Businesses strive to maximize their profits and have as much sales as possible. In order to do so, appealing to consumers would be crucial between businesses that are competing with similar products. So how do firms find out what consumer want? Through the process of understanding consumer behaviours. Consumer behaviour can be be explained explicitly (culture, previous experience), and implicitly (personal perceptions). In Austin Feltham’s Blog, Austin gives a good example of how competing companies in the frozen yogurt industry reach out to these different factors of consumer behaviour with different approaches. Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt focuses on the explicit social factor by reminding consumers the “trendy,” “popular” side of frozen yogurt, and constantly showing pictures of celebrities eating frozen yogurt.
Another frozen yogurt company,Yogurty’s, as Austin points out, built their strategy on consumer perceptions by changing their brand name from their original company, Yogun Fruz. Yogurty’s uses the new name to their advantage by distancing the fixed consumer perception of Yogun Fruz to build a brand new image along with the new product, frozen yogurt.
Understanding consumer behaviour is an important for companies to establish their business strategy. The methods may be different but ultimately the goal is the same, to appease the most customers as possible, earning the most sales as possible.