Exploring Otaku’s Cognitive Resources Allocation

• Main Authors: Tzu-Jou Chen, 陳慈柔
• Other Authors: Wen-Yeh Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/85548253208095399548

碩士 === 元智大學 === 企業管理學系 === 96 === Recently, there is group of enthusiastic consumers whose unique consumption behavior toward their beloved interest or hobbies has been noticed recently and they are named as Otaku. This term generally refers people who spend almost all their spare money and time on a field in which they have very strong interest for leisure or hobbies, and they usually possess unique psychological characteristics. As their passion and involvement for enthusiastic objects have them devoted a great amount of their consumer resources on the objects, it was revealed that they tend to care less about daily consumptions or other enjoyments. Under such circumstances, the cognitive resource allocated to process information on enthusiastic objects and non- enthusiastic objects such as consumer products might be very different. Thus, while they devote most of their cognitive resources on enthusiastic objects, they tend to have rather less resource focusing on other consumptions. Up to this point, this study aims to explore the impact of Otaku’s cognitive resources allocation on enthusiastic objects and the influences on information processing. The data presented are an extract from the qualitative in-depth interview. Nine subjects, aged from 22to 26 years old, were recruited by purposive sampling and they participated in semi-structured interviews. In the interview, they expressed their devotion in terms of time, money, and cognitive resources on enthusiastic objects. It was found that they would regularly allocate their consumer resources on the objects and they show interest in spending time conducting information searching and process activities everyday. Base on this constant devotion, subjects generate less intention to engage in information searching and processing activities that require their time and cognitive resources investment. Consequently, it further revealed that Otaku tend to use peripheral information processing for non-enthusiastic products since they have less motivation and cognitive resources to process the information in detail. To conclude, this study may be of importance in exploring Otkau’s information processing route by discussing their cognitive resource allocation. Marketers who are interested in penetrating to this segment may find clues to communicate Otaku by understanding their information processing route and give appropriate stimulus to attract their attention.