 Consumer behavior

 The actions a person takes in purchasing and using

products and services,
including the mental and social processes that
precede and follow these actions. 
The behavioral sciences help answer questions
such as :
Why people choose one product or brand over
another, 
How they make these choices, and 
How companies use this knowledge to provide
value to consumers


I. CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION PROCESS

 Behind the visible act of making a purchase lies a decision process that must be investigated.
 The purchase decision process is the stages a buyer passes through in making choices about which produ

1. problem recognition,
2. information search,
Five Stages
3. alternative evaluation,
of
4. purchase decision, and
Consumer Behavior
5. post-purchase behavior.

A. Problem Recognition: Perceiving a Need

 Perceiving a difference between a person's ideal and actual situations big enough to trigger a decision.
 Can be as simple as noticing an empty milk carton or it can be activated by marketing efforts.

B. Information Search: Seeking Value

The information search stage clarifies the options open to the consumer and may involve 

two steps of information Internal search  Scanning one’s memory to recall previous experiences with
  Often sufficient for frequently purchased products.

 When past experience or knowledge is insufficient

 The risk of making a wrong purchase decision is high
 The cost of gathering information is low.
search
External The primary sources of external information
search 1. Personal sources, such as friends and family.
2. Public sources, including various product-rating organizatio
Reports.
3. Marketer-dominated sources, such as advertising, company

C. Alternative Evaluation: Assessing Value

The information search clarifies the problem for the consumer by
(1) Suggesting criteria to use for the purchase.
(2) Yielding brand names that might meet the criteria.
(3) Developing consumer value perception.
 A consumer's evaluative criteria represent both
o the objective attributes of a brand (such as locate speed on a portable CD player)
o the subjective factors (such as prestige).
 These criteria establish a consumer's evoked set
o the group of brands that a consumer would consider acceptable from among all the brands in the p
or she is aware

D. Purchase Decision: Buying Value

 which depends on such considerations
o Terms of sale
From whom to buy o Past experience buying from the seller
o Return policy.

 which can be influenced by

Three possibilities
o store atmosphere
o time pressure
When to buy
o a sale
o pleasantness of the shopping experience.

Do not buy
E. Postpurchase Behavior: Value in Consumption or Use
 After buying a product, the consumer compares it with expectations and is either satisfied or dissatisfied.
 Satisfaction or dissatisfaction affects
o consumer value perceptions
o consumer communications
o repeat-purchase behavior.
 Many firms work to produce positive postpurchase communications among consumers and contribute to
between sellers and buyers.

 Cognitive Dissonance. The feelings of postpurchase psychological tension or anxiety a consumer often ex
 Firms often use ads or follow-up calls from salespeople in this postpurchase stage to try to convince buye
decision.

F. Involvement and Problem-Solving Variations

  Consumers may skip or minimize one or more steps in the purchase decision process depending on
o the level of involvement
o the personal, social, and economic significance of the purchase
 Three characteristics of high-involvement purchase

o is expensive,
o can have serious personal consequences, or
o could reflect on one’s social image.

Three general problem-solving variations exist in the consumer purchase decision pr

G. Situational Influences
The purchase task The reason for engaging in the decision.
Five Social surroundings Including others present when a purchase decision is made.
situational Physical surroundings Such as decor, music, and crowding in retail stores.
influences Temporal effects Such as time of day or the amount of time available.
Antecedent states Which include the consumer’s mood or amount of cash on hand

Routine Problem Solving o Virtually a habit

 o involves little effort seeking external information and evaluating alte
o Typically used for low-priced, frequently purchased products.

o Involves the use of moderate information-seeking efforts.

Limited Problem Solving o Often used when the buyer has little time or effort to spend.

o Each stage of the consumer purchase decision process is used

o Considerable time and effort on
Extended Problem  external information search and in identifying 
Solving  evaluating alternatives.
o Used in high-involvement purchase situations.

o Low and high consumer involvement has important implications for

Involvement and Marketing
differs for products that are market leaders from their challengers.
Strategy

II. PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Concepts such as motivation and personality; perception; learning; values, beliefs and attitudes; and lifestyle are useful for inte
buying processes and directing marketing efforts.
A. Motivation and Personality
1. Motivation
o is the energizing force that causes behavior that satisfies a need.
o Needs are hierarchical
o Once basic physiological needs are met, people seek to satisfy learned needs. 

From lowest to highest, the hierarchy is: o basic to survival.

Physiological needs
o self-preservation
o physical well-
Safety needs
being.

Social needs o love

o friendship.
o achievement
o status
o prestige
o self-respect.
 o personal
Self-actualization needs fulfillment.

2. Personality
o A person's consistent behavior or responses to recurring situations.
o Research suggests that key traits affect brand and product-type preferences.

o Cross-cultural analysis also suggests that residents of different countries have a national character, or a distinct
personality characteristics common among people of a country or society.

o Personality characteristics are often revealed in a person’s self-concept, which is the way people see themselve
way they believe others see them.

B. Perception
o The process by which an individual uses information to create a meaningful picture of the world by
 selecting,
 organizing
 interpreting
o Perception is important because people selectively perceive what they want and it affects how people see risks
purchase.

1. Selective Perception
o Filtering
 exposure,
 comprehension, and
Selective perception
 retention
o in the human brain’s attempt to organize and interpret information.

o Consumers can pay attention to messages that are consistent with their own attitudes a
Selective exposure o Consumers can  ignore messages that are inconsistent.

o Involves interpreting (distorting?) information so that it is consistent with a person's a

Selective comprehension beliefs.

o Consumers do not remember all the information they see, read, or hear.
Selective retention
o Consumers see or hear messages without being aware of them.
o This is a hotly debated issue with more popular appeal than scientific support.
Subliminal perception
o Research suggests that such messages have limited effects on behavior

2. Perceived Risk
o Anxieties felt
  Consumes  cannot anticipate the outcomes of a purchase
 Believe that there may be negative consequences.
o Marketers try to reduce a consumer's perceived risk and encourage purchases by strategies such as providing
 Free trial of a product
 Securing endorsements from influential people
 Providing warranties and guarantees.

C. Learning
o Those behaviors that result from
 Repeated experience
 Thinking.

1. Behavioral Learning
o The process of developing automatic responses to a situation built up
o through repeated exposure to it.

Four variables central to how consumers 

learn from repeated experience are:
drive A need that moves an individual to action
cue A stimulus or symbol perceived by consumers
response The action taken by a consumer to satisfy the drive.
reinforcement The reward.
Marketers use two concepts from behavioral learning theory:
o Occurs when a response elicited by one stimulus (cue) is generalized to
another.
Stimulus generalization o Using the same brand name for different products is an application of this
concept

o Refers to a person's ability to perceive differences in stimuli.

Stimulus
o The advertising for Bud Light beer is an example of this concept.
discrimination

2. Cognitive learning
o Involves making connections between two or more ideas
o or simply observing the outcomes of others’ behaviors
o and adjusting one's accordingly.

3. Brand loyalty
o Is a favorable attitude and consistent purchase of a single brand over time.
o Brand loyalty differs across countries
 D. Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes
1. Attitude Formation
o A learned predisposition to respond to an object or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unf
way.
Attitude
o Shaped by our values and beliefs, which are learned.

o personally or socially preferable modes of conduct or states of existence that are enduring.
Values

o consumer's subjective perception of how well a product or brand performs on different attributes.
Beliefs

2. Attitude Change
o Changing beliefs about the extent to which a brand has certain
Approaches
attributes.
to try to
o Changing the perceived importance of attributes.
change consumer
o Adding new attributes to the product.
attitudes

E. Lifestyle

Lifestyle is a mode of living that is identified by

activities How a person spends time and resources
interests What a person considers important in the environment
opinions what a person thinks of self and the world
o Psychographics
 The analysis of consumer lifestyle
 helps to segment and target consumers for new and existing products.

Values and Lifestyles (VALS) Program

o Developed by SRI International
o Identified eight interconnected categories of adult lifestyles
o based on a person’s self-orientation and resources.

Self-orientation Resources
o Three patterns of attitudes and activities that help people reinforce their social self- o income
image. o education
o The three patterns are oriented toward o self-
 principles, confidence
 status, o health
 action. o eagernes
buy
 o intelligen
o energy le

III. SOCIOCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

o Sociocultural influences evolve from a formal and informal relationships with other people.
o Influences Include
 Personal influence
 Reference groups
 The family
 Social class
 Culture
 Subculture.

A. Personal Influence

o individuals who exert direct or i

Opinion leaders over others

Aspects of personal influence important to o People influencing each other du

marketing conversations.
Word of mouth o Power of word of mouth has bee
Internet and e-mail

B. Reference Groups
Reference groups are people to whom an individual looks as a basis for self-appraisal or as a source of personal
groups have an important influence on the purchase of luxury products but not of necessities. :
Membership o one to which a person actually belongs
group
o one with which a person wishes to be ide
Three groups have clear marketing Aspiration group
implications
o one from which a person wants to mainta
Dissociative
differences in values or behaviors
group

C. Family Influence
o Family influences on consumer behavior result from three sources:
 consumer socialization
  passage through the family life cycle
 decision making within the family.

Consumer Consumer socialization is the process by which people acquire the skills, knowledge, and attit
Socialization as consumers
o
o
o The distinct phases that a family progresses through from childr
Family Life formation to retirement o
Cycle o Each phase bringing with it identifiable purchasing behaviors. childr
o
o

o Two decision-making styles exist: Five roles of

 spouse-dominant (either wife or husband is responsible) members in th
 joint decision making (most decisions are made by both o
Family Decision husband and wife). o
Making o Increasingly, preteens and teenagers are assuming these roles o
for the family, given the prevalence of working parents and single- o
parent households. o

D. Social Class
o The relatively permanent, homogeneous divisions in a society into which people sharing similar v
behavior are grouped.
o Determinants of social class include
 occupation,
 source of income (not level of income)
 education.

o Social class is a basis for identifying and reaching particularly good prospects for products and se
 Upper classes are targeted by companies for items such as financial investments, expensiv
 Middle classes represent a target market for home improvement centers and automobile p
 Lower classes are targeted for products such as sports and scandal magazines.

E. Culture and Subculture

Culture refers to the set of values, ideas and attitudes that are accepted by a homogeneous group of people and tr
generation.
o Subcultures - groups within the larger, or national, culture with unique values, ideas, and attitude
o three largest racial/ethnic subcultures in the U.S
 Hispanics,
 African-Americans
  Asians  .
o Each of these groups exhibits sophisticated social and cultural behaviors that affect their buying p

1. African-American Buying Patterns

o African-Americans have the largest spending power of the three subcultures
o While price conscious, they are motivated by product quality and choice.
o Respond to products and advertising that appeal to their African-American pride and heritage as w
features and needs.

2. Hispanic Buying Patterns

o Hispanics represent the largest subculture
o About 50% are immigrants
o The majority are under the age of 25.
o Marketing to Hispanics has proven to be a challenge because
 The diversity of this subculture
 The language barrier.
o Sensitivity to the unique needs of Hispanics by firms has paid huge dividends.

3. Asian Buying Patterns

o The Asian is the fastest growing subculture.
o About 70% of Asians are immigrants
o Most are under the age of 30.
o Asians represent a diverse subculture, including Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, Asian-Ind
Southeast Asia, and Pacific Islanders.
o Two groups of Asian-Americans have been identified:
 Assimilated Asians are
 conversant in English
 highly educated
 exhibit buying patterns very much like "typical" American consumers.
 Nonassimilated Asians
 recent immigrants who cling to their native languages and customs.