Consumer Decision Making Process and Elections

I dread going for boring classes. I know that the teachers/lecturers (whichever applies) whon taught me were very knowledgeable in the subject, but unfortunately, they are not very adept in their delivery. They had the potential to literally drive away students from their class because of their sedative delivery. Their monotony would, as said, send any insomniac to sleep.

That is why the one thing I enjoy about Consumer Behaviour (CB) class is the interactive mode of lecture. The ever-so-humble CB lecturer, who addresses himself as a tutor (though all of us recognize him as our lecturer), is clear and precise in what he was trying to convey, and instead of him giving answers directly, he requested for them from us (thus, preventing me from falling asleep). It seems like it does not matter to him whether our answers were right or wrong, as long as the idea was there and we can justify it. Any inappropriate answer will be corrected there and then (though I do give irrelevant answers at times either for the fun of it, or because I was not paying attention so I did not get the question , or I do not know how to answer and I have no where to run so just tembak lah. Anyway, last Tuesday, I was being mischievious coupled with the post-election fever, that most of my answers were related to the recent general elections.

Scene 1:

Lecturer: Can you guys think of an advertisement that is trying to portray that the advertiser is trying to create a problem that would spark off the consumer decision making process?
Me: xxxxx, we saw a lot of that last week before election.
Lecturer: Okay, please explain.
Me: Simple… whenever we go to the Opposition party’s ceramah, most of the time we will be hearing them mud-sling about how horrible or unfair the ruling coalition is. All these criticisms and accusations created a problem for some of us because we realized that the ruling coalition has been cheating us all this while and that is the actual stage. Hence our desired state is that we do not want to be cheated anymore. The discrepancy between our actual state and desired state sparks off problem recognition ie it is time to give the Opposition parties a chance. This will then lead to us being involved in the consumer decision making process in which our purchase is the party or candidate we vote for. In stage 4, store choice and purchase, the purchase in this case is the candidate we voted for on polling day but there is no store choice because the store which is our polling centre and polling stream has been fixed by the Election Commission. Post purchase behaviour would depend very much on whether we are happy with our chosen candidate’s personality and attitude after election.
Lecturer: Yeah, actually politicians also use the consumer decision making process too in trying to win the hearts of the public...

-Politicians, hear that!!!!-

Scene 2:

Lecturer: How would you activate problem recognition for mountain bikes?
A: healthy lifestyle
Lecturer: Okay, anymore?
Me: Fuel price
A: Huh?

Me: When the price of fuel increase, this is a good opportunity to market mountain bikes cos mountain bikes don't consume petrol unlike cars, motorbikes, and etc. I bet you when the price of petrol increase, the bus fare will definitely go up too so the advantages of using mountain bikes outweighs the option of using public transportation. Kuching does not have LRT so our mode of public transportation is the infamous Mr Chin's bus or the green colour STC buses. Oh yeah, anyway, I don't think the government would dare increase our fuel price yet especially with their "unprecedented" performance in the 12th General Election. But there again, you might never know. Though they were denied of their two-third majority, they are still in power. So my answer is accepted, isn't it??

I don't know whether my CB lecturer was “impressed” with my answers but he must be thinking that I am an election enthusiast who attended those political parties’ rallies last week, instead of being a good student!!! Well, he’s not wrong….... That is why I need to be more (x10,0000) "kuai" this week to compensate for last week. Die lor, Market research assignment due next week and I am stuck at the intro. Leadership online quiz for module 1 - 4 is due in 2 weeks time and I have only read page 1 of Module 1.

Note: "He" here is subjective. I shall not reveal the sex of my CB lecturer.

Side note: Just completed my CB Quiz 1. I don't know how I flared cos marks aren't out yet. Well, I did my best and read up the chapters that were covered for the quiz because I was a kind-hearted soul who loaned my CB textbook to two moronic girls in my CB class since they did not bring their textbooks. (and they did not even thank me at all...didn't their parents teach them manners at all???. Instead, my CB lecturer thanked me on behalf of them and they didn't feel paiseh at all...). Anyway, I told them to help me mark in pencil the core topics for each module and they agreed too. Unfortunately, when I opened my textbook to study, there were no pencil marking. SH_T, they did not help me mark the core topics. So I ended up studying everything..... Thank goodness I copied down a few important areas though it was of no use....