MKF5911 – Theory and Process of Buyer Behaviour

Assessment 2: Apply One Buyer Behaviour Theory to Marketing

1. Overview

Students find it challenging to make the links between buyer behaviour theory and the development, execution and management of marketing activities. This assessment seeks to address this issue by providing you with opportunities to communicate your theoretical insights on buyer behaviour to a senior marketing person within an organisation

How does this assignment benefit you? First, the skill of integrating theoretical insights and information  into meaningful business insights is highly regarded in business (see definition of insight below in Section 3). Just like consumers, marketing managers (and other business people) are bombarded by too much information and tend to ignore or not respond to information that does not seem immediately relevant. This is particularly the case for decision-makers who are required to sift through large amounts of information to arrive at decisions. Polishing your skills in presenting meaningful, succinct, and well written insights will therefore help build your competitive advantage in the workplace.

Second, the process of integrating marketing theory and concepts to create business insights helps to build logical and structured thought process that refines your capacity to think critically and make evidenced based recommendations as opposed to simply offering opinions.

You are expected to communicate your ideas clearly and concisely as is fitting for an insights report to a business person, which allows the recipient to grasp the content quickly and easily. Developing your insights report will take time and require that you carefully edit your work for clarity and conciseness. Note that 10% of marks have been allocated to written expression and report structuring (see Marking Rubric). Your report should include meaningful and relevant visualisations and analysis of visualisations. If you create an academic, word dense “essay” you will be penalised. If you cannot “market” information you are not thinking about your audience (senior marketer).

2. Assessment 2 has 6 compulsory components

You should develop this assessment as though you were going to present it to a senior marketer in the organisation. For this reason, your analysis and insights MUST BE TAILORED to this person and their organisation.

1.   Component 1 requires you to research and profile a company in one of the following business areas: entertainments (e.g., cinema, theatre, concert, amusement park, tourism attraction that charges an admission ticket, etc.) or games (e.g., video game, mobile game, board game, game venue). If a company’s operation is geographically dependent (e.g., McDonald’s), it is recommended to select one regional business (e.g., McDonald’s Australia or McDonald’s USA). Taking this approach will make completing component 3 (profiling target segment) easier. The business does not necessarily have to operate in Australia. It can be in either Australia, or a country you currently live in, or another country you are familiar with. You are instructed NOT to profile Business-to-business (B2B) companies, advertising firms, or consulting firms (assessments based on these will be awarded zero marks).

2.   Component 2 requires you to research and profile a senior marketer in the company you have selected. Ideally you should select someone who has been at the organisation for at least one year (e.g., marketing manager, marketing director, vice president marketing, senior brand manager, digital marketing director or manager, marketing executive, etc.). Note - actual titles may vary by organisation and organisational structure.

3.   For component 3, you will profile one consumer segment that the company currently targets or wishes to target. Your profile must address the following segmentation variables:

a.   Psychographic / Demographic / Geographic/ Behavioural. (“/” means “or”, not “and”)

b.   Perceived needs and wants of the selected target segment

c.   Value being sought by target segment (benefit – cost)

Based on your profile, you are expected to provide analytical insights into their potential behaviour; the type of person are they, and what are they seeking from the company’s service. You are expected to justify your insights.

4.   Component 4 requires you to draw on your profiling and investigation, to develop one key consumer- related insight for the company (e.g., what marketing challenges / opportunities is the company currently / potentially facing in relation to its customers’ behaviour?). This challenge or opportunity must be addressable within the capacity of the firm’s marketing department. (e.g., avoid things like sudden changes of laws, increased manufacturing cost, technology-based changes, etc.)

5.   Drawing on your responses to components 3 & 4, explain how one element* of buyer behaviour (e.g. perception) could influence the profiled target market’s decision-making in relation to the profiled business.

*The element of buyer behaviour you will focus on for Assessment 2 can come from weeks 1~7.

6.   Drawing on your responses to component 5, propose one recommendation that you would want the   senior marketer to implement. Your recommendation must relate to the design of one marketing mix activity (e.g., pricing, product, or promotion). Your recommendation must be ORIGINAL (i.e., something that the company is not already doing). Put differently, you are NOT to simply describe what the company has already been doing. Your recommendation must be detailed and ACTIONABLE. A basic or general recommendation is not actionable. Finally, your recommendation must be based on and connected to the theoretically justified analysis in component 5.

3. Definition of insight

Your business report is expected to provide insights for the senior marketer. For the purpose of this unit, an insight is defined as; a previously unrevealed fact that can be used to build marketing action that will lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.

• Unrevealed – not previously understood, not common knowledge, not generally known.

•    Fact – it must be supported by evidence; numbers, graphs, trends AND academic, contemporary business or field research.

•    Marketing action – input to overall strategy, overall marketing mix or specific marketing mix component/s.

• Sustainable competitive advantage – input to achieving objective/s in the market place.