Kartik Gupta

IR2/10GT
4/27/18

EFFECTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MARKETING TECHNIQUES SURVEY

DATA COLLECTION SUMMARY

Part 1:
● Topic: The topic that is hoped to be confirmed through this data collection process is that sensory
marketing techniques play a large role in attracting customers to luxury brands. Specifically,
through this questionnaire, the effective nature of a brand narrative along with a consistent
interaction with the consumer will be explored.

● Citation for Polling Questions:

Bagozzi, Richard P. Causal Models in Marketing. Wiley, 1980.
Fraser, Scott C., and Jonathan L. Freedman. “Compliance without Pressure: The Foot-in-
the-Door Technique.” Stanford University, vol. 4, no. 2, 1966.

● Intended Audience: The intended audience who will be subject to answering the questions is an
equal amount of male and female respondents in the age groups of 14-18 (Through 3rd Period IR
Students), 19-25 (Through Former IM Students), 26-35 (Through Former IM Students), and 35-
60 (Through Clarksville Happenings Facebook Page) as this will allow for a wide variety of
responses from those who have a fissically undetermined outlook to the questions followed by
more and more fiscally responsible age groups.

● Distribution Plan (March 23-30):

○ Research polling questions from vetted surveys with similar objectives
○ Finalized pre-vetted survey questions
○ Created survey using previously decided questions on the google form platform with link
created
○ Facebook advertisement on large group, increasing anonymity of the replies
○ Email former IR/IM students for more responses in the scarce 19-25 years age group
○ Informing business and economics teachers of the survey so topic-educated students may
take the survey along with their topic-educated counterparts
Part 2: Copy of “Why Do People Buy What They Buy?” - Public Opinion on Efficacy of
Psychological Marketing
Data Analysis - Marketing Survey:
In order to comprehend the vast effect of different techniques used in psychological marketing by
both generic and luxury brands, a recent survey (n = 80) conducted with people both presently and
formerly in the Howard County community solicited the understanding which people of various age
groups had on how companies use psychological marketing in order to sway public interests in their
audiences. This form of data collection consisted of voluntary polling regarding which marketing
technique between two in a given scenario may seem most appealing to the volunteer.
When considering the differences in the perceptions of people in the given age groups of 14-18,
19-25 , 26-35, and 35-60, a wide variety of responses from those who have a fiscally undetermined
outlook to the questions followed by more and more fiscally responsible age groups are received. Even
for those who are fiscally responsible, there remain psychological marketing techniques introduced in the
survey which present a facade of a more-than-realistically appealing product or service These techniques
are examples of reciprocity between customers and service providers and a brand narrative which pulls at
the sympathies of the customer. Reciprocity is introduced as a principle similar to “you scratch my back,
I’ll scratch yours” where if a consumer is rewarded for loyalty it will have positive ramifications across
the metaphorical financial board while simultaneously appealing to situations which make consumers feel
comfortable. Similarly brand narratives make consumers perceive the brand as more homely by indulging
the consumer in a story of the creation or hardships of the company to gain the sympathies of the
consumer.
The experimental data shown below is an example of the responses for both the psychological
marketing factors, first for reciprocity and second for brand narratives. As shown, a great majority of
70:30 would agree to reply to questions again after this survey once they have already filled out the
present survey. This is a specific example of a display of reciprocity called ‘the-foot-in-the-door-’
technique where the subject is more likely to indulge in a similar action (in this case, filling out another
survey) once they have performed a similar action with that party before. In the second chart, a scenario
with a given amount of allotted money and a luxury brand and generic brand’s marketing pitch are
presented to the volunteer (in this case, an option for Bulgari was pitted against an option for Walmart).
As the luxury brand uses brand narratives to attract a consumer base, the luxury brand, Bulgari’s
marketing pitch attracted 57.5% of the votes to the Walmart narrative’s 25%. This display of the strength
luxury brand’s narratives when used as vehicles of psychological marketing is even more impressive as a
majority of the responses go towards Bulgari even though it is more expensive (and therefore inherently
less appealing) than its generic brand counterpart in Walmart.

(1) (2)
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(5) (6)

Questions:
1. What may be the key word or the syntax and diction in the luxury brand’s narratives which make
their product so much more consistently appealing than their generic counterparts?
2. How is it possible to specify which narratives will aid with which audiences?
3. Is it possible to use certain narrative templates which will work with certain demographics?
4. Which of the brand narratives are the strongest out of the ones presented in the survey?
5. How is it possible to determine which brand narrative is the strongest of the ones presented in the
survey?
6. Should the scenarios have been more in-depth and specific to each of the presented narratives and
the juxtapositions between the luxury and generic brands?
7. Will altering the given scenarios provide more accurate responses?
8. Does the title of the survey alter the types of responses received through the survey?
9. How is it possible to weed out or alienate the responses which are not entirely honest but biased
because of the title of the survey and the situation in which it is implemented?
10. Is it possible to attain equally as reliable responses without such vetted questions and survey
audiences by sending and exposing the survey to more people?