Consumers Behavior What is Consumer Behavior? • Consumer Behavior: – The study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires • Consumer Behavior is a Process: – Exchange: A transaction in which two or more organizations give and receive something of value Consumer Behavior Buying, Having, and Being Sixth Edition By Michael R. Solomon 1-1 Some Issues That Arise During Stages in the Consumption Process 1-2 Consumer Behavior Involves Many Different Actors • Consumer: – A person who identifies a need or desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of the product • Many people may be involved in this sequence of events. – Purchaser / User / Influencer • Consumers may take the form of organizations or groups. 1-3 1-4 1 Consumers’ Impact on Marketing Strategy • Market Segmentation: – Identifies groups of consumers who are similar to one another in one or more ways and then devises marketing strategies that appeal to one or more groups • Demographics: What are the segments of these brands ??? – Statistics that measure observable aspects of a population • Ex.: Age, Gender, Family Structure, Social Class and Income, Race and Ethnicity, Lifestyle, and Geography 1-5 Consumers’ Impact on Marketing Strategy (cont.) 1-6 Marketing’s Impact on Consumers • Relationship Marketing: Building Bonds with Consumers • Marketing and Culture: – Popular Culture: – Relationship marketing: • Music, movies, sports, • The strategic perspective that stresses the long-term, human side of buyer-seller interactions – Database marketing: books, celebrities, and other forms of entertainment consumed by the mass • Tracking consumers’ buying habits very closely, and then crafting products and messages tailored precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information 1-7 market. – Marketers play a significant role in our view of the world and how we live in it. 1-8 2 Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: The Meaning of Consumption Popular Culture • The Meaning of Consumption: – People often buy products not for what they do, but for what they mean. – Types of relationships a person may have with a product: Companies often create product icons to develop an identity for their products. Many made-up creatures and personalities, such as Mr. Clean, the Michelin tire man and the Pillsbury Doughboy, are widely recognized figures in popular culture. • • • • Self-concept attachment Nostalgic attachment Interdependence Love 1-9 1 - 10 Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: The Meaning of Consumption (cont.) Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: The Global Consumer • Consumption includes intangible experiences, ideas and services in addition to tangible objects. • By 2006, the majority of people on earth will live in urban centers. • Sophisticated marketing strategies contribute to a global consumer culture. • Even smaller companies look to expand overseas. • Globalization has resulted in varied perceptions of the United States (both positive and negative). 1 - 11 1 - 12 3 Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: Virtual Consumption The Global Consumer American products like Levi jeans are in demand around the world. • The Digital Revolution is one of the most significant influences on consumer behavior. • Electronic marketing increases convenience by breaking down the barriers of time and location. 1 - 13 Blurred Boundaries Marketing and Reality 1 - 14 Marketing Ethics and Public Policy • Marketers and consumers coexist in a complicated two-way relationship. • It’s increasingly difficult for consumers to discern the boundary between the fabricated world and reality. • Marketing influences both popular culture and consumer perceptions of reality. 1 - 15 • Business Ethics: – Rules of conduct that guide actions in the marketplace – The standards against which most people in the culture judge what is right and what is wrong, good or bad • Notions of right and wrong differ among people, organizations, and cultures. 1 - 16 4 Needs and Wants: Discussion Question Do Marketers Manipulate Consumers? • Consumerspace • Do marketers create artificial needs? – Need: A basic biological motive – Want: One way that society has taught us that need can be satisfied • Are advertising and marketing necessary? – Economics of information perspective: Advertising is an important source of consumer information. • Do marketers promise miracles? – Advertisers simply don’t know enough to manipulate people. • This ad was created by the American Association of Advertising Agencies to counter charges that ads create artificial needs. • Do you agree with the premise of the ad? Why or why not? 1 - 17 Consumerism and Consumer Research 1 - 18 The Wheel of Consumer Behavior • Kennedy’s “Declaration of Consumer Rights” (1962) • Green Marketing: – When a firm chooses to protect or enhance the natural environment as it goes about its activities • Reducing wasteful packaging • Donations to charity • Social Marketing: – Using marketing techniques to encourage positive activities (e.g. literacy) and to discourage negative activities (e.g. drunk driving) 1 - 19 Figure 1.3 1 - 20 5