1.

REFERENCE GROUP
This are collection of individuals (may be father, husband/wife, lawyer, a
film-fan, a player or a leader) providing the individual a sense of identity,
accomplishment, and stability. This groups influence the individuals’
options, beliefs, and aspirations. Such groups play key role in marketing. If
they try or use a product their followers are prone to do the same.
Marketers, therefore, often target their promotional efforts to reach such
groups and through them reach their followers by words of mouth or their
subtle influences extended by the group.
 An individual adapts its self to the group he is in. His consumption
patterns, taste, beliefs, behavior etc changes according to the group.
 As the consumption pattern changes, person who was not fond of burger
may change according to eating habits of his group members. Even an
individual develops a taste of his referent group.
 So the group has influenced people.

2. FAMILY INFLUENCE
The impact of family on the formulation of values, attitudes, and purchasing
pattern is considerable. The family defines purchase needs and also puts
family strains within which the buying is to be done. Different members play
different roles, that is ,initiator (who senses the need of purchase),
influencer(who provides inputs into the purchase decision), decider(who
finally decides what to purchase, and the user(who directly use the product
or service). Marketers, therefore, must know and study the influence of who
makes the decision-whether the head of the family, or husband and wife or
both, or children’s views also influence the decision.
 The traditions followed by family are carried forward in children.
Family consuming non-vegetarian food passes this attitude to their
children also.
 Small children have some food liking becusse their parent have so,
which reflects that family plays an important role in decision making.

3. SOCIAL CLASS:
On the basis of income category, the population is generally divided into
upper class, middle class and lower class. These classes have different
lifestyles and therefore they can be reached through different advertising
media, which may range from radio and newspaper to television.
 Burger outlets is targeted towards upper-middle class of society. For middle
classes they have a segment of products at cheaper rates.
 Social class is determined by:
 Income
 Occupation
 Education

 Balanced level of all three creates awareness of new products and income
gives the purchasing power.

 So social class forms an important part of external influence on consumers

buying behaviour.

4. CULTURE
It refers to the social heritage of the society. It encompasses the social
values, attitude towards work, social intercourse, language, belief, art,
morals, law, customs, traditions, and many other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society. Cultural influences are so
pervasive that they are hard to identify and analyses. However these cultural
influences can provide an important basis for market segmentation, product
development, advertising, etc.

 Different cultures have different beliefs :for some cultures Non -Veg is
completely prohibited (eg Jain culture), whereas chicken is the main
food item in Punjab. Different cultures permit different beliefs and
norms.
 This reflects the consumption patterns of an individual
 Culture is a very important factor from the view of a marketer.
 As burger outlets entered India, they studied the India culture, the
norms followed here, as in India beef is not consumed, so they did
not include the beef food items in their menu.