SUMMARY MARKETING
FOR PRE-MASTER
Demi van de Pol || Pre-master Marketing Analytics || Tilburg University || 2021
, Demi van de Pol | Summary | Marketing for Pre-Master | TISEM | Tilburg University | 2021-2022
CONTENT
This summary is written for the course “Marketing for Pre-Master” during the semester Fall-2021 of
the Pre-Master Marketing Analytics and Marketing Management. The base for this summary is the
textbook “Consumer Behavior” by Hoyer, Macinnis and Pieters used throughout the course. This
document contains a summary of chapter 1 to 14, in the order given during the course.
CHAPTER 1: Understanding consumer behavior
BASICS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Consumer behavior: The totality of consumers’ decisions with respect to the acquisition,
consumption, and disposition of goods, services, time, and ideas by human decision-making units
(over time).
Offering: A product, service, activity, experience, or idea offered by a marketing organization to
consumers.
Acquisition: The process by which a consumer comes to own an offering
Usage: The process by which a consumer uses an offering
Disposition: The process by which a consumer discards an offering
WAYS OF ACQUIRING AN OFFERING
• Buying: Buying is a common acquisition method used for many offerings.
• Trading: Consumers might receive a good or service as part of a trade.
• Renting or leasing: Instead of buying, consumers rent or lease a product. For example: cars,
furniture, vacation homes and more.
• Bartering: Consumers (and businesses) can exchange goods or services without having money
change hands.
• Gifting: Each society has many gift-giving occasions as well as informal and formal rules dictating
how gifts are to be given, what is an appropriate gift, and how to respond to a gift.
• Finding: Consumers sometimes find goods that others have lost or thrown away.
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, Demi van de Pol | Summary | Marketing for Pre-Master | TISEM | Tilburg University | 2021-2022
• Stealing (1): When someone takes another person's property or product without permission or
legal right and without intending to return it.
• Stealing (2): Another method of acquisition is by sharing or borrowing. Some types of ‘sharing’ are
illegal and border on theft, as when consumers copy and share movies.
WAYS OF USING AN OFFERING
Using an offering can include how we use it, what we use with the offering as well as how we store
and organize the items in our homes.
WAYS OF DISPOSING OF AN OFFERING
Sometimes nothing but the packaging remains of an offering after it has been consumed, for instance
food. This leaves only a decision whether to recycle or not, and how.
With tangible products we have several options to dispose of an offering:
• Find a new use for it.
• Get rid of it temporarily: renting or lending an item.
• Get rid of it permanently: throwing away an item, sending it to a recycling center, trading it, giving
it away, or selling.
Sidenote: Sometimes consumers refuse to throw things away that have a special meaning, even if it
has no longer a functional purpose.
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
There are many factors that influences acquisition, usage and disposition decisions. These can be
divided in (1) the psychological core, (2) the process of making decisions, (3) the customer’s culture,
and (4) consumer behavior outcomes.
The psychological core (= internal consumer process) includes:
• Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
• Exposure, Attention, Perception, and Comprehension
• Memory and Knowledge
• Forming and changing attitudes
The process of making decisions includes the following:
• Problem recognition and the search for information
• Making judgements and decisions
• Making post-decision evaluations
The consumer’s culture (= external processes) consists of:
• Reference groups and other social influences
• Diversity influences
• Household and social class influences
• Values, personality and lifestyle
Culture: The typical or expected behaviors, norms, and ideas that characterize a group of people.
Reference group: A group of people consumers compare themselves with for information regarding
behavior, attitudes, or values.
Symbols: External signs that consumers use to express their identity.
Marketing: The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering,
and exchanging offerings with value for individuals, groups and society.
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, Demi van de Pol | Summary | Marketing for Pre-Master | TISEM | Tilburg University | 2021-2022
CHAPTER 12: Consumer diversity
Six major aspects of consumer diversity have important effects on consumer behavior: age, gender,
sexual orientation, regional differences, ethnic differences, and religious differences.
Age is a key factor because people of the same age have similar life experiences, needs, symbols, and
memories that may lead to similar consumption patterns. Four major age cohorts being targeted by
marketers are:
1. Millennials: Individuals born between 1980 and about 1994; also known as Generation Y.
2. Generation X: Individuals born between 1965 and 1979.
3. Baby boomers: Individuals born between 1946 and 1964.
4. Seniors: Gray market, individuals over 65 years old.
Agentic goal: Goal that stresses mastery, self-assertiveness, self-efficacy, strength, and no emotion.
Communal goal: Goal that stresses affiliation and fostering harmonious relations with others,
submissiveness, emotionality, and home orientation.
Gender differences, including the influence of changing sex roles, also affects consumer behavior.
Men and women differ in terms of their consumer traits, information-processing styles, decision-
making styles, and consumption patterns. In addition, more marketers are using sexual orientation to
target gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender consumers for various goods and services.
Gender: Biological state of being male or female.
Sexual orientation: A person’s preference toward certain behaviors.
Consumption patterns may differ in various regions of a country and the world, leading some
marketers to tailor their strategies specifically to specific regions. Clustering helps marketers describe
consumers in different regions based on similar demographic and consumption characteristics rather
than on geographical location only. Many marketers are taking a multicultural approach, appealing to
several subcultures instead of just one.
Clustering: The grouping of consumers according to common characteristics, such as demographics
and consumption lifestyles, using statistical techniques.
The way in which cultures differ can affect how consumers think and behave. These differences can
be viewed along three main dimensions:
• Individualism versus collectivism: Consumers from cultures high in individualism put more emphasis
on themselves as an individual than as part of a group; consumers of cultures high in collectivism.
• Horizontal versus vertical orientation: Consumers from cultures with a horizontal orientation value
equality, whereas consumers from cultures with a vertical orientation put more emphasis on
hierarchy.
• Masculine versus feminine: Consumers from masculine cultures tend to be more aggressive and
focused on individual advancement. In contrast, consumers from feminine cultures tend to be more
concerned with social relationships.
Finally, religious values and customs can influence consumer behavior and form the basis of some
marketing strategies.
Ethnic group: Subculture with a similar heritage and values.
Acculturation: Learning how to adapt to a new culture.
Multicultural marketing: Strategies used to appeal to a variety of cultures at the same time.
Intensity of ethnic identification: How strongly people identify with their ethnic group.
Accommodation theory: The more effort one puts forth in trying to communicate with an ethnic
group, the more positive the reaction.
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