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Chapter 1 An Introduction to Consumer Behavior

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Remember Me?

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I'm the fellow who goes into a restaurant, sits down and patiently waits while the waitresses do everything but take my order. I'm the fellow who goes into a department store and stands quietly while the sales clerks finish their little chitchat. I'm the man who drives into a gasoline station and never blows his horn, but waits patiently while the attendant finishes reading his comic book. "Yes, you might say, I'm a good guy. But do you know who else I am? I am the fellow who never comes back, and it amuses me to see you spending thousands of dollars every year to get me back into your store, when I was there in the first place, and all you had to do to keep me was to give me a little service; show me a little courtesy." Source: From a Better Business Bureau bulletin submitted by An Arkansas Reader to Dear Abby

Defining Consumer Behavior

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Consumer Behavior is the Process Involved When Individuals or Groups Select, Use, or Dispose of Products, Services, Ideas or Experiences (Exchange) to Satisfy Needs and Desires.

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Issues During Stages in the Consumption Process

Consumers Impact on Marketing Strategy

Firms exist to satisfy consumers needs, so Firms must understand consumers needs to satisfy them.

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Understanding consumer behavior is good business.

The Process of Marketing Segmentation:

Identifies Groups of Consumers Who are Similar to One Another in One or More Ways, and Devises Marketing Strategies that Appeal to One or More of These Groups.

Segmenting Consumers by Demographic Dimensions

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Demographics are Statistics That Measure Observable Aspects of a Population Such As:
Geography Age

Race and Ethnicity

Gender

Social Class and Income

Family Structure

Consumers Impact On Marketing Strategy: Building Bonds With Consumers

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Relationship Marketing occurs when a company makes an effort to interact with customers on a regular basis, and gives them reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time. Database Marketing involves tracking consumers buying habits very closely, and crafting products and messages tailored precisely to peoples wants and needs based on this information.

Marketings Impact on Consumers:

The Meaning of Consumption
Types of Relationships a Person May Have With a Product:
Self-Concept Attachment
Helps to Establish the Users Identity

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Nostalgic Attachment
Serves as a Link With a Past Self

Interdependence
Part of the Users Daily Routine

Love
Elicits Bonds of Warmth, Passion, or Other Strong Emotion

Marketings Impact on Consumers: Consumption Typology

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Consumption Typology Explores the Different Ways That Products and Experiences Can Provide Meaning to People. There Are 4 Distinct Types of Consumption Activities:
Consuming as Experience An Emotional or Aesthetic Reaction to Consumption Objects Express Aspects of Self or Society Communicate Their Association With Objects, Both to Self/ Others Participate in a Mutual Experience and Merge Self With Group

Consuming as Integration Consuming as Classification

Consuming as Play

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Marketings Impact on Consumers

Marketing and Culture Popular Culture Intangible and Tangible Objects

The Global Consumer

Global Consumer Culture

Virtual Consumption
Business to Consumer Selling (B2C Commerce) Consumer to Consumer Selling (B2B Commerce) Virtual Brand Communities

Blurred Boundaries: Marketing and Reality

Marketing Ethics

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Business Ethics are Rules of Conduct That Guide Actions in the Marketplace - the Standards Against Which Most People in a Culture Judge What is Right and What is Wrong, Good or Bad.

Other Marketing Ethics Issues

Do Marketers Create Artificial Needs?
Response: Marketing attempts to create awareness that these needs do exist, rather than to create them.

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Are Advertising and Marketing Necessary?

Response: Yes, if approached from an information dissemination perspective.

Do Marketers Promise Miracles?

Not if they are honest; they do not have the ability to create miracles.

The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior

Compulsive Consumption
>Behavior is Not Done by Choice >Gratification is Short-Lived >Strong Feelings of Regret or Guilt Afterwards

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Addictive Consumption
> Gambling

Illegal Activities
> Consumer Theft (Shrinkage) >Anti-consumption Culture Jamming Cultural Resistance

Consumed Consumers
> People Who Are Exploited for Commercial Gain in the Marketplace.

Interdisciplinary Influences
Individual Focus

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Experimental Psychology Clinical Psychology Developmental Psychology Human Ecology Microeconomics Social Psychology Sociology Macroeconomics Semiotics/Literary Criticism Demography History Cultural Anthropology

Social Focus

Two Perspective on Consumer Research

Positivist Approach Objective Prediction Independent Real Cause Separation Interpretivist Approach Socially Constructed Understanding Contextual Simultaneous Shaping Interaction

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Taking it From Here: The Plan of the Book

Section II: Consumers As Individuals Section III: Consumers As Decision Makers Section IV: Consumers and Subcultures Section V: Consumers and Culture

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The Wheel of Consumer Behavior

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