消费者分析：eHarmony 假设案例研究

eHarmony.com 提供在线约会服务，帮助男性和女性建立爱情关系。它拥有专利公式来匹配最佳伴侣，主要针对 21-55 岁以上的年龄段。目前，eHarmony 的电视广告表达了人们从遇到科学匹配的伴侣中获得的幸福感。在这方面，这项服务本质上被描绘成一些人寻找幸福的可选选择。这是一个假设的案例研究，使用研究分析来评估消费者行为并发现“客户想要什么”。

以下案例研究是本博客的深入案例研究，仅供读者参考。重要说明：

1. 本培训报告并不反映 SIS International 报告的典型报告构成。本报告从未且绝不会提交给任何客户，也不会用于商业目的。本报告的质量、真实性或及时性不作任何保证。
2. SIS 从不泄露客户姓名或报告内容，自 25 年前成立以来一直恪守严格的道德规范。
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广告媒体 – 电视

为了吸引更多 21 至 35 岁的年轻单身人士，eHarmony.com 可以考虑开展一项改变态度的活动，电视广告强调寻找理想伴侣的稀缺性和难度。这项活动可能会改变 21 至 35 岁人群的态度，即在线社交约会不适合那些“放弃”传统约会的人，而是那些不想再浪费时间在错误的地方寻找的人。

广告必须传达出积极乐观的感觉，即演员使用 eHarmony 认真对待自己的约会，但也要传达出稀缺性和号召性用语。这种“励志”形式的广告可能会让“接收者”评估自己的约会经历，并引起那些周末在家没有约会对象的人的共鸣。

These advertisements would target both males and females to achieve a balanced number of sign-ups. Specifically, eHarmony’s campaign could target MTV, Lifetime, VH1, ESPN, and also after key network shows like ABC’s Lost, which is geared towards this age segment. Because several of these channels are gender-specific, there could be two versions of the commercial, with either a female source or male source.

电视是改变这一年轻群体态度的有力媒介，因为它针对的是那些坐在家里沙发上的人。他们可能因为在家看电视而感到孤独。当被这则广告和号召性用语“引导”时，他们可能会被说服加入这项服务，以缓解他们的焦虑、孤独或浪费时间的感觉。其次，年轻人是电视的主要观众；大量针对这一年龄段的广告普遍证实了这一点。

Third, television would allow eHarmony to achieve its particular marketing objectives. eHarmony brands itself to consumers as the premier and most scientific online dating service. Its sleek and upbeat television ads convey a professional message unlike other seedy online advertising for online dating. This helps to differentiate it from other brands and adds value to its brand, which helps to attract the right candidates for its service. Other unconventional forms of advertising like M-commerce could even be detrimental towards this strategically “exclusive” brand given the newness of the medium and consumers’ perceptions about this service category.

第四，目标频道的电视广告可以让演员通过肢体语言来表达准确的信息，而不是仅仅通过杂志或在线广告中的文字或图片来传达。在这方面，广告中“伴侣稀缺”的信息、演员之间的共识以及对 eHarmony 上爱情的积极情感和行为反应都可以直观而间接地传达给观众。

潜在广告来源

在选择广告来源时，可以考虑两个特点。首先，传播者必须可信。这样，eHarmony 就会拥有同年龄段的年轻会员，这将凭借其年龄建立可信度。演员将形象地讲接收者的语言。

Also, the commercials would maintain at the end of them the comments of the founder, who himself has a Phd degree. This would also contain authoritative persuasive effects and positive associations, which might help to limit knowledge bias. To prevent reporting bias, eHarmony could contract out with two actors so that they do not endorse other products, which could compromise the message.

Secondly, in the two versions of the ad with either a male or female source, the communicator may also be physically attractive. This is because, according to the Halo effect, the receiver will relate the service with feelings towards the attractive source. Importantly, this attractiveness is highly relevant to the service given that online dating is largely about physical and emotional attraction. Hence, this attractive source would help quickly build trust in the service given the relevance of attraction to the service offering. This source would also help receivers to envisage the quality of subscribers and what kind of mate people can find on eHarmony. Ultimately, this attractive source in each ad could help in ensuring receivers process the message and change their potentially reluctant attitudes on online dating.

精细化可能性模型

One message that could work with the central route is a source giving a message to receivers about the scarcity of one’s mate and how receivers are wasting their time with traditional dating practices. Essentially, the message warns about wasting time with traditional dating and watching television alone, missing out on life. The receiver would then proceed with high involvement processes eliciting cognitive responses that either agree or disagree with the message. Thus, a receiver might think about a recent bad dating experience and agree. The receiver who agrees with the message will likely comply with the ad’s message, resulting in belief and attitude change followed by a behavior change. They might try the free personality prerequisite test and begin their subscriptions to the service. On the other hand, a receiver might strongly disagree with the message given their own positive experiences in the past, and they may provide cogent reasoning as to why the message is wrong.

In contrast, a message following the peripheral route concerns the attractiveness of the source or the visual depiction of finding an attractive mate quickly. In this respect, the message would require low-involvement processing, and receivers would grasp that they could find an attractive mate on this site through a professional matchmaking method. This would cause belief change about online dating services and, in particular, eHarmony.com. This could cause a change in behavior by getting the receiver to sign up and cause others to sign up through word-of-mouth buzz. Once this happens the receiver may change his or her opinion on this type of service and specifically build positive perceptions about eHarmony.com.