MKT 554 Week 3 Motivation and Brand Perception Example

Joy, Identity and a Piano in the Living Room: Motivation and Brand Perception Among Adult Buyers at a Texas Music Chain

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

MKT/554: Consumer Behavior

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Harmon and Vale Music, its customers and its interview findings are composites written for a model paper.

The first two papers on Harmon and Vale, the invented Texas music retailer used in this course, looked at families renting school instruments. This week turns to a smaller but more profitable group: adults aged 45 to 70 who buy pianos, digital pianos and guitars for themselves. These buyers account for about a fifth of revenue and a larger share of profit, with an average purchase of $4,800 for pianos. Sales have grown since 2020 as many adults took up or returned to music, but the chain's share of the segment is slipping to a national music retailer and to online sellers of digital pianos. The marketing team conducted 24 interviews with recent adult buyers and 12 with adults who shopped at Harmon and Vale but bought elsewhere. This paper analyzes these customers' motives and their perceptions of the chain's brand.

Three Motives From the Interviews

Interviews produced three recurring motives. The first was enjoyment of playing itself: several buyers described the absorption of practicing and the satisfaction of slowly improving. The second was renewal of identity: 15 of the 24 buyers had played as children and stopped, and described the purchase as recovering part of themselves. A retired nurse said she was finally keeping a promise to her late mother, a piano teacher. The third was the pleasure of the object: buyers of acoustic pianos described the instrument as furniture, heirloom and centerpiece. Price came up mainly as a threshold, not as the deciding factor.

Hedonic Consumption

Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) defined hedonic consumption as those aspects of consumer behavior related to the multisensory, fantasy and emotional aspects of experience with products. They argued that products such as music, art and entertainment are chosen for the feelings and imagery they evoke rather than for objective features alone. The interviews fit this view. Buyers described the sound in the store, the feel of the keys and imagined evenings at the instrument. A purely functional sales pitch about polyphony and speaker wattage misses these motives.

Possessions and the Extended Self

Belk (1988) proposed that people regard possessions as parts of themselves, an extended self, and that objects help people remember their pasts, express identity and connect with others. A piano bought to honor a parent or to recover a childhood skill is more than a tool. It becomes part of the owner's story. This helps explain why buyers in the interviews cared about the store's history and the technician who would tune the instrument for years, and why several described the digital pianos sold online as convenient but impersonal.

For many of these customers, the piano is not a purchase they are making but a version of themselves they are getting back.

Brand Personality

Aaker (1997) developed a framework of brand personality with five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. In the interviews, customers rated Harmon and Vale highest on sincerity, describing it as honest, family-run and local, and on competence, citing its technicians. They rated it low on excitement, describing the stores as dated. The national chain scored high on excitement and selection but low on sincerity. The online seller scored high on competence in price and convenience and low on every other dimension.

Consumer-Brand Relationships

Fournier (1998) argued that consumers form relationships with brands that resemble relationships with people, with forms such as committed partnerships, childhood friendships and casual acquaintances. Customers who had rented their first instrument from Harmon and Vale as children described something like a childhood friendship, a brand tied to memories. Newer residents of Austin, many of whom moved from other states, had no such tie and saw the chain as one choice among several.

Why Lost Shoppers Bought Elsewhere

The 12 interviews with adults who shopped at Harmon and Vale but bought elsewhere add an important view. Seven bought a digital piano online after visiting a store to try instruments, most citing price differences of $150 to $400 and home delivery. Three bought at the national chain, describing its stores as more inviting and its staff as more energetic, and two bought used acoustic pianos privately. Several said a salesperson at Harmon and Vale had been knowledgeable but rushed, focused on specifications rather than on why they wanted to play. One woman described leaving after being asked her budget before anyone asked about her music. These shoppers shared the motives of the buyers but did not feel those motives were recognized.

Motivation and What Buyers Notice

Motives shape perception. Buyers driven by enjoyment noticed how instruments sounded and felt in the store, and whether they could play without an audience. Buyers seeking renewed identity noticed whether staff took their return to music seriously. Buyers drawn to the object noticed finish, history and the way a piano would look at home. Each motive directs attention to different parts of the store experience, which means the brand is perceived through the moments that matter to each buyer, not through its advertising.

A Perceptual Map

A perceptual map built from the interviews places brands on two dimensions that customers raised most often: personal guidance, from self-service to expert help, and inspiration, from purely functional to inspiring. Harmon and Vale sits high on guidance but low on inspiration. The national chain sits in the middle on guidance and high on inspiration, with bright stores and frequent events. The online seller sits low on both. The upper-right area, high guidance and high inspiration, is open.

The Gap Between Company and Customers

The chain's advertising emphasizes selection and low prices, which matches neither the motives customers described nor the perceptions they hold. Customers value its honesty and expertise but find its stores uninspiring, and its message speaks to the online seller's strengths rather than its own.

Recommendations

First, reposition the adult segment around guidance and inspiration, with a message such as play again, with people who know music, built on real customer stories. Second, redesign one area in each of the four largest stores as a quiet listening room with good lighting, a few pianos and seating, where adults can play without feeling watched. Third, launch an adult return-to-music program offering four free group lessons with any instrument purchase, which supports enjoyment and identity and gives the chain a continuing relationship. Fourth, schedule a technician's first tuning visit within 60 days of every acoustic piano sale, turning the extended-self relationship into service. Fifth, measure success through adult segment sales, lesson enrollment and repeat ratings of the brand's personality.

Conclusion

Adult music buyers are motivated by enjoyment, identity and the meaning of the object, motives that research on hedonic consumption and the extended self explains well. They see Harmon and Vale as sincere and competent but not inspiring. Repositioning around expert guidance and inspiration, and supporting it with spaces, lessons and service, aligns the brand with what these customers actually seek.

References

Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379703400304

Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139-168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154

Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 24(4), 343-373. https://doi.org/10.1086/209515

Hirschman, E. C., & Holbrook, M. B. (1982). Hedonic consumption: Emerging concepts, methods and propositions. Journal of Marketing, 46(3), 92-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298204600314