MRKT2001 Assignment 2 – Understanding the influences on a consumer’s buying

MRKT 2001 University of Technology Sydney Consumer Behaviors Research Paper

Assignment 2: Understanding the influences on a consumer’s buying behaviour

 (Week 12)

Length: 1,800 words (+ / – 10%)

Weighting: 40%

This assignment continues on from Assignment 1. The aim of this assignment is to understand the buying influences on a consumer when they purchase a particular product and use this information to identify the implications to marketing.

The assignment is in three parts.

Part 1 – Internal and External Influences (50%)

You are to analyse the internal and external influences on consumers who purchased the product that you discussed in Assignment 1.

In order to complete your analysis you will need to research information available from your interviewees in Assignment 1 as well as collecting additional marketing intelligence, research and any other relevant resources to support your discussion.

You can refer to both of your interviewees or just one in your discussion from

Assignment 1, and you will need to support your discussion with additional research on influences for consumers purchasing your chosen product. If you have access to the consumers from Assignment 1 you are free to interview them again to assist in providing further information for this assignment. If you don’t have access to the interviewees again, use evidence from the organisation’s marketing collateral or information from credible sources to assist in answering the

question.

Credible sources can include journal articles, media reports, qualitative information gained from Assignment 1, and industry information.

Using this information:

(a) explain the different internal influences on the consumer’s decision making

process for this product (20%)

(b) explain the different external influences on the consumer’s decision making process for this product (20%)

(c) identify which influence appears to be the most important (10%)

Don’t limit your answer to a description; it is important that you provide evidence to support your answer. Remember, ‘explain’ means you need to think critically; focusing on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’.

Part 2 – Summary of the target market (15%)

Provide a profile of the target market, with rationale, based on your findings in

Assignment 1 and your analysis from Part 1 above.

Part 3 – Implications to marketing (30%)

From your analysis in Part 1 on the internal and external influences on the decisionmaking process, and your findings in assignment 1, create a table which contains three columns.

In the first column, list the internal and external influences you identified above in

Part 1. In the second column, outline what the corresponding implications are of each of these influences for marketers. In the third column, for each of the influences listed, present some clear tactics that could be used by marketers to reach the target market.

Presentation, structure, communication, theory and research integration, reference information and referencing (5%)

Marking criteria

General marking criteria include:

• extent and quality of research

• originality of analysis

• presentation.

Please use report writing style (structured with headings and subheadings) and provide a list of references. Report format means using an executive summary, table of contents, introduction, conclusion and reference list which, in this case, will be outside the word count. Be sure to acknowledge all sources in-text (Harvard-style referencing, please). Marks will be deducted for poor referencing.