Ch6 Understanding Consumer Buying Behaviour
6.1: The Psychological Importance of the Purchase Affects the Decision-Making Process
 Some purchase decisions are more important, and therefore more psychologically involving, than others.
High-involvement purchases involve goods or services that are psychologically important to the buyer
because they address social or ego needs and therefore carry social and psychological risks. They may also
involve a lot of money and therefore financial risk.
 The decision process pursued by a given consumer can be classified into one of four categories depending
on whether (1) the consumer has a high or low level of product involvement, and (2) he or she engages in
an extensive search for information and evaluation of alternative brands or makes the decision routinely.
I.
How Do Consumers Make High-Involvement Purchase Decisions?
 When purchasing high-involvement products or services, consumers go through a problem-solving process
involving five mental steps: (1) problem identification, (2) information search, (3) evaluation of
alternatives, (4) purchase, and (5) post purchase evaluation.
Exhibit 6.2 Types of consumer decision making
Extent of involvement
Extent of decision making
High
Low
Extended (information search; consideration
of brand
alternatives)
Complex decision making (cars, homes,
vacations)
Limited decision making,
including variety seeking and impulse
purchasing (adult
cereals and snack foods)
Habit/routine (little or no
information search; focus on one brand)
Brand loyalty (athletics shoes, adult cereals,
cologne,
deodorant)
Inertia (frozen vegetables, paper towels)
Exhibit 6.3 Steps in the high-involvement, complex decision-making process
1.
Problem Identification
 Consumers’ purchase-decision processes are triggered by unsatisfied needs or wants. Individuals
perceive differences between ideal and actual states on some physical or socio-psychological
dimension. This motivates them to seek products or services to help bring their current state more into
balance with the ideal.
 Given that most of us have limited time and financial resources, it is impossible for us to satisfy all our
needs at once. Instead, we tend to focus on those that are strongest. The size of the gap between our
current and our desired state largely determines the strength of a particular need. A need can become
stronger and be brought to our attention by a deterioration of our actual state or an upward revision of
our ideal state.
 A change in a consumer’s actual state can occur for several reasons:
o For physical needs, a natural deterioration of the actual state occurs all the time.
2.
o A person’s actual state may change as the result of the depletion of the current solution to a need.
o In some cases consumers can anticipate a decline in their actual state.
 A change in a consumer’s desired state may occur for several reasons:
o The desired state may be revised upward because of new information or the development of
an old need.
o As one need is satisfied, the desired state on other need dimensions increases and becomes
more demanding.
Information Search
 Because services are intangible, difficult to standardize, and their production and consumption
inseparable, they are more difficult to evaluate than products.
 Most services are hard to assess until they are being consumed after purchase.
- How Much Information Will a Consumer Seek
 Information is valuable to consumers to the extent that it helps make a more satisfying
purchase and avoids the negative consequences associated with a poor choice. Consumers are
likely to place a higher value on information when the purchase is important. This importance
derives from (a) the strength of a person’s need for the product; (b) the person’s egoinvolvement with the product; and (c) the severity of the social and financial consequences of
making a poor choice. This is why people tend to seek more information about high-priced,
socially visible products that reflect their self-image than for lower-priced products that other
people seldom notice.
 The biggest cost for most people is the opportunity cost of the time involved in seeking
information. They give up the opportunity to use that time for other, more important or
interesting activities, such as working or taking trips. For some people, the opportunity costs
of shopping are low because they enjoy wandering through stores or scanning newspaper ads
or websites for bargains.
 Because services, more than products, are associated with greater perceived risk, the
individual involved is likely to use more information sources in the attempt to better cope
with the risk. This often leads to an extended information-acquisition process, which may
include purchase postponement. It also means that consumers are less likely to make a trial
purchase than with some products.
- Sources of Information
 The three broad categories of information sources are personal, commercial, and public.
Personal sources include family members, friends, and members of the consumer’s reference
group.
 Commercial sources refer to various information disseminated by service providers,
marketers, and manufacturers and their dealers. They include media advertising, promotional
brochures, package and label information, salespersons, and various in-store information,
such as price markings and displays. Public sources include noncommercial and professional
organizations and individuals who provide advice for consumers, such as doctors, lawyers,
governmental agencies, consumer-interest groups, and Web journals (blogs).
 Commercial sources perform an informing function for consumers. Personal and public
sources serve an evaluating and legitimizing function.
 It is highly likely that MacDonald would also seek the opinions of friends in deciding whether
to take a cruise and in selecting a particular one. In doing so, he is consistent with the general
proposition that consumers choose more personal sources for services than for goods because
service consumption is highly personal and must be experienced to be understood.
Exhibit 6.4 Factors that are likely to increase repurchase search
Product factors

Situational factors
Long inter-purchase time (a long-lasting or infrequently used product); frequent changes in
product styling; frequent price changes; volume purchasing (large number of units); high price;
many alternative brands; much variation in features.



Experience
o First-time purchase; no past experience because the product is new; un-satisfactory past
experience within the product category.
Social acceptability
o The purchase is for a gift; the product is socially visible.
Value-related considerations
o Purchase is discretionary rather than necessary; all alternatives have both desirable and
undesirable consequences; family members disagree on product requirements or
evaluation of alternatives; product usage deviates from important reference group; the
purchase involves ecological considerations; many sources of conflicting information.
Personal factors


3.
Demographic characteristics of consumer
o Well-educated; high income; white collar occupation; under 35 years of age.
Personality
o Low dogmatic (open-minded); low-risk perceiver (broad categorizer); other personal
factors, such as high product involvement and enjoyment of shopping and search.
Evaluation of Alternatives
 Consumers find it difficult to make overall comparisons of many alternative brands because each
brand might be better in some ways but worse in others. Instead, consumers simplify their
evaluation in several ways. First, they seldom consider all possible brands; rather, they focus on
their evoked set – a limited number they are familiar with that are likely to satisfy their needs.
 Second, consumers evaluate each of the brands in the evoked set on a limited number of product
dimensions or attributes. They also judge the relative importance of these attributes, or the
minimum acceptable performance of each. The set of attributes used by a particular consumer and
the relative importance of each represent the consumer’s choice criteria.
 Third, consumers combine evaluations of each brand across attributes, taking into account the
relative importance of those attributes. This multi-attribute assessment of a brand results in an
overall attitude toward that brand. The brand toward which consumers have the most favorable
attitude is the one they are most likely to buy.
- Product Attribute and Their Relative Importance
 When two people use the same set of attributes, they arrive at different decisions because
they attach varying degrees of importance to the attributes.
 A consumer’s personal characteristics and social influence help determine which
attributes are considered and their relative importance. Environmental factors and the
usage situation can also affect the perceived importance of various product benefits.
Exhibit 6.5 Selected attributes consumers use to evaluate alternative products or services
Category
Specific attributes
Cost attributes
Purchase price, operating costs, repair costs, cost of extras or options, cost of installation, trade-in
allowance, likely resale value.
Performance attributes
Durability, quality of materials, construction, dependability,
functional performance (acceleration, nutrition, taste), efficiency, safety, styling.
Social attributes
Reputation of brand, status image, popularity with friends,
popularity with family members, style, fashion.
Availability attributes
Carried by local stores, credit terms, quality of service available from local dealer, delivery time.
-
4.
Forming Attitudes toward Alternative Brands
Even if two consumers use the same attributes and attach the same relative importance to them
when evaluating product offerings, they many not necessarily prefer the same brand. They might
rate the various brands differently on specific attributes. Differences in brand perceptions are
based on past experience, the information collected, and how that information is perceived and
processed.
Purchase

5.
Choosing a source from which to buy the product involves essentially the same mental processes
as does a product-purchase decision. The source is usually a retail store but may also be a mailorder catalogue or a website like RedEnvelope.com.
 Consumers obtain information about alternative sources from personal experience, advertising,
comments of friends, and the like. Then they use this information to evaluate sources on such
attributes as lines of merchandise carried, services rendered, price, convenience, personnel, and
physical characteristics.
 Consumers shopping in a retail store on purchasing one brand sometimes end up buying
something different.
Post Purchase Evaluation
 Whether a particular consumer feels adequately rewarded following a purchase depends on two
things: (1) the person’s aspiration or expectation level – how well the product was expected to
perform and (2) the consumer’s evaluation of how well the product actually did perform .
 Consumers’ expectations about a product’s performance are influenced by several factors. These
include the strength and importance of each person’s need and the information collected during
the decision-making process.
 Consistent positive experiences can ultimately lead to brand loyalty – the routine repurchase of
the same brand with little consideration of any alternatives.
 Some experts argue that consumers more often develop loyalty to service providers than to
physical products because of the difficulty of evaluating alternatives before actually experiencing
the service. Repeated patronage can bring additional benefits, such as discounts, or more
customized service as the provider gains more insights into the customer’s preferences.
II.
Low-Involvement Purchase Decisions
 The search for information to evaluate alternative brands is likely to be minimal. As a result, decisions to
buy products such as cookies or cereals often are made within the store, either impulsively on the basis of
brand familiarity, or as a result of comparisons of the brands on the shelf. The consumers’ involvement and
their risks associated with making poor decisions are low for such products. Therefore, consumers are less
likely to stay with the same brand over time.
 Most purchase decisions are low in consumer involvement – the consumer thinks the product or service is
insufficiently important to identify with it. Thus, the consumer does not engage in an extensive search for
information for such a purchase.
- Inertia
 There are two low-involvement buying decisions. When there are few differences
between brands and little risk associated with making a poor choice, consumers either
buy brands at random or buy the same brand repetitively to avoid making a choice.
Marketers must be careful not to confuse such repeat inertial purchasing with brand
loyalty because it is relatively easy for competitors to entice such customers to switch
brands by offering money-off coupons, special promotions, or in-store displays. Highly
brand-loyal customers, on the other hand, resist such efforts on account of their strong
brand preference.
- Impulse Purchasing and Variety Seeking
 The second low-involvement purchase process is impulse buying, when consumers
impulsively decide to buy a different brand from their customary choice or some new
variety of a product. The new brand is probably one they are familiar with through
passive exposure to advertising or other information, however. Their motivation for
switching usually is not dissatisfaction but a desire for change and variety.
III.
Understanding the Target Consumer’s Level of Involvement Enables Better Marketing Decisions
 Consumers employ different decision-making processes and may be influenced by different
psychological, social, and situational factors, depending on their level of involvement with the product
or service they are buying.
 Such behavioral differences have a major implication for marketers. A given marketing strategy, or
decisions concerning any of the 4 Ps in a marketing plan, will not be equally effective for both highand low-involvement products. Even though consumers may have differing degrees of psychological
involvement with a given product category, the marketer needs to determine whether the majority of
potential customers in his or her target segment are likely to be highly involved with the purchase
decision or not. The various elements of the strategic marketing plan can then be tailored to the overall
level of involvement of people in the target market.
Exhibit 6.6 High-involvement versus low-involvement consumer behavior
High-involvement consumer behavior
Low-involvement consumer behavior
• Consumers are information processors.
• Consumers learn information at random.
• Consumers are information seekers.
• Consumers are information gatherers.
• Consumers represent an active audience for advertising.
• Consumers represent a passive audience for advertising.
• Consumers evaluate brands before buying.
•
•
Consumers seek to maximize expected satisfaction. They compare
brands to see which provides the most benefits related to their
needs and buy on the basis of a multi-attribute comparison of
brands.
Personality and lifestyle characteristics are related to consumer
• behavior because the product is closely tied to the person’s selfidentity and belief system.
•
Reference groups influence consumer behavior because of the
importance of the product to group norms and values.
Consumers buy first. If they do evaluate brands, it is done after the
purchase.
Consumers seek an acceptable level of satisfaction. They buy the
• brand least likely to give them problems and buy on the basis of a
few attributes. Familiarity is the key.
Personality and lifestyle are not related to consumer behavior
• because the product is not closely tied to the person’s self-identity
and beliefs.
•
Reference groups exert little influence on consumer behavior
because products are not strongly related to their norms and values.
Exhibit 6.7 Marketing decisions for high-involvement versus
low-involvement
products or services
Marketing
mix element
Marketing decisions
where the consumer
exhibits high
involvement
Marketing decisions
where the consumer
element exhibits low
involvement
Product
decisions
For long-term success,
one or more
compelling product
benefits are
necessary, regardless
of the level of
consumer
involvement.
For long-term success,
one or more
compelling product
benefits are
necessary, regardless
of the level of
consumer involvement.
Pricing
decisions
Price, unless
substantially lower, is
likely to be of
secondary importance
to performance
criteria. High price
may suggest high
quality or status, to the
seller’s benefit.
Demonstrable
consumer benefits are
more likely than price
to drive consumer
choice.
Price offers can be
effective in gaining
trial. A sustained low
price, compared to
competitors (such as
for private-label goods
in supermarkets), may
provide sufficient
inertia for repeat
purchase.
Consumers are
interested in the
information that sellers
provide.
Promotional vehicles
that communicate in
Promotional
greater detail (e.g.,
decisions
print
advertising, Internet,
infomercials,
personal selling) are
likely to be
effective.
Consumers are not
interested in the
information that sellers
provide. Large
advertising budgets
and a clear focus on a
single demonstrable
consumer benefit are
probably necessary to
get the message across.
Distribution
decisions
Consumers will be
relatively less
concerned with
convenience in
purchasing. Relatively
less extensive
distribution is
necessary.
Consumers will be
relatively more
concerned with
convenience in
purchasing. Relatively
more extensive
distribution is
necessary.
1- Product Design and Positioning Decisions
 Consumers evaluate both high- and low-involvement products on criteria that reflect the benefits they
seek. Both types of products and services must offer at least one compelling and valued benefit to
continue to win acceptance in the market. Because consumers tend to evaluate high-involvement
products and services before purchasing, however, it is particularly important that such offerings be
designed to provide at least some benefits that are demonstrably superior to those offered by major
competitors, and that marketing communications are effective in making potential customers aware of
those benefits.
 For low-involvement goods and services, on the other hand, much brand evaluation occurs after the
purchase is made. Consumers tend to be most positive about – and more likely to repurchase – brands
that don’t disappoint them or cause unexpected problems. Consequently, firms that market lowinvolvement products or services need to pay particular attention to basic use-related attributes, such as
consistent product quality, reliability, convenient packaging, and user-friendliness.
2- Pricing Decisions
 Highly involved consumers generally buy the brand they believe will deliver the greatest value. They
are willing to pay a higher price for a brand if they believe it will deliver enough superior benefits
relative to cheaper competitors to justify the difference. They may even use high price as an indicator
of a brand’s superior quality or prestige, particularly in categories where quality is hard to evaluate
objectively before purchase, such as professional services.
 Many consumers buy low-involvement products largely or solely on the basis of low price. Special
sales or coupon offers can be effective in gaining trial of such goods and services. If no problems are
experienced during consumption, consumers may continue to buy the brand out of inertia, at least until
a competitor offers an attractive price promotion.
3- Advertising and Promotion Decisions
 Promotional vehicles that communicate in greater detail – such as print advertising, company websites,
infomercials, or a salesperson – are more likely to be attended to and be effective in marketing highinvolvement goods and services.
 Because low-involvement customers are usually passive information gatherers, advertising needs to
focus on only a few main points and to deliver the message frequently in order to make it easy for
consumers to gain familiarity and positive associations with a brand. Television is often the primary
medium for low-involvement products because it facilitates passive learning.
4- Distribution Decisions
 Extensive retail distribution is particularly important for low-involvement products because most
consumers are unwilling to search for, or expend extra effort to obtain, a particular brand. The
larger the proportion of available retail outlets, including websites, vending machines, and the
like, a marketer can induce to carry a brand, the larger that brand’s market share is likely to be.
 Because consumers are more willing to spend some time and effort to acquire their favorite brand
in a high-involvement category, extensive retail coverage is less critical for such products. The
marketer may be better off being relatively choosy in selecting retailers to carry a brand,
particularly if those retailers will play an important role in promoting the product or servicing it
after the sale. The value of some exclusive, prestigious brands is clearly enhanced by the fact they
are not available from every mass merchandiser in town.
5- Strategies to Increase Consumer Involvement
 A firm may try to increase consumers’ involvement with its brand as a way to increase revenues.
Increased customer involvement can be attempted in several ways. The product might be linked to
some involving issue, as when makers of bran cereals associate their products with a high-fiber
diet that may reduce the incidence of colon cancer. Of course, the involving issue might be social
rather than personal. Thus, cause-related marketing is the practice of designating a portion of a
brand’s profits to a nonprofit cause – such as the Special Olympics or breast cancer research – and
aggressively publicizing it
 As cause-related marketing has become more popular, its effectiveness as a tool for increasing
consumer involvement and brand preference may be declining, as discussed in Exhibit 6.8. Or the
product can be tied to a personally involving situation, such as advertising a sleeping aid late in
the evening when insomniacs are interested in finding something to help them sleep. Finally, an
important new feature might be added to an unimportant product as when Revlon introduced its
ColorStay Lipcolor.
6.2: Why People Buy Different Things: Part1- The Marketing Implications of Psychological and Personal
Influences
 Even when two consumers have equal involvement with a product, they often purchase different brands for
varying reasons. The information they collect, the way they process and interpret it, and their evaluation of
alternative brands are all influenced by psychological and personal characteristics. Some of the important
psychological, or thought, variables that affect a consumer’s decision-making process include perception,
memory, needs and attitudes. The consumer’s personal characteristics, such as demographic and lifestyle
variables, influence these psychological factors.
1- Perception and Memory
 Perception is the process by which a person selects, organizes, and interprets information.
 Exposure to a piece of information, such as a new product, an ad, or a friend’s recommendation, leads to
attention, then to comprehension, and finally to retention in memory. Once consumers have fully
perceived the information, they use it to evaluate alternative brands and to decide which to purchase.
 The perception process is different for low-involvement products. Here, consumers have information
in their memories without going through the sequence of attention and comprehension. Exposure
may cause consumers to retain enough information so that they are familiar with a brand when they
see it in a store.
 Two basic factors – selectivity and organization – guide consumers’ perceptual processes and help
explain why different consumers perceive product information differently.
 Selectivity means that even though the environment is full of product information, consumers pick and
choose only selected pieces of information and ignore the rest. For high-involvement purchases, consumers
pay particular attention to information related to the needs they want to satisfy and the particular brands
they are considering for purchase.
 This perceptual vigilance helps guarantee that consumers have the information needed to make a good
choice. For low-involvement products, consumers tend to selectively screen out much information to avoid
wasting mental effort. The average consumer is exposed to over 1000 ads every day plus information from
other sources such as catalogues, websites, and friends. Consumers must be selective in perceiving this
information to cope with the clutter of messages.
 Consumers also tend to avoid information that contradicts their current beliefs and attitudes. This
perceptual defense helps them avoid the psychological discomfort of reassessing or changing attitudes,
beliefs, or behaviors central to their self-images.
- Memory Limitations
 There are different theories of how the human memory operates, but most agree that it
works in two stages. Information from the environment is first processed by the shortterm memory, which forgets most of it within 30 seconds or less because of inattention
or displacement of new incoming information. Some information, however, is transferred
to long-term memory, from which it can be retrieved later. Long-term memory has a
nearly infinite storage capacity, but the amount of product information actually stored
there is quite limited. For information to be transferred to long-term memory for later
recall, it must be actively rehearsed and internalized. It takes from 5 to 10 seconds of
rehearsal to place a chunk of information in long-term memory.
 This is why print media and interactive electronic media, such as websites, are good for
communicating complex or technical information about high-involvement products. This
explains why television advertising for low-involvement products should focus on a few
simple pieces of information, such as brand name, symbol, or key product attributes, and
be repeated frequently.
- Perceptual Organization
 Another mental factor determining how much product information consumers remember
and use is the way they organize the information.
 They organize information through the processes of categorization and integration.
Categorization helps consumers process known information quickly and efficiently.
 Integration: means that consumers perceive separate pieces of related information as an
organized whole.
- Effects of Stimulus Characteristics on Perception
 Consumers’ personal characteristics influence the information they pay attention to,
comprehend and remember.
2- Needs and Attitudes
 An attitude is a positive or negative feeling about an object (say, a brand) that predisposes a person to
behave in a particular way toward that object.
- Fishbein Model
 Martin Fishbein pioneered a model that specified how consumers combine evaluations of a
brand across multiple attributes to arrive at a single overall attitude toward that brand. His
model is expressed as follows:
where:
=
Consumer’s overall attitude toward Brand A.
=
Consumer’s belief concerning the extent to which attribute is associated with Brand A.
=
The importance of attribute to the consumer when choosing a brand to buy.
=
The total attributes considered by the consumer when evaluating alternative brands in the product category.
=
Any specific product attribute.
Exhibit 6.8 A compensatory multi-attribute model of attitudes towards alternative cruises
Our hypothetical consumer, Paul MacDonald, is interested in taking a Caribbean cruise lasting not more than seven days some time during the
months of January or February at a reasonable price. As the table indicates, he uses five attributes (choice criteria) to make a comparison
between three alternative cruises. On the basis of information gathered from advertising, travel agents, promotional materials received from a
number of cruise lines, and friends, he rates the three different cruises on each of the five attributes as follows:
Ratings
Service attribute
Importance weight (0–10)
A
B
C
Demographics – other passengers
10
8
8
8
Entertainment
10
8
10
9
Ports of call
8
8
9
9
Low fares
7
9
8
8
Size/steadiness of ship
6
9
8
8
Using the formula in the text, MacDonald calculates that an overall attitude score for Cruise A equals
. His overall attitude scores for the other two cruises: Cruise B = 356
and Cruise C = 346.
Consequently, MacDonald prefers and will be predisposed to buy Cruise B, the cruise towards which he has the most positive attitude. Although the
demographics of other passengers was one of the most important attributes, it played no significant role in determining which cruise he would buy
because there were no significant differences between the three cruises on that attribute. Instead the determinant attribute – that which had the biggest
impact on which cruise MacDonald would prefer – was entertainment.
-
31-
2-
Non-compensatory Attitude Models

Consumers may adopt a simpler approach and evaluate alternative brands on only one attribute at a time. Such an
approach is noncompensatory because a poor evaluation of a brand on one attribute cannot be offset by a strong
evaluation on another.

The lexicographic model, suggests that consumers evaluate brands on the most important attribute first. If one brand
appears clearly superior on that dimension, the consumer selects it as the best possible choice. If no brand stands out on
the most important attribute, the consumer evaluates the alternative brands on the second most important attribute, and
so forth.
Marketing Implications of Attitude Models

The models suggest that to design appealing product offerings and structure effective marketing programmes, marketers
must have information about (1) the attributes or decision criteria consumers use to evaluate a particular product category;
(2) the relative importance of those attributes to different consumers; and (3) how consumers rate their brand relative to
competitors’ offerings on important attributes

Multi-attribute models are especially helpful in formulating marketing strategies. They do so by showing the consumer’s
ideal combination of product/service attributes, each of which is weighted as to its relative importance.
Attitude Change

The multi-attribute attitude models of consumer choice suggest various ways marketers might change consumer attitudes
favorably for their brands versus competing brands. These are discussed briefly below:
1.
Changing attitudes toward the product class or type to increase the total market
2.
Changing the importance consumers attach to one or more attributes.
3.
Adding a salient attribute to the existing set.
4.
Improving consumers’ ratings of the brand on one or more salient attributes via more extensive or
effective advertising and promotion.
5.
Lowering the ratings of the salient product characteristics of competing brands.
Demographics and Lifestyle
Demographics

Demographics influence (1) the nature of consumers’ needs and wants, (2) their ability to buy products or services to satisfy
those needs, (3) the perceived importance of various attributes or choice criteria used to evaluate alternative brands, and (4)
consumers’ attitudes toward and preferences for different products and brands.
Lifestyle

Two people of similar age, income, education, and even occupations do not necessarily live their lives in the same way.
They may have different opinions, interests, and activities. As a result, they are likely to exhibit different patterns of
behavior – including buying different products and brands and using them in different ways and for different purposes.
These broad patterns of activities, interests, and opinions are referred to as lifestyles. To obtain lifestyle data, consumers are
asked to indicate the extent to which they agree/disagree with a series of statements having to do with such things as price
consciousness, family activities, spectator sports, traditional values, adverturesomeness, and fashion.
Exhibit 6.9 Global scan’s lifestyle psychographic segments and the proportion of people in each segment across three countries





Strivers: Young people (median age 31) who live hectic, time-pressured lives. They strive hard for success. They are materialistic, seek
pleasure, and demand instant gratification.
Achievers: They have achieved some of the success that strivers aim for. They are affluent, assertive, and upward bound. They are very status
conscious and buy for quality and are slightly older than strivers.
Pressured: This group cuts across age groups and is composed mainly of women who face constant financial and family pressure. They do not
enjoy life as much as they could and feel generally downtrodden.
Adapters: These are older people who maintain time-honored values but keep an open mind. They live comfortably in a changing world.
Traditionals: They hold onto the oldest values of their countries and cultures. They resist change and prefer routines and familiar products.
6.3: Why People Buy Different Things: Part 2- The Marketing Implications of Social Influences
 Social influences are particularly apparent when consumers purchase high-involvement, socially
visible goods or services. The social influences affecting consumers’ purchase decisions include
culture, subculture, social class, reference groups, and family. These five categories represent a
hierarchy of social influences, ranging from broad, general effects on consumption behavior to more
specific influences that directly affect a consumer’s choice of a particular product or brand. For a
simplified view of this hierarchy of social influences.
Exhibit 6.11 Simplified hierarchy of social forces affecting consumer behavior
1- Culture
 Culture is the set of beliefs, attitudes, and behavior patterns shared by members of a society and
transmitted from one generation to the next through socialization.
 Cultural differences across countries create both problems and opportunities for international
marketers.
- Subculture
 Share common geographic, ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds. They continue to hold
some values, attitudes, and behavior patterns that are uniquely their own. Such groups are
referred to as subcultures.
2- Social Class
 Every society has its status groupings largely based on similarities in income, education and
occupation. Because researchers have long documented the values of the various classes
(typically thought of as five – upper, upper-middle, middle, working, and lower.
3- Reference Groups
 These include a variety of groups that affect consumer behavior through normative compliance,
value-expressed influence, and informational influence. The first is most effective when there are
strong normative pressures (for instance, from a college fraternity or exclusive club); when social
acceptance is important (serving of certain foods to guests); and when the use of a product is
conspicuous (women’s fashion clothing).
 Informational influence involves the use of influential people to help assess the merits of a given
product/service. The opinions of such individuals often legitimize the purchase of a certain
product or service.
 Word of mouth is also important with respect to restaurants, entertainment, banking, and personal
services. And young adults are more willing to seek referrals than are older people.
4- The Family
 The family is a reference group, but because of its importance, we discuss it separately. First, it serves
as the primary socialization agent, helping members acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to
function as consumers in the marketplace.
 Family members tend to specialize in the purchase of certain products either because of their interest
or expertise or the role structure of the family. Wives, in most marriages, have the most say in the
purchases of food and household products, children’s clothes and toys, and over-the-counter drugs.
 The influence of various family members varies substantially across countries. Generally, the more
traditional the society, the more men hold the power. In the more egalitarian countries, such as the
Scandinavian nations, decisions are more likely to be made jointly. As women become better
educated and more influential as wage earners in developing nations, more joint decision making will
happen.
- Family Life Cycle
 When people leave home and start their own households, they progress through distinct
phases of a family life cycle. The traditional cycle in the most industrialized nations includes
young singles, young marrieds without children, young marrieds with children, middle-aged
marrieds with children, middle-aged marrieds without dependent children, older marrieds,
and older unmarried.
 Each phase of the life cycle brings changes in family circumstances and purchasing
behavior. For example, young singles’ purchases tend to concentrate on nondurable items,
including food away from home, clothing, and entertainment. Young marrieds without
children are typically more affluent because both spouses usually work away from home.
They are a major market for such durables as automobiles, furniture, and appliances. Young
marrieds with children probably have the least disposable income, but they are the major
market for single family dwellings, infant products and clothing, and child care services.
Middle-aged couples without children usually have the most discretionary income. They are
a major market for many luxury goods and services, such as expensive cars and international
travel. Finally, the older marrieds and unmarried typically have less disposable income but
are nevertheless an important market for medical products and services as well as hobby and
craft items.