Discussion board, APA 300 words

ALL CLASS ACTIVITY – CONSUMER CHOICE AND DECISION HEURISTICS

Marketing research often looks at how consumers make choices. Let’s review the TEDTalks video for this week by Sheena Iyengar entitled How to Make Choosing Easier. Iyengar claims that people make about 70 decisions a day. This is a lot of information to remember. “Consumers often take “mental shortcuts” called heuristics or rules of thumb in the decision process. In everyday decision making, when they forecast the likelihood of future outcomes, consumers may use one of these heuristics.

1. The availability heuristic—Consumers base their predictions on the quickness and ease with which a particular example of an outcome comes to mind. If an example comes to mind too easily, consumers might overestimate the likelihood of its happening. For example, a recent product failure may lead consumers to inflate the likelihood of a future product failure and make them more inclined to purchase a product warranty.

2. The representativeness heuristic—Consumers base their predictions on how representative or similar the outcome is to other examples. One reason package appearances may be so similar for different brands in the same product category is that marketers want their products to be seen as representative of the category as a whole.

3. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic—Consumers arrive at an initial judgment and then adjust it—sometimes only reluctantly—based on additional information. For services marketers, a strong first impression is critical to establishing a favorable anchor so subsequent experiences will be interpreted in a more favorable light,” (Kotler and Keller, page 79).

Provide examples (including personal experiences) for each of the three types of decision heuristics described.

Please use public safety as a personal experience, Emergency medical services specifically.