Consumers have to engage in a decision-making process when dealing with the marketing environment and making purchases (Solomon, 2013). The Model of Consumer Decision-Making (Figure 3.1), as adapted from Schiffman and Wisenblit (2015), aids in the understanding of the factors that influence a consumer’s decisions in general and is used in this study. In this model, decision-making is divided into three stages: the input, process and output stages of decision-making. Attitudes form part of the consumer’s psychological field which influences the process stage of consumer decision-making and plays a central role in the evaluation of alternatives (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015; Betsch & Haberstroh, 2012).
41 The input stage consists of three external information sources, namely the marketing mix
sociocultural influences and communication sources, which influence the consumer’s
decision to purchase and what product they will choose to purchase (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015; Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). The sociocultural environment includes the influence of family members, important reference groups, culture and social class on the individual’s decision to consume game meat. For example, if it is a family tradition to serve roast game meat on special occasions, or if kudu biltong is considered a cultural delicacy, the sociocultural environment might play a major role in influencing the individual’s decision to consume game meat. It might cause the individual to have a positive attitude towards game meat and the individual may believe that it is something special and sought-after. On the other hand, if important reference groups in individuals’ sociocultural environment believe that game meat is of inferior quality and taste; individuals might be influenced to choose not to consume game meat, often without testing for themselves if these beliefs are accurate. The negative connotation to game meat and the reluctance to consume inferior meat may contribute negatively to their attitudes toward game meat.
The marketing efforts of the producer can have a strong influence on the consumer’s decision. This aspect includes the marketing mix of the product itself, as well as the promotion, price and channels of distribution of the product (Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). The attributes of the product itself is important during marketing, since consumers’ evaluation of a product’s attributes can account for most of their attitude toward the product (Solomon, 2013). McDaniel and Gates (2013) maintain that the more favourable the attitude of a consumer toward a product, the higher the incidence of product usage and the less favourable the attitude, the lower the incidence of product usage. Therefore, the product attributes cannot be underestimated in marketing efforts of game meat. In the present study, the attitudes toward the product attributes that will be explored include the sensory characteristics, health benefits, ethical considerations, animal welfare standards and the safety of game meat for human consumption. As mentioned earlier, very few marketing efforts for game meat have been encountered by South African consumers. Consumers’ attitudes toward the marketing efforts, as found in the input stage, of game meat will also be explored. By exploring attitudes toward the product attributes, its promotion, price and distribution (including availability), this study aims to create an improved understanding of these crucial aspects of game meat to assist in its marketing efforts.
42 The communication source used to carry messages across to the consumer from the marketing mix and sociocultural influences form the third influence during the input phase of decision-making (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015). This includes the advertising and messages used during marketing efforts as well as word-of-mouth advice and recommendations from socio-cultural influences. As mentioned previously (Section 3.2.3), there seem to be various misconceptions among consumers regarding the attributes of game meat which could largely have been formed by the messages carried across to consumers by sociocultural influences, demonstrating that these communication sources can play an important role in consumer decision-making.
During the output stage, consumers evaluate their behaviour after making the decision to purchase the product (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015). Consumers decide if they are satisfied with the product. This post-purchase evaluation of satisfaction results in forming stronger attitudes toward the product based on experience, which is used in future decisions (Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). The consumers have now tried the product and their experience will contribute to their attitudes in future decisions to consume game meat. Based on the experience, consumers may decide not to re-purchase the product in the future, or they may choose to re-purchase the product, leading to trust and loyalty to a product (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015). The experience continues to be fed into the cycle of decision-making (Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). Consequently, consumer satisfaction with a product becomes important to the producer as it will influence repeat purchase intentions (Kimmel, 2013).
The process stage, portraying how consumers make decisions, contains the process of need recognition, the pre-purchase search and the evaluation of alternatives and how the process is influenced by the individual’s psychological field (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015; Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). Consumers will recognise their basic need for food, but the need recognition phase includes more than just the recognition for food to sustain life. Once the need is recognised, consumers may search for products that they believe can meet their needs (Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). If more than one product can be identified, consumers need to evaluate which alternative they will prefer that will best meet their need (Aaker, Kumar, Leone & Day, 2013). A consumer’s preferences regarding a product are shaped by carefully considering its features and evaluating the features according to the consumer’s needs (Kimmel, 2013). In the case of game meat, consumers might recognise a need for meat to sustain a balanced diet. Therefore, they will search for meat products and evaluate the alternative meat products available to them – for example, game meat, beef, mutton, chicken or pork. They might recognise the need
43 for healthy protein, in contrast to just any protein, and search for alternative healthy
protein sources – for example, lean beef, game meat, or even protein-containing
legumes. They could also have a need to serve meat at a specific occasion and, therefore, need to find a portion of meat that will be considered appropriate – for example, a leg of lamb, roasted venison, beef fillet for a family dinner, lamb chops or beef steak for a braai, or game biltong as a snack. As mentioned earlier, the manner in which consumers conduct this process and what they decide is ultimately strongly influenced by the consumer’s psychological field. The psychological field consists of the individual’s motivation, perception, learning, personality and attitudes (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015). The consumer’s learning is comprised of knowledge, entailing all the information that the individual possess about the object, as gathered from external sources, such as the marketing efforts and sociocultural influences, and internal sources of information, such as past experience (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015; Aaker et al., 2013). Although the different elements in the psychological field are intangible and cannot be measured directly, they determine how the inputs will be understood by the individual and how it will influence the individual’s decision and can be inferred from their consequences (Aaker et al., 2013). Experience gained from previous decisions and the evaluation of alternatives will again be reinstated in the person’s psychological field for future decisions (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2015; Kimmel, 2013; Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). This is where the study comes to attitudes itself. Since attitudes form the main part of this study, it will be studied in greater detail below. By keeping the context within which attitudes function in mind, one can determine which attributes of game meat are likely to encourage consumers to consume the product and consequently how to market the product to them.