Influences on consumer bahavior

Question 1

Consumer Behavior

Answer 1

“Consumer Behavior is 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”

Question 2

How is consumer behavior interlinked with psychology

Answer 2

Consumer behavior is very much interlinked with psychology
- Psychology tries to evaluate the behavior of individuals, their activities,
their feelings/experiences, thinking, ….
- Consumer behavior is looking at individuals as participants in markets,
i.e. their purchasing process, their feeling/attitudes of brands…

Question 3

Why is psychology important?

Answer 3

• Consumer behavior is (from a economical perspective) often irrational
  and illogical (e.g., emotion-driven, uncontrolled, un-reflected)
• Only the psychological perspective allows us to be able to understand
  consumers decisions

Question 4

Consumer Decision Process

Answer 4

Need Recognition > Search (Information processing, Individual Characteristics) > Evaluation and Choice > Purchase > Consumption and Evaluation

Question 5

. Overview
individual
characteristics

Answer 5

• Geographic
• Demographic
• Psychographic
• Behavioural

Question 6

Segmentation

Answer 6

Example of customer segmentation

• Successful segmentation requirements

Question 7

Geographic characteristics

Answer 7

Nations
• States
• Regions
• Cities
• Neighbourhoods

Question 8

Demographic characteristics

Answer 8

• Age and life-cycle stage
• Life stage
• Gender
• Income
• Generation
• Social Class

Question 9

Psychographic characteristics

Answer 9

Based on 1) personality traits and 2)

lifestyle

Question 10

Behavioural characteristics

Answer 10

• Occasions
• Benefits
• User status
• Usage rate
• Loyalty status
• Attitude

Question 11

Traditional personality traits “BIG FIVE”

Answer 11

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism

Question 12

Psychographic:

Modern Archetypes

Answer 12

Archetype (firstly developed by Carl Jung):
Defined as “a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed
to be present in the collective unconscious”
• Modern Archetype (e.g. Brandasset Valuator by Young and Rubicam)

Question 13

Psychographic:

AIO Dimentions

Answer 13

Activities: work, hobbies, social events, vacation, entertainment, community, shopping, sports
Interests: family, home, job, community, recreation, fashion, food, media, achievements
Opinions: themselves, social issues, politics, business, economics, education, education, products, future, culture

Question 14

Behavioral criteria

Answer 14

• Occasions: different occasions required different products
• Benefits: consumers seek different benefits
• User Status: non-users, ex-users, potential users, first time users, first time users
• Usage Rate: light, medium and heavy users
• Loyalty Status: hard-core loyals, split loyals, shifting loyals, switchers
• Attitude: enthusiastic, positive, indifferent, negative, hostile

Question 15

Example of Cusomer Segmentation

Answer 15

• Top Guns: driven and ambitious, care about power and control, expect to be noticed
• Elitists: old money, a car - even an expensive one - is just a car, not an extension of one’s personality
• Proud Patrons: ownership is what counts, a car is a trophy (reward for working hard), being noticed doesn’t matter
• Bon Vivants: cosmopolitan jet setters and thrill seekers, car heightens excitement
• Fantasists: car represents a form of escape, don’t care about impressing others, may even feel guilty about owning a car

Question 16

What makes successful segmentation?

Answer 16

Successful Segments are:
•Effective
• Measurable
•Accessible
•Actionable
•Substantial

Question 17

Types of
environmental
influences

Answer 17

• Cultures
• Subcultures
• Religion and Ethnicity
• Family, household, age cohorts

Question 18

What is Modeling?

Answer 18

Imitation of purchase behavior and product use of others

Question 19

Verbal Modeling

Answer 19

Consumer is given a description of how similar others or

aspirational groups behave in purchase/use situations

Question 20

Overt Modeling

Answer 20

Consumer observes and imitates modeled behavior and

consequences

Question 21

SOCIAL INFLUENCE TECHNIQUES

Answer 21

• Because heuristics
• Foot-in-doortechniques
• Door-in-the-facetechniques
• That-is-not-alltechnique
• Low-balltechnique

Question 22

Because heuristics

Answer 22

• People are more likely to comply with
a request if you give them a reason for
comply, even a placebic reason
• Langer, Blank, Chanowitz (1978)
o Ask to make copies (5 copies
small; 25 copies large request)

Question 23

Foot-in-doortechniques

Answer 23

• Complying with a small request makes
people more likely to continue to be
helpful, so resistance to buying
decreases
• “Drive carefully sign” (Freedman, Fraser
1966)

Question 24

Door-in-the-facetechniques

Answer 24

• Reciprocity principle – reasonability of
one person makes other person to
reciprocate
• Cialdini et al. 1975
o Rejection-Moderaton = Extreme
request first; when rejected, then
smaller, moderate request
o Small request: only small request

Question 25

That-is-not-alltechnique

Answer 25

• Reciprocity principle – “good deal”
offering makes people accept it
(Burger 1986)

Question 26

Low-balltechnique

Answer 26

• Commitment in first place makes it difficult to change a decision

Question 27

Definition of reference group

Answer 27

An actual or imaginary individual or group that significantely influences an individual‘s evaluations, aspirations, or behavior

Question 28

Types of reference groups

Answer 28

• Formal versus informal groups
• Membership reference group (people one actually
knows) versus aspirational reference group (people one
admires)
• Also: avoidance groups

Question 29

Opinion Leaders

Answer 29

• Expert power: they are technically competent
• Knowledge power: they prescreen, evaluate and synthesize product
information in an unbiased way
•Interconnected: they are interconneced in their communities
• Homophily: They are similar in terms of education, social status and education level to those they influence
•Innovators: They are the first to buy new products