Introduction:

Understanding Consumer behavior:

What is consumer behavior? The study of when, why, how, where and what people
do or do not buy products is referred to as Consumer behavior. There are factors
that influence consumer behavior, these factors are:

1. Cultural Factor.
2. Social Factor.
3. Personal Factor.
4. Psychological Factor.

1. The Cultural Factor

The cultural factor is divided into three sub factors:

a. Culture

b. Sub Culture

c. Social Class

Culture:

Is the set of basic values perceptions, requirements, and behaviors learned by a

member of society from family and other important associations. It is the most
basic cause of a person’s wants and behavior. Every group or society has a culture,
and cultural influences on buying behavior may vary greatly from country to
country.
Sub Culture:

A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences
and situations. Each culture contains a smaller sub culture of a group of people
with shared value system based on common life experiences and situations. Sub
culture includes nationalities, religions, racial group and geographic regions. Many
sub cultures make up important market segments where marketers often design
products.

Social Class:

Almost every society has some form of social structure, social classes are society’s
relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose members share similar values,
interests and behavior.

2.  Social Factors

 A consumer’s behavior also is influenced by social factors, such as the

Groups, Family, Roles and status

Groups:

Are two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals. A
person’s behaviors are influenced by many small groups. Groups that have a direct
influence and to which a person belongs to are called membership groups.
Family:

Family members can strongly influence the buying behavior. Marketers are
interested in the roles, and influence of the husband, wife and children on the
purchase of different products and services.

Roles and status :

A person may belong to many groups, family, clubs, organizations. The person’s
position in each group can be distinct in terms of both role and status.

3. Personal Factors

Personal factors include:

Age and Life cycle Stage:

People alter the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Tastes in food,
clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related. Buying is also shaped by the
stage of the family life cycle.

Occupation

A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought. Blue collar workers
tend to buy more rugged work clothes, whereas white-collar workers buy more
business suits.

Economic situation :

A person’s economic situation will affect product choice

Life Style:

Life Style is a person’s Pattern of living.

Personality and Self concept:

Each person’s distinct personality influences his / her buying behavior. Personality
refers to the unique psychological characteristics that lead to reasonably reliable
and lasting responses to a person’s own environment and surroundings.

4. Psychological Factors

The psychological factors for any person are: Motivation, Perception and
Learning.

Motivation:

Motivation is a want that is sufficiently urging to direct the person to seek the
satisfaction of a certain or specific need.

Perception:

This is the process by which people select, organize and interpret information to
form a meaningful picture of the world. In other words, it is how people see reality.

Learning:

Is any permanent change in behavior or attitude that results from experience or

through observation. There are types of learning which are: Classical, operant,
Iconic rote, vicarious modeling and reasoning analogy.
The objectives of the research:

In this research we are trying to evaluate the relationship between customers,

brands and marketers. We will identify which of the two brands; Nokia and Sony
Ericsson is better perceived as the best mobile phone brand among mobile phone
users through assessing their various marketing activities that influence the
consumer buying process.

The reason for choosing this topic:

We chose the field of mobile phones in particular because we think that the IT
sector nowadays is intensively growing and getting more sophisticated whereas
many electronic devices that are invented change the way of how people
experience their daily lives. Mobile phones are a means of connectivity between
individuals and are also entertainment devices as well as personal digital assistants.
Since there are many brands for mobile phones, the competition is fierce in the
mobile phone market where manufacturers race each other to produce up to date
handheld devices. Therefore we chose the two famous brands Nokia and Sony
Ericsson since they are frequently purchased and well known in Egypt as they are
market leaders and the pioneers in the mobile phone industry.

History of Nokia:

Nokia is known today as the largest manufacturer of mobile phones, having about

40 percent of the world market share in the second quarter of 2008. This company
is even the reason why Finland is a prosperous country in which it is accounted for
about 30 percent of the nation's market capitalization. But Nokia had a really
humble beginning-it all started in 1865. In 1987 Nokia introduced one of the
world's first handheld phones and was called Mobira Cityman 900. During those
days, the Cityman was one of the most light-weight phones having only about 800
grams. But its price tag was approximately equivalent to 4,500 Euros nowadays.
Although that was very expensive, Cityman was still considered a success.

The success of Nokia continued until the world's first satellite call was made in
1994 using a Nokia mobile phone. And in 1997, Nokia introduced a classic game
called snake which was highly associated with the company.

Finally, in 1998, Nokia mobile phones became the world's leader. After a year, the
company moved to further innovation with its launching of the first WAP handset
in the world, the Nokia 7110.

Nokia mobile phones continued to be one of the best and most innovative in the
world. This was proven in 2002 with the company's launching of Nokia 6650, its
first 3G phone. The company even had its billion sales when it was able to sell
billion units of Nokia 1100. Nokia Corporation is also recognized in the world
today as the fifth most valued brand.

History of Sony Ericsson:

Sony Ericsson is a result of the joint venture between Sony and Ericsson
telecommunications.

In the early 2000s, Ericsson was struggling against manufacturers like Nokia, and
hooked up with Sony to pair communications technology and consumer electronics
design in a match made in handset territory. After several years struggling to beat
top end PDA-phones such as the P800, the company finally scored with one of the
world’s first entry level camera phones, the T160, in 2003. Today, Sony
Ericsson is famed for the Walkman range of music mobiles and Cyber-shot camera
phones, launching in 2005 and 2006 respectively, based on Sony’s popular sole-
purpose devices. It’s now branching out into other areas too, notably with the touch
screen Xperia X1, the company’s first venture into Windows Mobile and a
potential brand to partner the former two, and even promising to enter the Google
Android market in 2009.

Types of products offered by Nokia:

Nokia offers various types for the mobile phones according to the usage type of
individuals. Nokia’s product line can be classified into:

 The “N” series that combine almost everything in one solution while
maintaining stylish and elegant looks for such a mobile phone.
Examples for the “N” series are the N95, N85, N79 and N78 priced at
2700L.E., 2850L.E., 2400L.E. and 1700L.E respectively. There are
also touch screen models like the N97 priced at 4200L.E. which is
considered to be the world’s most advanced mobile computer/phone.
 The “E” series that is designed especially for business users who
usually look for something that can assist them in facilitating their
daily jobs. Examples of the “E” series are the E55, E71, and E75
priced at 2200L.E. 2700L.E. and 3240 L.E. respectively.
 The Xpress Music range that is designed for music lovers in such a
way to playback their favorite music at the press of a button. This
range includes various models like the 5730, 5800 (touch screen),
5630 priced at 1800L.E. 2199L.E. and 1649L.E. This range competes
with the range of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series.
 The navigator series that guide a person on his en route using GPS
navigation. An example of this series is the 6710Navigator which is
priced at 2780L.E.
  The classic series that Nokia considers as the soul of its success as
they are designed in a very simple way for day to day modern use.
Examples of this line are the 2700Classic, 6303 Classic priced at
1200L.E. and 1100L.E. Those are considered to be the cheapest
models available from Nokia.

Types of products offered by Sony Ericsson

As the same with Nokia, Sony Ericsson has to keep up with the competition by
offering models that are technically identical to those of Nokia but with different
features and software that are much sophisticated.

The product line of Sony Ericsson is much more complicated with over 58
products available we can categorize them as follows:

 The touch screen category that includes Xperia X10, X2, Satio, Aino,
G900 and W960i. the Aino and Satio are the models available in
Egypt priced at 3400L.E. and 2500L.E. respectively.
 The flip phone (clamshell) category that includes Z750i, T707 and
Z555i priced at 1780L.E, 1500L.E and 850L.E. respectively.
 The slider category that includes models such as the C903, C905 and
S500i priced at 2700L.E, 3200L.E. and 2300L.E respectively.
 The Walkman Series that is designed for those who love music as
these phones have a large integrated memory that can hold up to
thousands of music and hours of playback while giving it the
walkman look. This range includes models that are lettered with “W”
like the W995, W705 and W508 priced at 3500L.e, 2800L.E and
1400L.E respectively.
As noticed both brands have set prices that are almost the same in order for the
competition to be fair and to attract customers.

The relationship between the brands and the consumers

NOKIA

Perception towards Nokia

Nokia advertises through the television, newspapers, magazines, billboards and

radios. It is using every media vehicle to deliver its message to the audience, by
this way it is mostly guaranteed that the reach and exposure to these ads will be
great; therefore the level of awareness towards the brand will increase as the
consumer’s attention is focused to the ad and interprets the symbols, music, logos,
themes and moods created by the ad into useful meaning. Since all Nokia products
are produced at a very high quality, the perception of consumers towards Nokia is
very good as they think of it as a respectful durable product.

Promotions

Promotions are what usually encourage and motivate the consumers to buy
products. As a result; Nokia bundles with its mobiles free accessories like
Bluetooth headsets or other car accessories which boosts the sales of Nokia. Other
promotions Nokia offers are price deductions that usually occur in the summertime
to encourage the purchase of Nokia, by this Nokia is using the Operant
Conditioning learning for consumers.

The product itself

Nokia has a wide range of products that suits the needs of every segment from the
A class to the D class as everyone can afford any of their mobile phones. The most
expensive mobile phone for Nokia is priced at 4200L.E while the cheapest phone
is priced at 250L.E. Nokia’s main focus is to spread the message to everyone that
all their models are affordable at very reasonable prices.

The Place

Nokia authorized distributors such as Raya and i2 are found everywhere where in
Egypt as their geographic distribution is excellent. The nearer the distributor, the
higher the chances of purchasing because sometimes consumers can get reluctant
to travel far distances in order to purchase a product unless they desperately need
it.

Cultural factor

Since Nokia is a worldwide brand and enters international markets, they produce
special products for the Middle East that have Arabic symbols on the keyboard
layout as well as Arabic language in the software which facilitates the use of the
mobile, so communicating with the consumers is not a challenge at all. When
Nokia advertises in a specific country they use the country’s language to
communicate with the consumer.
Sony Ericsson

Perception towards Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson rarely advertises in newspapers and magazines, when they advertise
they use celebrity endorsement as part of their campaign as they want people to
convince consumers that even celebrities prefer Sony Ericsson over other brands.
They also rely on the word of mouth spread out by individuals. There is no
exposure to the ads therefore there is no attention and interpretation. The
awareness of the brand is fair in Egypt but not as Nokia’s. Sony Ericsson also
produces high quality products that are very durable. Sony Ericsson is perceived as
a difficult phone to use.

Promotions

Sony Ericsson promotes its phones by bundling preloaded music on its mobile
phones, they don’t use any accessories to promote their product with but usually in
the summertime they make big discounts on their mobiles.

The product itself

Using the same strategy as Nokia, Sony Ericsson provides various mobiles phone
types that are packed with many features with various prices starting from 200L.E
up till 4500L.E. This fills the needs for every segment as the A class can purchase
top end models while the C and D class can afford the cheap low end models.

The place

Sony Ericsson sells through authorized distributors like Mobile shop and Phono
but they are not located everywhere in Cairo which is a disadvantage because this
may affect the chances a customer walks in and seeing a Sony Ericsson phone.
Cultural Factor

Sony Ericsson has taken into consideration the cultural factor that influences the
buying behavior which is the language limitations by adding multi language
support on their phones as well as Arabic layout keyboards. When they advertise
they use the language spoken in the country to communicate with the consumer
and to make sure that the message will be delivered.

Classical conditional Learning used by Sony Ericsson

In order for Sony Ericsson to create a

delightful mood for the consumers who are
opting for the walkman series they use their
logo as part in a sentence that reminds the
consumer of how loved the mobile is so
whenever people see the logo of Sony
Ericsson they experience positive feeling
and attitudes towards the product.