Consumer Behavior

Buying, Having and Being

Session 1
Chapter no: 1

9th Edition
 Course Overview
Course Description:
– Consumer behavior is the course within the marketing curriculum that most
directly applies concepts, principles, and theories from the various social
sciences to the study of the factors that influence the acquisition,
consumption, and disposition of products, services, and ideas. Knowledge of
consumer behavior principles is becoming increasingly important for the
marketing manager and the public policy maker. Quite simply, in order to
make good decisions the manager must have an understanding of how
consumers are likely to respond to the actions of the firm or the government.
In addition, an understanding of the factors that influence consumers may
assist an individual in understanding his or her own buying patterns. The
principles from a number of disciplines are used to describe and explain
consumer behavior, including economics, psychology, social psychology,
sociology, and anthropology. The course is demanding, but I think students will
find that it can help them not only in their marketing careers, but also in their
personal lives.
Course Methodology:
– Lectures, case study, articles, group discussion, written examination.
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 Course Objectives
1. The impact of purchase involvement on consumer decision making.
2. The various of kinds of decision models used by consumers
3. How to develop marketing strategies on consumer information search
patterns.
4. The primary attributes consumers use in selecting retail outlets and how
to build marketing strategies based on this knowledge.
5. How research and consumer behavior is used in market analysis.
6. How is culture influential in terms of consumer behavior?
7. What are the assumptions about the nature of society that play a role in
marketing decisions?
8. What is the role of demographics in influencing consumer behavior?
9. How consumption decisions are made with the household unit?
10. The importance of perception in the development of retail strategy, brand
names, logos, media strategy, advertising and package design.
11. How to use learning and memory theories to develop product positioning
strategies.
12. Understand the nature of personality, motivation and emotion and the
role they play in the consumption process.
13. How attitudes are used to segment markets.
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 Contributing Disciplines

• Anthropology
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Economics
• History
• Semiotics

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Chapter Objectives:

• Consumer behavior is a process.

• Consumer use products to help them define their
identities in different settings.
• Marketer needs to understand the wants and needs of
different consumer segments.
• The web is changing the consumer behavior.
• Consumer behavior relates to other issues in our lives.
• Consumer activities can be harmful to individuals and to
society.
• Different types of specialists study consumer behavior.
• There are two major perspective that seeks to
understand and study consumer behavior.
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 What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer behavior is the study of

when, why, how, and where people
do or do not buy products.
Or
The study of the processes involved
when individuals or groups select,
purchase ,use , or dispose of
products , services, ideas, or
experiences to satisfy needs and
desires.

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 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
INCLUDES/FOCUSES ON
• What they buy
• Why they buy
• When they buy
• How they buy
• Where they buy
• How often they use it
• How they evaluate it after purchase
• Impact of such evaluation in the future purchases
• How they dispose it

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 Stages in consumption Process
CONSUMER’S MARKETER’S
PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE
PREPURCHASE How does a consumer How are consumer
ISSUES decide about needing a attitudes
product? formed/changed?

PURCHASE ISSUES Is product acquisition a How do situational

stressful or pleasant factors affect purchase
experience? decision?

POSTPURCHASE Does product provide What determines

ISSUES pleasure or perform customer satisfaction
function? How is and repurchase?
product disposed of?

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 Actors in Consumer Behavior
Consumer: A person who identifies a need or
desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes
of the product.
– Purchaser vs. User vs. Influencer vs. Payer
– Personal consumer
– Organization/group as consumer

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 Why do we need to study
Consumer Behavior?

Because no longer can we take the

customer/consumer for granted.
 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
• PRODUCTION CONCEPT: (1850s-1920s)
– Gearing up the manufacturing skills
– Demand exceed supply
– Less innovation in the products
– More focus on quantity rather then quality

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 Cont’d
• SELLING ORIENTATION (1920s-1950s):
– Focus on selling more
– Companies producing so much products that
exceed from the demand
• MARKETING ORIENTATION (1950s-beyond):
– Customer at the top
– Societal marketing

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 MARKETING CONCEPT
• Understanding customers
• Their needs
– Them
– What they think & how they think?
– Demands
– Expectations

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• Foundations of marketing management
• To stay in business by attracting and retaining
customers
• To benefit from understanding consumer problems.
• To establish competitive advantage
• …because it is interesting!

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 Consumers' Impact on Marketing
Strategy
• Understanding consumer behavior is good
business.
– Understanding people/organizations to satisfy
consumers’ needs
– Knowledge and data about customers…
• …Help to define the market
• …Identify threats/opportunities to a brand

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 Consumers' Impact on Marketing
Strategy
• Segmenting Consumers
– Market segmentation
– Demographics(age, gender, family structure, social
class ,Race, geography )
– Lifestyles analysis
• Targeting , Positioning
• Relationship Marketing: Building Bonds with
Consumers
– Regular interaction with customers
– Database Marketing
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 Marketing impact on consumers
• Popular culture
– Music
– Movies
– Books
– Sports
– Entertainment
– Celebrities

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 Consumers Also Influence Marketers
• Virtual brand communities provide
consumer-generated content
– Blogs
– Pictures
– Video Blogs
– Ads

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 The Meaning of Consumption
• Consumers often buy products not for what
they do, but for what they mean
• Consumers can develop relationships with
brands:

Self-Concept Attachment Nostalgic Attachment

Interdependence Love

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 Global Consumer Culture
• Unites people around the world with a
common devotion:

– U commerce
– RFID tags
– Virtual consumption
– B2C e-commerce
– C2C e-commerce

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 Marketing and Reality
• Blurred boundaries between marketing efforts
and the real world
• Popular cultures shape by marketers

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Do marketers manipulate consumers

• Do marketers create artificial needs ????

• Are advertising and marketing necessary

???

• Do marketers promise miracles???

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 Culture jamming

A strategy to disrupt efforts by the corporate world to dominate

our cultural landscape.

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 Cost of crimes consumers commit against businesses at
The “Dark $40 Side”
billionof
perConsumption
year
Illegal activities

Consumer
Addiction to: Addictive
• Various Chemicals
terrorism such as alcohol & heroine
Consumption
• Gambling
• Work
• Running
Compulsive Consumed
• Eating disorders
consumption consumers

Shrinkage

Cost of crimes consumers commit against businesses at

$40 billion per year
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 Figure 1.2

Disciplines in Consumer Research

MICRO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
(INDIVIDUAL FOCUS)

Consumer behavior
involves many different
disciplines Experimental Psych
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psych
Human Ecology
Microeconomics
Social Psychology
Sociology
Macroeconomics
Semiotics/Literary Criticism
Demography
MACRO CONSUMER History
BEHAVIOR Cultural Anthropology
(SOCIAL FOCUS)

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 Two perspective on consumer research
Positivism versus Interpretivism Approaches

Assumptions Positivist Approach Interpretivist Approach

Nature of Objective, tangible Socially constructed

reality Single Multiple

Goal Prediction Understanding

Knowledge Time free Time-bound

generated Context-independent Contest dependent

View of Existence of real causes Multiple, simultaneous

causality shaping events

Research Separation between Interactive, cooperative

relationship researcher and subject with researcher being
part of phenomenon
under study

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Overall Model of Consumer Behaviour

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The Wheel of Consumer Behavior
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