A portfolio report that demonstrates theoretical and practical understanding of consumer behaviour (Coursework Sample)

A. Decision-Making Unit and Buyer Persona Figure 1 details the attributes of the first buyer persona (i.e., John Smith, a pseudonym) who is a social millennial. The persona’s age ranges 26-34, male, single, highly educated, and works as a Sales representative. He lives in Manchester and earns £15,000 per year. Like other UK millennials, Smith is drawn to gambling because of its social aspects, wants to learn new skills, is fun, and expects monetary rewards (Gambling Commission, 2019a). His goals include improving his sales and marketing career, consuming as much of his disposable income through high-risk and high-reward online gambling (Gambling Commission., 2020), and enjoying life before settling. Smith gambles twice a week during live English Premier League (EPL) matches and mostly participates in online betting on popular gambling sites like BetVictor, Parimatch, and William Hill (BetVictor, 2023; Parimatch, 2023; William Hill, 2023). However, Smith has some challenges including being slow to embrace and adopt new changes. He perceives any demand to learn new skills to be slow and likely to impact his financial gains. As such, Smith remains risk-averse. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: The Social Millennial Buyer Persona A decision-making unit (DMU) could help address some of the frustrations and challenges faced by the social millennial. The DMU and Buyer Persona are relevant to analysing consumer behaviour in offline and/ or online contexts for gambling. A DMU includes a group of individuals who influence the buyer persona’s consumption of gambling (Lisa, 2023; Piercy et al.,2019). The DMU includes influencers, users, deciders, buyers, gatekeepers, and initiators (Bachkirov, 2019; Schönberner et al., 2022). The UK Gambling Commission (2019a) stipulates that for the social play typology, the initiator may be friends who Smith loves playing with considering he has many friends (Figure 1). The influencer may include experts that the persona could consult, thereby accessing valuable information about gambling styles, brands, and services available for gambling consumption (Levy & Lo, 2022). The Decider could also help the buyer persona get emotional and psychological attachment to consume gambling through turning gambling experience into a social experience, competition with friends, or a venture to meet new persons. The DMU could help understand persona’s consumer behaviour whether they like to engage in friendly competition, adding more excitement to gambling, expected reward, or just for the fun of online betting (UK Gambling Commission, 2019a). The Buyer entails Smith as a persona engaging in the purchase process of various gambling style, but the process could also entail non-purchase if the persona ignore or completely miss the marketers’ stimuli according to a personal sensory threshold (Engel-Blackwell-Miniard, 2006). While, the User refers to Smith or friends using their gambling decision (Hing et al., 2019; Macey et al., 2021). Figure 2 presents the second buyer persona, Henderson Armstrong, who is a senior or golden-age habitual gambler. Armstrong is an HR Manager, male, and aged over 55 years. He earns £35,000 per year. He has had a successful career in the past 25 years and is about to retire. As a family man, Armstrong’s needs include relaxing time after work, creating nostalgic memories and meeting with childhood friends. He also looks forward to creating a part-time income, enjoying his sunset years, and travelling. Armstrong bets 4 times a week in offline casinos, lotteries, and horse racing. The UK Gambling Commission notes that for the Wise Decision gambler typology, betting is a matter of skill. Habitual or senior gamblers are confident in their abilities and years of experience to get it right (Gambling Commission, 2020). Thus, the consumer decision is informed by the need to turn events into another opportunity to test their skills (Gambling Commission, 2019a). Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2: The Buyer Persona of a Golden-Age Habitual Gambler Buyer persona and the DMU also influence elderly adults during the purchase decision of how they consume gambling. Initiators could be childhood friends or workplace colleagues they spend the weekend with. Retirement of the second persona could also result in a loss of social networks, contributing to social isolation and loneliness, thereby the need for gambling consumption to utilise free time. Influencers for the second persona who is an olde adult may also include events like the death of a spouse, friends, or family members. As a result, this persona may gamble more to cope with such losses or engage in gambling due to potential social opportunities gambling provides (Deans et al., 2017). Deciders for gambling consumption for the second persona could be physical mobility or health limitations issues that could prevent older adults from engaging in other economic activities they once enjoyed (Schönberner et al., 2022). Thus, this persona could embrace online gambling to overcome such limitations and feel part of society (Deans et al., 2017; Schönberner et al., 2022). The DMU for gatekeepers include gambling companies placing adverts on various brands and gambling types, availing information needed by the buyer, that is the elderly persona, to decide on making purchase of different gambling products (Gainsbury et al.,2017; Lopez-Gonzalez et al., 2017). B. Decision-Making Process and Models For the two identified buyer persona, the social Millennial and Senior Habitual Gambler, decision-making models can be to understand their gambling consumption in the UK. To this end, the two decision-making models used in this process include the basic PIECE model by Solomon (see Figure 3) and the contemporary EBM model by Engel-Blackwell-Miniard (2006) (see Figure 4). The five common aspects of consumer decision-making in both models include problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, choice of purchase, and evaluation of post-purchase experience (Engel-Blackwell-Miniard, 2006; Solomon et al., 2012). However, Engel-Blackwell-Miniard (2006) model indicates that consumer decision making is affected by pre-purchase evaluation of alternatives, divestment, environmental influences, and individual differences. In the UK gambling industry, environmental influences include family gambling habits, culture, social class, and situation (Banks et al., 2018; Gambling Commission, 2019a). Individual differences include attitude towards gambling, personal lifestyle, values, or personality, and knowledge about gambling styles, products, or services (Atherton & Beynon, 2019; Banks et al., 2018; Gambling Commission, 2019b). Initially, a decision to engage in gambling starts with recognising a personal need. For the first Buyer Persona, the need relates to the desire for entertainment opportunities, the need to socialize with friends, have fun, and get financial rewards (Marko et al., 2022). By contrast, the second Buyer Persona has needs such as relaxing and unwinding after work, nostalgic memories and catching up with childhood friends in casinos and enjoying sunset years while gambling. For example, the first buyer persona, the need/problem recognition in both decision-making processes could be experiencing an ideal state of excitement and fun (emotional), and the second persona which is a habitual decision maker has a cognitive (desire to win) as well as emotional involvement. Marketers are responsible to satisfy such needs, and by doing market research and understanding their consumer behaviour regarding decision-making, they can tailor their marketing activities in a better effective way (Seal et al., 2022). Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3: PIECE Decision-Making Model by Solomon (2016) Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4: The Engel-Blackwell-Miniard Model (EBM) of Consumer Decision-Making (Engel-Blackwell-Miniard, 2006). Both the PIECE and the EBM decision making models relates to buyer personas in UK and they can help understand their behaviours in the context of the consumption of gambling in UK. The behaviour of the first buyer persona is likely to be informed by personal influences like fun and socialisation with friends, social class informed by being highly educated, working, and has disposable income for gambling, an and current relationship situation of being single and seeking to enjoy life before settling down or having a family (Lisa, 2023; Marko et al., 2022; Seal et al., 2022). According to the Gambling Commission (2019a), the gambling behaviour of the first persona who is under the social play typology is also likely to be influenced by personality, values, and lifestyle. Key among these personalities is having influential friends who loves fun, perceive gambling as having a friendly competition, and desire to add more excitement to online or offline betting (Gambling Commission, 2019a). By contrast, the behaviour of the second persona will be influenced by individual differences like the motivation to relax and unwind after work. Thus, the gambling businesses need to provide a tranquil or calm casino setting to enable second persona to catch up and create nostalgic memories with childhood friends. Knowledge and attitude will also impact the second persona’s decision to consume or avoid consuming gambling based on years of experience and being a habitual gambler who expects rewards or benefits from gambling (Seal et al., 2022). C. Influence of Various Groups on Consumer behaviour for gambling The current section elaborates on the influence of reference groups, lifestyle, consumer identity and paid influencers on consumer behaviour for gambling, in both online and offline contexts. The discussions are presented in subsequent sections. Impact of Reference Groups on Gambling Consumption In the UK, reference groups include persons that individuals look to for influence or ‘reference’ (Banks et al.,...