James A. Mourey - Urge: Why You Really Want What You Want (And How To Make Everyone Want What Youve Got)

URGE

WHY YOU REALLY WANT WHAT YOU WANT (AND HOW TO MAKE EVERYONE WANT WHAT YOUVE GOT)

JAMES A. MOUREY, Ph.D.

Copyright 201 3 James A. Mourey, Ph.D.

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 0615874622

ISBN-13: 978-0615874623

DEDICATION

To my amazing parents, James Mourey, Sr., and Sheryl Alvarez-Mourey.

I wouldnt have been able to do this without your love, sacrifices, and supportalso, I wouldnt even be alive if you guys didnt, you know, so

CONTENTS

OVERVIEW ix

PREFACE: THE FOUNDATION xvi

I: What is Marketing? xvii

II: STP, 4Ps, 5Cs xxix

PART I: THE SELF

Chapter 1 | Studying Consumer Behavior

Chapter 2 | Needs, Wants, and Motivation

Chapter 3 | Perception and Attention

Chapter 4 | Learning and Memory

Chapter 5 | Affect, Mood, and Emotion

Chapter 6 | Personality, Attitude, and Persuasion

PART II: THE SITUATION

Chapter 7 | Social Influence

Chapter 8 | Culture & Socio-Cultural Differences

Chapter 9 | Subcultures

Chapter 10 | Context, Environment, and Situation

PART III: THE SOLUTION

Chapter 11 | Value and Valuation

Chapter 12 | Decision Making

EPILOGUE : RATE AND REPEAT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Following the completion of my Ph.D. in early May of 2013, I had four months ahead of me in which very little (if anything) was expected of me for the first time since, well, ever. For whatever reason I thought this time would be a good opportunity to write a book because, you know, that sounds like more fun than backpacking through Europe or escaping to a beach in the South Pacific for a few months, right?

Now that the book is finished, however, I can imagine few things actually nothing, really that would have been more rewarding to do with my time except for maybe achieving world peace or fathering a child. Seeing as how Im okay with not having done either of those two things, let it suffice to say that I am very proud of this accomplishment and, more important, the potential positive consequences this book will have for my students (and others who accidentally purchase it at the airport) as they embark on their careers and their futures.

This accomplishment is not my own, however. As such, there are several people I need to thank. First and foremost, I thank my parents for instilling in me at a young age this insane drive and passion for doing your very best, even if that means staying up all night or for days in a row to make sure something is done correctly. And thanks to my entire family Chad, Heather, Kim, Declan, Kelly, Bill, my nephews, our dogs Mocha and Coco, and my extended family for keeping balance in my life it is only because you keep me so entertained that I have the rich stories I have to tell. Also, thanks to my grandma, Shirley Alvarez, for being such a good sport and serving as an example throughout this book.

I also want to thank my colleagues at DePaul University for their guidance and support in this endeavor. Coming in as a new faculty member, my chair (Dr. Suzanne Fogel) certainly put a lot of faith in my ability to write this book. I thank her and the rest of the department for believing I could do it and that it would be an asset to our group, to our mission, and to our students. I thank Sue and Dr. Melissa Markley, specifically, for their role in recruiting me to the DePaul University team, a group of the kindest, brightest colleagues a guy could ever hope for. I also want to thank the broader Driehaus College of Business at DePaul for its commitment to pedagogy and service in a time when far too many business schools (and universities, in general) devalue teaching and service to the potential overemphasis of research. DePaul strikes a beautiful balance of world-class research, meaningful instruction, and service; our faculty and students are very lucky for this, as is the world these students go on to serve.

I want to thank Dr. Carolyn Yoon for being my amazing Ph.D. advisor, as well as her husband, Dr. Fred Feinberg, and Dr. Rick Bagozzi for teaching me so much about consumer behavior and marketing from an academic perspective. I also appreciate the many doctoral seminars with the faculty in the Marketing group at Michigan, as well as Dr. Amar Cheema for being such a great professor of Consumer Behavior when I was an eager undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. And thanks to Dr. John Branch, whom I had the good fortune of studying under at WashU and then again at Michigan, for it his excellent teaching and life perspective that led me to this path in the first place. He also was the one who kept nudging me to write this book when academia sucked the life out of me, a time when I spent days, weeks, months, and years obsessing over research journal articles (that few people ever read anyway). Thanks to Bernie Milano and the Ph.D. Project community for unwavering support, as well as my cohort at the University of Michigan (including Jason Stornelli for his That cupcake place from Sex and the City guess). Thanks also to Kevin, Chris, Nathan, Veena, and Sam my awesome Modern Marketing Lab students. Thanks to Kelsey for daily coffee and conversation. And special thank you to Dr. Ryan Elder (BYU), Dr. Keisha Cutright (Wharton), Dr. Adriana Samper (ASU), Dr. Kelly Herd (Indiana), Dr. Stephen Spiller (UCLA), Dr. Eugenia Wu (University of Pittsburgh), and Dr. Lin Yang (UNC-Charlotte) for being my loving, supportive academic family.

And thank you to my editors and fellow marketing gurus Jess Gilbertson, Jamee Pearlstein, Lynn Pearlstein, and Justin Sailer. Your comments, suggestions, and ideas certainly helped to improve this book and to shape the minds that read it. And, finally, thank you, reader, for being curious to learn about the fascinating world of Consumer Behavior. I promise to make this experience as educational, entertaining, and fun as I can. After all, there may be a sequel someday.

Overview

I judge people.

I judge people a lot it turns out. Now, on one hand thats what I am paid to do: as a marketing guy its essentially my job to get to the bottom of why people behave the way that they do, why they make the choices they make, why they buy what they buy. In fact, understanding why people are the way they are is so important to marketing that the majority of classes in a marketing Ph.D. program are in psychology. I guess you could say we marketers are really in your mind.

So it should come as no surprise, then, that when I see people reading SkyMall that fascinating magazine featuring bizarre consumer products in the back seat pocket of just about every flight in the world (or really 88% of domestic American flights according to SkyMall itself) I put on my social psychologist cap and ask the eloquent question, Who buys this crap? and, perhaps the more important question, Why? What sad thing happened in these peoples childhoods that led them to this?

For example, did you know that you can buy fake clip-on hair bangs in SkyMall? You can. Looking for eyelashes for your cars headlights that are bedazzled with crystals? SkyMall has that, too. Need a portable hot tub for the many times youve been traveling and thought to yourself, You know, I could really use a hot tub right now. Look no further.

Before studying marketing and, more specifically, consumer psychology, I used to just think that only ultra-wealthy morons (e.g., the Kardashians) or drunk people on planes (e.g., the Kardashians) actually purchased the stuff sold in SkyMall. One time, I saw an 80-something-year-old couple ordering Screwdrivers (the vodka and orange juice kind, not the tools) on a 7:00am flight. 7:00am! Those people are going to buy a lot of junk for their grandchildren today, I thought as the wife pulled out the SkyMall magazine from the seat in front of her. Those poor grandchildren.

Now, Im sure that a lot of well-meaning, educated, and sophisticated people purchase products from SkyMall. And, as it turns out, not all of the products are as ridiculous as the examples I mentioned. From Bluetooth speakers to pet gates, college memorabilia to espresso machines, hidden within SkyMalls pages are plenty of reasonable, useful consumer products that you or I would be likely to purchase. So why, then, has SkyMall become so associated with crazy, off-the-wall (or, in the case of the Worlds Largest Write-On Map on the wall) products?