Marketing You can use your textbook and any readings discussed/assigned in class
ID: 331644 • Letter: M
Question
Marketing
You can use your textbook and any readings discussed/assigned in class; nevertheless, any out of-class information and/or Internet should NOT be used on these assignments. While you can discuss these assignments with your colleagues, the final work should reflect your own ideas; otherwise, it will be considered cheating. The responses should reflect your own idea/work; those assignments that resemble other students’ assignments, your textbook authors’ ideas, and/or Internet ideas will be considered cheating/plagiarism. Any instance of cheating/plagiarism will result in failing the course. This assignment will be graded based on the following criteria:
1. The way students apply the key marketing concepts to solve a business problem/analyze their own behavior or a current business issue/develop courses of strategic action/analyze and recommend solutions. (25 points)
2. Writing style/quality. The document will be of good quality related to grammar, format, content, etc. If the document has more than 3 misspellings/grammar errors, 3 points will be deducted for each misspelled word/grammar error identified. Furthermore, if I cannot figure out what you are trying to communicate, due to poor writing, additional points may be subtracted. If you know you have difficulties with your written communication, please use the assistance provided by the CWU Writing Center. (25 points)
1. Recall an occasion when you experienced cognitive dissonance about a purchase. Please describe the event and explain what you did about reducing the cognitive dissonance.
2. In the context of the same event, explain what (if) the company did about reducing your cognitive dissonance. Or, what should the company have done to reduce your cognitive dissonance?
Explanation / Answer
1.
Cognitive dissonance refers to dilemma, conflicting attitudes, a thought and sense of attitude change after a purchase. The theory of cognitive dissonance states that it occurs when someone holds two or more conflicting attitudes or beliefs about one product or service. Cognitive dissonance is likely to occur after a consumer makes a purchase. It is a part of consumer behaviour in business management domain. This generally happens after purchasing something which demands higher level of commitment, time and money such as home or cars.
At many occasions I have experienced cognitive dissonance but I am describing the very recent one I remember. I had to upgrade my mobile phone and I was considering between two options the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S8, after giving much thought I purchased the iPhone but soon after purchasing I started feeling that was iPhone really better option or I should have gone for the S8? This thought kept coming into my mind again and again and sometimes I felt that I have made a mistake by purchasing the iPhone as S8 have more features etc.
Now since this was a big investment and it was not easy to again purchase S8 I started looking out to reduce the feeling of attitude change, for that I started looking for advertisements of iPhone and S8 and started comparing both of them reminding myself that iPhone actually was a better option.
I also saw a number of review and opinion videos just to reinforce this thought in my mind again that the option which I chose was better. Even after that his thought of cognitive dissonance remained in my mind for few days.
2.
The company concerned here is Apple, the company was regularly showing TV & Digital ads. which was reinforcing this thought in me that I chose the perfect option but I think the company could have done better by providing more comparative information with the then competitive launches in the market such as Samsung S8.
To reduce the cognitive dissonance Apple could also have communicated to me by an email about the features and other things the new purchase of mine will provide but it failed to do so.
Cognitive dissonance is a common phenomenon and it hits almost everyone after purchases, the companies keeping this in mind should try to provide the customers with advertisements and other relevant information which would reduce their cognitive dissonance.