A product that regard as high involvement mean that consumers undertake complex buying behavior when they are highly involved in a purchase and perceive significant differences among brands. Consumers may be highly involved when the product is expensive, risky, purchased infrequently, and high self-expressive. Typically, the consumer has much to learn about the product category. The buyer will pass through a learning process, first developing beliefs about the product, then attitudes, and then making a thoughtful purchase choice.
The product that is highly involvement in my opinion is the luxury brand car Mercedes-Benz. The Mercedes-Benz is the well known of the brand car in the world, because Mercedes-Benz had become a symbol of success, dynamic performance and safety the symbol of the Mercedes-Benz had been well known by many people. The people who are strong brand royalty in mind so they will buy the Mercedes car, because they believe the car will bring the most comfortable, safety and good performance to them even it is very costly Others close competitors could not gain market shares from them because they have their own customers or brand-oriented people.For example: The owner of the Mercedes-Benz would not likely change their car into BMW although they are same fall under category of luxury car. This is because of the significant perceived differences among brands.
The BMW's target market concern with young urban professional and they give people an impression the car is a high technology car, powerful and steady. BMW always have a new and fresh look for their design. But, the Mercedes-Benz gives people an impression that the car has a glamour design.They didn't change the car's outlook frequently and it concern with safety but no so powerful car and very practical function but at low-maintenance costs compare to luxury car in the markets.
The owner of Mercedes-Benz is a strong brand loyalty people. They will always choose the same brand if they intended to change for a new car. They are more conscious about the brand name rather than the price and they always believe only the Mercedes-Benz performance the best.The cars of frequently of use are much but the customer will not easily to change their car so the purchase is infrequently, they won't change the car frequently once they brought. Because of the low maintenance compare to others luxury car, the consumer will basically use it frequently or treat it as a family car.
This is one of the issues why the consumers like Mercedes-Benz. It brings low-cost maintenance and high satisfaction of driving. It also brings high utility and prestige when driving on the road. Price paid for Mercedes-Benz is very costly because it was all completely build up in Germany and import to Malaysia.It costs around RM350000 to one million after tax.
Because of the price concern so many people cannot afford to pay the price of the car, so even the people like the Mercedes-Benz product but the price is too high so the customer also will not buy the car. The consumer of the Mercedes-Benz will also consider the perceived risk associated with the purchase. They will consider more than buying others kind of car. This is because it is a luxury goods, the buyer will think will the car too glamour and will be aimed by robber, will the installment afford to pay accordingly, will the second-hand value too low and so on.The consumer must perceive risk associated when buying a luxury car. The high involvement product will bring the customer satisfaction, comfortable and utility when they buy the product.
Product with low involvement : A product that regards as low involvement means that consumer's habitual buying behavior occurs under conditions of low consumer involvement and little significant brand difference. They simply go to the store and reach for a brand. If they keep reaching for the same brand, it is out of habit rather than strong brand loyalty.Consumers appear to have low involvement with most low cost, frequently purchased products.
Toothpaste is a daily use commodity. Although is a daily use commodity, we do not pay more attention about the toothpaste we are using or can say consumers have low involvement on this product, we don't really do much research or afford to get the information, the contains or ingredients about the product. The brand loyalty of the Colgate toothpaste is weak because the customers may shift to the others brands easily because of the product put in hidden place or not special compared with others.But, the Colgate Company can make a little differentiate to their product by adding fluoride and flavors to the toothpaste to differentiate with others competitor.
The company also tries to advertise the product via television newspaper or radio to create brand familiarity rather than brand conviction. When the brand loyalty of the Colgate toothpaste is very low, the consumers will simply go to the store or supermarket and reach for others brand toothpaste. If they keep reaching for the same brand, it is out of habit rather than strong brand loyalty.Marketers should try to convert low involvement products into higher involvement products by adding some specialty or attribute into the products such as give the premium to them.
The frequency of use for the Colgate toothpaste is high because the customers will use it daily and purchase frequently so the consumers will not make weighed decision about buying this commodity but they will change or try another brand when next purchase if he or she thinks that the product is not good enough for them or others brand having a promotion.They will simply change to consume other brand without thinking more because they buy and consume frequently toothpaste having a very big market where the frequency of using it is high. Price paid for the low involvement product is low Colgate toothpaste consists of travel pack and family size pack the selling price is around RM3. 50-RM5 because of the selling price is low, high involvement is no exist customer will simply change to others brand if the can't satisfy them.Unlike high involvement product like car, they can't simply change and would not buy as frequent as toothpaste; the marketers can also reducing the selling price of the Colgate toothpaste in a certain period to stimulate the selling like when in the economics recession the company can reduce the price in the certain level so it can reduce the customer expenses fee so the customer will usually choose the most economic price's of the brand.
The perceived risk associated with the purchase of Colgate toothpaste is usually gives little awareness to the customer.But there are also have perceived risk that is when buying or using the expiry toothpaste, will the toothpaste's ingredients affect our health and will the new flavor of the toothpaste smell good and so on. The Colgate toothpaste is an low involvement product, the Colgate marketers can marketed its product in a different way such as a easy remember logo, songs, advertising and many others to let customers differentiate your product. Low involvement product doesn't bring very much satisfaction and utility they only use it for daily need and get lesser involvement on the product.
