Consument & Marketing
Chapter 1 Buying, Having, and Being: An introduction to Consumer Behavior
1.1 Consumer behavior is a process
Consumer Behavior: People in the Marketplace
Marketers find it useful to categorize consumers in descriptive characteristics or demographics (age,
gender, income or occupation).
But friends also strongly influence our purchase decisions with conversations or recommendations.
The growth of the internet has created thousands of online consumption communities, where
members share opinions and recommendations about anything.
The use of market segmentation strategies means an organization targets its product, service, or
idea only to specific groups of consumers rather than to everybody.
When a product or service satisfies our specific needs or desires, we may reward it with many years
of brand loyalty, which is a bond between product and consumer that is difficult for competitors to
break.
What is consumer behavior?
The field of consumer behavior covers a lot of ground: it is 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.
Consumer Behavior is a Process
Consumer behavior is an ongoing process, not merely what happens at the moment a consumer
hands over money and in turn receives some good or service.
The exchange, a transaction in which two or more organizations or people give and receive
something of value, is an integral part of marketing. Although exchange theory remains an important
part of consumer behavior, the expanded view emphasizes the entire consumption process, which
includes the issues that influence the consumer before, during, and after a purchase.
A consumer is a person who identifies a need or desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of the
product during the three stages of the consumption process. The purchases and user of a product
might not be the same person.
Florine van der Woude
,Consument & Marketing
Consumers’ Impact on Marketing Strategy
Organizations exist to satisfy needs. Marketers can satisfy these needs only to the extent that they
understand the people or organizations that will use the products and services they sell.
1.2 Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of different consumer segments
Consumers are different! How we divide them up
As we’ll see later, building loyalty to a brand is a smart marketing strategy, so sometimes companies
define market segments when they identify their most faithful customers or heavy users. As a rule of
thumb, marketers use the 80/20 Rule: 20 percent of users account for 80 percent of sales.
We are going to explore many of the important demographic variables and we also considers some
other important characteristics such as differences in consumers’ personalities.
Age
Consumers of different age groups obviously have different needs and wants. They tend to share a
set of values and common cultural experiences that they carry throughout life.
Gender
We start to make gender distinctions at an early age. Many products target either men of women.
These strategies often come from assumptions about what will appeal to each gender.
Family Structure
A person’s family and marital status is yet another important demographic variable because this has
a huge effect on consumers’ spending priorities. Young bachelors spend money on bars and young
families on healthy foods.
Social Class and Income
People who belong to the same social class are approximately equal in terms of income and social
standing in the community. They tend to have the same taste in music, clothing and art. They also
tend to socialize with one another, and they share many ideas and values regarding the way they
should live.
Race and Ethnicity
As our society becomes increasingly multicultural, new opportunities develop to deliver specialized
products to racial and ethnic groups and to introduce other groups to these offerings. For example,
the fruit combinations ion McDonald’s smoothies are based on preferences the company’s
researchers discovered in ethnic communities.
Geography
Many national marketers tailor their offerings to appeals to consumers who live in different parts of
the country.
Lifestyles
Consumers also have different lifestyles, even if they share other demographic characteristics such as
gender or age. The way we feel about ourselves, the things we value, the things we like to do in our
spare time, all of these factors help to determine which products will push our buttons or even those
that make us feel better.
Florine van der Woude
,Consument & Marketing
Segmenting by Behavior: Relationships and ‘Big Data’
Marketers realized that the key to success is building relationships between brands and customers
that will last a lifetime. Marketers who subscribe to this philosophy of relationships marketing
interact with customers on a regular basis and give them solid reasons to maintain a bond with the
company overtime.
Database marketing tracks specific consumers’ buying habits closely and tailors products and
messages precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information. The collections and
analysis of extremely large datasets is called Big Data.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Probably the biggest marketing phenomenon of this decade is user-generated content, whereby
everyone can voice their opinion about products, brand, and companies on blogs, podcasts, and
social networking sites such as Facebook. This important trend helps to define the era of Web 2.0:
the rebirth of the internet from its original roots as a form of one-way transmission from producers
to consumers to a social, interactive medium.
1.3 Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the rest of our lives
Marketing’s impact on Consumers
For better of for worse, we all live in a world that the actions of marketers significantly influence.
Popular Culture Is Marketing Is Popular Culture…
Popular Culture: the music, movies, sports, books, celebrities, and other forms of entertainment that
the mass market produces and consumes – is both a product of and an inspiration for marketeers. It
also affects our lives in more far-reaching ways, ranging from how we acknowledge cultural events
such as marriage, death, or holidays to how we view social issues such as climate change, gambling,
and addictions. Marketers play a significant role in our view of the world and how we live in it.
All the World’s a Stage
The sociological perspective of role theory takes the view that much of consumer behavior
resembles actions in a play. We as consumers seek the lines, props and costumes necessary to put on
a good performance. Because people act out many roles, they sometimes alter their consumption
decisions depending on the particular ‘’play’’ they are in at the time. The criteria they use to evaluate
products and services in one of their roles may be quite different from those they use in other roles.
As we have seen, one trademark of marketing strategies today is that many organizations try very
hard to build relationships with customers. The nature of these relationships can vary, but these
bonds help us to understand some of the possible meanings products have for us.
Here are some of the types of relationships a person might have with a product:
• Self-concept attachment – The product helps to establish the user’s identity
• Nostalgic attachment – The product serves as a link with a past self
• Interdependence – The product is a part of the user’s daily routine
• Love – The product elicits emotional bonds of warmth, passion, or other strong emotion.
Florine van der Woude
, Consument & Marketing
1.4 Our motivations to consume are complex and varied
What does it mean to consume?
People often buy products not for what they do, but for what they mean. This principle does not
imply that a product’s basic function is unimportant, but rather that the roles products play in our
lives extend well beyond the tasks they perform. All things being equal, we choose the brand that has
an image consistent with our underlying needs (for example, buying Nike shoes instead of Reeboks).
What do we need really?
What is the difference between needing something and wanting it?
A need is something a person must have to live or achieve a goal. A want is a specific manifestation
of a need that personal and cultural factors determine. For example, hunger is a basic need that all of
us must satisfy. But the way you choose to do that can take a lot of forms (Burger vs Salad).
1.5 Technology and culture create a new ‘’always-on’’ consumer
The Digital Native: Living a Social (Media) Life
We’re just entering a new era of The Internet of Things (IoT). This term refers to the growing
network of interconnected devices embedded in objects that speak to one another.
We are witnessing a revolution in M2M (machine-to-machine communication) that will profoundly
change our lives. For example self-driving cars.
1.6 Consumer Behavior as a Field of Study
Where do we find consumer researchers?
Florine van der Woude