Consumer Behaviour

Question 1

Consumer behaviour is…

Answer 1

The process individuals or groups go through to select, purchase, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy their needs and desires.

Question 2

Marketers need to understand…

Answer 2

The many factors that influence each step in the consumer behaviour process:

■ Internal factors (psychology)

■ Situational factors at the time of purchase (context)

■ Social influences of people around us (culture)

Question 3

Decision making can range from:

Answer 3

Painstaking (scrupuleux, prudent) analysis, to Pure whim (caprice)

Question 4

The scale of effort ranging from:

Answer 4

Habitual decisions (little importance), to Extended problem solving (important decisions)

Question 5

Extended problem solving vs Habitual decision making:

Answer 5

Question 6

Consumer Decision Types:

Answer 6

e.g. limited=a fairly expensive pair of shoes/clothes

Question 7

What is the role of perceived risk in the decision process? Give examples….

Answer 7

■ Functional Risk?

■ Social Risk?

■ Financial Risk?

■ Physical Risk?

■ Time Risks?

■ Psychological Risks?

■ Moral Risk?

■ Health Risk

Question 8

What are the 5 steps of the customer’s decision making process?

Answer 8

1. Problem Recognition
2. Information Search (alternatives)
3. Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Product Choice
5. Post-Purchase Evaluation

Question 9

Step 1: Problem recognition

Answer 9

Difference between the current state of affairs and some desired or ideal state in the future

• Marketing subtext: something is wrong with you!
• Marketing sociology: you aren’t born with your desires, desires are something you acquire

Question 10

Advertising messages stimulate …

Answer 10

Consumers to recognize that their current state just doesn’t equal their desired state.

Question 11

Getting a job - (an exercise in problem recognition)

Answer 11

■What are a potential employer’s needs (problems and challenges)? And/or how might you personally (as the product) influence those needs?

Share job specifications (employer needs/problems) and connect those problems with what you provide….

What is the problem to which you could be the answer???

• Teamwork/collaborator
• Develop/implement
• Attention to detail
• Challenge and question senior stakeholders
• Liaison/communication
• Monitor/track/evaluate/report

Question 12

Stage 2: Information about alternatives

Answer 12

■ Memory

■ Surveys of the environment

■ Internet

Question 13

Stage 3: Evaluation

Answer 13

■ First select realistic contenders: Feasibility

■ Evaluative Criteria

■ Marketing often involves educating/training the consumer concerning product characteristics worth of evaluation

Question 14

Step 4: Making the final choice

Answer 14

■ Heuristics (rules of thumb or maxims): price = quality

■ Brand loyalty

■ Country loyalty: German cars….French wine…

■ Utility maximization/meaning maximization…

Question 15

Step 5: Use and evaluation

Answer 15

■ Satisfaction

■ Dissatisfaction

■ Metrics

■ Meaningfulness

Question 16

Motivation: Maslov’s pyramid of needs

Answer 16

Question 17

Exercise Maslov’s Pyramid

Answer 17

Question 18

Problems with Maslov…and there are a lot:

Answer 18

■ How do you account for suicide?

■ Universalism: cultural differences? Individualist and hedonic bias…

■ ‘Life Without Pain Has No Meaning’: (Arthur Schopenhauer): Artists, philosophers, religious and political people often do what they do at great personal cost and suffering.

■ Masochistic lifestyles: triathlon/ironman, walking the Camino,

■ Accounting for pathologies in general

Question 19

Consumers are not…

Answer 19

Robots…. Decisions are usually not made as software and need are not objective…

“Think of culture as a society’s personality” : NO!!

Question 20

Marketing: the “problematisation machine”… or why everybody is miserable

Answer 20

“…marketing represents a perpetual questioning machine asking the modern consumer to make a project of oneself based on ongoing self-examination and querying; to look at oneself as a set of constantly multiplying problems (too fat, too skinny, too boring, etc) and as yet unrealized potentialities [towards the future]; to translate them into personal needs and desires” [emphasis added]

(Zwick & Cayla 2011: 7).

Question 21

Culture is…

Answer 21

“an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men [and women] communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life”

(Geertz 1973d:89)

Question 22

Consumption & Symbolic Meaning:

Answer 22

When a product satisfies more than a physical need, it has symbolic value.

• Social Symbolism: Symbols are part of the creation of our social world.
• Self-Symbolism: Symbols are part of the creation of the identity of the individual

”We are what we consume”

–> Emotion helps out, when rationality gives in

Question 23

Perception: why is this important?

Answer 23

Perception is the process by which people select, organize and interpret information from the outside world.

We receive information in the form of sensations, the immediate response of our sensory receptors – eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers – to such basic stimuli as light, colour and sound.

Question 24

Consumers are bombarded with products. Marketers need to understand the workings of:

Answer 24

■ Exposure: can the customer register the product (subliminal advertising?)

■ Attention: the extent to which mental processing activity is devoted to a particular stimulus

Question 25

Interpretation: perception is never objective, but involves assigning meaning

Answer 25

■ Hermeneutics (the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts). ■ Context ■ Sociocultural paradigm (a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model. "society's paradigm of the ‘ideal woman’") ■ Assemblages

Question 26

Perception and the big picture:

Answer 26

Question 27

Meaning of perception and context:

Answer 27

Question 28

Ambivalence in perception:

Answer 28

Question 29

Learning:

Answer 29

A change in behaviour caused by information or experience. Learning can occur deliberately or when we are not trying.

Question 30

Behavioural Learning:

Answer 30

Behavioural learning theories assume that learning takes place as a result of **connections** (associations) that form between **events** that **we perceive**

Question 31

What are the Behavioural Learning conditionings?

Answer 31

■ **Classical conditioning**, a person perceives two stimuli at about the same time ■ When people learn that their actions result in rewards or punishments it is called **operant conditioning**.

Question 32

Which 2 operant conditioning learning techniques have I been using in class?

Answer 32

* Punishment: whistling so it hurts your ears when I say ‘quiet’… * Praising you when you do well

Question 33

Think of examples of behavioural learning in marketing

Answer 33

Question 34

What are Stimulus generalisations?

Answer 34

This means that the good or bad feelings associated with a product will “rub off” on other products that resemble it. Some marketers create product line extensions *Can you think of any product line extensions where stimulus generalization is used?*

Question 35

The cognitive learning theory:

Answer 35

■ This uses the idea of observational learning… and problem solving ■ Putting hot guys and girls on gym equipment or next to a car… which is retarded, but sometimes true ("If I buy a great car I'll attract hot girls")

Question 36

Attitudes: is a lasting evaluation of a person, object, or issue. Consumers have attitudes about brands:

Answer 36

■ **Affect** is the feeling component of attitudes. Affect refers to the overall emotional response a person has to a product. Affect is usually dominant for expressive products. ■ **Cognition**, the knowing component, is the belief or knowledge a person has about a product and its important characteristic. ■ **Behaviour**, the doing component, involves a consumer’s intention to do something, such as the intention to purchase or use a certain product.

Question 37

Group membership:

Answer 37

■ A **reference group** is a set of people a consumer wants to please or imitate. Consumers “refer to” these groups in evaluating their behaviour –what they wear, where they go, what brands they buy and so on. ■ Consumers often change their behaviour to gain acceptance into a particular reference group. **Conformity** is at work when a person changes as a reaction to real or imagined group pressure.

Question 38

Opinion leader:

Answer 38

Question 39

Advertisement Analysis Example

Answer 39

■ _Segment:_ Age \> The elderly ■ _Consumer Behaviour observation:_ Maslov \> belonging and acceptance (don’t anger or burden relatives with funeral costs) / Safety… ■ _Aesthetic/symbolism:_ Over the hill, but still a ways to go……

Question 40

Personality traits….

Answer 40

■ **Innovativeness** is the degree to which a person likes to try new things. ■ **Materialism** is the amount of emphasis placed on owning products. ■ **Self-confidence** is the degree to which a person has a positive evaluation of her abilities, including the ability to make a good decision. ■ **Sociability** is the degree to which a person enjoys social interaction. ■ **Need for cognition** is the degree to which a person likes to think about things and expend the necessary effort to process brand information.

Question 41

Influences on consumer decisions:

Answer 41

**_Internal_** * Personality * Self**-**concept (identity) * Age * Family lifestyle * Challenges: essential psychological traits are not usually helpful * Idem and Ipse **_Social influences_** **_Spatiotemporal_** * When, where, how consumers shop (demographic and geographic segmentation); * Physical characteristics of the shop (smell, lighting, presentation… supermarket shelves); * Time constraints; * Daily patterns of life; * Work-life balance * Time poverty * Other factors patterning time **_Socio-cultural_** * Cultural back ground * Values * Religion * Collectivism vs individualism * Subcultures **_Others_** * Opinion leaders * Science * Legislation * etc