Analyzing Consumer Markets

WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?

A consumer’s buying behavior is influenced by

cultural, social, and personal factors. Cultural factors
exert the broadest and deepest influence.

Consumer behavior is influenced by three factors:

cultural (culture, subculture, and social class); social
(reference groups, family, and social roles and
statuses); and personal (age, stage in the life cycle,
occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle,
personality, and self-concept).
Model of Consumer Behavior
 Culture

Culture is the learned values, perceptions, wants, and

behavior from family and other important institutions

Cultural
Cultural

subculture
subculture

social
social class
class
 Subcultures
Each culture consists of smaller subcultures that
provide more specific identification and socialization
for their members. Subcultures include nationalities,
religions, racial groups, and geographic regions.

Nationalities
Nationalities

Religions
Religions

Racial
Racial groups
groups

Geographic
Geographic regions
regions
Social Classes

social classes refers,

relatively homogeneous
and enduring divisions in a
society that are
hierarchically ordered
and whose members share
similar values, interests,
and behavior.
In modern 
Western societies,
stratification is broadly
organized into three main
layers: upper class, 
middle class, and
lower class.
 Social Factors

A consumer’s behavior is influenced by such social

factors as reference groups, family, and social roles
and statuses.

Reference
Family
groups

Social
Statuses
roles
 Personal Factors
A buyer’s decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics.
These include the buyer’s age and stage in the life cycle; occupation
and economic circumstances; personality and self-concept; and
lifestyle and values.

Age
Self- Life cycle
concept stage

Lifestyle Occupation

Values Wealth

Personality
 Psychological Factors
The marketer’s task is to understand what happens in the consumer’s
consciousness between the arrival of the outside marketing stimuli and
the ultimate purchase decisions. Four key psychological processes—
motivation, perception, learning, and memory—fundamentally influence
consumer responses.

Motivation Perception

Learning Memory
 Motivation
A motive is a need that is sufficiently pressing to
direct the person to seek satisfaction

Abraham Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs

People are driven by

particular needs at
particular times Human
needs are arranged in a
hierarchy from most
pressing to least pressing
 Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
TheFrederick Herzberg developed a two-factor theory that
distinguishes dissatisfiers (factors that cause dissatisfaction) from
satisfiers (factors that cause satisfaction) The absence of
dissatisfiers is not enough to motivate a purchase; satisfiers must be
present
 Freud's Mind: Id, Ego, and Superego

Freud also divided the mind into three parts  in a different, but related way.  The
best known aspect  of Freud's theory of personality is his view  that the mind is
composed of three parts,  each with a very different function:
• the id
• the ego
• and the superego.
The id and ego have no morals. They seek to satisfy the id's selfish motives without
regard for the good of others. The ego tries to be realistic about how those
motives are satisfied. Society places restrictions on the actions of the id and ego
by creating the superego, the part of the mind that opposes the desires of the id
by enforcing moral restrictions and by striving to attain a goal of "ideal" perfection.
 Perception

Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and

interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world
from three perceptual processes

Selective attention

Selective distortion

Selective retention

Subliminal Perception
 Learning
Learning is the changes in an individual’s behavior arising from
experience and occurs through interplay of:Drives, Stimuli, Cues,
Responses,Reinforcement
 Memory
Cognitive psychologists distinguish between short-term memory
(STM)—a temporary and limited repository of information—and
long-term memory (LTM)—a more permanent, essentially
unlimited repository. All the information and experiences we
encounter as we go through life can end up in our long-term
memory.
Types of Buying Decision Behavior
The Buying Decision Process
Individual Differences in Innovativeness
How Customers Use or Dispose of Product