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Consumer Psychology Examined

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Consumer Psychology Examined
PSY/322
Sept 15, 2014

Consumer psychology is a specialty area that studies how our thoughts, beliefs, feelings and perceptions influence how people buy and relate to goods and services. One formal definition of the field describes it as "the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society". There are several topics Consumer Psychologists study: How consumers choose businesses, products and services. The thought processes and emotions behind consumer decisions. How environmental variables such as friends, family, media and culture influence buying decisions. What motivates people to choose one product over another? How personal factors and individual difference affect people's buying choices. What marketers can do to effectively reach out to their target customers.
In April 1985, Coca-Cola announced its decision to change the almost century-old recipe -- and the flavor -- of the company's flagship brand product; the old Coke would be taken off the shelves and replaced by the new Coke. Within six weeks, however, widespread consumer protest was making the news, and by July of that year, the company reversed itself and kept the old Coke in production and sales. Within five years, sales of the new Coke were infinitesimal, and was it eventually dropped? This decision was later called the "marketing blunder of the decade". How could a company known for its marketing savvy have so misread the market and made such a bad decision?
At that time, consumer researchers with Pepsi were discovering that, in blind taste tests, a majority of consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi to that of

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