just change the topic.

Consumer Behaviour.

Name

Institution

Consumer Behaviour: Beats.

Consumer behaviour can hence be described as the study of the organizations, individuals or groups together with all, the activities that in one way or another are associated with the buying or the disposal of goods and services while putting into account the emotional, behavioral and mental responses of the consumers that come after and before these activities. This essay is going to be describing some of these activities in regards to consumer behaviour in the purchase of the products of the brand ‘Beats’. Using this brand as the subject, there will be a description of the target market consumer profile, the analysis of the in store experience offered by the product brand and finally, an analysis of the online presence that has been set by the brand. Beats is a subsidiary of the larger company Apple Inc. The brand specializes in the production of audio products but has also expanded to the online music market with a subscription service known as Beats Music. The company was founded by Dr. Dre, a music producer and a professional rapper who also held the position of chairman of music label Interscope Geffen A. & M. The company was then bought out in the year 2014 by Apple Inc. for a record breaking 3 billion dollars deal including cash and stocks. The largest acquisition in the history of Apple Inc. (Blackwell, 2006)

Target Market Consumer Profile.

The first internal factor that affect the decision of the customers is the motivation. This refers to the push factors that will justify the consumer’s need to purchase and they include when the company does appropriate promotion. The second internal factor is the perception. The customers of Beats have hold the perception that buying the product is in support of the music industry since the product was developed by a music strongman, this is the perception that the brand feeds on even by retaining the name. The third is the need where the customers of the product are mostly music lovers. This makes them need a product that will be able to appropriately satisfy that need. The fourth internal influence is the attitudes of people towards the product. The brand became revolutionary because the market received it positively and their attitudes towards its products has never changed. Finally, the personality of the people also affects the actions of the targeted markets. People have different personalities and these influences how they purchase, what they purchase and for what purpose, for this reason, beats market is also affected by these personality characteristics (Adajewski, M., 2009)

There are a variety of external influences that also affect the target market of Beats. The first is the economic state. Beats products in a way are more costly that other Chinese products that flood the market, in the case of economic difficulties, the customer base of these brand will be affected. The second influence is competition. This comes in when there are other high quality products in the market that have been marketed in the same way with almost equal credibility. This infringes into the target market of the brand. The third influence is the culture. A place with a music culture will be good for the target market since through this, they can learn and also purchase the product. Culture is simply the way of life if the people, in terms of what they love or not. This is a very strong influence to the target market of beats product. The fourth external influence to the target market of products from Beats is the marketing activities that the brand itself employs for its product. Marketing has been known to change even the perceptions held by individuals hence in order to stay on top, there has to be appropriate marketing of the products themselves. Finally, the fifth influence the social status of the people. As said before, the products of Beats are quite costly and might be received differently by people of different social status (Blackwell, 2006)

The product customers of Beats have media habits that can be termed as basic. First, the audience is a social media audience since these are young, dynamic and of higher social class. The audience can be reached through the platforms of social media. The second habit is the constant visits to the music sites. Most of the characters in the target audiences of Beats are music lovers and hence, spaces where music is distributed will be effective in the case that marketing of these products is to be done. Another common habit of these markets to use the electronic media more than the print. This is what makes them suitable for this kind of entertainment mode that Beats offers. The fourth habit is their ability to invest much time using the electronic media. These are especially the people who like keeping to themselves, they hence put their thoughts in the media and listen to those passed through. Finally, this group of audiences use media to describe themselves. Most of people will with the beats products will carry them to social events to ensure that they can be identified with the product itself.

There are some six steps that consumers of a product such as that of Beats go through in their purchase. This process is as follows, first, there is the awareness stage where the consumer notices that the product could accomplish a certain need. Secondly, there is the stage of interest where they will decide to find out a little more information about the product. The next stage will be an evaluation stage where they will be trying to find out the credibility of the product. After evaluation, there will be a trial stage where the customers want to know the experience they might have when buying from you. After this, there is the adoption if at all they like the trial experience and here they become customers. The adoption stage takes a lot since they would have bought the product. If they remain pleased, there will come the loyalty stage where they will keep buying the product (Adajewski, M., 2009)

In-store Experience/ Analysis.

It is quite true that whenever an individual walks into a store that sells the beats products, the presentation itself creates the need for the product. There is good use of the poster displays giving the customer a clear picture of the technology and the sound quality that the product will be able to give. The packaging also is quite attractive and secure enabling the customer feel able to carry them around without any damage. Since the products are only sold in selected stores, the customer experience in these stores even when just looking at the products is amazing. The services offered include pre purchase tests to the product to ensure that they all are in proper working condition before being given to the customer. However, even after the purchase, there are warrantees to ensure that if an issue arises with the product ability to perform accordingly, it can be taken back and replaced or mend.

All this presentation of the brand clearly indicates what kind of consumer is targeted. Since the consumers of these products are the middle and the upper social class people who can actually afford the pricings, the stores are located in the popular high end locations in the various cities. The products are also only sold in selective stores in that not anywhere can an individual find them to ensure maintained quality and also terms of service. Since the customers targeted are thought to be of the class that does not waste a lot of time in the stores due to busy schedules, the display is put strategically at the entrances of the stores to ensure ease of access. There is also a clear shoe of investment put into the packaging of the product by quality and also beauty, just to attract this kinds of consumers.

The presentation of the product has utilized a variety of strategies in order to ensure that they attract the targeted customer. First, only choosing selectively the stores to put products creates the need through scarcity that will enable that the customer attraction is maintained. The frontline display in the stores also shows just how important the products might be and also the customer targeted allowing the consumers’ easy access gives a sense of good customer care. The consumer of today loves value for his or her money, hence, ensuring quality from the package itself makes the customers of Beats products to know the products are of high quality inside.

In order to ensure that the connection with the customer is maintained even more, the beats company can put into consideration the following recommendations; first, ensure intense advertisements of the product to make the customers remember, use emotional advertisements as these are more memorable to the consumes, ensure emphasis on sales and after sales services that are memorable and finally ensure that the consumer gets what they see always even if it is the color of the product.

Online presence analysis.

Beats has also ensured that it retains and maintains the online presence that most companies do not do. The website of the company has been made in a way that it allows very easy access to all the information. There is also very good display of the products in clear and very attractive pictures showing the different designs, colors, how to purchase and also the promotions that accompany the purchase of the products (Beats, 2017)

The company has also put into use the different social media platforms in a way that there is constant customer interaction. Twitter is one that has the most interactions where not only messages of sales are passed but also environmental messages and messages of natural events such as the eclipse. The messages are posted close to 3hrs apart but the direct messages on customer concerns take much less time for a response to be given (Beats, 2017)

The online presence presented by the Beats brand in many ways is aligned with the targeted audience profile. These audiences are considered to be the informed audiences most of whom seek inspiration from popular figures and more specifically music personalities, hence, the content of the social media has utilized messages from music personalities, inspirational stories and also, simply the experience of using beats gadgets. This grows the connection with their target audience (Muellbauer, 2000)

The social media presence ensures the use of the consumer connection strategy by ensuring constant communication for the immediate benefits of the product, increasing the innovation in terms of the online experience especially through the website navigation, involving the consumers through the development process of new products and finally, always coming up with new, better ideas of advertisements and online product presentation that helps the consumers mind to remember the product.

In order to improve the online experience even more, Beats should incorporate the use of personal messages in the advertisements, interact even more with the online audience, constantly create new creative ads that will keep the consumers properly informed of the products and finally integration of the adverts so that the messages are communicated in the same way and on time. These include promotions and product launches (Kardes, 2011)

References.

Adajewski, M., 2009. "A History of Marketing Thought," Ch 2 in Contemporary Issues in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Elizabeth Parsons and Pauline Maclaran (eds), Routledge, p. 28

Beats, 2017. https://www.beatsbydre.com/

Blackwell, Miniard and Engel, 2006.  The Consumer Behaviour (10th Ed.) Thomson Learning

Muellbauer, John, 2000. Economics and Consumer Behavior, Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22850-6

Kardes, F., Cronley, M. and Cline, T., 2011. Consumer Behavior, Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage, p.7