Marketing Communication Analysis of the Consumer Decision Making Process

Consumers often purchase new products associated with preferred brand names. Their favorable attitude toward a brand name is often the result of repeated satisfaction with other products produced by the same company. Sometimes attitudes follow the purchase and consumption of a product. For example, consumers may purchase a branded product without having any prior attitude towards it because it is the only product of its kind available. There are many aspects to consumer behavior. The experience of using products and services, as well as the sense of pleasure derived from owning, collecting, or consuming goods and experiences contribute to consumer satisfaction and overall quality of life. These consumption outcomes or experiences, in turn, influence the consumer's future decision-making process. The importance of ownership and experience, a broader consumer behavior perspective may view consumer choice as the beginning of the consumption process, not just the end of the consumer's decision-making efforts.

Compared with studies by other authors regarding consumer behavior, Schiffman and Kanuk explain a process that a buyer goes through in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and acting on the consumption of products and services, as well as ideas that are expected to meet that person's needs.This study is a very important study to study how consumers behave and what factors Consumers have a diversity that is interesting to study because it includes all individuals of various ages, cultural backgrounds, education and other socio-economic conditions.(Kusa, A., Zauskova, A., & Cabyova, 2020) .The variables or bases used in market segmentation are personality, demographics, psychographic values and changing values by monitoring birth rates, death rates, immigration and economic resources.Here it is emphasized that consumer analysis is increasingly needed to understand purchasing and consumption decisions globally.Then Schiffman and Kanuk explained how culture exists to meet the needs of people in a society.Culture in this case offers order, direction and guidance in all phases of human problem solving by trying tried and true methods to meet physiological, personal and social needs.And there are many other factors which of course cannot be discussed one by one (Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Saunders, J., & Wong, 2001) .

LITERATURE REVIEW
The study of consumer behaviour allows marketers to understand and predict consumer behaviour in the marketplace.It relates not only to what consumers buy but also to why, when, where, how, and how often they buy it.Consumer research is a methodology used to study consumer behaviour and occurs at every phase of the consumption process: before, during, and after purchase.
The three main strategic tools of marketing are market segmentation, targeting, and positioning.The marketing mix consists of a company's service and/or product offerings to consumers and the pricing, promotion, and distribution methods necessary to achieve the exchange.The three drivers of successful relationships between marketers and customers are customer value, high levels of customer satisfaction, and building foundations for customer retention.Then in the discussion of consumer motivation, motivation is considered the driving force within individuals that encourages them to act.This driving force is generated by a state of uncomfortable tension, which exists as a result of unmet needs.All individuals have needs, wants, and desires.The individual's subconscious drive to reduce the tension caused by the need results in behaviour that he or she anticipates will satisfy the need and thus produce a more comfortable internal state.Motivation can be positive or negative (Mardiana, 2013) .
Innate needs -those that individuals are born with are physiological, they include all the factors necessary to maintain physical life such as food drink clothing and shelter.There are also needs that individuals develop after birth, especially psychological ones such as love, acceptance, appreciation and selffulfillment.All behaviour is goal-oriented.Goals are the results sought from motivated behaviour (Sari, 2023) .
Personality can be described as a good characteristic as a psychological characteristic that determines and reflects how a person responds to their environment.Three personality theories stand out in the study of consumer behaviour: psychoanalytic theory, neo-Freudian theory, and trait theory.Freud's psychoanalytic theory provides the basis for the study of motivation research, which operates on the premise that human drives are largely unconscious in nature and serve to motivate many consumer actions.Neo-Freudian theories tend to emphasize the fundamental role of social relationships in the formation and development of personality.Alfred Adler viewed humans as an attempt to overcome feelings of inferiority.Harry Stack Sullivan believed that people strive to build significant and rewarding relationships with other people.
Consumer learning is the process by which individuals gain purchasing and consumption knowledge and experience that they apply to related behaviour in the future.Although some learning is intentional, much learning is incidental.The basic elements that contribute to the understanding of learning are motivation (encouragement), cue, response, and reinforcement.
There are two schools of thought about how individuals learnbehavioural theory and cognitive theory.Both contribute to the understanding of consumer behaviour.Behavioural theorists view learning as an observable response to stimuli, whereas cognitive theorists believe that learning is a function of mental processes.Next in the discussion of the formation and change of consumer attitudes, it is known that attitudes are learned tendencies to behave in ways that are consistently favourable or unfavourable with respect to certain product categories, brands, services, advertising, or retail businesses).Each property of this definition is critical to understanding why and how attitudes are relevant in consumer behavior and marketing.
Within the family and its social class position is understandable for many consumers, their family is the main reference group for many attitudes and behaviors.Families are the primary target market for most products and product categories.As the most basic membership group, family is defined as two or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption living together.There are three types of families: married couples, nuclear families, and extended families (Ayuningtyas, F., & Sos, 2022) .
Meanwhile, in discussing the influence of culture on consumer behavior, it can be understood that cultural studies are the study of all aspects of society.It is language, knowledge, laws and customs that give a society its distinctive character and personality.In the context of consumer behavior, culture is defined as the total sum of learned beliefs, values, and habits that serve to regulate the consumer behavior of members of a particular society (Mowen, JC, & Minor, 2022) .Culture is communicated to members of society through a common language and through commonly shared symbols.Because the human mind has the ability to absorb and process symbolic communications, marketers can promote to consumers both tangible, intangible products, services and concepts.
All elements in the marketing mix function to communicate symbolically with the audience.Products project their own images; so do promotions.Prices and retail outlets symbolically convey an image of product quality (Sutisna., 2003) .In cross-cultural consumer behavior, it is understandable that when consumers make purchasing decisions, they seem to consider the country of origin of the brand they are evaluating.Consumers often have special attitudes or even preferences for products made specifically for a particular country.These country-of-origin effects influence how consumers judge quality and, sometimes, which brands they ultimately choose (Peter, J.P., & Jerry, 1999) .
As the number of consumers from around the world increases in contact with material goods and the lifestyle of people living in other countries and as the number of middle class consumers in developing countries increases, marketers want to find these new customers and offer them to them.Decision making by consumers.A consumer's decision to buy or not to buy a product or service is a crucial moment for most marketers.It can signal whether a marketing strategy has been thoughtful, insightful, and effective, or whether it was poorly planned and off target (Adams, GR, & Berzonsky, 2008) .Thus, marketers are very interested in the consumer decision-making process.In order for consumers to make a decision, more than one alternative must be available.(The decision not to purchase is also an alternative).

METHODOLOGY
This article is a research that uses a literature review method based on literature exploration from the results of previous studies.The literature is in the form of books, survey results, online media, and national to international research articles.This approach allows for a comprehensive review of existing literature and reports, enabling the identification of data patterns and relationships.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This research understands how consumers take or make decisions.It combines many concepts ranging from psychological, social and cultural factors.Consumer decision making can be influenced by psychological, social and cultural factors.Taking a broader perspective and examining how consumer decisions are made regarding all types of consumption choices, from consumption of new products to use of old products.Consider consumer decisions not as the end point but as the starting point of the product consumption process.Sometimes consumers never think about a particular product or service until they are actually exposed to the product or a marketing message about that product.

Understanding Consumer Decisions
Every day, each of us makes many decisions regarding aspects of our daily lives.However, we generally make these decisions without knowing or thinking about the process of making those decisions.
Decision is the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices.In other words, for a person to make a decision, alternative options must be available.A person has a choice between making a purchase and not making a purchase, a choice between one brand and another.

Level of Consumer Decision Making
Not all Consumer decision-making situations accept (or require) research with the same level of information.If all purchasing decisions required extensive effort, then consumer decision making would become a laborious process that leaves little time for anything else.On the other hand, if all purchases are routine, then they will tend to be monotonous and will provide little excitement or novelty.
At varying levels of effort, from very high to very low, we can isolate three specific levels of consumer decision making, creating broad problem solving, limited problem solving, and routinized response behaviour.

Extensive problem solving
When consumers do not have established criteria for evaluating a product category or specific brands in that category or have not specified the number of brands they will consider for a manageably small subset, their decision-making efforts can be classified as broad problem solving.
At this level, consumers need a lot of information to build a set within that category or have yet to narrow down the number.Consumers need a lot of information to establish a set of criteria that will be used to judge a particular brand and a large amount of information about each brand that will be considered.
Extensive troubleshooting often occurs when consumers purchase an expensive, important, or technically complex product or service for the first time.

Limited Troubleshooting
At this level of problem solving consumers have established basic criteria for evaluating product categories and the various brands within those categories.This type of troubleshooting often occurs when a consumer buys a new, updated version of something he has previously purchased such as replacing the old one with a new one -the new laptop has the fastest processor, a larger hard drive and so on.

Routine Response Behaviour
At this level consumers have experience with the product category and a set of criteria that can be used to evaluate the brands they are considering.in some situations they may be looking for a small amount of additional information, in others they may simply review what they already know.

Consumer Models: Four Views of Consumer Decision Making
Before presenting an overview model of how consumers make decisions, we will consider several schools of thought that describe consumer decision making in very different ways.The term consumer model refers to a general view or perspective on how and why individuals behave as they do.Specifically, we will examine the consumer model in terms of the following four views: (1) the economic view.(2) passive view , (3) cognitive view, and (4) emotional view.

Economic Outlook
In theoretical economics, consumers are often characterized as making rational decisions.This model is called the economic view, which has been criticized by consumer researchers for a number of reasons.In this model, to behave rationally in an economic sense, a consumer must (1) be aware of all available products; (2) be able to correctly rank product alternatives in terms of their advantages and disadvantages; (3) can identify the best alternative.However, realistically, consumers rarely have all the information or sufficiently accurate information or even a sufficient level of involvement/motivation to make a decision that can be called "perfect" (Firmansyah, 2008) .
It has been argued that the classical economic model of the all-rational consumer is not real.The reasons include: (a) people are limited by their skills, habits, and reflexes; (b) people are limited by their current values and goals; and (c) people are limited by their level of knowledge.Indeed, consumers generally do not want to be involved in extensive decision-making activities.For this reason, economic models are often rejected as too idealistic and simplistic.

Passive View
In contrast to the rational economic view of consumers, namely a passive view which depicts consumers as basically subject to self-serving interests and marketers' promotional efforts.In the passive view, consumers are considered impulsive and irrational buyers.ready to surrender to the cause and into the hands of marketers.At least to some extent, the passive model of the consumer is perceived by marketers as an object to be manipulated.
The main limitation of the passive model is that it fails to recognize that consumers play an equal role.If they are not satisfied, consumers will impulsively choose other products that better satisfy their mood/emotions at that time.

Cognitive View
The third model depicts consumers as problem solvers.In the framework, consumers are often described as receptive or actively seeking pros and services that meet their needs and enrich their lives.The cognitive view focuses on the processes by which consumers perceive and evaluate information about selected brands and retail outlets.
In the context of the cognitive model, consumers are viewed as processing information.Moreover, information processing leads to the formation of preferences and ultimately, to the pursuit of intentions.The cognitive view also recognizes that consumers are unlikely to be tempted to obtain all available information about every option.Unless they have enough information about several alternatives to make a satisfactory decision.A recent study found that consumer decision making prefers things that can spend time, rather than spending money.They also use decision rules to overcome exposure to too much information (i.e., information overload).between groups, (4) giving gifts between individuals; and (5) intrapersonal gift giving.
1. Inter-group gift-giving behavior occurs when one group exchanges gifts with another group (such as one family with another).The process and outcomes of family decision making are different from individual decision making.Similarly, gifts given to families will differ from those given to individual family members.2. Intragroup gifts characterized by sentiment are gifts given to ourselves.
Interpersonal giving occurs only to two people, namely the giver and the recipient of the gift.For marketers, knowledge about gender is important because it can help consumers when buying gifts.In the new findings, buying gifts can be done online and we can choose the most suitable gift because there are already selected categories displayed.3. Giving gifts between groups.A group gives gifts to itself or its members.
There are studies that examine mothers who give gifts to their children in three different cultures: (1) Anglo-Celtic (mothers born in Australia), (2) Sino-Vietnamese (mothers born in Vietnam).In both cultures mothers play a central role in family gift giving, it is said that gift giving will vary between these groups.4. Interpersonal Gift Giving.An individual gives a gift to another person.5. Intrapersonal giving (also called -monadic giving‖) where the giver and recipient are the same individual .

Beyond Decision: Consuming and Possessing
The emphasis in the study of consumer behavior is product, service, and brand choice decisions.There are many aspects to consumer behavior.The experience of using products and services, as well as the sense of pleasure derived from owning, collecting, or consuming -goods‖ and experiences contribute to consumer satisfaction and overall quality of life.These consumption outcomes or experiences, in turn, influence the consumer's future decisionmaking process.
The importance of ownership and experience, a broader consumer behavior perspective may view consumer choice as the beginning of the consumption process, not just the end of the consumer's decision-making efforts.
Choices or purchasing decisions are input into the consumption process.1.The input stage includes consumption determination that regulates product assortment and consumption styles .2. The process stages of a simple consumption model might include (from the consumer's perspective) using, (or owning), collecting and discarding things and experiences.3. The output stage includes changes in various feelings, moods, attitudes and behavior, as well as reinforcement (positive/negative) of a certain lifestyle .

Products Have Special Facilities And Memories
Some items serve to assist consumers in their efforts to create personal meaning and to retain a sense of the past.To this end, it has been suggested that nostalgia allows people to maintain their identity after some major changes in their lives.This nostalgia can be based on family and friends, on objects such as toys, books, jewelry, and cars or on special occasions, such as graduations, weddings, and holidays (Häubl & Trifts, 2000 ) .
Older consumers are often faced with the problem of how they should dispose of these particular items.Often an older person wants to pass on a family legacy to a child, ensure a good home for a valuable collection, and/or influence the lives of others.
Marketing Relationships Many companies have established relationship marketing programs or socalled loyalty programs to encourage loyal use and commitment to the company's products and services.
Relationship marketing is in the part of building trust between the company and customers and keeping promises to create strong and lasting relationships with core customer groups (Ariely, 2000) .Emphasis is placed on developing long-term bonds with customers.Making customers feel good about how the company interacts (or does business) and by providing a kind of personal connection.
A relationship marketing program is more about using database marketing tactics to better target customers -the consumer must feel that he or she has received something for being part of the relationship.
Direct marketing, sales promotions, and general advertising are some of the relationship marketing strategies that emphasize long-term commitment to individual customers, but today's technology has made customer tracking simpler, thus influencing the trend toward relationship marketing (Febriani, NS, & Dewi , 2018) .
Relationship marketing programs have been used in a variety of product and service categories.Many companies call these programs clubs, even charging a fee to join.Membership can serve as a means of conveying to customers the notion of permanence and exclusivity inherent in a committed relationship (John C. Mowen, 1988) .
It is to a company's advantage to develop long-term relationships with existing customers because it is easier and cheaper to make additional sales to existing customers than to make new sales to new consumers.
Why is relationship marketing so important?Research shows that consumers today are less loyal than in the past, due to six key forces: 1) many choices, 2) availability of information, 3) entitlement (consumers repeatedly ask -What have you done for me lately?‖), 4) commoditization (most products/services appear similar -nothing stands out), 5) insecurity (consumer financial problems reduce loyalty), and 6) time scarcity (not enough time to subscribe) These six forces result in consumer defections, complaints, cynicism, reduced affiliation, greater price sensitivity, and litigation.centers can be magnified.Emotionally enhanced responses to shopping centers may make shoppers remember fondly the time spent in shopping centers, but they are also influenced by new brands, and have immediate positive as well as negative impacts.c.Conative component In marketing and consumer research, the conative component is often treated as an expression of the consumer's intention to purchase.Buyer intent scales are used to assess a consumer's likelihood of purchasing a product or behaving in a certain way.