Chapter Objectives

Consumer Behavior CHAPTER5 Chapter Objectives Define consumer behavior and describe the role it plays in marketing decisions. Describe the interpersonal determinants of consumer behavior: cultural, social, and family influences. Explain each of the personal determinants of consumer behavior: needs and motives, perceptions, attitudes, learning, and self-concept theory. Distinguish between high-involvement and low-involvement purchase decisions. Outline the steps in the consumer decision process. Differentiate among routinized response behavior, limited problem solving, and extended problem solving by consumers. 3 5 1 6 2 4

• Consumer behavior Process through which buyers make decisions. • Marketers borrow extensively from psychology and sociology to better understand consumer behavior. • Consumer behavior is usually understood as a function of interpersonal influences and personal factors.

INTERPERSONAL DETERMINANTS OFCONSUMER BEHAVIOR CULTURAL INFLUENCES • Culture Values, beliefs, preferences, and tastes handed down from one generation to the next. • Culture is a broad environmental determinant of behavior. Core Values in U.S. Culture • Work ethic and desire the accumulate wealth. • Importance of family and home life. • Individualism, education, freedom, youth, health, and others. • Consumers are adopting new values as communication technology changes.

International Perspective on Cultural Influences • Successful strategies in one country may not extend to others. • Example: McDonald’s discontinued plan to use the same packaging in all 30,000 of its restaurants worldwide. Subcultures • Groups within a culture that have their own modes of behavior. • In U.S. subcultures can differ by ethnicity, nationality, age, rural versus urban location, religion, and geographic distribution. • Population mix in U.S. is changing as the Hispanic, African American, and Asian populations grow.

Hispanic-American Consumers • Forty-one million Hispanics in U.S. are not homogenous. • Acculturation—the degree to which newcomers have adopted U.S. culture—shapes consumer behavior. • Largely unacculturated, about 28 percent of Hispanic population— Self-identify by country of origin, 72 percent speak only Spanish. • Partially acculturated, about 59 percent—Born in the U.S., largely bilingual. • Highly acculturated, about 13 percent—Born in U.S., most consider English their dominant language. • A large and quickly growing market. • A young market—median age is 25.

African American Consumers • Thirty-eight million today; expected to grow to more than 61 million by 2050. • Buying power expected to be $1 trillion by 2010. • As with other subcultures, demographic factors such as age, language, and educational level all affect how marketers appeal to different segments of the African-American segment. Asian American Consumers • Twelve million today; expected to grow to 33 million by 2050. • Buying power today is $579 million. • Many culturally diverse segments within this group, including Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Vietnamese, and others. • Marketers today are working to better understand the needs of this market.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES • Everyone belongs to multiple social groups: family, neighborhood, clubs, and sports teams. • Group membership influences buying decisions. • Groups establish norms of behavior—values, attitudes, and behaviors that a group deems appropriate for its members. • Differences in status and roles within groups also influence behavior. • Some Americans make purchases to enhance their status within social groups, and others work to reduce their consumption dramatically. The Asch Phenomenon • Theory of psychologist S. E. Asch that individuals conform to majority rule, even if that majority rule goes against their beliefs.

Reference Groups • Reference groups People or institutions whose opinions are valued and to whom a person looks for guidance in his or her own behavior, values, and conduct, such as family, friends, or celebrities. • Influence of reference group depends on two conditions: • Purchased product must be seen and identifiable. • Purchased product must be conspicuous, something not everybody owns. Social Classes • Six classes: upper-upper, lower-upper, upper-middle, lower-middle, working class, lower class. • Income not always a primary factor. • Individuals’ buying habits sometimes reflect the class to which they aspire.

Opinion Leaders • Reference groups Trend- setters who purchase new products before others in agroup and then influence others in their purchases. • Individuals tend to act as opinion leaders for specific goods or services. • Information sometimes flows from massmedia to opinion leaders to consumers; sometimes flows directly to consumers.

FAMILY INFLUENCES • Like other influences, families have norms of expected behavior, status relationships, and roles. • Family structure changing.

FAMILY INFLUENCES • Four roles of spouses: • Autonomic role—partners independently make an equal number of decisions. • Husband-dominant role—husband usually makes certain buying decisions, such as purchasing life insurance. • Wife-dominant role—wife makes buying decisions, such as buying children’s clothing. • Syncratic role—buying decision made jointly. • Increasing occurrence of two-income households increases likelihood of spouses making joint buying decisions. Children and Teenagers in Family Purchases • Have $192 billion in purchasing power either directly or by influencing family purchasing decisions.

PERSONAL DETERMINANTS OFCONSUMER BEHAVIOR NEEDS AND MOTIVES • Need Imbalance between a consumer’s actual and desired states. • Motive Inner state that directs a person toward the goal of satisfying a need. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs • Developed by psychologist Abraham H. Maslow • Identifies five levels of human needs. • Person must at least partially satisfy lower-level needs before higher-level needs affect behavior.

PERCEPTIONS • Perception Meaning that a person attributes to incoming stimuli gathered through the five senses. • Results from two types of factors: • Stimulus factors—characteristics of the physical object such as size, color, weight, and shape. • Individual factors—unique characteristics of the individual, including not only sensory processes but also experiences with similar inputs and basic motivations and expectations. Perceptual Screens • Consumers are bombarded by commercial messages. • Perceptual screens help people filter out some messages. • Advertisers work to break through these screens such as through using large ads, word-of-mouth advertising, and virtual reality.

Subliminal Perception • Subconscious receipt of incoming information. • Use is aimed at subverting perceptual screens. • Unlikely to work in customers not already inclined to buy. • Example: Retailers beaming commercials to individual customers in specific areas of the store, such as the cereal aisle. ATTITUDES • Attitudes Person’s enduring favorable or unfavorable evaluations, emotions, or action tendencies toward some object or idea. Attitude Components • Cognitive—individual’s knowledge about an object or concept. • Affective—deals with feelings or emotional reactions. • Behavioral—tendencies to act in a certain manner.

Changing Customer Attitudes • Marketers have two choices for appealing to consumer attitudes: • Attempt to produce consumer attitudes that will motivate purchase of a particular product. • Evaluate existing consumer attitudes and then make the product features appeal to them. • Attitudes may not be unfavorable, just not motivating the consumer toward a purchase. Modifying the Components of Attitude • Provide information about product benefits and correcting misconceptions. • Engaging buyers in new behavior. • New technologies can encourage changes in customers’ attitudes.

LEARNING • Learning Knowledge or skill that is acquired as a result of experience, which changes consumer behavior. • Learning process: • Drive—any strong stimulus that impels action. • Cue—any object in the environment that determines the nature of the consumer’s response to a drive. • Response—an individual’s reaction to a set of cues and drives. • Reinforcement—the reduction in drive that results from a proper response; creates bond between the drive and the purchase of the product.

Applying Learning Theory to Marketing Decisions • Marketers use shaping, the process of applying a series of rewards and reinforcements to permit more complex behavior to evolve. • Product and promotional strategy work together in the shaping process. • For example, customer receives a free sample that includes a substantial discount for first purchase. • Customer likes product and purchases it with little financial risk. • Customer uses discount coupon to buy at moderate cost. • Customer decided whether to buy the item at its true price. SELF-CONCEPT THEORY • Self-concept Person’s multifaceted picture of himself or herself. • Four components—real self, self-image, looking-glass self, and ideal self— influence purchasing decisions.

THE CONSUMER DECISION PROCESS • High-involvement purchasing decisions include buying a car. • Low-involvement purchasing decisions include buying a candy bar.

PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION • Consumer becomes aware of a significant discrepancy between the existing situation and a desired situation. SEARCH • Consumer gathers information about the attainment of a desired state of affairs. • Evoked set Number of alternatives that a consumer actually considers in making a purchase decision. EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES • Consumer accepts, distorts, or rejects information as they receive it. • Evaluative criteria Features that a consumer considers in choosing among alternatives.

PURCHASE DECISION AND PURCHASE ACT • Consumer decides where or from whom to make the purchase. POST-PURCHASE EVALUATION • Buyer feels either satisfaction at the removal of the discrepancy between the existing and desired states or dissatisfaction with the purchase. • Cognitive dissonance Imbalance among knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that occurs after an action or decision, such as a purchase. • Reasons dissonance may increase: • The dollar value of a purchase increases. • The rejected alternatives have desirable features that the chosen alternatives do not provide • The purchase decision has a major effect on the buyer.

CLASSIFYING CONSUMER PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCESSES • Results from two types of factors: Routinized Response Behavior • Consumer makes many purchases routinely by choosing a preferred brand or one of a limited group of acceptable brands. Limited Problem Solving • Consumer has previously set evaluative criteria for a particular kind of purchase but then encounters a new, unknown brand. Extended Problem Solving • Results when brands are difficult to categorize or evaluate. • Typical of high-involvement purchases.

Chapter Objectives