The I.T.E.R. Marketing model: a proposal for a new approach to consumer behaviour

This work is based on the assumptions already reported in literature concerning, on one side, rational drives and emotional drives that influence consumers’ choices, and, on the other side, it considers the product/service dichotomy up to Grönross’s research (2011) and the Service-Dominant Logic perspective. The aim of the I.T.E.R. model (from Latin iter – itineris, meaning path, journey, access) is to describe the elements that the consumer considers and examines during the act of buying and which guide his behaviour: intangibility/tangibility and emotionality/rationality. I.T.E.R. analyses together the aspects linked with the emotive and experiential drives (experience, impulse) that encourage the rational aspects to take action, defining the key buying factors which can be compared and assessed from the quantitative point of view (price, size, performance), to the physicality or not of what is being considered, (on one side the purchase of capital goods or a house, on the other a financial investment or an accountant’s opinion or a consultation).