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Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the decision-making processes of buyers, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general. Customer behaviour study is based on consumer buying behaviour, with the customer playing the three distinct roles of user, payer and buyer. Research has shown that consumer behaviour is difficult to predict, even for experts in the field. Relationship marketing is an influential asset for customer behaviour analysis as it has a keen interest in the re-discovery of the true meaning of marketing through the re-affirmation of the importance of the customer or buyer. A greater importance is also placed on consumer retention, customer relationship management, personalisation, customisation and one-to-one marketing. Social functions can be categorized into social choice and welfare functions.
Marketing managers regarded consumer behaviour discipline as an applied marketing science, if they could predict consumer behaviour, they could influence it. This approach has come to be known as positivism and the consumer researcher who are primarily concerned with predicting consumer behaviour are known as positivists. As the marketing research began to study the buying behaviour of consumers, they soon realized that many consumers rebelled at using the identical products everyone else used, for example in case of purchase of house, interiors, car, and dress material etc. people prefers unique products. Consumer preferred differential products that they felt reflected their own special needs, personalities and lifestyles. To meet the need of consumers, marketers adopt market segmentation policy. They use promotional techniques to vary the image of their products so that they would be perceived as better fulfilling the specific needs of certain target segments. Other reasons for the development of consumer behaviour includes the rate of new product development, growth of consumer movement, public policy concerns, environmental concerns and the growth of both nonprofit marketing and international marketing. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARKETING CONCEPT AND THE DISCIPLINE OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: MARKETING CONCEPT, A BUSINESS ORIENTATION: The field of consumer behaviour is rooted in the marketing concept, a business orientation that evolved in the 1950s through several alternative approaches toward doing business referred to respectively: 1) The Production Concept. 2) The Product Concept. 3) The Selling Concept. 4) The Marketing Concept. 5) The Societal Marketing Concept.
1) THE PRODUCTION CONCEPT: The production concept assumes that consumers are mostly interested in product availability at low prices; its implicit marketing objectives are cheap, efficient product and intensive distribution. It makes sense when consumer are more interested in buying whats available rather than wait for what they really want. The main objective is to expand the market. 2) THE PRODUCT CONCEPT: The product concept assumes that consumers will buy the product that offers them the highest quality, the best performance, and the most features. It ensures the company to improve the quality of its product and add new features. The product concept often leads to marketing myopia that is focusing on the product rather than the customer needs. 3) THE SELLING CONCEPT: The assumption of the selling concept is that consumers are unlikely to buy the product unless they are aggressively persuaded to do so mostly through hard sell approach. The problem in this concept is that it fails to satisfy a customer. Promotion can be done through advertisement, sales promotion and public relation. Today the selling concept is utilize be marketers of unsought products that is which people are not willing to buy it (such as life insurance). 4) THE MARKETING CONCEPT: It started in 1950s when some marketers realized we can sell more products by determining what consumer would buy. Consumer need and wants became the firms primary focus. The marketers should made product what t can sell, instead of what it has made.
5) THE SOCIETAL MARKETING CONCEPT: Developing that product which benefits the society. Doing marketing in such a way that it helps you in increasing your production & also giving benefits to society. The organization should determine the needs, wants and interest of target markets and deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently then do competitors in a way that maintains or improves the customers and societys well being. IMPLEMENTING THE MARKETING CONCEPT: To identify unsatisfied consumer need, companies had to engage in extensive marketing research. The marketing concept underscored the importance of consumer research. The strategic tools that are used to implement the marketing concept include segmentation, targeting, positioning and the marketing mix. THE ROLE OF CONSUMER RESEARCH: Consumer research describes the process and tools used to study consumer behaviour. Two theoretical perspectives that guides the development of consumer research: Positive Approach It tend to be objective and empirical, to seek caused for behaviour, and to conduct research studies that can be generalized to larger population. Interpretivists the research done by Interpretivists, on the other hand tends to be qualitative and based on small samples.
SEGMENTATION, TARGETING, AND POSITIONING: MARKET SEGMENTATION: Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics or behavior who might require separate products or marketing mixes. Market consists of buyers and, buyers differ in one or more ways. They may differ in their wants, resources, locations, buying attitudes, and buying practices.
MARKET POSITIONING: Formulating competitive positioning for a product and a detailed marketing mix. Developing a distinct image for the product or service in the mind of the consumer, that will differentiate with the competitors. MARKET TARGETING: The process of evaluating each market segments attractiveness and selecting one or more segments to enter. MARKETING MIX: The marketing mix consists of a companys service and/or product offerings to consumers and the methods and tools it selects to accomplish the exchange. The marketing mix consists of four elements: 1) The product or service that is the features, designs, brands, and packaging offered, along with post purchase benefits such as warranties and return policies. 2) The price the list price, including discounts, allowances, and payment methods. 3) The place the distribution of the product or service through specific store and non store outlets. 4) Promotion The advertising, sales promotion, public relations, ad sales efforts designed to build awareness of and demand for the product or service.
2. Information Search in this stage, a consumer recognizes their need (or want) and sets forth to find a solution. If it is clothing they need to solve their problem, the look for clothing, if it is food, they look for food. 3. Evaluation of Alternatives in this stage, a consumer has a good idea of what they want, now they are looking at the options that exists. They are evaluating the features of products and brands. 4. Purchase Decision in this stage, a consumer is processing the information from the information search and deciding on the products, store, payment options. More importantly, they are making the decision to move forward with the purchase or not. 5. Purchase this is the stage that the transaction is completed. The actual problem that was recognized is solved! 6. Post-Purchase Evaluation in this stage, the consumer determines if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the purchasing outcome. Here is where cognitive dissonance occurs.
Culture Basically, culture is the part of every society and is the important cause of person wants and behavior. The influence of culture on buying behavior varies from country to country therefore marketers have to be very careful in analyzing the culture of different groups, regions or even countries. Subculture Each culture contains different subcultures such as religions, nationalities, geographic regions, racial groups etc. Marketers can use these groups by segmenting the market into various small portions. For example marketers can design products according to the needs of a particular geographic group. Social Class Every society possesses some form of social class which is important to the marketers because the buying behavior of people in a given social class is similar. In this way marketing activities could be tailored according to different social classes. Here we should note that social class is not only determined by income but there are various other factors as well such as: wealth, education, occupation etc. 2. Social Factors Social factors also impact the buying behavior of consumers. The important social factors are: reference groups, family, role and status. Reference Groups Reference groups have potential in forming a person attitude or behavior. The impact of reference groups varies across products and brands. For example if the product is visible such as dress, shoes, car etc then the influence of reference groups will be high. Reference groups also include opinion leader (a person who influences other because of his special skill, knowledge or other characteristics). Family
Buyer behavior is strongly influenced by the member of a family. Therefore marketers are trying to find the roles and influence of the husband, wife and children. If the buying decision of a particular product is influenced by wife then the marketers will try to target the women in their advertisement. Here we should note that buying roles change with change in consumer lifestyles. Roles and Status Each person possesses different roles and status in the society depending upon the groups, clubs, family, organization etc. to which he belongs. For example a woman is working in an organization as finance manager. Now she is playing two roles, one of finance manager and other of mother. Therefore her buying decisions will be influenced by her role and status. 3. Personal Factors Personal factors can also affect the consumer behavior. Some of the important personal factors that influence the buying behavior are: lifestyle, economic situation, occupation, age, personality and self concept. Age Age and life-cycle have potential impact on the consumer buying behavior. It is obvious that the consumers change the purchase of goods and services with the passage of time. Family life-cycle consists of different stages such young singles, married couples, unmarried couples etc which help marketers to develop appropriate products for each stage. Occupation The occupation of a person has significant impact on his buying behavior. For example a marketing manager of an organization will try to purchase business suits, whereas a low level worker in the same organization will purchase rugged work clothes. Economic Situation Consumer economic situation has great influence on his buying behavior. If the income and savings of a customer is high then he will purchase more expensive products. On the other hand, a person with low income and savings will purchase inexpensive products.
Lifestyle Lifestyle of customers is another import factor affecting the consumer buying behavior. Lifestyle refers to the way a person lives in a society and is expressed by the things in his/her surroundings. It is determined by customer interests, opinions, activities etc and shapes his whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world. Personality Personality changes from person to person, time to time and place to place. Therefore it can greatly influence the buying behavior of customers. Actually, Personality is not what one wears; rather it is the totality of behavior of a man in different circumstances. It has different characteristics such as: dominance, aggressiveness, self-confidence etc which can be useful to determine the consumer behavior for particular product or service. 4. Psychological Factors There are four important psychological factors affecting the consumer buying behavior. These are: perception, motivation, learning, beliefs and attitudes. Motivation The level of motivation also affects the buying behavior of customers. Every person has different needs such as physiological needs, biological needs, social needs etc. The nature of the needs is that, some of them are most pressing while others are least pressing. Therefore a need becomes a motive when it is more pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction. Perception Selecting, organizing and interpreting information in a way to produce a meaningful experience of the world is called perception. There are three different perceptual processes which are selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention. In case of selective attention, marketers try to attract the customer attention. Whereas, in case of selective distortion, customers try to interpret the information in a way that will support what the customers already believe. Similarly, in case of selective retention, marketers try to retain information that supports their beliefs.
Beliefs and Attitudes Customer possesses specific belief and attitude towards various products. Since such beliefs and attitudes make up brand image and affect consumer buying behavior therefore marketers are interested in them. Marketers can change the beliefs and attitudes of customers by launching special campaigns in this regard.
Comparative study
Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may not use the same categories, or define categories differently (for example by using different definitions of poverty).
and mobilization, and regime legacy. Here, Esping-Andersen is using comparative research: he takes many western countries and compares their level of deco modification, then develops a theory of the divergence based on his findings. Comparative research can take many forms. Two key factors are space and time. Spatially, crossnational comparisons are by far the most common, although comparisons within countries, contrasting different areas, cultures or governments also subsist and are very constructive, especially in a country like New Zealand, where policy often changes depending on which race it pertains to. Recurrent interregional studies include comparing similar or different countries or sets of countries, comparing one's own country to others or to the whole world. The historical comparative research involves comparing different time-frames. The two main choices within this model are comparing two stages in time (either snapshots or time-series), or just comparing the same thing over time, to see if a policy's effects differ over a stretch of time. When it comes to subject matter of comparative inquiries, many contend there is none unique to it. This may indeed be true, but a brief perusal of comparative endeavours reveals there are some topics more recurrent than others. Determining whether socioeconomic or political factors are more important in explaining government action is a familiar theme. In general, however, the only thing that is certain in comparative research issues is the existence of differences to be analysed.
It helps in getting familiar with their marketing strategies separately. To view the segments being targeted by these brands in the market. It helps in identifying up to what extent do the public respond to their products. To prepare a marketing plan for any brand that is planning to enter the India Chocolate Market. It helps for relevant guide for any brand launch in India.