation has become extremely effective for
building their customers’ trust and hence high popularity and effectiveness is included in the
business subsequently (Kitchen and Burgmann 2015). The management of this specific
organization has included five distinct elements in their marketing communication mix,
which include the advertising element, personal selling as well as direct marketing, discount
and promotion, public relation and messaging and finally direct marketing to the respective
targeted customers. It is a short term tactical tool that is solely responsible for stimulating the
quicker increments in sales after targeting the promotional incentives for the specific product
of automobile in Toyota Motors Corporation (Muñoz-Leiva, Porcu and Barrio-García 2015).
Advertisement is yet another significant and vital element of the marketing
communication mix and as a result, they are also capable to communicate with different
customers easily and promptly for better execution of business processes and operations in
Toyota and also increasing the chance of effective solution in product of automobile (Kuang-
Jung et al. 2015). They have also allocated high amounts of their marketing budget to the
advertisement functionality. Hence, they comprise of a complete control on the delivered
message and proper placement is being provided to the business. Advertisement is
responsible for directly getting the word out of the business of Toyota to ensure that the
product of this specific company is extremely popular and significant for each and every
customer or client (Karjaluoto, Ulkuniemi and Mustonen 2015).
With the help of public relations, the organizational management of Toyota Motors
Corporation, they have been able to involve credibility in the business processes and have

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also found out a cheaper methodology to reach out to several customers from the entire world
(Petersen, Kushwaha and Kumar 2015). The targeted audiences are the main customers of
this organization and they have ensured that their publicity is being achieved through the
significant media. Personal selling of the automobile product is also being included in the
organization of Toyota Motors Corporation and as a result, they have been able to be highly
interactive with involvement of several distinct communication within the organization and
their respective customers. Toyota had been able to become excellent for communication of
detailed and complex product information as well as features and the respective relationships
could be built up for closing the sale and hence making their product a significant one
(Kitchen and Burgmann 2015).
In spite of having such distinct advantages and features of the marketing
communication mix, there had been a misalignment in the processes and operations of Toyota
Motors Corporation in their business. There had been few ethical issues and complexities,
present in the business and they were unable to deal with these issues. One of such major and
distinct issue was faced during designing of their automobile product.
2.4 Three Strategic Recommendations for addressing Identified Misalignment
The organization of Toyota Motor Corporation should follow some of the most
distinct and important strategic recommendations in their business for reducing the effect of
the identified misalignment in the business (Karjaluoto, Ulkuniemi and Mustonen 2015).
Although, they have been following different policies of CSR, the overall foundation of the
business should be considered on top priority. During the beginning of 2010 there had been
loss of ethics in Toyota and the multi acquisition and criticism eventually lacks subsequent
initiative and timely response. It has also attributed the safety issue to the different floor mats
and then denied any kind of defective vehicles design for the automobiles (Todorova 2015).
It not only affected their business profit, but also to the brand name and they had to face

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major issues due to such distinct ethical concerns. Three strategic recommendations for
addressing this type of misalignment of their products and services are provided in the
following paragraphs:
i) Involvement of Corporate Social Responsibility Policies: The first and the
foremost strategic recommendation for the organization of Toyota Motor Corporation to
address their misalignment of organizational ethics is involvement of different policies of
corporate social responsibility (Sengupta, Balaji and Krishnan 2015). It is a self regulating
business model, which helps an organization to be socially accountable for the stakeholders
and itself. It also aims in contributing to the societal objectives of the business and hence they
would be able to reduce the complexities and issues related to product designing and
marketing. With this type of ethical step, they would be able to include few distinct aspects
related to decision making procedure.
ii) Increasing Level of Skilled Labour: The second important and significant strategic
recommendation for the organization of Toyota Motor Corporation to address their
misalignment of organizational ethics is increasing the overall level of skilled labour. The
organizational management should increment their skilled labours, since it would be
important for them to reduce the pressure of different workers (Shukla, Banerjee and Singh
2016). It is extremely unethical to put pressure on a limited number of employees to increase
productivity and hence ensuring that better effectiveness and efficiency is being gained under
every circumstance. As a result, the employees would be highly motivated and they would be
able to provide maximum productivity without any type of issue.
iii) Involvement of Employees in Decision Making Process: The next significant and
noteworthy strategic recommendation for the organization of Toyota Motor Corporation to
address their misalignment of organizational ethics would be proper involvement of different

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employees in the respective decision making procedure (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). Since the
organization has faced issues related to design of the automobile parts, it would be extremely
important and significant for them to ensure that relevant information is being gathered after
discussing with the employees and workers. It would help them to select from few
alternatives and the company would be benefitted under every circumstance. Proper and
relevant action should also be undertaken, so that the consequences are understood by the
employees.
3. Conclusion
Therefore, a conclusion could be drawn that consumer behaviour is the significant
observation of groups, organizations and individuals as well as every activity related to
purchasing, utilization as well as disposal of services and goods like behavioural responses,
which precede or follow the respective activities. This above provided report has properly
outlined a detailed analysis of consumer behaviour for the product of automobile for Toyota
Motor Corporation.

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References
Jackson, G. and Ahuja, V., 2016. Dawn of the digital age and the evolution of the marketing
mix. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 17(3), pp.170-186.
Karjaluoto, H., Ulkuniemi, P. and Mustonen, N., 2015. The role of digital channels in
industrial marketing communications. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
Kitchen, P.J. and Burgmann, I., 2015. Integrated marketing communication: Making it work
at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy.
Kuang-Jung, C., Mei-Liang, C., Chu-Mei, L. and Chien-Jung, H., 2015. Integrated marketing
communication, collaborative marketing, and global brand building in Taiwan. International
Journal of Organizational Innovation, 7(4).
Kumar, A., Bezawada, R., Rishika, R., Janakiraman, R. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. From social
to sale: The effects of firm-generated content in social media on customer behavior. Journal
of Marketing, 80(1), pp.7-25.
Lemon, K.N. and Verhoef, P.C., 2016. Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of marketing, 80(6), pp.69-96.
Muñoz-Leiva, F., Porcu, L. and Barrio-García, S.D., 2015. Discovering prominent themes in
integrated marketing communication research from 1991 to 2012: a co-word analytic
approach. International Journal of Advertising, 34(4), pp.678-701.
Patti, C.H., Hartley, S.W., van Dessel, M.M. and Baack, D.W., 2017. Improving integrated
marketing communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of
marketing communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.