6

Understanding
consumer
Kotler | Armstrong
behavior
marketing 17e

Christina Lai
 Learning Objectives

 Situational influences
 Psychological influences
 Sociocultural influences
 Consumer purchase decision process
 Consumer involvement and problem-solving
variations

6-2
 Consumer Markets and Consumer Buyer
Behavior
Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying
behavior of final consumers – individuals and
households that buy goods and services for
personal consumption. All of these final
consumers combine to make up the consumer
market.

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 Model of Buyer Behavior

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 Factors Influencing Consumer
Behavior

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
1. Cultural Factors

Culture is the set of basic values, perceptions,

wants and behaviors learned by a member of
society from family
and other important
institutions.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Cultural Factors

Subculture is a group of
people with shared value
systems based on
common life experiences
and situations.
Subcultures include
nationalities, religions,
racial groups and
geographic regions.
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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Cultural Factors

• Social class use society’s relatively

permanent and ordered divisions whose
members share similar values, interests
and behaviors.
• Social class is not determined by a single
factor, such as income, but is measured as
a combination of occupation, income,
education, wealth and other variables.

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 Social
Class

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
2. Social Factors

Groups and Social Networks

Membership Aspirational Reference
Groups Groups Groups
• Groups with • Groups an • Groups that
direct individual form a
influence wishes to comparison
and to which belong to or reference
a person in forming
belongs attitudes or
behavior

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
2. Social Factors

Groups and Social Networks

i. Online social networks
ii. Word of mouth
iii. Opinion leaders
iv. Buzz marketing

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors

i. Online social networks

• They are online social communities –
blogs, social networking Web sites
(Facebook and Twitter) and other online
communities

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors

ii. Word-of-mouth influence

• The personal words and recommendations
of trusted friends, associates and other
consumers tend to be more credible than
those coming from commercial sources
such as advertisements or salespeople.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors

iii. Opinion leaders

• They are people within a reference group
who, because of special skills, knowledge,
personality or other characteristics, exert social
influence on others.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors

iv. Buzz marketing

• Involves enlisting or even creating opinion
leaders to serve as “brand ambassadors”
who spread the word about a company’s
products.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors
Roles and Status
• A role consists of the activities people are
expected to perform according to the
people around them.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Social Factors

Family
• The family is the most important consumer
buying organization in society.
•

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
3. Personal Factors
Age and Life-Cycle Stage
• People change the goods and services
they buy over their life-times.
• Marketers often define their target markets
in terms of life-cycle stage and develop
appropriate products and marketing plans
for each stage.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Personal Factors

Occupation
• A person’s occupation affects the goods
and services bought.

Economic Situation
• A person’s economic situation will affect his
or her store and product choices.
• Marketers watch trends in personal
income, savings and interest rates.
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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Personal Factors

Lifestyle
• Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as
expressed in his or her psychographics.
• It involves measuring consumers’ major
AIO dimensions

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Personal Factors

Personality and Self-Concept

• Personality refers to the unique psychological
characteristics that distinguish a person or
group, that lead to relatively consistent and
lasting responses to one’s own environment.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Personal Factors

• A person’s self-concept (or self-image) is

that people’s possessions contribute to and
reflect their identities (One’s view of one’s self)

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
4. Psychological Factors
Motivation
• A motive (or drive) is a need that is
sufficiently pressing to direct the person to
seek satisfaction of the need.
• A person’s buying decision are affected by
subconscious motives that even the buyer
may not fully understand.

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Psychological Factors
Perception
Perception is a process by which people select,
organize and interpret information to form a
meaningful picture of the world.

1) Selective attention is the tendency for people

to screen out the information to which they are
exposed.
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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Psychological Factors
2) Selective distortion describes the
tendency of people to interpret
information
in a way that will support what they
already believe.
3) Selective retention means that
consumers
are likely to remember good points made
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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Psychological Factors

Learning
• Learning describes
changes in an
individual’s behavior
arising from experience
and occurs through the
interplay of drives,
cues, responses,
stimuli &
reinforcement.
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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Psychological Factors
Beliefs and Attitudes
A belief is a descriptive thought that a
person has about something based on:
– knowledge
– opinion
– faith

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 Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior:
Psychological Factors
Beliefs and Attitudes
Attitude describes a person’s relatively
consistent evaluations, feelings and
tendencies toward an object or idea.
Can be positive or negative

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 Attitudes
 Three major components of attitude:
• Cognitive: Knowledge and information about an object
or idea.
• Affective: Feelings and emotions toward an object or
idea.
• Behavioral: Actions regarding the object or idea

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 Level of Involvement

An individual’s degree of interest in a product and the

importance of the product for that person
 Enduring Involvement
• Ongoing and long-term involvement with a product or
product category
 Situational Involvement
• Temporary or dynamic involvement resulting from a
particular set of circumstances

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 Levels of Involvement with Products

High-Involvement Products
 Products that are visible to others and/or are
expensive

Low-Involvement Products
 Products that tend to be less expensive and
have less associated social risk

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 Discussion Question

 Which of the following are high-

involvement products? Which are low
involvement?
• Tennis shoes
• A new laptop
• Bottled water
• A designer handbag
• A used car

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 Consumer Problem Solving Strategies

Consumer
Buying
Behaviors

Limited Extended
Routinized Impulse
Problem Problem
Response Buying
Solving Solving

- used when - used when - used when - an unplanned

buying frequently purchasing products purchasing buying behavior
purchased, low- occasionally or when unfamiliar, resulting from a
cost items that they need expensive, or powerful urge to
require little information about an infrequently buy something
search-and- unfamiliar brand in a bought products immediately
decision effort familiar product
category
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 Consumer Problem Solving

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 The Buyer Decision Process

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 The Buyer Decision Process

Need Recognition
• The buyer recognizes a problem or need.
• The need can be triggered by:
- Internal stimuli e.g. hunger or thirst
- External stimuli e.g. an advertisement

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 The Buyer Decision Process

Information Search
• An interested consumer may or may not
search for more information.
• Sources of information:
- Personal sources (family, friends,
neighbors, acquaintances)
- Commercial sources (advertising,
salespeople, dealer Web sites,
packaging, displays)
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 The Buyer Decision Process

- Public sources (mass media, consumer

rating organizations, Internet searches)
- Experiential sources (handling,
examining, using the product)

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 The Buyer Decision Process

Evaluation of Alternatives
• Refers to how consumers process
information to arrive at brand choices.
• In some cases, consumers use careful
calculations, logical thinking & situation.
• At other times, the same consumers do
little or no evaluating. Instead they
buy on impulse and rely on intuition.

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 The Buyer Decision Process

Purchase Decision
• Generally, the consumer’s purchase
decision will be to buy the most preferred
brand.
• 2 factors can come between the purchase
intention and the purchase decision:

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 The Buyer Decision Process

Postpurchase Behavior
• The difference between the consumer’s
expectations and the product’s perceived
performance will determine how satisfied
the consumer is.
• If the product falls short of expectations,
the consumer is disappointed.
• If it meets expectations, the consumer is
satisfied.
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 The Buyer Decision Process

• If it exceeds expectations, the consumer is

delighted.
• Cognitive dissonance, or discomfort
caused by postpurchase conflict, occurs in
most major purchases.

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 The Buyer Decision Process for New Products:
Stages in the Adoption Process

Adoption
Trial

Evaluation

Interest

Awareness

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 The Buyer Decision Process for New Products:
Stages in the Adoption Process

Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the

new product but lacks information about it.

Interest: The consumer seeks information about

the new product.

Evaluation: The consumer considers whether

trying the new product makes sense.

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 The Buyer Decision Process for New Products:
Stages in the Adoption Process

Trial: The consumer tries the new product on a

small scale to improve his or her estimate of its
value.

Adoption: The consumer decides to make full

and regular use of the new product.

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• Looking Ahead to -

Week 7: Understanding organisations as

customers

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