CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru – 560 029

School of Business and Management

MID TRIMESTER EXAMINATION – AUGUST 2020

Programme Name: MBA Max. Marks: 50

Course Name: Consumer Behaviour Time: 2 Hours
Course Code: MBA 4042M
Course Outcomes (COs):

At the end of the course, the students will able to

1. CO1: Interpret concepts, frameworks and models of consumer behaviour to solve

contemporary marketing issues.
2. CO2: Examine various theories of consumer behaviour to enable marketing decisions.
3. CO3: Recommend marketing and branding decisions based on consumer behaviour insights.
4. CO4: Construct a meaningful insight to diagnose and effectively use consumer behaviour in
marketing decision making.

SECTION A (Answer ALL questions)

Q. Questions Mark CO RB
N s T
o
1 Illustrate Howard Sheth Model relating to consumer decision on hiring 10 CO L3
appliances for household furnishing from rentickle. In your response, do 1
include the range of appliances that you would be interested in. Under what
premise would you arrive at the final decision? Support youryour argument
with experiences and examples of your own.

Answer Key:

For the first part of the question, students have to c relate to Howard
ShethModel with four variable:
Input (Information - how consumers relate information from advertisements
and, reference group and opinion leaders )
Hypothetical construct:
perceptual construct is about how individual gets the information and
understands the information. The role of selective exposure, and selective
attention,
and
learning constructincludes criteria for evaluation, alternatives, preferences
values and benefits.
Output variables - selection and purchase
Exogenous – timely decision and financial status
Marks scheme:
Input variable: 1 marks
Hypothetical construct: 4 marks (perceptual and learning)
Output variable: 2 marks
Exogenous variable: 2 marks
Conclusion: 1 marks
2 Examine with suitable examples from personal care brands that incorporated 10 CO L4
the Defense Mechanisms for marketing. What would happen if some of the 2
personal care brands selected by you for discussion decides to not help
consumers deal with frustration on the contrary?
Answer: Defense mechanisms are cognitive and behavioral ways to handle
frustration.
Students have to explain all defense mechanisms: aggression,
rationalization, regression, withdrawal, projection, daydreaming,
identification, and repression (sublimation) Further to the last part of the
question, few products fail to meet the requirement, and hence the decision
taken can be explained.
Explanation of all 8 defense mechanisms with example = 8 (one mark each
for each defense mechanism). If only Concept explained only 2-3 marks.
For the second part of the question 2 marks
3 Dairy brand Amul released a new doodle to welcome Rafale fighter jets that 10 CO L5
landed at Ambala airbase on 29 July 2020. The doodle features the iconic 3
Amul girl posing in front of a Rafale fighter jet. Amul added a witty tagline
to the image. "Jab We Jet," it reads.

Netizens loved the doodle and took to the comments section to express their
excitement. "Love this," a user commented. "Welcome to India," another
user wrote to mark the arrival of the first five Rafale fighter jets in India.
Estimate this "Jab We Jet" advertisementfrom the perspective of Maslow’s
Need Hierarchy Theory for Dairy brand Amul and present your views?
Answer:
Brief explanation of Maslow’s theory, followed by identifying Social needs
and Esteem needs and reasoning to justify the same. Only 2 needs.
Marks Scheme:
Maslow’s theory explanation 2 marks
Relating to the right hierarchy, identifying, reasoning 8 marks

SECTION B (Case Study)

Toilet Cult in Bollywood: Marketing Toto in India

Introduction

Madoka Kitamura cannot recall if there has been any other times during his almost 40-year-long
corporate career when seeing a working report from the marketing department on his desk has made
him feel so vulnerable. There is nothing special about its neat folder and the way his assistant has set
it up on his desk. But the president of TOTO Ltd truly wants this document to present him with some
“magic,” or at least give him much needed answers to the question that has been deeply bothering him
lately: What can he do to make villagers in India embrace his toilets? HIS toilets—pieces of
engineering art and objects of professional pride, admired and recognized all over the world, but not
yet by the 500 million Indians who relieve themselves in the open.

Changing Consumer Behavior in India:

With a population of over 1.3 billion people, India holds an unflattering record: more people in India
(over 500 million) defecate in the open than in the rest of the world combined. Since the 1980s,
thousands of toilets have been built in India by successive governments, but they were hardly used
and didn’t change deeply entrenched habits. In 2014, the country’s new government initiated a five-
year-long mission to make India open defecation-free by October 2, 2019, and aimed to ensure that all
households in the nation have access to a toilet. At the start of this mission, only 38.7% of households
in India had toilets. After more than 64.32 million toilets have been built, the number of homes with
toilets rose to 78.98% in March 2018.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims to win re-election in 2019. The modernization of India is one of
his campaign promises, and the toilet drive in India is a strategic part of keeping that promise. Making
“Clean India” his most high-profile project, Mr. Modi aims to construct 110 million toilets in the
nation by October 2019, of which 33 million were built during the first three years of the “Clean
India” initiative. States controlled by Mr. Modi’s party are under particular pressure to declare their
villages open defecation-free before 2019. It is believed that Prime Minister Modi has talked about
toilets in public more than any other world leader. He has even set up a dedicated government website
(https://swachhbharat.mygov.in/) for the “Swachh Bharat”—a Hindi name for the “Clean India”
campaign.

Village councils in India use incentives and punishments to persuade families to install toilets. Local
authorities send their teams door-to-door to convince people that they want toilets and offer them a
USD 180 grant upon installation. Toilet-less residents are threatened with arrest, denial of local jobs,
and loss of government-subsidized food. In some villages, the “toilet police” drive around,
announcing with loudspeakers that electricity in the homes of toilet-less families will be cut off.
Authorities in one village staged the faux arrest of four locals who were instructed to relieve
themselves outside the village—to exemplify the consequences of this unwanted behaviour.
Community volunteers in another district take photos of the people relieving themselves in the open
and display them on community “walls of shame.”

Having a newly installed toilet is not a guarantee of its use by Indian residents. Some villagers don’t
see a need for toilets at all; others consider it impure to use toilets where they sleep, pray, and eat.
Many are ruled by caste prejudices and worry about cleaning the pits—a job associated with the so-
called “untouchables.” Some fathers-in-law refuse to share toilets with their daughters-in-law. A
typical example is a village in Madhya Pradesh, where 100 of the 330 families have toilets, but almost
none uses them. Their toilets have no water source, no water storage tank, and no drains or septic
tanks for the sewerage generated. As a result, the farmers use newly installed toilets for bathing and to
store grain.

The Indian entertainment industry stepped in to encourage local people to both install and use indoor
toilets. Going into the fields is “unmanly,” reproved Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan in a TV
commercial. In 2017, another movie star, Akshay Kumar, produced the world’s first and only feature
film about a toilet. Toilet: A Love Story is a Bollywood romantic comedy, in which a husband installs
a toilet to win his wife back. The movie was inspired by a true story; in 2011, a woman in a remote
village in central India left her husband because he didn’t have a toilet in the house.

Japan: The World’s Most Sophisticated Innovator in Lavatories?

Madoka Kitamura finishes reading the last paragraph and feels the need for a break. When he opens
the door of his private restroom and approaches the patented Washlet toilet, its lid automatically lifts,
producing a soft welcoming sound. The toilet seat’s surface is at a pleasant temperature, and the panel
on the right has several buttons that are ready to turn on music of the president’s choice and to wash
his body parts with the spray positioned at the precise angle of 43 degrees. Waste is flushed by e-
water+, which is regular water purposely electrolyzed to give it a slightly acidic pH value that kills
bacteria and prevents toilet stains on the bowl. Just to discover the “golden angle” for the spray, 300
employees of TOTO had routinely tested different positions at home before they collectively agreed
that 43 degrees would offer the best comfort and cleanliness.
 The president returns to his desk, summons his assistant, and requests a copy of the Bollywood
movie Toilet: A Love Story. To his knowledge, no movies with a similar plot have ever been produced
by Japanese movie makers. The only piece of Japanese art featuring a toilet that Mr. Kitamura is
familiar with is his favourite literary essay, “In Praise of Shadows,” written by the Japanese novelist
Junichiro Tanizaki in 1933. Musing about architecture and the art of living, the writer equates toilets
with a place of spiritual repose, and Japanese toilets with perfection. Several of his quotes, printed out
and framed, can be read on Mr. Kitamura’s office walls. The quote nearest his desk reads,

Always drawn to the subtle beauty of nature, Japanese people used to be ashamed to say the word
“toilet” because toilets were associated with offensive sounds and smells. Much engineering skill
went into addressing these issues when TOTO started to innovate its sanitary wares. The most
impressive result was the birth of the Washlet in 1980—the bathroom fixture that integrated the
functions of the European bidet into an electric toilet seat, removed the smell, and tamed the sound.
Its initial price sticker of JPY 149,000 (around USD 660) didn’t prevent the Japanese from eagerly
embracing TOTO’s high-tech innovation, and the brand TOTO has become a household name for
quality toilets.

Mr. Kitamura feels exhausted. Could the answer be hidden somewhere in the volumes that have been
collected over the years in his bookcase? Maybe in this one? He reaches for “Toilets of the World.”
The English language, pocket-sized book is generously illustrated with the images of toilets. Those
are the names, claim the book’s author, that the English-speaking world uses to refer to the same
object—the toilet. The book doesn’t report how many words there are in his native Japanese language.

“Why would people use different words for an object that essentially provided a solution to the same
physiological need?” wonders Mr. Kitamura. His business expertise is not helpful in decoding this
linguistic puzzle, and the president continues to read: “Regardless of how it is referred to, the
universal aspect cannot be denied: every human being on earth uses the toilet.” “Every human being
on earth?” Mr. Kitamura repeats to himself. “What about those Indian villagers who refuse the idea of
indoor toilets?” Irritated, he closes the book and turns to the report. “The solution must be hidden
somewhere there,” he thinks, determined to craft a plan of action for what his company should do to
market its sanitary wares in India. “These villagers will embrace TOTO’s toilets,” Mr. Kitamura is
convinced.

[Reference: 2020 SAGE Publications]

Q. No Questions Marks CO RBT

1 Investigate how you could use the example of toilet habits to discuss 10 CO L4
the difference between needs, wants, and demands in the theory of 2
consumer behaviour?
Answer:
With context of need as basic requirement, want as more of a
particular need, and demand with ability to afford to a particular
premium brand, students can relate in their own words. ..Explanation
in the context of TOTO.
Need: biogenic needs and psychogenic needs
Want: Toilets with specific things
Demand: premium brand of TOTO
Motive driven by social and psychological mechanisms like family,
friends. High level Features.
Motivation is the driving force that impels people to act and reflects
the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular
way
And Drive originates within a person

Marks scheme:
Need=2
Want= 1
 Demand = 2
Motive=1
Motivation=2
and drive 2
2 Do you think that TOTO’s management can use the same marketing 10 CO L5
approach in India as it uses in Japan? Recommend why or why not? 3
Answer:
Accepting or rejecting its application in India 2 marks
Reasoning based on cultural factors, personal factors, psychological
factors for the same 8 marks

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) Levels :

L1 – Remembering L2 – Understanding L3 – Applying
L4 – Analyzing L5 – Evaluating L6 - Creating