It is based on the consumer decision-making process. An HBR article is reviewed and theoretical analysis is made. The discussion mainly centres on how the purchasing decisions are made.

1. Pleasure or Utility? Which One Shapes Consumer Behaviour?
Consumer behaviour is one of the most discussed topics in marketing. The key to launch a
successful marketing campaign lies in understanding it. A Harvard Business Review Article by
Whitley, Trudel and Kurt (2018) indicates that both pleasure and utility are two determinants of
the buying patterns. They stated that consumers are either pleasure or utility-focused. People,
who fall into the first category, consider themselves unique and reflects it in their buying
behaviour. The other group aims at investing in something which shows excellent performance.
These consumers hardly bother about being different. Instead, they judge products based on
usability. In this blog, we are trying to identify what makes these two consumer groups different.
Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen first tried to describe consumer behaviour through the Theory of
Reasoned Action. It suggests that attitude and intention influence buying behaviour. Now, let’s
take a deeper look into the intention and impact of from three personality components, id,
superego and ego. Id creates the drive to fulfil the desire without a second thought. This is
responsible for impulsive purchases. Superego tells what are right and what not. Ego balances
both and enables an individual to take realistic action. Latter two leads to righteous and planned
purchases. It is evident that id dominates pleasure-seeking consumers whereas ego and superego
influences utility-focused ones.
Different traits influence behaviour considerably. Innovativeness indicates the readiness to
accept new experiences. Materialism expresses the willingness to acquire new items. Self-
consciousness determines how an individual should control own image to others. Therefore, it is
another factor which impacts on the decisions as the consumers purchase the products which go
with their values, beliefs and standard. From this, we can say, pleasure-seeking consumers have

2. high innovativeness and materialism. They buy the products which reflect unique tastes and
preferences. This behaviour helps them to retain the distinctive image.
So far, we came to how consumers make purchasing decisions. Knowledge of consumer
behaviour creates a golden opportunity for marketers to manipulate it. But, how is it possible?
We will know it in our next post.

3. References
Whitley, S., Trudel, R., & Kurt, D. (2019). How Many Versions of a Product Do Consumers
Really Want?. Retrieved 26 November 2019, from https://hbr.org/2018/06/how-many-versions-
of-a-product-do-consumers-really-want