Consumer Behavior 8th edition van Hoyer, MacInnis & Pieters (2024)
Date: 19th of February 2024
Weight: 15%
Chapter 1 – Understanding consumer behavior
Consumer Behavior reflects the totality of consumers’ decisions with respect to
the acquisition, competition, and disposition of goods, services, activities,
experiences, people, and ideas by (human) decision-making units over time.
Buying represents one type of acquisition behavior. It includes other ways of
obtaining goods and services, such as renting, leasing, trading and sharing.
Deadlines can affect acquisition behavior: consumers tend to procrastinate in
redeeming coupons and gift cards with far-future deadlines, but move more
quickly when deadlines are closer, because they do not want to regret having
missed out.
Disposition refers to how consumers get rid of an offering they have previously
acquired and can have important implications for marketers. Consumers can give
away their used possessions, recycle them, sell them on eBay or vintage stores,
rent them via sharing websites or lend them to others. There’s growing concerns
towards environmental health and sustainability among marketers and
consumers.
Consumers generally know how to budget and plan for ordinary purchases, but
they tend to underestimate spending on out-of-the-ordinary purchases and, in
particular, spend more than anticipated on individual purchases. In some cases,
with gas prices (it’s price is very salient) for instance, consumers tend to shop
less frequently, switch to one-stop shopping at low-price retail establishments
and reduce overall spending to compensate when the price of gas rises.
One study found four segments of consumers in terms of financial well-being:
1. Stretched spenders : live paycheck to paycheck and feel anxious about
their financial situation.
2. Carefree spenders : live paycheck to paycheck and do not feel anxious
about their financial situation.
3. Security seekers : don’t live paycheck to paycheck, yet feel anxious about
their financial situation.
4. Cushioned savers : don’t live paycheck to paycheck and do not feel
anxious about their financial situation.
Consumers prefer to borrow money when purchases involve experiences as
opposed to material goods. Experiential goods may be more time sensitive.
Today’s consumers are more connected, easily able to research offerings online,
access communications and promotions in multiple media and check what others
think of brands with a quick search; in contrast to people fifty years ago for
example.
Consumer decision making involves a lot of time and effort and it’s an everyday,
on-going process. Sometimes we make choices among product or service
categories (buying food or downloading music) whereas in other cases we choose
between brands (Apple or Samsung).
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,Among the most important reasons for consumption to occur are the ways in
which an offering meets someone’s needs, values or goals.
Transparency is increasingly of concern when consumers want to know what a
brand or company stands for. Some consumers want to avoid products made in
factories with questionable labor practices.
A relatively new “sharing economy” or “peer-to-peer” business model has
developed, facilitated by online communities such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb etc.
Eight ways to acquire an offering → buying, trading, renting/leasing, bartering,
gifting, finding, stealing and sharing.
Research suggests that we like to have things organized in our homes because
we feel less anxiety and a greater sense of control over our lives when things are
structured. Also, we often use products as part of our routines, which consumers
enjoy because they convey that things are normal, easy and safe.
Consumers who want to dispose of a tangible product have several options: find
a new use for it, get rid of it temporarily (renting or lending it e.g.) or get rid of it
permanently.
Decisions about when to acquire or use an offering are also affected by knowing
when others might or might not be buying or using it (choose to go to the gym
when we know others will not be doing so).
Consumers can sometimes mispredict how happy we will be from usage.
Although we might want to binge-watch eight episode of favorite TV-show,
research shows that longer breaks between episodes will makes us enjoy the
series more.
Sales of a product can be increased when the consumer :
1. Uses larger amounts of the product
2. Uses the product more frequently
3. Uses it for longer periods of time
Bonus packaging may motivate consumers to buy more of a product as well.
Positive and negative emotions as well as specific emotions like loneliness, hope,
fear, regret, guilt, embarrassment and general moods can affect how consumers
think, the choices they make, how they feel after making a decision, what they
remember and how much they enjoy an experience. Emotions affect goal pursuit,
reactions to marketing stimuli and other aspects of consumer behavior.
Consumer Behavior encompasses four domains:
1. The psychological core
2. The process of making decisions
3. The consumer’s culture
4. Consumer behavior outcomes and issues
The cultural environment also affects what motivates consumers, how they
process information and the kinds of decisions they make. Age, gender, social
class (demographics) influence the decisions that consumers make and how and
why they make them.
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,Motivation, Ability and Opportunity + Exposure, Attention, Perception and
Comprehension → “Aria university choice example, page 12”
Consumers may store information in memory, but their choices will be based only
on the information that can be retrieved from the memory. A key point for
marketers seeking to create strong brand images and develop memorable
communications.
Problem recognition occurs when we realize that we have an unfulfilled need.
Elements of the psychological core are invoked in problem recognition and
search, because once a consumer realizes that he or she needs to make a (big)
choice and begins to search for information, is exposed to information, attends to
and perceives it, categorizes and comprehends it and forms attitudes and
memories.
A high-effort decision is a decision one is willing to invest a lot of time into and
exert mental and emotional energy in making it. Low-effort decisions are ones
that are easier made like choosing what brand of laundry to take to college. They
do not require intensive information search or process resulting in less enduring
attitudes and memories.
Postdecision evaluation allows the consumer to judge whether the decision made
was the correct one.
Culture refers to the typical or expected behaviors, norms and ideas that
characterize a group of people.
Reference groups are a group of people who perceive themselves similar with
each other, who share values and whose opinions are respected (within that
group). Reference groups can also make us feel as if we should behave in a
certain way.
Values, personality and lifestyles are relatively broad and stable psychographic
characteristics that influence a range of consumer behaviors over time, but
usually with a modest effect on each specific behavior.
The groups we belong to and our sense of self can affect the symbols (external
signs that consumers use to express their identity) we use, consciously or
unconsciously to express our actual or desired identity.
Many consumers are interested in whether products have been produced in an
ethical manner, with ethically sourced inputs. Similarly, marketing decisions may
involve conflicting priorities and sometimes lead to ethical questions (promoting
obesity etc.). Concerned customers sometimes form advocacy groups to create
public awareness of inappropriate practices. They influence other consumers as
well as the targeted companies through strategies such as media statements and
boycotts.
Marketing (American marketing association’s definition) is the activity, set of
institutions, and process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging
offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Consumer behavior research helps government officials understand and try to
improve consumer welfare. One example is the increase in childhood obesity over
the past few decades.
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, Marketers need to identify who is likely to be involved in acquisition, usage and
disposition decisions. What one consumer values in a product may not be the
same as what another does. Research helps marketers understand the different
groups that make up the market and whether they can make an offering to
appeal to one or more of these groups.
Crowdsourcing helps companies obtain information about their products, typically
through websites/internet. They can also obtain new ideas for products/activities
by their buyers.
Logos are influenced by consumer research and should be simple and
memorable.
An important strategic choice is deciding how an offering should be positioned in
consumers’ minds. The positioning should suggest that the product is superior in
one or more attributes valued by the target market.
Competitive offerings → marketers sometimes conduct research to see how
consumers view other brands in comparison with their own and then plot the
results on a graph called a perceptual map. Brands in the same quadrant of the
map are perceived as offering similar benefits to consumers.
Repositioning existing products is usually necessary when a brand has become
old and stale and lost its relevance in the minds of consumers.
The rise of social media added a twist to promotion and communication
decisions. Word of mouth – which is not marketeer-controlled – seems more
credible to consumers than messages directly controlled by marketers.
Brand recognition and recall are important factors for marketeers. Especially the
visuals should be interesting and related to the product. Consumers should
remember the visuals and remember/recall the product’s name.
Digital advertising through online platforms such as Youtube and Instagram
enables companies to provide very targeted messages in terms of location,
gender and age. Companies also frequently employ influencers on social media
to provide endorsements for their products/services.
Research may reveal seasonal variations in purchases due to weather-related
needs, variations in the amount of discretionary money consumers have, holiday
buying patterns and the like. E.G. → a chocolate company airs TV commercials in
the weeks leading up to Easter.
Consumer research has shown that people perceive 9.99 or 99.99 to be cheaper
than 10.00 or 100.00. When prices are negotiated however, consumers prefer
and accept round numbers, because this symbolizes completion. Also, in general
consumers respond better to a discount presented as a percentage off the
regular price than to a discount presented as a specific amount of money
subtracted from the regular price.
When buying multiple units of a service for one bundled price (such as a ski
pass), consumers may not feel a great loss if they use only some of the units
because they have difficulty assigning value to it. When consumers buy multiple
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