Analysis of the Romanian’s attitude towards purchasing a mobile phone- between hedonic and utilitarian

Abstract

Abstract: Attitude is the basis of consumer behaviour. To better understand this aspect of the behaviour all relevant attributes of a product or service must be studied. Therefore, the main purpose is to better understand the individual and make him your customer. Thus, the behaviour combines logical, cognitive, utilitarian aspects, as well as aspects related to emotions, feelings, affectivity (the hedonic component) and the attitude takes these two hypotheses to which it is added the intentional side. This concerns the intention of an individual after he has formed an idea, an opinion regarding a service or a product. Objectives: This paper deals with only two aspects of the attitude, namely the utilitarian/cognitive side and the hedonic/affective side. To obtain concrete results in what concerns the attitude of the consumers between hedonic and utilitarian we have conducted a quantitative research through which we analyzed the attitude of the inhabitants of Iasi towards buying a mobile phone, using a sample of 200 people living in Iasi. Prior Work: We, as researchers, have conducted previous researches using either the same topic (hedonic vs. utilitarian motivation), or the same product/industry (mobile phone/telephony) Approach: The problem that we submit to research is determining the proportion of hedonic and utilitarian that is involved in the purchase of a mobile phone in a temporal horizon of 6 months. Mobile phones are becoming more and more necessary, this being the reason why a growing number of persons have such an item. But the great rate to which they are renewed shows that the concept of pleasure interferes more and more in buying and having them. Thus, the purchase of a mobile phone must respond to both rational and emotional demands. Results: Starting from the main objective, we want to determine the proportion of the cognitive components as well as affective ones of the attitude of the mobile phone buyers from the inhabitants of Iasi- the biggest city from the North-East of Romania. Implications: As a direction for further researches we thing that it could be attempted to find out the consumption or the daily use of the mobile phone or what applications are mostly used on a mobile phone (in this situation, there should be taken into consideration a new aspect, namely the occupation, which will be an important factor to influence consumption). Once this aspect is discovered, it could be attempted to find out if the mainly utilitarian attitude derives from this factor. As it is used a lot, the mobile phone may lose some of the features that meet people's affective needs. Value Starting from the constitutive components of the attitude, we have studied the utilitarian/cognitive dimensions