The consumer’s behavior is intrinsically linked to the product involvement which can be either high or low. This distinction generates four types of buying behavior: on one hand, in high involvement, big differences between several brands cause a complex buying behavior while if these differences are few there is dissonance and, consequently, reducing buying behavior; on the other hand, in low involvement, many differences are translated in variety and produce a seeking behavior as when the differences are not significant we can see an habitual buying behavior.
The high and low involvement and mostly the disparate elements between them influence the consumer decision process (problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision and postpurchase evaluation) in the way that it is adapted to the level of product involvement of the buyer.
In the information search step, an internal search is used in low involvement. With product high involvement the search is external. This means that if there is low involvement people will search in their mind for the product they want and so they will not search in the exterior, for example, friends, family, articles, experiments and of course websites. Nevertheless, in high involvement on the account that the search is external these sources are used. In a brand like Wrigley, associated with low involvement, the website small, simple and with more image than text; but when looking at the website of BMW one can see that they are expecting many and important visitors (huge, well organized, much information, modern,...) because a car is a high involvement product.
Related to this is the notion of motivation with depends on the level of product involvement and is one of the determinant factors of the time spent on the search. If the involvement is high, the motivation is also high and therefore the search time is high. In this way, the BMW website is made in a way that a person can navigate in it for at least a couple of hours learning everything from the company strategy to cars production. As for Wrigley it is not like that or it does not seam to be at the first glince because it is a low involvement product and so the motivation is not that big what will reduce the searching time. Usually costumers do not investigate profoundly chewing gums in websites. Also BMW is requiering some disposition and time to find what we are looking for. Just in the Home page there are six main titles only as the most important news each asking for close attention to understand them. But in Wrigley there are only three and very clear and short ones just in a small space of the webpage.
When a consumer is highly motivated he purchases based on the Hedonic, Experiental Model which means that he focus on emotions, fun and new or unusual experiences. In Wrigley, the various colors and the circular forms emphasise strong and good feelings, happiness, a good time; the word “new” is used more than one time in the Home page and the main title is even “Spirit of Innovation” making the consumer think of novelties and different and good products. The BMW website is more directioned to Elaboration Likelihood Model users because it gives more importance to the company characteristics and the product quality and price as we can see in some Home page titles: “Responsability: The BMW Group guidelines,principles and declarations”, “Engineers Competing For Swiftness And Perfection”.
Particularly in high involvement decisions there are some very important factors. One of them is the message structure which includes, for instance, factual-rational appeals; these imply the predominance of text, as happens in BMW website, to give an image of rationality. It also includes the repetition that can be very persuasive: “BMW” or “BMW Group” is visible ten times in the Homepage and “Responsability” two times, for example. In what refers to the message content, the advertising appeal mostly used by BMW is rationality: facts and logic are frequent in high involvement products.
Surely this brand also uses emotional appeals. It uses safety and reliability (emphasis on how secure and reliable BMW cars are), glamour/luxury (“sheer divine pleasure”) and mostly BMW uses a big part of its website to tell about their social achievements: environment, employment, society, culture, foundations (responsability). We are not only buying a reliable, glamourous BMW but also helping them to help others.
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