Class 1: Intro to Consumer Behaviour Flashcards
Consumer Behaviour Definition
The study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy
needs and desires.
Why Consumer Behaviour?
Customer Orientation:
Leveraging your knowledge of the customer to understand, design, organize, and produce to satisfy the customer.
▪ Being customer-oriented is central to marketing business strategy and has been shown to increase
profitability.
▪ Success depends on building exceptional customer experiences.
Where did CB Start?
▪ Once goods were being made to be bought and
consumed by others, we begin to see the
relationship between production and consumption.
▪ Widespread consumption of luxury goods began to
pick up with the rise of the urban middle classes in
western Europe in the 18th century.
* Sumptuary laws were developed to regulate excessive consumption.
Industrial Evolution (1760-1840)
Production up!
Prices down!
Consumption up!
Advertising starts – persuade people to buy more than they may need.
Conspicuous Consumption
Acquiring goods represents a way to display one’s power, in order to compete and gain social recognition.
Upper-class individuals used
Consumption to display their status.
Applies to what was referred to as the ‘leisure’ class.
CB and Value
▪ Exchange Value – value of a good in terms of exchange value (usually price).
▪ Use Value – value of a good in terms of it’s usefulness.
▪ Sign Value – value of a good in terms of it’s symbolic value to consumers.
“People buy things not only for what
they can do, but also for what they mean.”
Harvard Business Review,
1959
Retail Landscape Changes
Small scale farming, buying from neighbors, markets.
Shift to…
▪ Department stores
▪ Super market
▪ Mail-order companies
▪ Online retailing
Marketing Tools:
What tools do marketers have at their disposal to help them build and implement a plan to achieve their objectives and reach their target
market?
