Today’s health care consumers

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

Market segment

According to Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong (2001) a consumer market is “all the individuals and households who buy or acquire goods and services for personnel consumption” (Kotler et al., 2001, p. 189). It is crucial for companies to understand the buying behavior in the specific consumer market where the product is situated (Kotler et al., 2001). An important market segment today is women, due to their growing number, better education and higher income level (Barletta, 2003). A fact illustrating this is that in 1985, there were a total of 190 650 women with postgymnasium educations in Sweden, and merely two decades later, in 2003 the amount had increased to 510 882 women (Appendix 2). Furthermore the wage gap between men and women has been constantly shrinking during the past years (Learned, 2004). In Sweden, the percentage increase in income for men over a 12 year period was 58% (Appendix 2). The percentage for women during the same time period was 72% (Appendix 2). This increase implies that the role of women has changed over the past decades, both in the society and at home which result in that the purchasing power of women is larger then ever (Barletta, 2003; Learned, 2004).

Factors that affect consumer purchase decisions

According to Kotler et al. (2001) consumers purchase decisions are affected by four factors: cultural, social, personal and psychological. Companies cannot control these factors but might be able to affect them; therefore it is important to understand them. Cultural factors it is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behaviors which have deep influence on people. Examples of cultural factors are basic values and 10 beliefs that are passed down from parents to children. This factor is often the most difficult to affect since people rarely change values and habits that they have gained during their childhood. Social factors strongly affect consumers’ purchase as they derive directly from the consumers’ family, friends and surroundings (Billgren & Meurling, 1979; Howard, 1989; Kotler el al., 2001). The social class is an important part within the social factor that influences peoples’ behavior, according to Howard (1989) a social class is an “aggregate of individuals in the society who occupy a broadly similar position on the scale of prestige” (Howard, 1989, p. 237). People belonging to the same social class often have similar buying preferences.

Price aspects

According to Lönn (1995) it is critical when setting a price to know what the customers are ready to pay for the advantages that appears with the product. There are two different measurements of price to calculate the customer expectations of the price setting of a product; what the customers consider as range of a normal price and fair price (Urbany & Dickson, 1990). Normal price range is defined as “the range of prices normally charged by retailers when the product is not on special” (Urbany & Dickson, 1990, p. 2). The fair price is the price that is intrinsic between buyers and sellers. Generally the seller is seeking the highest price to sell their product and the buyer is seeking the lowest price to buy the product (Baker, 2000). It is important for a company to differentiate between two different consumer behavior prices when performing a study: expected prices and acceptable prices. These two behaviors among customers have the same normal price expectations and observe the same price; however one of the consumers buys the product and the other does not (Urbany & Dickson, 1990).

The Gender Trends’ Marketing Model

The Gender Trends’ Marketing Model eases the understanding of the factors that trigger women to purchase and provides companies with an aid of how to approach the female customers in their marketing. This consumer behavior part of the model partly sustains the Star and the Spiral Path (Barletta, 2003). Barletta (2003) argues that “The key to creating marketing programs that will win women’s business is to understand what women value” (Barletta, 2003, p.44). The Star model explains the factors that will affect women’s purchasing decisions and compares the differences of values between men and women. Furthermore the model explains the important of attributes for women when making decisions about what to buy. The four main characteristics that affect women’s choice of product and services are: Social Values, Life and Time factors, Synthesizer Dynamics and Communication Keys.

Choice of method

Bryman (1997) and Holme and Solvang (1997) state that the choice between qualitative and quantitative method should depend on to which degree the two different methods are suitable to answer the purpose of the study with. “The purpose of this research thesis is to identify which factors to emphasize in the advertising of AWARE”. This was accomplished by a market research that investigated which factors that would create buyer intentions for the product. Under the previous heading the authors concluded that they were to perform an explanatory and a descriptive research. According to Kress (1998) theses researches are both appropriate to examine with the quantitative method, furthermore the authors wish to investigate the characteristics of a large population namely women in Jönköping which is in line with what Blaikie (2003) states about using a descriptive research. The conclusion is that this study was to be accomplished using a quantitative method.

Qualitative method

Quantitative data sustains of figures and focuses on variables that can be analyzed objectively such as quantity, number and frequency (Christensen et al., 2001). The method is appropriate to use when the research problem requires quantitative information and statistical generalization of a population which is its main advantage (Holme & Solvang, 1997; Bryman 2001). The analysis is conducted by discovering and stipulating variables and their connections from a static view of reality. In contrary to a qualitative study the quantitative does not look at any underlying factors. This is its main disadvantage since it neither investigates the relations between actions nor does it explore the actors’ interpretations. The main features of a quantitative study are: structure, several shallowly investigated actors, clear framework that is made up by predetermined hypothesizes and hardly any contact between actors and researchers (Christensen et al., 2001; Bryman, 1997; Holme & Solvang, 1997).

Contents :

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Today’s health care consumers
    • 1.1.1 Home-use tests
    • 1.1.2 Over-The-Counter tests
    • 1.1.3 AWARE Breast self-examination pad
    • 1.1.4 Breast cancer
  • 1.2 Problem statement
  • 1.3 Purpose
  • 1.4 Delimitation
  • 1.5 Contractor – Gamp Medical AB
  • 1.6 Outline of the Thesis
• 2 Factors that affect the purchasing of AWARE
  • 2.1 Introduction
    • 2.1.1 Market segment
  • 2.2 Factors that affect consumer purchase decisions
    • 2.2.1 Price aspects
  • 2.3 The Gender Trends’ Marketing Model
  • 2.4 The Factor Model
• 3 Market Research
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Problem
  • 3.3 Method
    • 3.3.1 Choice of method
    • 3.3.2 Qualitative method
  • 3.4 Sample
  • 3.5 Data collection
    • 3.5.1 Interviewer administered survey
  • 3.6 Analysis
    • 3.6.1 Types of analysis and statistical tools
  • 3.7 Report and Presentation
• 4 Factor findings and Analysis
  • 4.1 Factor findings
  • 4.2 Analyzing the Factor Model
    • 4.2.1 Cultural factor
    • 4.2.2 Social factor
    • 4.2.3 Personal and Psychological factors
• 5 Conclusions and Final discussion
  • 5.1 Female consumer behavior towards AWARE
  • 5.2 Thesis Evaluation
  • 5.3 Recommendations for the company
  • 5.4 Further studies
  • 5.5 Finally
• Reference List

GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT
Get to know your breasts A market research concerning AWARE Breast self-examination pad