MARKETING
Real People, Real Choices
Fourth Edition
CHAPTER 5
Consumer Behavior:
How and Why People Buy
Consumer Behavior
The process individuals and groups go
through to select, purchase, or use
goods, services, ideas, or experiences
to satisfy their needs and desires
5-2
Imagine…
• Imagine you want to buy a car. What
process would you go through before
you actually drive one home?
• Imagine you feel thirsty and want to buy
a soda. What process do you go
through before you actually drink one?
5-3
Consumer Decision-Making Process
•
•
•
•
•
Problem recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Product choice
Post-purchase evaluation
5-4
Problem Recognition
• Occurs whenever a consumer recognizes a
difference between the current state and the
ideal or desired state
• Internal cues - consumers recognize state of
discomfort
• External cues - marketers may stimulate
consumers to recognize problem
– E.g. seeing a health club ad may help you
recognize that you are not getting enough
exercise.
5-5
Information Search
• Consumer checks memory and surveys
environment to identify what options are
available
– Internal search
– External search
• Sources might include personal experience
and knowledge, friends, advertising,
websites, and magazines
• Marketers should make information
accessible to consumers. How?
5-6
Evaluation of Alternatives
• Identify consideration set
– Typical size – 5 to 9 brands
• Narrow list and compare pros and cons
• Use evaluative criteria to decide among
remaining choices
– Importance weights for evaluative criteria
• Marketers should try to ensure that their
brand has high awareness. How?
• Marketers should position their brands
important evaluative criteria. How?
5-7
Product Choice
• People may ultimately make the choice based on
heuristics
• Heuristics represent rules of thumb
– brand loyalty (“billions served”)
– country of origin (“Australian for Beer”)
– Liking
– Price = quality (Nike shoes better than Payless
shoes)
– Mom/Dad knows best, etc. (Inter-generational
effect)
• Marketers should understand the heuristics most
commonly used by their consumers and use them
to their advantage. Examples.
5-8
Post-purchase Evaluation
• How good a choice was it?
• Customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction
– Cognitive Dissonance (Buyers regret)
– High-involvement products
• Ultimately affects future decisions and
word-of-mouth communication
• Marketers should assure consumers
that they made an excellent choice.
How can they do that?
5-9
Isolate the key variables
• What distinguishes a purchase of a new
car from soda?
– Product Involvement
• Perceived risk
• Cost
– What should marketers do when
product involvement is high? Low?
5-10
Three consumer buying strategies
• Extended problem solving – e.g. buying
a house
• Limited problem solving – e.g. buying a
new pair of running shoes
• Habit / Variety seeking – e.g. buying
soda
5-11
Internal Influences (Individual
Influences)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Perception
Motivation
Learning
Attitudes
Personality
Age
Lifestyle
5-12
Perception
• Process by which people select, organize,
and interpret information
– Exposure: stimulus must be within sensory
receptors to be noticed. E.g. highway
billboards
– Attention: consumers will pay attention to
some stimuli and not to others. E.g. hunger
and restaurant signs
– Interpretation: consumers assign meaning
to stimuli
5-13
Motivation
• Motivation is an internal state that drives
us to satisfy needs
• Once we activate a need, a state of
tension exists that drives the consumer
to some goal that will reduce this
tension and eliminate the need
• Consequently, only unmet needs
motivate
5-14
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy
• Five levels of needs
• Physiological (food, water, etc.), Safety
(security, protection, shelter, etc.),
Belonging (love, friendship, acceptance,
etc.), Ego (prestige, status, etc.) and
Self Actualization (education, hobbies,
etc.)
• Higher needs are activated only after
lower level needs are met.
5-15
Learning
• Learning is a change in behavior caused by
information or experience
• Behavior learning theories – learning takes
place as the result of connections formed
between events (e.g. Eagle points awarded
for attending Winthrop games)
• Cognitive learning theories – learning occurs
when consumers make a connection between
ideas or by observing things in the
environment (e.g. new exercise equipment
and a healthier body)
5-16
Attitudes
• An attitude is a lasting evaluation of a
person, object, or issue
• Sum of beliefs about an object
– Belief = Attribute x Strength of
Association
• 3 components of attitudes
– affect
– cognition
– Intentions
5-17
Personality
• Personality is the set of unique psychological
characteristics that consistently influences the way a
person responds to situations in the environment
–
–
–
–
–
Innovativeness
Self-confidence
Sociability
Materialism
Need for cognition (the extent to which you need to process
all information cognitively before taking a decision)
• Purchase of which products may be influenced by
personality?
• How do marketers use your personality type to their
advantage?
5-18
Age Group
• Products and services often appeal to a
specific age group
– Children
– Teens
– Young Adults
– Middle-aged
– Elderly
5-19
Family Life Cycle
• Related to age groups, our purchases
also depend on our current position in
the family life cycle
– stages through which family members
pass as they grow older
• Singles spend more money on
entertainment and recreation
• Couples with small children spend more
money on baby furniture, etc.
5-20
Lifestyles
• A pattern of living that determines how people choose
to spend their time, money, and energy and reflects
their values, tastes, and preferences
• Expressed through preferences for sports activities,
music interests, and political opinions
• Psychographics is the segmentation tool used to
group consumers according to AIOs
• You choose products / brands associated with your
lifestyle or the lifestyle you aspire to. Examples?
• How do marketers use lifestyle preferences to their
advantage?
5-21
Situational Influences
• When, Where and How consumers shop.
• Physical Environment (décor, layout, music,
odors, lighting, temperature, etc,)
– arousal
– Pleasure
– E.g. Bass Pro Shops, Mall of America
• Time
– time poverty
– E.g. One hour photo processing, drivethrough banking, etc.
5-22
Social Influences (Group Influences)
•
•
•
•
Culture and Subcultures
Social Class
Group Behavior and Reference Groups
Opinion Leaders
5-23
Cultures and Subcultures
• Culture is the values, beliefs, customs,
and tastes produced and valued by a
group of people
– E.g. prom dresses
• A subculture is a group coexisting with
other groups in a larger culture whose
members share a distinctive set of
beliefs or characteristics
– E.g. HOGS and black leather wear
5-24
Breakfast habits in India
• Compare this to American breakfast habits:
– Indians like to eat hot, sit-down breakfasts
– Milk generally comes in fresh every morning.
Needs to be heated before consumption
– Rice preparations in the south, wheat and corn
preparations in the north
– Are used to and prefer spicier foods
– Drink hot tea with milk and sugar with breakfast
– Oats are for horses
– Often eat with their fingers – may use a spoon
5-25
Kelloggs breakfast cereals in India
• What should Kelloggs do differently in
India?
5-26
Islamic Cultures
• Women to cover heads & face
• Women not allowed to socialize with
men
– Whither dating services?
• Strict rules about depicting women in
ads
• Banks cannot charge interest
• Which products are most affected by
this?
5-27
Language: Some communication
gaffes
• The Big Mac: Originally sold in France under the
name Gros Mec. The expression means "big pimp" in
French.
• The Rolls-Royce Silver Myst: In German, mist
means "human waste." (Clairol's Mist Stick curling
iron had the same problem.)
• GM cars: Originally sold in Belgium using the slogan,
"Body by Fisher," which translated as "Corpse by
Fisher."
• Cue toothpaste: Marketed in France by ColgatePalmolive until they learned that Cue is also the
name of a popular pornographic magazine.
5-28
Communication gaffes
• Puffs tissues: In Germany, puff is slang for
"whorehouse."
• The Jotter: A pen made by Parker. In some
Latin countries, jotter is slang for "jockstrap."
• Schweppes Tonic Water: The company
changed the name from Schweppes Tonic
Water to Schweppes Tonica when they
learned that in Italian, "il water" means "the
bathroom.“
• What should marketers do to avoid such
gaffes?
5-29
Social Class
• Social class is the overall rank of people in a
society usually based on income levels
– E.g. shoppers in Walmart and Saks
• People in the same class tend to have similar
occupations, similar income levels, share
common tastes in clothes, decorating styles,
and leisure activities. They may share political
and religious beliefs.
• How many social classes exist in the US?
• Your class membership influences product
choices
5-30
Group Memberships
• A reference group is a set of people a
consumer wants to please or imitate
• The “group” can be composed of one person,
a few people, or many people. They may be
people you know or don’t know.
– Conformity is at work when people change
as a reaction to real or imagined group
pressure
– E.g. Imagine wanting to belong to your
peer group.
5-31
Opinion Leaders
• An opinion leader is a person who
influences others’ attitudes or behaviors
because they are perceived as
possessing expertise about the product
• Impart both positive and negative
information
• How does marketing use opinion
leaders to their advantage?
5-32
C2C E-Commerce
• Communications and purchases that occur among
individuals without directly involving the manufacturer
or retailer E.g. E-bay and other Auction sites
• Virtual Communities
– Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) e.g. Sony and
Microsoft’s gaming websites
– Rooms, Rings, Lists
– Boards, Blogs
– Auction sites
– Protest sites
• Visitors often express their views on many subjects
like music, books, bands, products, etc.
5-33