5.1 Consumer Markets and Consumer Buyer Behaviour

Question 1

Definition of consumer buyer behavior

Answer 1

Consumer buyer behaviour:

The buying behaviour of final consumers—individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption.

Question 2

Definition of Consumer market,

Answer 2

Consumer market:

All the individuals and households that buy or acquire goods and services for personal consumption.

Question 3

What is the central question for marketers when considering consumer behaviour.

Answer 3

The central question for marketers, then, is this: Given all the characteristics (cultural, social, personal, and psychological) affecting consumer behaviour, how do we best design our marketing efforts to reach our consumers most effectively?

In the past, the field was often referred to as buyer behaviour, reflecting an emphasis on the actual exchange of goods for money.

Question 4

Figure 5.1 Some Issues That Arise During Stages in the Consumption Process

Answer 4

Question 5

What is the ultimate test of whether or not a marketing strategy is successful?

Answer 5

Consumers’ responses, which can range from actual purchase to merely engaging in word-of-mouth communications about the product, is the ultimate test of whether or not a marketing strategy is successful.

Question 6

What are some factors that strongly influence consumer purchases?

Answer 6

Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics,

Question 7

Figure 5.2 Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

Answer 7

Question 8

Definition of Culture

Answer 8

Culture:

The set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviours learned by a member of society from family and other important institutions.

Question 9

In terms of culture, what should marketers always trying to spot?

Answer 9

Marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts to discover new products that might be wanted.

Question 10

Definition of Subculture

Answer 10

Subculture:

A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.

Question 11

What can subcultures include?

Answer 11

Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial groups, and geographic regions.

Question 12

Whats a way that you can control for different personality types?

Answer 12

Have a large sample size so that one persons personality can not saw the results too much.

Question 13

Definition of Total Market Strategy

Answer 13

Total market strategy:

Integrating ethnic themes and cross-cultural perspectives within a brand’s mainstream marketing, appealing to consumer similarities across subcultural segments rather than differences.

Question 14

Definition of Social Class

Answer 14

Social class:

Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviours.

Question 15

What are some social factors that influence consumor behavior?

Answer 15

A consumer’s behaviour also is influenced by social factors, such as the consumer’s groups and social networks, family, and social roles and status.

Question 16

What are membership groups?

Answer 16

Groups that have a direct influence and to which a person belongs are called membership groups.

Question 17

Definition of Reference group

Answer 17

Reference group:

A group that serves as direct or indirect point of comparison or reference in forming a person’s attitudes or behaviour.

Question 18

What is an asperational group?

Answer 18

An aspirational group is one to which the individual wishes to belong, as when a young basketball player hopes to someday emulate Toronto Raptors basketball star Kyle Lowry and win an NBA championship.

Question 19

Definition of Opinion Leader

Answer 19

Opinion leader:

A person within a reference group who, because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or other characteristics, exerts social influence on others.

Question 20

Definition of Word-of-mouth influence.

Answer 20

Word-of-mouth influence:

The impact of the personal words and recommendations of trusted friends, family, associates, and other consumers on buying behaviour.

Question 21

Definition of Influencer marketing.

Answer 21

Influencer marketing:

Enlisting established influencers or creating new influencers to spread the word about a company’s brands.

Question 22

Definition of Online social networks

Answer 22

Online social networks:

Online social communities—blogs, online social media, brand communities, and other online forums—where people socialize or exchange information and opinions.

Question 23

What are the different personal characteristics that a buyer’s decisions are influence by?

Answer 23

A buyer’s decisions also are influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s occupation, age and life stage, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality and self-concept.

Question 24

How does occupation influence buyer behavior?

Answer 24

A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought.

Blue-collar workers tend to buy more rugged work clothes, whereas executives buy more business suits.

Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have an above-average interest in their products and services.

A company can even specialize in making products needed by a given occupational group.

Question 25

How does age and life stage influence buyer behavior?

Answer 25

People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Tastes in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related. Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life cycle—the stages through which families might pass as they mature over time.

Question 26

What are some examples of things that inflence life-stage changes?

Answer 26

Life-stage changes usually result from demographics and life-changing events—marriage, having children, purchasing a home, divorce, children going to university, changes in personal income, moving out of the house, and retirement.

Question 27

How can peoples economic situation inflence ther buying behavior?

Answer 27

A person’s economic situation will affect his or her store and product choices.

Marketers watch trends in spending, personal income, savings, and interest rates. In today’s value-conscious times, most companies have taken steps to create more customer value by redesigning, repositioning, and repricing their products and services.

Question 28

Definition of Lifestyle

Answer 28

Lifestyle:

A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions.

Question 29

What are AIO dimensions?

Answer 29

AIO dimensions—

activities (work, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events),

interests (food, fashion, family, recreation), and

opinions (about themselves, social issues, business, products).

Question 30

What does a persons lifestyle a profile of?

Answer 30

Lifestyle captures something more than the person’s social class or personality. It profiles a person’s whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world.

Question 31

Definition of Personality

Answer 31

Personality:

The unique psychological characteristics that distinguish a person or group.

Question 32

What is personality usually described in terms of?

Answer 32

Personality is usually described in terms of traits such as self-confidence, dominance, sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability, and aggressiveness.

Question 33

What is a brand personality

Answer 33

A brand personality is the specific mix of human traits that may be attributed to a particular brand.

Question 34

What are the five brand personality traits.

Answer 34

One researcher identified five brand personality traits:

sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful),

excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date),

competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful),

sophistication (glamorous, upper class, charming),

and ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough).

Question 35

Describe the marketing idea of self-concept (self-image)

Answer 35

Many marketers use a concept related to personality—a person’s self-concept (also called self-image). The idea is that people’s possessions contribute to and reflect their identities—that is, “we are what we consume.” Thus, to understand consumer behaviour, marketers must first understand the relationship between consumer self-concept and possessions.

Question 36

What are 4 major psycological factors that influence buying behavior?

Answer 36

A person’s buying choices are further influenced by four major psychological factors:

motivation,
perception,
learning,
and beliefs and attitudes.

Question 37

When does a need become a motive?

Answer 37

A person has many needs at any given time. Some are biological, arising from states of tension such as hunger, thirst, or discomfort.

Others are psychological, arising from the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging.

A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity

Question 38

Definition of a Motive (drive)

Answer 38

Motive (drive)

A need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction of the need.

Question 39

Psychologists have developed theories of human motivation. Two of the most popular…

Answer 39

the theories of Sigmund Freud and Abraham Maslow

Question 40

What is Sigmund Freud’s theory?

Answer 40

Sigmund Freud assumed that people are largely unconscious about the real psychological forces shaping their behaviour. His theory suggests that a person’s buying decisions are affected by subconscious motives that even the buyer may not fully understand.

Question 41

What is motivation research and who conducts it?

Answer 41

Consumers often don’t know or can’t describe why they act as they do. Thus, many companies employ teams of psychologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists to carry out motivation research that probes the subconscious motivations underlying consumers’ emotions and behaviours toward brands.

Question 42

What is interpretive consumer research?

Answer 42

Another company asks consumers to describe their favourite brands as animals or cars (say, a Mercedes versus a Chevy) to assess the prestige associated with various brands. Still others rely on hypnosis, dream therapy, or soft lights and mood music to plumb the murky depths of consumer psyches.

Such projective techniques might seem pretty goofy, and some marketers dismiss such motivation research as mumbo jumbo. But many marketers use such touchy-feely approaches, now sometimes called interpretive consumer research, to dig deeper into consumer psyches and develop better marketing strategies.

Question 43

Who is Abraham Maslow and what was it that he sought to explain?

Answer 43

Abraham Maslow sought to explain why people are driven by particular needs at particular times.

Why does one person spend a lot of time and energy on personal safety and another on gaining the esteem of others? Maslow’s answer is that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy, as shown in Figure 5.3, from the most pressing at the bottom to the least pressing at the top.

Question 44

What does Maslows hierarchy of hum needs include?

Answer 44

They include (From bottom to top):

Physiological needs
Safety needs
Social needs
Esteem needs
Self-actualization needs

Question 45

How does the hirearchy of needs work?

Answer 45

A person tries to satisfy the most important need first. When that need is satisfied, it will stop being a motivator, and the person will then try to satisfy the next most important need.

As each important need is satisfied, the next most important need will come into play.