INTRODUCTION TO THE CB:

Definition:

“CB behaviour refers to the actions and decision processes of people who purchase goods and
services for personal consumption.”- James F Engel, Roger D Blackwell and Paul Miniard.

“The mental and emotional processes and the physical activities of people who purchase and use
goods and services to satisfy particular needs and wants”- Bearden et al.

“The behaviour that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating and
disposing of, if products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs.”- Leon G Schiffman
and Leslie Lazar Kanuk

Selected Consumer Behaviour Roles:

Role Description
Initiator Initiator is the individual who determines that some need or want is not
being fulfilled and authorises a purchase to rectify the situation.
Gatekeeper Influences the family’s processing of information. The gatekeeper has the
greatest expertise in acquiring and evaluating the information.
Influencer Influencer is a person who, by some intentional or unintentional word or
action, influences the buying decision, actual purchase and/or the use of
product or service.
Decider The person or persons who actually determine which product or service will
be chosen.
Buyer Buyer is an individual who actually makes the purchase transaction.
User(s) User is a person most directly involved in the use or consumption of the
purchased product.

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Types of Buying Behavior

Level of involvement is an individual’s intensity of interest in a product and the importance he or she places
on a product. Consumers go through a problem-solving process. The 4 types of Problem-Solving are:

1. Routine Response – buying that requires very little search and decision effort; it is used for products
that are low priced and bought frequently. Examples include soft drinks, snack foods, milk, etc.

2. Limited Decision – Buyers use when they purchase products occasionally or need information about
unfamiliar brands in a familiar product category; it requires a moderate amount of time for
information gathering and deliberation. Examples include Clothes—know product class but not the
brand.

3. Extensive Decision – employed when unfamiliar, expensive, or infrequently bought products (such as
homes, automobiles and furniture) are purchased; buyers used many criteria to evaluate brands and
spend more time searching for information and deciding on the purchase.

4. Impulse Buying – unplanned buying behavior involving powerful urge to buying something
immediately. A lot of impulse decisions are made at the checkout area and can be on items such as
candy, sodas, batteries, film, etc.

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Stages in Family Life-Cycle
Single – Bachelor Stage
Newly Married – young, no children
Full Nest I – youngest child under 6
Full Nest II – youngest child 6 or over
Full Nest III – older married couple with dependant children
Empty Nest I – older married couple with no children living with them, head in labor force
Empty Nest II – older married couples, no children living at home, head retired
Solitary Survivor – in labor force
Solitary Survivor – retired
New category- Modernized life cycle includes divorced and not children.

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4
Young Singles
Young singles may live alone, with their nuclear families, or with
friends, or they may co-habitate with partners in this stage. Although
earnings tend to be relatively low, these consumers usually don’t have
many financial obligations and don’t feel the need to save for their futures
or retirement. Many of them find themselves spending as much as they
make on cars, furnishings for first residences away from home, fashions,
recreation, alcoholic beverages, food away from home, vacations, and
other products.
Newly Married Couples
Newly married couples without children are usually better off
financially than they were when they were single, since they often have
two incomes available to spend on one household. These families tend to
spend a substantial amount of their incomes on cars, clothing, vacations,
and other leisure activities. They also have the highest purchase rate and
highest average purchases of durable good (particularly furniture and
appliances) and appear to be more susceptible to advertising.
Full Nest I
With the arrival of the first child, parents begin to change their
roles in the family, and decide if one parent will stay to care for the
child or if they will both work and buy daycare services. In this stage,
families are likely to move into their first home; purchases furniture and
furnishings for the child; and purchase new items such as baby food, toys,
sleds, and skates. These requirements reduce families’ ability to save, and
the husband and wife are often dissatisfied with their financial position.
Full Nest II
In this stage, the youngest child has reached school age, the
employed spouse’s income has improved. Consequently, the family’s
financial position usually improves, but the family finds itself consuming
more and in larger quantities. Consumption patterns continue to be
heavily influenced by the children, since the family tends to buy largesized
packages
of
food
and
cleaning
suppliers,
bicycles,
music
lessons,

clothing,
sports
equipment,
and
a computer.
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Full Nest III
As the family grows older and parents enter their min-40s, their
financial position usually continues to improve because the primary wage
earner’s income rises, the second wage earner is receiving a higher salary,
and the children earn from occasional and part-time employment. The
family typically replaces some worn pieces of furniture, buys some luxury
appliances, and spends money on education. Families also spend more on
computers in this stage, buying additional PCs for their older children.
Depending on where children go to college and how many are seeking
higher education, the financial position of the family may be tighter than
other instances.
Married, No Kids
Couples who marry and do not have children are likely to have
more disposable income to spend on charities, travel, and entertainment
than others in their age range. Not only do they have fewer expenses,
these couples are more likely to be dual-wage earners, making it easier
for them to retire earlier if they save appropriately.
Older Singles
Single, age 40 or older, may be single again (ending married status
because of divorce or death of a spouse), or never married (because they
prefer to live independently or because they co-habitate with partners),
either group of which may or may not have children living in the household.
This group now has more available income to spend on travel and leisure
but feels the pressure to save for the future, since there is no second income
on which to rely as they get older.
Empty Nest I
At this stage, the family is most satisfied with its financial position.
The children have left home and are financially independent allowing the
family to save more. In this stage discretionary income is spent on what the
couple wants rather than on what the children need. Therefore, they spend
on home improvements, luxury items, vacations, sports utility vehicles,
food away from home, travel, and product for their grand children.
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Notes
Notes
Empty Nest II
But this time, the income earners have retired, usually resulting
in a reduction in income and disposable income. Expenditures become
health oriented, centering on such items as medical appliances and
health, and medicines. But many of these families continue to be active
and in good health, allowing them to spend time traveling, exercising,
and volunteering. Many continue working part time to supple ment their
retirement and keep them socially involved.
Solitary Survivor

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 Solitary survivors be either employed or not employed. If the
surviving spouse has worked outside the home in the past, he or she
usually continues employment or goes back to work to live on earned
income (rather than saving) and remain socially active. Expenditures
for clothing and food usually decline in this stage, with income spent
on health care, sickness care, travel entertainment, and services.. Those
who are not employed are often on fixed incomes and may move in with
friends to share housing expenses and companionship, and some may
choose to re marry.
Retired Solitary Survivor
Retired solitary survivors follow the same general consumption
patterns as solitary survivors; however, their income may not be as
high. Depending on how much they have been able to save throughout
their lifetimes, they can afford to buy a wide range of products. These
individuals have special needs for attention, affection, and security based
on their lifestyle choices.
Marketers use the descriptions of these FLC stages when analyzing
marketing and communication strategies for products and services, but
they often add additional information about consumer markets to analyze
their needs, identify niches, and develop consumer-specific marketing
strategies.
Family Decision-Making
Families use products even though individuals usually buy them.
Determining what products should be bought, which retail outlet to
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use, how and when products are used, and who should buy them is a
complicated process involving a variety or roles and actors.
 Needs: Every individual has needs. Innate Needs: Physiological (food, water, air, clothing, shelter,
sex). It is called primary needs also.
 Acquired Needs: We learn in response to our culture or
 environment. Self-esteem, prestige, affection, power, learning. Because, acquired needs are
generally psychological. They are considered secondary needs.
 Goals: Goals are the sought-after results of motivated behaviour. If a person tells his parents the he
wants to get a graduate degree, he has stated a generic goal. If he says he wants to get a graduate
degree, he has stated a generic goal. If he says he wants to get an MBA degree from CMRIT then he
has expressed a product specific goal.
Consumer needs and Motivation:
 Psychological Factors:
 Motivation: Basic drive in the individual, which enable a man to act in a particular way, called
motivation. motivation (motives; urge to act to fulfil a goal or satisfy a need/want)

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 Perception (ability to sense the environment and give meaning to it through the mechanisms of
selection, organization and interpretation).
 Learning (a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of ones’ experience; relates to
memory; learning could be experiential based on direct experience or conceptual based on indirect
experience; consumer learning could be based on marketing communication/seller provided
information, personal word of mouth and/or experiential).
 Perception
 The process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets inputs to create a
meaningful picture of the world.
 Selective Exposure
 Selective Distortion
 Selective Retention
 Selective Exposure-selects inputs to be exposed to our awareness. More likely if it is linked to an
event, satisfies a current need, intensity of input changes (sharp price drop).
 Selective Distortion – Changing/twisting current received information,m inconsistent with beliefs.
Advertisers that use comparative advertisements (pitching one product against another), have to be
very careful that consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that the advertisement was for the
competitor. A current example…MCI and AT&T…do you ever get confused?
 Selective Retention—remember inputs that support beliefs, forgets those that don’t. Average
supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30 minutes—60% of
purchases are unplanned. Exposed to 1500 advertisements per day. Can’t be expected to be aware
of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.
 Beliefs (thoughts that a person holds about something; these are subjective perceptions about how a
person feels towards an object/person/situation) and attitudes (a favorable or unfavorable
disposition/feeling towards an object, person or a situation).
 Cultural:
 -culture (a sum total of values, knowledge, beliefs, myths, language, customs, rituals and traditions
that govern a society). Culture exerts the broadest and the deepest influence; eg. Influences on our
eating patterns, clothing, day to day living etc. Cultural influences are handed down from one
generation to the next and are learned and acquired).
 -sub-culture (subset of culture: smaller groups of people within culture with shared value systems
within the group but different from other groups; identifiable through demographics).

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 -social class: ordered and relatively permanent divisions/startifications in the society into upper,
middle lower classes; members in a class share similar values, interests, lifestyles and behaviors; the
division is based on combination of occupation, income, education, wealth, and other variables.

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  Social:
 -family: most important influence; (there occurs in a family what is referred to as socialization; family
of orientation: parents and siblings; family of procreation: spouse and children; further some
decisions are husband dominated, some are wife dominated and some are joint; roles played by
family members), family life cycle (stages through which a family evolves; People’s consumption
priorities change and they buy different goods and services over a lifetime).
 -friends and peers, colleagues.
 -groups: reference groups {these are people to whom an individual looks as a basis for personal
standards; they are formal and informal groups that influence buying behavior; reference groups
could be direct (membership groups) or indirect (aspirational groups); reference groups serve as
information sources, influence perceptions, affect an individual’s aspiration levels; they could
stimulate or constrain a person’s behavior}.
 - opinion leaders (they influence the opinion of others based on skills, expertise, status or
personality).
 -roles & status: the role refers to the expected activities and status is the esteem given to role by
society.
Culture & Subcultures
 Cultures
 The accumulation of values, knowledge, beliefs, customs, objects, and concepts that a society
uses to cope with its environment
 Subcultures
 Groups of individuals who have similar value and behavior patterns within the group but
differ from those in other groups.
Culture: includes
1. Tangible items such as food, clothing furniture, buildings, and tools
2. Intangible concepts such as education, welfare, and laws
3. The values and a broad range of behaviors accepted by a specific society.
Subcultures: Subcultures can be things like ethnic groups, generational groups, religious groups, military
groups, etc.
Psychological Factors;
 “Wants”
 Based on a want or desire to have something. Not a necessity.
Functional Factors:
 Needs”
 Need over wants. Delivers to a real “need” to have something.

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CONSUMER AS AN INDIVIDUAL:

Consumer needs and Motivation:

Motivation: Basic drive in the individual, which enable a man to act in a particular way, called
motivation.

Needs:
Every individual has needs. Innate Needs: Physiological (food, water, air, clothing, shelter,
sex). It is called primary needs also. Acquired Needs: We learn in response to our culture or
environment. Self-esteem, prestige, affection, power, learning. Because, acquired needs are
generally psychological. They are considered secondary needs.

Goals:
Goals are the sought-after results of motivated behaviour. If a person tells his parents the
he wants to get a graduate degree, he has stated a generic goal. If he says he wants to get a graduate
degree, he has stated a generic goal. If he says he wants to get an MBA degree from CMRIT then he
has expressed a product specific goal.

The goals selected by individuals depend on their personal experiences, physical capacity,
prevailing cultural norms and values and the goal’s accessibility in the physical and social
environment.

Positive & Negative Motivation:

We may feel a driving force toward some object or condition or a driving force, which takes away
from some object or condition. For example, a restaurant to fulfil a hunger need, and away from
motorcycles transportation to fulfil a safety need.

Some psychologists refer to positive drives as needs, wants or desires and to negative drives as fear
or aversion.
Rational Vs Emotional Motives:

Consumer behaviourists say that consumers behave rationally by carefully considering all
alternatives and choosing those that give them the greatest utility. In a marketing context, the
rationality implies that consumers select goals based on totally objective criteria, such as size,
weight, price etc. Emotional motives imply the selection of goals according to personal or
subjective criteria (e.g. pride, fear, affection or status).

The Dynamics of Motivation:

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Motivation is a highly dynamic construct that is constantly changing in relation to life experiences.
Needs and goals change & grow in response to an individual’s physical condition, environment,
interaction with others, and experiences. As individuals attain their goals, they develop new ones. If
they don’t attain their goals they continue to strive for old goals or they develop substitute goals.

Frustration:

Failure to achieve a goal often results in feeling s of frustration. The barrier that prevents
attainment of a goal may be personal to the individual (e.g. limited physical or financial resources)
or an obstacle in the physical or social environment (e.g. a storm that causes the postponement of a
long-awaited vacation) regardless of the cause; individuals react differently to frustrating situation.
Some substitute goals. And some follow other defence mechanism.

Defence Mechanisms:

When needs are not satisfied then you get frustrated. Even you set the substitute goals then also at
the initial stage, there will be frustration.

 Aggression: throwing rotten tomato to players after defeating.

 Rationalisation: Failed in exam, as I have not studied well.
 Regression: Childish behaviour, spill ink on shirt in show room.
 Projection: Blame on something else or some one else.
 Autism: Unrealistic psychological thinking based on emotions. Marketer in advtg, e.g.
Sprays, perfumes, denim, uses it.
 Withdrawal: You expect that within one year, you will get promotion, if you don’t get then
leave the job.
 Identification: I don’t get promotion then identify that ‘X’ has got promotion because of
some close link up with management.
 Repression: If you can’t achieve then you forget that once you had such desire.

Arousal of Motives:

 Physiological Arousal: A decrease in body temperature will induce shivering, which makes
the individual aware of the need for warmth. Secretion of sex hormones will awaken the sex
need. For example, a person who is cold may turn up the heat in his bedroom and also make
a mental note to buy a warm cardigan sweater to wear around the house.
 Emotional Arousal: Sometimes day dreaming results in the arousal or stimulation of latent
needs. People who are bored or who are frustrated in trying to achieve their goals often
engage in day dreaming (autistic thinking) in which they imagine themselves in all sorts of desirable
situations. A young woman who daydreams of a torrid romance may spend her
free time in Internet.
 Cognitive Arousal: Sometimes random thoughts can read to a cognitive awareness of
needs. An advertisement that provides reminders of home might trigger instant yearning to

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speak with one’s parents. This is the basic for many long-distance telephone company
campaigns that stress the low cost of internationals long-distance rates.
 Environmental Arousal: The set of needs an individual experience at a particular time are
often activated by specific cues in the environment. Without these cues, the needs might
remain dormant. For example, the 6° clock news, the sight or smell of bakery goods, fastfood
commercial on television, the end of school day- all of these may arouse the “need” for
food.

Consumption and Post Purchase Behavior

Post purchase Evaluation:

After purchase, the consumer also engages in an evaluation of the purchase decision. Because the
consumer is uncertain of the wisdom of his decision, he rethinks this decision in the post purchase
stage. There are several functions, which this stage serves. First, it serves to broaden the consumer’s
set of experiences stored in memory. Second, it provides a check on how well he is doing as a
consumer in selecting products, stores, and so on. Third, the feedback that the consumer receives
from this stage helps to make adjustments in future purchasing strategies.

Consumer satisfaction/Dissatisfaction:

Once consumers purchase and use a product, they may then become either satisfied or dissatisfied.
Research has uncovered several determinants, which appear to influence satisfaction, including
demographic variables, personality variables, and expectations and to be more satisfied. Higher
education tends to be associated with lower satisfaction. Men tend to be more satisfied than women.
The more confidence one has in purchase decision-making and the more competence in a given
product area, the greater one’s satisfaction tends to be. There is also greater satisfaction when
relevant others are perceived to be more satisfied. Persons who are more satisfied with their lives as
a whole, and that is by persons with more favourable attitudes toward the consumer domain,, the
market place, business firms and consumerism also indicate higher levels of product satisfaction. The
interaction between expectations and actual product performance produces either satisfaction or
dissatisfaction. However, there does not appear to be merely a direct relationship between the level
of expectations and the level of satisfaction. Instead, a modifying variable known as
“disconfirmation of expectations” is thought to be a significant mediator of this situation. When a
consumer does not get what is expected, the situation is one of disconfirmation. Such disconfirmation
can be of two varieties: a positive disconfirmation occurs when what is received is
better than expected, and a negative disconfirmation occurs when things turn out worse than
anticipated. Thus, any situation in which the consumer’s judgement is proven wrong is a
disconfirmation. Confirmation occurs if the expectations of performance are met.
Postpurchase Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance occurs as a result of a discrepancy between a consumer’s decision and the
consumer’s prior evaluation. From a review of research findings on cognitive dissonance, it appears
that dissonance is likely to occur under the following conditions.

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 Once a minimum threshold of dissonance tolerance is passed. That is, consumers may
tolerate a certain level of inconsistency in their lives until this point is reached.
The action is irrevocable. For instance, when the consumer purchases a new car, there
is little likelihood that he will be able to reverse his decision and get his money back.
Unselected alternatives have desirable features.
There are several desirable alternatives. Today’s car buyer, for example, has an
abundance of choices among similar attractive models. In fact, research indicates that
those consumers who experience greater difficulty in making purchase decisions, or
who consider a wider range of store and brand options, are more likely to experience
greater magnitudes of Postpurchase dissonance.
Available alternatives are quite dissimilar in their qualities. For instance, although there
are many automobile models, each one may have some unique characteristics.

The buyer is committed to his decision because it has psychological significance. A

large and important living room furniture purchase is likely to have great psychological
significance to the buyer because of its dramatic reflection of one’s decorating tastes,
philosophy, and lifestyle. Ego involvement will be quite high.
There is no pressure applied to the consumer to make the decision. if the consumer is
subjected to outside pressure , he will do what he is forced to do without letting his own
viewpoint or preference really be challenged.

It is clear that dissonance is likely to be strongest for the purchase of durables, although it can exist
for almost every purchase.

Dissonance Reduction:

(i) Changing product evaluation: One of the ways consumers seek to reduce dissonance is to
reevaluate product alternatives. This is accomplished by the consumers’ enhancing the attributes of
the products selected while decreasing the importance of the unselected products’ attributes. That is,
consumers seek to polarize alternatives in order to reduce their dissonance.

(ii) Seeking new information: A second way consumers may reduce dissonance is by seeking
additional information in order to confirm the wisdom of their product choice. According to
dissonance theory, dissonant individuals would be expected to actively avoid information that
would tend to increase their dissonance and seek information supporting their decision. It seems
reasonable to assume that consumers would seek out advertisements for products they have
purchased and tend to avoid competing ads.

(iii) Changing attitude: As a result of dissonance, the consumer may change his attitudes to make
them consonant with his behavior.

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Diffusion of Innovations
We as consumers always find a new innovation-idea or product or
even new service attractive. However, for the firm which is trying its hand
at the new innovation, there is always a question hanging around ‘How
fast will the diffusion of the innovation take place?” This is to say that any
innovation has got an element of risk involved. The firm will introduce a
new concept or a new product after an intensive research is carried out by
it. Thus we see that the process of diffusion of innovation is very critical to
a firm.
Diffusion
Diffusion is a macro process concerned with the spread of a new
product is an innovation from its source to the consumers. Adoption is
a micro process that focuses on the stages through which an individual
consumer passes when deciding to accept or reject a new product. Diffusion of
innovations is the process by which acceptance of
an innovation (new products or new service or new idea) is spread by
communication (mass media, sales people, informal conversation) to
members of the target market over a period of time.

Classification of Adopters
Adopters can be classified into five groups based on the time when
they adopt.
Innovators: The first 2.5 per cent to adopt innovation.
Early adopters: The next 13.5 per cent to adopt.
Early majority: The next 34 per cent to adopt.
Late majority: The next 34 per cent to adopt.
Laggards: The final 16 per cent to adopt.

Innovators
Innovators are venturesome risk takers. They are younger, more
educated and socially mobile. They have the capacity to absorb risk
associated with the new product. They are cosmopolitan in outlook, are
aware and make use of commercial media, and are eager to learn about
new products, are progressive, ready to use new products.
Early adopters
They take a calculated risk before investing and using new
innovations. They are opinion leaders and provide information to groups,
but they are also concerned about failure. Therefore, they weigh advantages
and disadvantages of the product before plunging in for a purchase.
Early majority
They tend to be more continuous and use the product after the
innovators and early adopters seem to be satisfied with it. They are elders,
well educated and less socially mobile. They rely heavily on inter-personal
source of in- formation. They constitute 34 per cent of the consumers.
Late majority

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 They are doubtful and skeptical about the innovation of new
products. They tend to use the product not so much because of innovation,
but because of other pressures, non-availability of the product and social
pressures. They have less social status, and are less socially mobile than the
previous group.
Laggards
They are more traditional. They possess limited social interaction
and are oriented to the past. They adopt the innovations with great
reluctance. They constitute a small portion of 16 per cent of the consumers.
As depicted in figure below adopter categories are generally depicted as
taking on the characteristics of a normal distribution i.e., a bell-shaped
curve that describes the total population that ultimately adopts a product.

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Consumer Perceptions
Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting
information inputs to produce meaning. The above definition of perception
ys emphasis on certain features:
➢ Perception is a mental process, whereby an individual selects data
or information from the environment, organizes it and then draws
significance or meaning from it.
➢ Perception is basically a cognitive or thinking process and
individual activities; emotions, feelings etc. are based on his or her
perceptions of their surroundings or environment.
➢ Perception being an intellectual and cognitive process will be
subjective in nature.
The Process of Perception has Three Sub Stages
1. Sensation– Attending to an object/event with one of five senses
2. Organization – Categorizing by matching sensed stimulus with
similar object in memory, e.g. color
3. Interpretation– Attaching meaning to stimulus, making judgments
as to value and liking, e.g. bitter taste
People can emerge with different perceptions of the same object
because of three perceptual processes:
1. Selective attention
2. Selective distortion and
3. Selective retention
Selective Attention. People are exposed to a tremendous amount of
daily stimuli: the average person may be exposed to over 1500 ads a day. A
person cannot possibly attend to all of these; most stimuli will be screened
out. Selective attention means that marketers have to work hard to attract
consumers’ notice. A stimuli is more likely to be attended to if it is linked
to an event, satisfies current needs, intensity of input changes (sharp price
drop).
Selective Distortion. Stimuli do not always come across in the way
the senders intend. Selective distortion is the tendency to twist information
into personal meanings and interpret information in a way that will fit our
preconceptions. Unfortunately, there is not much that marketers can do
about selective distortion. Advertisers that use comparative advertisements
(pitching one product against another), have to be very careful that
consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that the advertisement
was for the competitor.
Selective retention. People will forget much that they learn but will
tend to retain information that supports their attitudes and beliefs. Because
of selective retention, we are likely to remember good points mentioned
about competing products. Selective retention explains why marketers
use drama and repetition in sending messages to their target market. We
remember inputs that support our beliefs, forgets those that don’t.

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