Group and Interpersonal Influence Peer pressure: Pressure to behave in accordance

with group expectations (Consumers of all ages feel

Reference Groups - Individuals who:
peer pressure)
 Have significant relevance for a consumer
Authority: Ability of a person or a group to enforce
 Impact the consumer’s evaluations, the obedience of others
aspirations, and behavior
Types of Social Power
Group influence: Ways in which group members
influence attitudes, behaviors, and opinions of
others within the group

Consumers think in terms of ingroups and outgroups

Primary

 Group that includes members who have

frequent, direct contact with one another
 Social ties are very strong

Secondary

 Group to which a consumer belongs, with less

frequent contact and weaker influence than
in a primary group
 Brand community: Consumers who develop
relationships based on shared interests or
product usage
Formal
 Group in which a consumer formally becomes
a member
 Has a set of stated rules, accepted values,
and codes of conduct that members are
expected to adhere to
Categories in Reference Group Influence
Informational- Consumer uses the behaviors and
attitudes of reference groups as information for
making his or her own decisions
Utilitarian- Consumer conforms to group
expectations in order to receive a reward or avoid
punishment
Value-expressive - Consumer internalizes a group’s
values, or the extent to which consumers join groups
in order to express their own closely held values and
beliefs

Informal Reference Group Influence on Product Selection


 Group that has no membership or application
requirements
 Codes of conduct may be nonexistent

Aspirational

 Group in which a consumer desires to

become a member
 Group membership appeals to the
consumer’s ideal self

Dissociative
Social media: Media through which communication
 Group to which a consumer does not want to occurs
belong Social networking - Provides consumers with
 Considered a type of outgroup for a utilitarian and hedonic value and helps to fulfill the
consumer need to belong (Facilitated by social networking
Conformity- Individual yields to the attitudes and website)
behaviors of others
Social networks: Consumers connecting with one
another based on common interests, associations, or
goals
Individual Difference Variables in Group Influence
Susceptibility to interpersonal influence - Assesses a
consumer’s need to enhance image by:
 Acquiring and using products
 Conforming to the expectations of others
 Learning about products by observing others
Attention to social comparison information (ATSCI)
 Assesses the extent to which consumers are
concerned about others' reaction to their
behavior
Separateness-Connectedness
Separated self-schema- Self-conceptualization of the
extent to which a consumer perceives himself or
herself as distinct and separate from others
Connected self-schema - Self-conceptualization of the
extent to which a consumer perceives himself or
herself as being an integral part of a group
Word-of-Mouth (WOM) - Information about
products, services, and experiences that is
transmitted from consumer to consumer
Types
 Organic
 Amplified
Positive when consumers are satisfied
Negative word-of-mouth is more influential than
positive word-of-mouth. (Consumers tend to tell more
people about unsatisfactory experiences than pleasing
ones)
Value - Consumers tend to tell others about their
experiences with products and services when they
receive more value.
Guerrilla Marketing - Marketing of a product using
unconventional means
Buzz marketing: Focuses on generating excitement
among consumers that spreads from consumer to
consumer
Stealth marketing: Consumers do not realize that
they are being targeted for a marketing message
Opinion Leaders- Consumers who have an influence
on the behavior of others relating to the product
adoption and purchase
Market maven - Consumer who spreads information
about all types of products and services that are
available in the marketplace
Surrogate consumer - Consumer who is hired by
another to provide input into a purchase decision
Diffusion Process- Way in which new products are
adopted and spread throughout a marketplace
Household Decision Making- Process by which
decisions are made in household units
Household life cycle (HLC) - Segmentation technique
that acknowledges changes in family composition
and income (Changes alter household demand for
products and services)
Purchase roles - Influencer, gatekeeper, user, decision
maker, and purchaser
Gender roles
Sex role orientation (SRO): Family’s beliefs about the
ways of reaching household decisions
Development of the child consumer
Consumer socialization: Process through which young
consumers develop attitudes and learn skills that
help them function in the marketplace
Consumer Culture
Consumer culture: Commonly held societal beliefs
that define what is socially gratifying
 Performs important functions that shape the
value of consumer activities
- Giving meaning to objects and
activities
- Facilitating communication
Cultural norm: Specifies appropriate consumer
behavior in a situation within a specific culture
Cultural sanction: Penalty associated with performing
non-gratifying or culturally inconsistent behavior
Role Expectations - Specific expectations that are
associated with each type of person
Relevant bases for forming societal role expectations
• Occupation • Social class • Age • Sex
Primary basis for cultural norms and sanctions
Inputs and Outputs of Culture
Core Societal Values (CSVs) Scoreboard- Explained
using historical CSV dimension scores found in many
resources
 CSV scores for a country can be essential
information for marketers appealing to
consumers in another country
 Similarity in CSV scores indicates that
consumers find value in the same products
and experiences
Cultural Distance (CD) - Represents how disparate
one nation is from another in terms of their CSV
 Helps in comparison of consumers by using
scores available in a CSV scoreboard
How Is Culture Learned?
Enculturation - Way people learn their native culture
Acculturation- Process by which consumers come to
learn a culture other than their natural, native
culture
Characteristics of Fast and Slow Acculturation
Quartet of Instructions - Groups responsible for
communicating the CSVs through formal and
informal processes (Family, school, church, and
media)
Modeling: Process of imitating others’ behaviors
Shaping - Process by which consumers' behaviors
slowly adapt to a culture through a series of rewards
and sanctions
Modeling and the Quartet
Fundamental Elements of Communication
Verbal Communication - Transfer of information
through either spoken or written word
 Difficult within a single language
 Translation alone is insufficient to guarantee
effective communication
Translation equivalence: Two phrases share the
same precise meaning in two different cultures
Metric equivalence: Statistical tests used to validate
the way people use numbers to represent quantities
across cultures (Necessary to draw comparisons
about consumers from different countries)
Globish: Simplified form of English
• Reduces the vocabulary to around 1,500 words and
eliminates grammatical complications
• Used by local brands in non–English-speaking
countries to improve their quality perceptions
Nonverbal Communication- Information passed
through some unspoken act
Elements
 Time
 Mannerisms/body language
 Space
 Etiquette/manners
 Relationships
 Agreement
 Symbols
Emerging Cultures
BRICs markets - Stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and
China (Major players in economy)
Chindia: Combined market and business potential of
China and India
Glocalization: Idea that marketing strategy may be
global but implementation of it at the marketing
tactics level should be local
Microcultures
Microculture- Group of people who share similar
values and tastes that are subsumed within a larger
culture
 Smaller group can be distinct from the larger
group or overall culture
 Portrays the idea that the group is smaller but
is equally significant in terms of influence on
consumer behavior
Hierarchical Nature of Culture- Each consumer
belongs to many cultural groups and moves in and
out of microcultures
 Consumer belongs to one large culture and
then to many smaller cultural groups,
existing and interlinking within the overall
culture
 Each microculture brings role expectations for
its members
*Role provides an indication about
behaviors that one should perform to
belong to the group
* Role conflict: Situation involving
conflicting expectations based on
cultural role expectations
Hierarchical Nature of Culture and Microculture
Microcultural Roles and Value
 Microculture membership changes the value
of things
Divergence: Consumers choose membership in
microcultures in an effort to stand out from the
crowd
Major U.S. Microcultures
Sex Roles- Societal expectations for men and women
among members of a cultural group
 Men and women may share purchasing
responsibilities differently from culture to
culture
 Men tend to be more heuristic/intuitive in
their processing
 Women tend to process information in a
more piecemeal fashion
Age-Based Microculture - Concept that people of the
same age end up sharing many same values and
develop similar consumer preferences
World teen culture - Speculation that teenagers
around the world are more similar to each other
than to people from other generations in the same
culture
Generation Microculture
Cohort: Group of people who have lived the same
major experiences in their lives
 Greatest generation - Born prior to 1928
 Silent generation - Born between 1928 and
1945
 Baby Boomers - Born between 1946 and 1964
 Generation X - Born between 1965 and 1980
 Millennials - Born between 1981 and 1995
 Generation Z - Born between 1995 and 2010
Religious Microculture
Religion affects all aspects of daily life
 Consumers’ diets and their clothing
 Rules and customs about public displays of
the body
Consumers of all faiths make decisions to follow
their religious beliefs and customs
Stigmatization: Consumers are marked in some way
that indicates their place in society
Income and Social Class Microculture
Income level - Based on the amount of monetary
resources a person receives
Social class: Culturally defined group to which a
consumer belongs
 Based on resources like prestige, income,
occupation, and education
 Influences lifestyles, opinions, attitudes,
behaviors, tastes, and preferences
 Social stratification: Division of society into
classes that have unequal access to scarce
and valuable resources
Street Microculture
Microcultures can grow out of sports, music, gaming
experiences, and virtual communities
Hip-hop culture - Has influenced consumer tastes
outside of its group
Gothic culture - Group members universally wear
dark, macabre attire
Microcultures around the World
Countries have many bases around which
microcultures are formed
Germany, Spain, and South Africa - Countries where
different languages or dialects are spoken in different
regions of the country
Street microcultures - Music, sports, and fashion
(Examples - Punk, goth, and emo)
Demographic Analysis - Developing a profile of a
consumer group based on their demographics
 Demographics - Observable, statistical
aspects of populations such as age, gender, or
income
Demographic variables help to describe
microcultures
Demographic and microcultural data combined with
geodemographic information is valuable because:
 Members of many microcultures live in close
proximity to one another
 Geodemographic tools assist the consumer
researcher with the analyses
Important component of a demographic
segmentation strategy
U.S. Census Bureau’s Website
 Source for performing a demographic analysis
 Provides a real-time estimate of the U.S.
population
 Used to find statistics on a region of interest
 Makes data available at the county level, and
with additional assistance, the data can be
broken down by ZIP code
Trends Affecting Consumer Behavior
Declining birthrates - In many European countries,
the birthrate has dropped to 0.5 per person
Increasing consumer affluence
 Result of combination of working couples and
lower birthrates
 Led to consumer segments becoming targets
for products once considered to be luxuries
 Consumers have become less price-sensitive
in many categories
Increasing life expectancy and the aging consumer
 Found in developed nations
 Growth trends in population, birthrate, and
life expectancy trends affect consumer culture
 Aging baby boomer population - Major issue
in the United States currently
- Attracts marketing attention due
to its large size and spending
power
Increasing cultural diversity worldwide
 Cultures become more diverse through
immigration and growth of microcultures
 Growth of the Muslim faith in European
countries
 Ethnic microcultures continue to become
diverse due to legal and illegal immigration in
the U.S.
 Western brands continue to succeed with
foreign expansion
 Some teens worldwide focus on traditional
and conservative styles of microcultures
Consumers in Situations
Situational Influences
 Temporary conditions
 Effects independent of enduring consumer,
brand, or product characteristics
  Affect consumer decision making and the
eventual value experienced
Situational Influences Can Exist in Any of These
Forms
Time- As a consumer has less discretionary time, the
value of many household maintenance services
increases.
Conditions- A consumer’s economic condition will
change the value of lunch in a restaurant.
Place- An environment can make a consumer feel ate
ease and relaxed meaning they will linger longer in
the space.
Time and Consumer Behavior
Consumer’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior:
 Are affected by time-related factors
 Combine to create differing perceptions of
value
Time pressure, time of year, and time of day can
affect consumption
Each time form represents a different temporal
factor
 Temporal factor: Situational characteristics
related to time
Effects of Temporal Factors on Consumer Behavior
Time pressure
Consumers:
- Process less information when time is scarce
- Tend to rely on simple choice heuristics (habits)
(Consumer’s orientation can switch from hedonic to
utilitarian)
Seasonality
 Fashion differs from one season to another
 Food items vary in demand with the season
Discretionary (spare) time
 Consumers with more spare time seek
services of utilitarian value
 Hedonically motivated consumers will more
likely trade time for money
Physical cycles can create situational influences on
consumers (Include circadian, menstrual, and hunger
cycles)
Advertiming- Ad buys that include a schedule that
runs the advertisement at times when customers will
be most receptive to the message
Shopping - Set of value-producing consumer
activities that increase the likelihood of a purchase
 Represents the inverse of marketing
Shopping via the Internet - Brings 24/7 access to
shopping environment
-Smart agent software: Learns an Internet
user’s preferences
 Automatically searches information on
selected websites and distributes it
 Raises questions about how volitional
shopping might be
Types of Shopping Activities
Acquisitional shopping- Oriented toward a specific,
intended purchase or purchases
Epistemic shopping - Oriented toward acquiring
knowledge about products
Experiential shopping - Designed to provide interest,
excitement, relaxation, fun, social interaction, or
some other desired feeling
Impulsive shopping - Characterized by a diminished
regard for consequences, spontaneity, and a desire
for immediate self-fulfillment
Outshopping - Shopping in a city or town to which
consumers must travel rather than in their own
hometowns (Customers are motivated by the desire
for the experience)
Personal Shopping Value (PSV)
Utilitarian shopping value - Worth obtained because
some shopping task or job is completed successfully
Hedonic shopping value - Worth of a shopping activity
because the time spent doing the activity itself is
personally gratifying
Retail Personality - Definition of a retail store in the
mind of a shopper based on the combination of
functional and affective qualities
Functional quality: Retail positioning that emphasizes
tangible things like a wide selection of goods, low
prices, and guarantees
Affective quality: Retail positioning that emphasizes a
unique environment and exciting décor
Personality Traits That Affect a Consumer’s Atmosphere Elements
Unplanned or Impulsive Behavior
 Odors
Impulsivity - Represents how sensitive a consumer is  Music
to immediate rewards  Color
 Lighting
Self-regulation
 Merchandising
Action-oriented: Consumers with a high capacity to  Social setting
self-regulate their behavior
The Way Crowding Affects Consumers
State-oriented: Consumers with a low capacity to
self-regulate their behavior

Retail Approaches Aimed at Encouraging Impulse

Purchases

 Merchandising complimentary products

together
 Encouraging add-on purchases
 Creating an emotionally charged atmosphere
 Making things easy to buy
 Providing a discount

Characteristics of Compulsive Consumer Behavior Antecedent Conditions

 Harmful  Situational characteristics that a consumer

 Uncontrollable brings to information processing
 Driven by chronic depression  Shape value in a situation by framing the
events that take place
Atmospherics - Feelings created by the total aura of
physical attributes that comprise a physical Include:
environment  Economic resources - Buying power, third-
Servicescape - Physical environment in which party payments, and consumer budgeting
consumer services are performed  Orientation
 Mood
Qualities of an Environment  Security

Factors That Help Merchandisers and Retail

Designers Create a Distinct Atmosphere

Fit- How appropriate the elements of a given

environment are

Congruity - How consistent the elements of an

environment are with one another