This document provides guidance for an individual assignment on developing a 12-month marketing public relations campaign for an organization. It instructs students to analyze the organization's mission, values, business objectives, and communication challenges. It also guides them to define target customers, conduct a media consumption analysis, and identify PR objectives derived from marketing strategies. Students are asked to propose a series of activities achieving the objectives, including entertainment, customer engagement, and media-related activities. A timeline, budget, and effectiveness evaluation mechanism are also required. The word count for analyzing issues and the PR campaign is 1,000-3,000 words.

1. Post Graduate Diploma in PR & Exhibitions Management
Marketing Public Relations and Audience
Lecture 3
Understanding Audience Behavior
Developed and Presented by
Roy Ying, Msc., BSG, B.Comm., MHKIoD
Note: Pictures used in this power point file
is for academic Purpose only 1

2. Table of Contents
• Understanding consumer behavior
• Consumer research
• Changing consumer behavior
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3. Definition
Consumer Behavior
• The study of individuals, groups, or
organizations, and the processes they use
to select, secure, use, and dispose of
products, services, experiences, or ideas
to satisfy needs, and the impacts that
these processes have on the consumer
and society.
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4. Let’s look at an example
• How marketers use consumer psychology
to increase sales…..
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5. • Decision Making
5-step Process
Source: Adopted from Kotler (1997),
Schiffman and Kanuk (1997), and Solomon (1996)
• Consumer Sieve
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6. Need = Problem
• Kotler (1997) equates consumers as problem solvers
• Problem Recognition occurs when there's a difference
between one's desired state and actual state that is
sufficient to activate the decision process.
• The Desired State is the way a person would like for a
need to be met.
• The Actual State is the way a need is being met/unmet
at a particular point in time.
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7. What are the needs?
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8. What are the needs?
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9. What are the needs?
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10. Information Search
• Traditional wisdom would suggest…
Memory
Media
Referral
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11. Information Search
• For the younger generation, it’s more likely
that they will…
Social Media
Search Engine 11

12. Evaluation of Alternatives
• What criteria do consumers use?
Consumer May Use Careful
Calculations & Logical Thinking
Consumers May Buy on Impulse and
Rely on Intuition
Consumers May Make Buying Decisions
on Their Own.
Consumers May Make Buying Decisions
Only After Consulting Others.
Marketers Must Study Buyers to Find Out
How They Evaluate Alternatives 12

13. Evaluation of Alternatives
• Means End Chain - a way to describe how
a product interacts with the consumer. It
can be categorized in three different areas:
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14. Means End Chain
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15. Means End Chain
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16. Means End Chain
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17. Purchase Decision
• What’s important for the buyer?
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18. Purchase Decision
• Culture
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19. Purchase Decision
• Social Class
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20. Purchase Decision
• Primary Reference • Membership
Reference
• Formal Reference
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21. Purchase Decision
• Self image
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22. Purchase Decision
• Situational factors
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23. Purchase Decision (or not)
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24. Post Purchase Evaluation
Purpose is to help you get word of mouth:
• Confirm they have made the right choice
• Give them something to share or “brag”
• Re-use value
• Interactive information
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25. Application
• Marketing strategy
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26. Table of Content
• Understanding consumer behavior
• Consumer research
• Changing consumer behavior
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27. Online Surveys - Benefits
• The use of “conditional branching” which
allows the computer to skip directly to the
appropriate question.
• With the right database, it can be
inexpensive with potential scale across
different countries.
• It captures the respondent’s submission
page visit log including timing and location.
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28. Online Surveys - Drawbacks
• Data quality is always under scrutiny.
• It’s impossible to get respondents to read
the questions carefully.
• The emergence of affiliate marketing
generated additional unqualified data.
• It cannot be too long so there is a limit to
the amount of data can be captured.
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29. Problem with Affiliate Marketing
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30. Focus group
• Let’s see another example
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31. Research Tool – Focus Group
• Focus groups are useful when the marketer
wants to launch a new product or modify an
existing one.
• A focus group usually involves having some 8-
12 people come together in a room to discuss
their consumption preferences and
experiences.
• The group is usually led by a moderator, who
will start out talking broadly about topics related
broadly to the product without mentioning the
product itself.
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32. Research Tool – Focus Group
• By not mentioning the product up front, we
avoid biasing the participants into thinking
only in terms of the specific product
brought out.
• Thus, instead of having consumers think
primarily in terms of what might be good or
bad about the product, we can ask them to
discuss more broadly the ultimate benefits
they really seek.
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33. Research Tool – Focus Group
• Represent small sample sizes. Because of the
cost of running focus groups, only a few groups
can be run. Focus groups cannot give us a
good idea of:
– What proportion of the population is likely to buy the
product.
– What price consumers are willing to pay.
– The groups are inherently social. This means that:
• Consumers will often say things that may make them look
good even if that is not true.
• Consumers may be reluctant to speak about embarrassing
issues.
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34. Research Tool – Interviews
• Personal interviews involve in-depth questioning
of an individual about his or her interest in or
experiences with a product.
• The benefit here is that we can get really into
some depth (when the respondent says
something interesting, we can ask him or her to
elaborate), but this method of research is costly
and can be extremely vulnerable to interviewer
bias.
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35. Research Tool – Observation
• Or just watching how consumers do their
shopping…
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36. Research Tool – Scanner Data
• Most retail outlets use scanner or even
RFID sales / inventory system. Some
shopping malls even require tenants to
report sales figure on a daily basis.
• It is a very powerful tool as it measures the
consumer’s actual purchasing pattern.
• The trouble is that these data are often
proprietary 3rd party private information
that marketers have no access to.
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37. Application
• Public Policy Decisions
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38. Application
• Predicting trend
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39. Individual Assignment
Assignment Policies
1. Only English assignment is accepted.
2. All works must be original and plagiarism is regarded as fail;
3. Provide all sources of information cited;
4. Assignments must meet course tutor’s requirements;
5. Students should bear the responsibility if real company data
are cited; otherwise company name can be concealed;
6. Assignments will be marked by course tutor and may be
reviewed by
7. overseas examiners and members of the Board of
Examination. The school guarantees information of individual
assignment will not be disclosed to the general public.
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40. Individual Assignment
Part A: Description of the organization
and background information
• This should be as short as possible. It merely describes
the organization, and possibly its context, so that the
examiners understand the organization and the nature of
its business.
• It is not included in the word-count and receives no
marks.
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41. Individual Assignment
Part B: Analysis of Organization Public
Relation Issues and Challenges
This should contain:
• Organization’s mission, vision and values
• Business objectives and marketing communications
strategies
• Situation analysis (at least a SWOT analysis) on the
issues and communication challenges/opportunities
faced by the organization and the target public
• World count for Part B + C should be 1,000 – 3,000
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42. Individual Assignment
Part C: Proposing a Marketing Public
Relations Campaign (12 months period)
The section should include:
1. Define your target group of customers (i.e., end users
and intermediaries)
2. Produce an analysis of their purchasing and media
consumption behavior
3. Identify of MPR objectives, including intended brand
personality and brand experience, which are derived
from the overall business objectives and marketing
strategies
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43. Individual Assignment
4. Develop core messages to be disseminated through
various programs of the communications campaign which
should build credibility, trust or long term relationship with
customers
5. Propose a series of activities in achieving the MPR
objectives. Among the list of activities, one of them
should be derived from the content of the Entertainment,
Sports and Sponsorship module, one of them should be
related to customer engagement activities, and one
should focus on media-related activities
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44. Individual Assignment
6. A timeline indicating the schedule of activities for all
types of programs of the communications campaign
7. An estimated budget and related resources for each
program/activity with detailed breakdown as much as
possible
8. The mechanism to measure/evaluate the effectiveness
of each program of the campaign with a view to achieve
the pre-determined MPR objectives based on the
organization’s marketing communications strategies,
which in turn should make up the overall business
objectives.
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