Forming an Open Structure of Consumer Knowledge: the Case of Lithuanian Beauty and Personal Care Mass Product Industry

Purpose of the article. Scientific research implies that current tectonic shifts, taking place in the external environment, have been reforming the consumer market. In the context of these tendencies, the knowledge seeded in consumer's consciousness keeps fluctuating in the direction hard to identify. The article investigates the problem of how the dynamicity of consumer knowledge manifests itself. Scientific aim: The present paper aims at suggesting guidelines for constructing an open structure of consumer knowledge. Findings. In grounding the object of the current article, theoretical investigation has been carried out to reveal that consumer knowledge dynamicity is the change of product-related information and subjective experiences, stored in consumer's long-term memory and allowing the consumer to make purchasing decisions. It manifests through certain structural parts of knowledge, open to the external environment change and interrelated, dealing with product terminology and attributes, with the evaluation of those attributes and the ways of usage as well as facts about the brand. Those structural parts are influenced by marketing activities of an organization, by macro-environment factors, by consumer characteristics, and by changes in purchasing decision making. The present article introduces the case of Lithuanian beauty and personal care mass product industry. Conclusions. The overview and analysis of qualitative research results have revealed the following path of the open consumer knowledge structure formation. Consumer's knowledge about a product is built when the consumer has certain knowledge on product terminology and on product usage ways. The knowledge of product terminology and usage, then, determines the creation of knowledge on product attributes evaluation. The latter knowledge category builds synergy in the interaction with product attributes which, consequently, influence brand facts.