Consumer Behaviour and Organisational Behaviour: A Case Study

1. Elaboration Likelihood Model Analysis of Sue’s Razor Campaign

This paper introduces Consumer Behaviour and Organisational Behaviour. Students will gain an understanding of behaviour, decision making and motivation of both consumers and workers.A range of perspectives are explored and contrasted, including that of employee, manager, and consumer.

1. Using the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as your framework, analyse why Sue’s “social topics” razor campaign went viral for a month, but had little impact on brand awareness and consumers’ attitudes. Discuss how elaboration has an impact on attitudes and what Sue should have done differently to effect longer-term attitude change for the advertised company

2. What steps do consumers normally follow when they are making a decision? Ansel made some important decisions as he decided where to place an advertisement for a new mobile phone. Describe the consumers who form his target market. Because a mobile phone is a high involvement product, Ansel wanted to make sure his target consumers saw his ad several times across different touchpoints. Explain how Ansel’s target audience might have come across an advertisement as part of their daily activities and customer journey. Provide evidence and academic references for your answer.

3. Sue gets results from the survey of her “social topics” (toxic masculinity) razor advertisement. She finds that there are key differences between how consumers responded to her “social topics” razor advertisement versus the brand’s long-running previous campaign, a “functional razor” advertisement. Analyse the data by calculating means and standard deviations. Identify which ad the consumers preferred? Which ad had the biggest impact on consumer attitudes toward the brand? Which ad had the biggest impact on willingness to buy the razor? Identify with reasoning what type of advertising (social topics or functional) Sue should recommend for Gillette’s next campaign?

4. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory as it relates to “symbolic consumption,” explain how differences in cultural dimensions might influence Ansel and Gary’s responses to the purchase of an expensive watch. Provide examples from the case to support your answer and explain the different impact that symbolic consumption has on perceived status for different cultural groups.

5. What behaviours are usually associated with each of the “big five” personality traits”? How would Sue score (low or high) on each? Provide evidence to support your answer.

6. (a) Find one recent, peer reviewed journal article linking group processes / team work to any aspect of organisational behaviour or performance. Describe the aim, method and key findings. Reference the article using APA 6th and also submit the front page of the article (the page with the title and abstract).

2. Consumer Decision-Making and Target Market Analysis for Ansel's Mobile Phone Advertisement

(b) Find one recent, peer reviewed journal article linking organisational communication to any aspect of organisational behaviour or performance. Describe the aim, method and key findings.

Reference the article using APA 6th and also submit the front page of the article (the page with the title and abstract).

7. Use the JDCS model to analyse Jasmine’s job. Would anyone in this job be stressed? Hint: what factors (other than the demands of the job) might impact on whether someone experiences stress?

8. Compare Jasmine’s and Ansel’s experience of work using Herzberg’s two factor model. What does your analysis suggest in terms of their likely satisfaction and dissatisfaction? Provide recommendations to the organisation which would improve Jasmine’s satisfaction / motivation (hint: consider Herzberg’s principles of job enrichment and the Job Characteristics Model).

Sue Liem and Ansel Hassan were transferred on a two year contract from the Indonesian to the Auckland (NZ) office of Advert Co.; a large graphic design and advertising company. Both Sue and Ansel were enthusiastic about their new role in Auckland. They anticipated being able to do a much wider variety of tasks than they did in while in Indonesia; as the company was much larger and offered design, production, copyediting, and marketing services to a wide range of clients. In addition, they knew that, in time, they would have the opportunity to manage their own clients, seeing them through from the very first concept and design meetings to the development of full advertising campaigns. Sue loves working with others and makes friends easily and they have already been promised she would be involved with the marketing for Trade Aid; an organisation they both strongly support and which does a lot of good in developing nations, including Indonesia. Although this will be a challenging task, Sue is confident they will be up to it.

She almost always remains calm in stressful situations and does not get upset or anxious easily. Both Ansel and Sue were required to sit a competency, cognitive ability, and verbal reasoning test when they arrived. The tests were administered in English (their second language) and they both tried very hard; scoring well above average in the numeracy sections. Unfortunately they scored poorly overall, due to the extra time it took to translate the questions and misunderstanding some of the wording. Initially they were both happy with the pay increase they would receive, especially in light of their comparatively low test scores. They would continue to get their usual salary, which was equivalent to $260 NZ dollars per week and would also get an accommodation allowance of NZ $200 per week, in addition to a one-off relocation bonus of NZ $3000. However, it was not long before they found out that the Kiwi employees in the same department, doing the exact same job, were earning nearly $900 per week. Within a few weeks of realising the difference in the rates of pay, Sue began to post personal items home to Indonesia using the company postal service, she would surf the internet during work time and take long lunch breaks.

3. Comparison of Social Topics and Functional Razor Advertisements for Gillette

Sometimes she would delegate part of her workload to her Kiwi colleagues, reasoning that, if they were being paid more, then they should also do more work. Sue feels quite uncomfortable with her behaviour, realising that she is essentially stealing from the organisation by using their internal post, slacking off, and taking more time at lunch. Sue thinks of herself as an honest and hardworking person and these activities are neither honest nor hardworking. She convinces herself it is OK however, telling herself she is just making up for the low salary. Ansel, on the other hand, was very impressed with the level of relevant qualifications the Kiwis had, most had at least a BBus degree (Ansel and Sue only finished high school in Indonesia). In addition, he is very aware of the low score he received on the tests he sat, reasoning that they indicate he is less able than others to do a good job. He was also aware that what his colleagues did in their roles was really helped by the fact that most have English as their first language. Ansel continues to work as hard as he can for Advert Co. 16 Ansel thinks the pay difference is fair, while Sue believes it is unfair.

Sue becomes really focussed on the fact that her work is as good, or better, than her colleagues whereas Ansel often reflects on the fact that they are so much better at speaking English and never make copywriting errors. Interestingly, there was a local newspaper item focusing on the migrant pay gap in Auckland. The item maintains that employers in NZ are being accused if racism. Ansel and Sue talk about it; Sue is even more outraged and aggrieved about the situation she is in but Ansel lists several reasons why, actually, he is even more satisfied:

· Their own boss is, herself, foreign

· They were recruited and trained and now have opportunities they would never have had in Indonesia

· He did fact do worse on the competency test so it therefore is fair

· It was only in a small local newspaper, not the NZ Herald or televisio.

Partially because there is increased awareness of equity issues in the media, many of the employees of Advert Co. become aware that there is a wide pay gap between themselves and their Indonesian colleagues. A staff meeting is scheduled to discuss equity issues.

4. Hofstede's Cultural Dimension Theory and Symbolic Consumption for Ansel and Gary's Watch Purchase

The CEO of Advert Co. defends her decision, and releases the test scores as evidence, along with their lack of higher education, that Sue and Ansel are “less valuable” employees. Ansel accepts the opinion of the CEO; reasoning that “she is the most senior person in the organisation after all… who are they to argue with her?” Sue is more willing to stand up for herself than Ansel, and speaks her mind– even knowing it might irritate her boss.

The kiwi staff members, are also very vocal and they continue to debate the inequity of behalf on Ansel and Sue with the CEO, who is eventually convinced to re-examine her assumptions and hiring practices. Ansel is very keen to buy the latest watch now that he is earning more money. Gary, a senior copyeditor, is surprised to see Ansel wearing an expensive Tag Heuer luxury watch which would have cost several times his monthly discretionary income. Gary still wears an old Casio he got as a teenager. It tells they time perfectly which, he reasons, is surely all you need from a watch?! Back at work, Sue has been tasked with creating a campaign for the razor company Gillette, which has had declining sales in New Zealand. The brand’s goal is to increase sales, and they want a new advertising campaign to help achieve this goal. For years, they have had ads that focus on razor features, and their latest advertisement campaign has been this long-running “functional razor”.

Sue decides that the Gillette razor brand needs a new strategy for their marketing communications to help them achieve their goal of more sales. She pitches the use of a controversial social topic as part of an advertisement campaign for her razor brand. She also elects to use attractive faces, humour, and a popular endorser, actor and former American footballer Terry Crews. She decides to include plenty of cute kids, and films the advertisement with pleasant, uplifting music in the last half. The brand says yes to her pitch, and the resulting advertisement is this “social topics”.Opinions from consumers about the new “social issues” razor ad were vastly divided. Most people either loved or hated the advertisement, though lots and lots of people were talking about it and sharing it on social media. For about a month it went viral on YouTube and was on all the talk shows. A survey of customers showed that the advertisement did not achieve its main goals of raising sales for the brand; sales of the razors remained flat. Sue was disappointed, as she was sure including a timely social topic and lots of fun bits in an advertisement would make more people want to buy the razors.

5. The Big Five Personality Traits and Sue's Scores

The survey results (available in Excel as part of this case) showed that people had different attitudes towards the “social topics” razor advertisement than toward the “functional razor” advertisement. Ansel also had an interesting job in planning out where to place a series of advertisements for a new, midrange mobile phone that cost $550 NZD. His goal was to place advertisements in spots that would get the most attention and notice from the phone’s target customers. The phone features plenty of storage for photos and apps, and fast processing speed for hand-held gaming. Importantly, its price point was not 17 super cheap, but also not super expensive. He thought about the customer journey, and decided to place advertisements for the new phone at bus stops, on billboards along the highway, on social media apps targeting people with older mobile phones (3+ years old), on youtube pre-roll advertisements, and he also found 3 influencers to partner with on youtube and Instagram to help raise hype for the new phone. He also paid Google search to feature this new mobile phone at the top of the search queue.

He used all of the above tactics for exposure for 3 months straight. He thought about putting the advertisements in the newspaper, on trademe and during the nightly news on TV, but decided against it. In the end, the campaign was successful at helping the mobile phone company sell its new phones: Sales were 2% higher than expected. Jasmine Jones was hired at the same time as Ansel and Sue, she is the sort of person who gets stressed easily and worries about things. She really wants to make a good impression in her new job and is keen to make the most of this new opportunity. In the first few weeks in her new job she often turns up to work half an hour early and is happy to stay late to make sure she keeps on top of her workload. She and the rest of her team are managed very closely and are not really trusted by management to get their work done without being monitored and Jasmine hates the lack of autonomy that the organisation offers.

She is not surprised that others in her team often seem to complain about their own workload and regularly miss deadlines. Most arrive at work late and, though they seldom leave early, they will take long lunch breaks if they can, chat with each other, talk on the phone to their friends and surf the internet. Although they keep themselves separate from the rest of the organisation, they all get on well together, and there is a pleasant and friendly atmosphere in the team. They will cover for each other if someone is “pulling a sickie” and exaggerate to management about how long tasks really take so that they can work slowly and take plenty of breaks. Jasmine really wants to be liked by her workmates, she is a naturally shy person and sometimes finds it difficult to make friends. It does not take long for Jasmine to realise that she has to fit in with the rest of her team if she wants them to like her , She particularly admires Olive, a fun loving, vivacious, and popular designer who always seems to be surrounded by friends.

So, (although it goes against her nature) soon begins to relax about her own deadlines and go out for extended lunches with her colleagues. She and Olive become firm friends and although she is not happy about not being very productive at work, she decides that she loves working for Advert Co. more than ever. Two months later Management begins to notice that Jasmine’s team is not working very hard. They meet to discuss what might be done to improve performance. They decide to renovate the office in which the team works. They improve the lighting in the office, put in new air-conditioning units and give all the staff new computers. Although the team works a little more efficiently for a few weeks, the change doesn’t last long and they soon go back to their old ways. Four months later Because performance still has not improved significantly in the team, management decides to initiate a performance-based reward scheme.

The goals the team is required to achieve in order to get rewards are not only significantly more challenging than the level at which they are currently performing but also include more ambiguous requirements such as to “improve work quality” and to “try hard”. For example they are expected to not only design new layouts for many of the print advertisements of Advert Co.’s clients, but also to learn how to use the brand new computer software required for the redesign. Although some feedback is given by management and clients about whether the finished product is satisfactory, no proper computer training is given and not a single team member manages to master the new computer software before the first deadline passes. Although some of Jasmine’s team really did try hard to learn the new software and meet the targets set be management, the only way that performance is measured is by whether or not the final product arrives to the clients on time.

The quality of the work and the time required to complete each job is not taken into account. Jasmine becomes increasingly stressed, she feels that the work is too hard and she is unsupported by management. Her peers are also under a lot of pressure so she cannot rely on them to help her either.