chapter 3 Flashcards
explores how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants
consumer behavior
The tactics shaping the offering and the context of the market in which the offering will be sold are filtered
through the cultural, social, and personal lenses of target customers, as well as being influenced by consumer motivation, perception, emotions, and memory. This, in turn, influences the consumer buying process—a journey that entails recognition of a need, a search for the best means to fulfill that need, and evaluation of the available options to finally arrive at the ultimate decision of what, when, where, and how much to buy, and how to pay for these purchases
understanding consumer behavior
A consumer’s buying behavior is influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors.
Consumer Characteristics
- Cultural Factors
- Social Factors
- Personal Factors
Of these, cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on people’s perceptions and desires and on how they go about fulfilling their needs and wants.
a way of life among a group of people—the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
Culture
Culture, subculture, and social class are particularly important influences on consumer buying behavior
is a fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Through family and other key institutions.
Culture
include nationalities, religions, racial groups, and geographic regions
Subcultures
includes lower, middle, and
upper classes.
Social Class
include all the groups that have a direct or indirect effect on a person’s beliefs, decisions, and behavior. Family members typically constitute the most influential primary reference group
Reference groups
Reference groups include not only those that individuals belong to, such as friends, neighbors, coworkers, and religious and interest-based groups. Individuals may also be influenced by groups to which they do not belong, such as aspirational groups that they hope to join and dissociative groups whose values or behavior they reject.
is a person who offers informal advice or information about a specific product or product category, such as which of several brands
is best or how a particular product may be used.
opinion leader, or an influencer
the most influential primary reference group, is the most important consumer buying organization in society.
Family
A role consists of the activities a person is expected to perform. Each role in turn connotes a status.
role and status
Personal characteristics that influence buyers’ decisions include their age and stage in the life cycle, occupation and economic circumstances, personality and self-concept, and lifestyle and values. Because many of these factors have a direct impact on consumer behavior, it is important for marketers to follow them closely.
set of distinguishing human psychological traits that lead to relatively consistent and enduring responses to environmental stimuli, including buying behavior
personality
traits as self-confidence, dominance, autonomy, deference, sociability, defensiveness, and adaptability.
self-concept
a set of principles and
notions of “right and wrong”—that determines what is meaningful and important to consumers and
how they choose to live and interact with others.
value system
is a person’s pattern of living in the world, as expressed in activities, interests, and opinions. It portrays the “whole person” interacting with his or her environment.
lifestyle
When marketing and environmental stimuli enter the consumer’s consciousness, a set of psychological processes combine with certain consumer characteristics to result in decision processes and purchase decisions. The marketer’s task is to understand what happens in the consumer’s consciousness between the arrival of the outside marketing stimuli and the ultimate purchase decisions. Four key psychological processes—motivation, perception, learning, and memory—fundamentally influence
consumer responses.
Consumer Psychology
Understanding consumer motivation begins with understanding the needs consumers aim to fulfill
with their actions.
Consumer Motivation
Needs are the basic human requirements, such as air, food, water, clothing, and
shelter. Some needs are biological and arise from physiological states of tension such as hunger, thirst,
or discomfort. Other needs are psychological and arise from psychological states of tension such as the
need for recognition, esteem, or belonging.
Consumer Needs
Maslow Hierarchy
physiological needs
safety needs
social needs
esteem needs
self-actualization needs
We all have many needs at any given time. A need becomes a motivation when aroused to a sufficient level of intensity to drive us to act.
Consumer Motivation
is the process by which we select, organize, and interpret information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world
Perception
People emerge with different perceptions of the same object because of three perceptual processes: selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention.
means that marketers must
work hard to attract the notice of consumers.
Selective attention
the tendency to interpret information to fit our preconceptions.
Selective distortion
are mental states that arise spontaneously rather than from conscious effort and reflect
people’s positive or negative reactions to internal and external stimuli
Emotions
the brain’s ability to record, store, and retrieve information and events—also plays a role
in consumers’ purchasing decisions
Memory
Memory Models
long-term memory
short-term memory
temporary and limited repository of information
short-term memory
more permanent, potentially unlimited repository
long-term memory
three types of long-term memory:
episodic, semantic, and procedural.
responsible for storing information about events (i.e., episodes) that we have
experienced in our lives. It is an individual’s memory of autobiographical events that capture the context—such as times, places, and associated emotions—in which a particular event has occurred.
Episodic memory
responsible for storing information about the world, such as facts, meanings,
and concepts. Unlike episodic memory, which is directly linked to an individual’s personal experience, semantic memory captures general knowledge that is independent of personal experience.
Semantic memory
responsible for knowing how to perform certain procedures such as walking,
talking, and riding a bike. It is a memory of motor skills typically acquired through repetition and involves automatic sensorimotor activities that are so deeply embedded in our minds that they do
not involve conscious thought.
Procedural memory
consist of all brand-related thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs,
and attitudes that become linked to the brand node.
Brand associations
describes how and where information gets into memory
Memory encoding
the way we reclaim information from memory.
Memory retrieval
we’re likely to remember only the positive aspects of a product we like,
forgetting its negative aspects and the good points about competing products.
selective retention
consumer-behavior questions that marketers should ask in terms of
who, what, when, where, how, and why:
Who buys our product or service? Who makes the decision to buy the product or service?
Who influences the decision to buy the product or service? How is the purchase decision made? Who
assumes what role in the decision process?
What does the customer buy? What needs must be satisfied? What wants are fulfilled?
Why do customers buy a particular brand? What benefits do they seek?
Where do customers go or look to buy the product or service? Online and/or offline? When do they
buy? Any seasonality factors? Any time of day/week/month?
How is our product or service perceived by customers? What are customers’ attitudes toward our
product or service?
What social factors might influence the purchase decision? Do customers’ lifestyles influence their
decisions? How do personal, demographic, or economic factors influence the purchase decision?
Smart companies try to fully understand a customer’s buying decision process, which involves all the experiences in learning, choosing, using, and even disposing of a product.
The Buying Decision Process
- Problem Recognition
- Information Search
- Evaluation of Alternatives
- Purchase Decision
- Post-Purchase Behavior
The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a problem or need triggered by internal or external stimuli.
Problem Recognition
one of the person’s basic needs—hunger, thirst, sex—rises to
a threshold level and becomes a drive.
internal stimulus
A person may admire a friend’s new car or see a television ad for a Hawaiian vacation, which inspires thoughts about the possibility of making a similar purchase.
external stimulus
Surprisingly, consumers often search for only limited information. Surveys have shown that half of all consumers look for durable goods at just one store, and a mere 30 percent look at more than one brand of appliances.
Information Search
Two levels of engagement of Information Search:
Heightened Attention
Active Information
The milder search state. At this level a person simply becomes more receptive to infor-
mation about a product
heightened attention
At the next level, the person may enter looking for reading material, phoning friends, going online, and visiting stores to learn about the product.
active information
The way consumers decipher the pros and cons of available options is affected by the beliefs and attitudes they hold, whether these are valid or erroneous.
Evaluation of Alternatives
a conviction that something is true or real, regardless of whether or not it is
belief
person’s enduring favorable or unfavor-
able evaluations, emotional feelings, and behavioral tendencies toward an object or idea
attitudes
How does the consumer process the information about the available
options and make a final value judgment? No single process is used by all consumers or by one consumer in all buying situations. The most current models see the consumer forming judgments largely
on a conscious and rational basis
Information Processing
consumers evaluate products and services by combining their brand beliefs—both positive and negative—according to importance.
Expectancy-Value Model.
In the evaluation stage, the consumer forms preferences among the brands in the choice set and may also form an intention to buy the most preferred brand. In executing a purchase intention, the consumer may make as many as five purchase decisions: brand (Brand A), distribution channel (Retailer X),
quantity (one computer), timing (weekend), and payment method (credit)
Purchase Decision
Rather than calculating the perceived importance of every attribute across products in a consideration set, consumers often take “mental shortcuts,” or rules of thumb, in the
decision process.
heuristics
Even if consumers form an evaluation, two general factors can intervene
between the purchase intention and the purchase decision
Intervening Factors
The marketer’s job doesn’t end
with the purchase. Marketers must monitor postpurchase satisfaction, postpurchase actions, and postpurchase product uses and disposal.
Post-Purchase Behavior
