Analyzing Consumer Markets Flashcards
What is consumer behavior?
The study of how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants. Influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors
What influences consumer behaviour?
- Culural factors
- Social factors
- Reference groups
- Family
- Personal factors
Reference Groups
Membership groups
• Primary vs. secondary
• All people who belong to a certain group
Aspirational groups
• Groups you are not part of, but you like to
Dissociative groups
• Groups you dislike, you don’t want to be seen with those people
Opinion leader
Cultural factors
- Culture
- Subcultures
- Social classes
Social factors
- Reference groups
- Cliques
- Family
- Roles and status
Family
Family of orientation vs. family of procreation
- Family of orientation
e. g. if your mum tells you “milk is good”, you will continue to think the same (the family in which you were born) - Family of procreation
family you create through marriage (you set up own new rules)
Personal factors
- Age/stage in life cycle
- Occupation and economic circumstances
- Personality and self-concept
- Lifestyle and values
Key psychological processes
- Memory
- Motivation
- Perception
- Learning
- Emotions
Memory
o Short-term vs. long-term memory o Associative network memory model o Brand associations o Memory encoding o Memory retrieval
Emotions
Key factors (most of the buying decisions are emotional rather than rational)
Learning
o Induces changes in our behaviour arising from experience
o Drive and cues
o Generalization and discrimination
Usually, consumers learn through pictures. However, Germans learn through reading
Perception
The process by which we select, organize, and interpret information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. Perception is very often misleading and taken advantage of.
Problem recognition
quite often, companies “invent” problems that are no real problems to make people aware that they need their product.
o Selective attention
o Selective distortion
o Selective retention
o Subliminal perception
Motivation
A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity to drive us to act
o Freud’s Theory
Behaviour is guided by subconscious motivations
o Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Behaviour is driven by lowest, unmet need
o Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Behaviour is guided by dissatisfiers and satisfiers
Why Maslows Theory is not rellevant in marketing
It is outdated. Some social needs are more important than physiological needs (we are not that rational, we are emotional)
A Hindu would rather starve than eat his cow. In Africa, good sports shoes are important to get a wife and a job -> people would eat less just to afford them
Model of Consumer Behavior
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The Buying Decision Process
The consumer typically passes through five stages
- Problem recognition
- Information search
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase decision
- Post purchase behaviour
- Problem recognition
The buyer recognizes a problem/need triggered by internal/external stimuli
- Information search
o Personal sources
o Commercial sources
o Public sources
o Experiential sources
Sets involved in decision making
- Total set
- Awareness set
- Consideration set
- Choice set
- Decision
Intervening factors in decision making
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase intention
- Unanticipated situational factors
- Attitudes of others
Evaluation of alternatives
with the Expectancy-value model
Purchase decision
Compensatory vs. non-comp. models
o Conjunctive heuristic
o Lexicographic heuristic
o Elimination-by-aspects heuristic
Types of perceived risk
o Functional risk
Invisible risk, e.g. shoes not being waterproof, coat which will not keep warm
o Physical risk
e.g. health care, insurance
o Financial risk
e.g. consumer credits
o Social risk
Risk which maybe involves negative feedback, social status decreases
o Psychological risk
Risk in which disappointment, rejection, etc. is involved
o Time risk
Risk by losing time, missing a chance
