CHAPTER 6

The Changing
American
Society:
Families and
Households

Copyright © 2020 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.

PART II: EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

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 Learning Objectives

L01 Explain the concept of household types and their

influence on consumption
Summarize the household life cycle’s various stages
L02 and marketing implications

Understand the family decision process

L03
Describe the role that households play in child
L04 socialization

Explain the sources of ethical concern associated with

L05 marketing to children
The Nature of American Households
The Household Influences Most Consumption Decisions

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 The Nature of American Households

Types of Households1
➢ Household
➢Consists of all the people who occupy a housing unit (a house,
apartment, group of rooms, or single room designed to be
occupied as a separate living quarters).
➢ Family Household
➢One having at least two members related by birth, marriage, or
adoption, one of whom is the householder (householder owns or
rents the residence).
➢ Nonfamily Household
➢A householder living alone or exclusively with others to whom
he or she is not related.

1 U.S. Census Bureau definition of a household.

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The Nature of American Households

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 The Nature of American Households

The traditional family refers to a

married opposite-sex couple and
their own or adopted children
living at home.
A step family is a married-
couple family household with at
least one child under the age of
18 who is a stepchild (i.e., a son
or daughter through marriage). Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

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 The Nature of American Households

The Evolving American Household

➢ Single parent families

➢ Cohabitation with children involved

➢ Blended families

➢ Family size

➢ Multipartner fertility

➢ Mothers in workforce

➢ Mothers as the breadwinner

Little Caesar’s Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza Commercial

is a good marketing approach because it offers
convenience for today’s busy households. YouTube Spotlight
Ingram Publishing 6-8
 The Household Life Cycle
The Traditional view of Family Life Cycle
6. 1.
A few years People married
later the female by their early
would die 20s

5. 2.
The male Couple had
would several
eventually die children

3.
4. Their children
The original grew up and
couple retired started their
own families

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 The Household Life Cycle

➢American households follow much more complex and

varied cycles today. Therefore, researchers have
developed several models of the household lifecycle
(HLC).

➢Each HLC stage presents unique needs and wants as

well as financial conditions and experiences.

➢HLC provides marketers with relatively homogeneous

household segments that share similar needs with
respect to household-related problems and purchases.

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The Household Life Cycle
Stages of the Household Life Cycle

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 The Household Life Cycle

➢Younger (< 35)

➢Single I

➢Young Couples: No Children

➢Full Nest I

➢Single Parent I

Lane Oatey/Blue Jean Images/Getty Images

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 Applications in Consumer Behavior

Young singles are active and

often have significant
discretionary income. They
are an excellent market for a
wide array of recreational and
leisure items. This Guess ad
would appeal to their desire
for action and romance .

© Guess?, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 The Household Life Cycle

➢Middle Aged (35 – 64)

➢Middle-Aged Single II

➢Empty Nest I

➢Delayed Full Nest I

➢Full Nest II
Anton Vengo/Purestock/Superstock

➢Single Parent II

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 The Household Life Cycle

➢Older (> 64)

➢Empty Nest II

➢Older Single

Image Source/Blend Images

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 Marketing Strategy Based on the
Household Life Cycle

➢HLC can be an important segmentation

variable.

➢The purchase and consumption of many

products are driven by the HLC, with each stage
posing unique problems and opportunities.

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 Marketing Strategy Based on the
Household Life Cycle

➢Factors such as income, occupation, and

education heavily influence how an individual
meets his/her needs.
➢So, it makes sense to combine stage in the HLC
with one of these variables to aid in market
segmentation and strategy formulation.

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Marketing Strategy Based on the
Household Life Cycle
HLC/Occupational Category Matrix

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 Family Decision Making
Family decision making is the process by which decisions
that directly or indirectly involve two or more family members
are made.

Family purchases are often compared to organizational buying

decisions. However, with family purchasing, there is usually
less explicit criteria, and most family purchases directly affect
the other members of the family.

Most important, many family purchases

are inherently emotional and affect the
relationships between the family
members.
Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images

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 Family Decision Making
➢Family Purchase Roles

➢Determinants of Family Purchase Roles

➢Conflict Resolution

➢Marketing Strategy and Family Decision Making

➢Consumer Socialization and Marketing to Children

Tetra Images RD/Getty Images

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 Family Decision Making
The Household Decision-Making Process for Children’s Products

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 Family Decision Making

Determinants of Family Purchase Roles

➢How families interact in a purchase decision is largely

dependent on the
➢culture and subculture in which the family exists
➢the role specialization of different family members
➢the degree of involvement each has in the product area of
concern, and
➢the personal characteristics of the family members

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 Family Decision Making
Decision-Making Influence and Relative Income

Husband Earns More Wife Earns More

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 Family Decision Making
Conflict Resolution
One study revealed six basic approaches that individuals use to
resolve purchase conflicts1.
Approach Description
Bargaining Trying to reach a compromise.
Impression Misrepresenting the facts in order to win.
Management
Use of Authority Claiming superior expertise or role appropriateness (the
husband/wife should make such decisions).
Reasoning Using logical argument to win.
Playing on Using the silent treatment or withdrawing from the
Emotion discussion.
Additional Getting additional data or a third-party opinion.
Information
1C. Kim and H. Lee, “A taxonomy of Couples Based on Influence Strategies,” Journal of Business Research, June 1996, pp. 157-68.

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Marketing Strategy and Family Decision Making

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 Consumer Socialization
➢The family provides the basic framework in which
consumer socialization occurs.
➢Consumer socialization is the process by which
young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes
relevant to their functioning as consumers in the
marketplace.
➢Understanding the content and the process of
consumer socialization.
➢Consumer socialization content refers to what children
learn with respect to consumption.
➢Consumer socialization process refers to how they learn it.

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 Consumer Socialization
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage Description
Stage 1 The period of sensorimotor intelligence (0-2 yrs.)
- behavior is primarily motor
- the child does not yet “think” conceptually, though
cognitive development is seen

Stage 2 The period of preoperational thoughts (3-7 yrs.)

- Characterized by the development of language and
rapid conceptual development

Stage 3 The period of concrete operations (8-11 yrs.)

- the child develops the ability to apply logical
thought to concrete problems

Stage 4 The period of formed operations (12-15 yrs.)

- the child’s cognitive structures reach their greatest
level of development, and the child becomes able
to apply logic to all classes of problems.

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 Consumer Socialization
The Content of Consumer Socialization
Consist of three categories:
1. Consumer skills—are those capabilities necessary for
purchases to occur such as understanding money,
budgeting, product evaluation, etc.
2. Consumption-related preferences—are the knowledge,
attitudes, and values that cause people to attach differential
evaluations to products, brands, and retail outlets.
3. Consumption-related attitudes—are cognitive and
affective orientations toward marketplace stimuli such as
advertisements, salespeople, warranties, etc.

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 Consumer Socialization
The Process of Consumer Socialization
Consumer socialization occurs primarily through family, as well
as through a number of avenues including advertising and friends.
Parents socialize their children through the following:
1. Instrumental training—occurs when a parent or sibling
specifically and directly attempts to bring about certain
responses through reasoning or reinforcement.
2. Modeling—occurs when a child learns appropriate, or
inappropriate, consumption behaviors by observing others.
3. Mediation—occurs when a parent alters a child’s initial
interpretation of, or response to, a marketing or other stimulus.

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 Marketing to Children

➢Children are a large and growing market.

➢However, marketing to children is fraught with ethical
concerns, including:
➢The limited ability of younger children to process
information and to make informed purchase decisions.
➢Marketing activities, particularly advertising, can
produce undesirable values in children, resulting in
inappropriate diets, and cause unhealthy levels of family
conflict.

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