Consumer Behaviour

Jalaj Mathur
 WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR
Metrosexual – Straight urban man who enjoys
shopping and using grooming products
The aim of marketing is to meet and
satisfy target customers’ needs and
wants better than competitors.
Consumer behavior is the study of
how individuals, groups, and
organizations select, buy, use, and
dispose of goods, services, ideas, or
experiences to satisfy their needs
and wants. Gaining a thorough
indepth consumer understanding
helps to make sure that the right
products are marketed to the right
consumers in the right way.

WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER

BEHAVIOR?
 Model of Buying Behavior
Marketing Other Buyer’s Buyer’s decision
stimuli stimuli characteristics process
Product Economic Cultural Problem recognition
Price Technological Social Information search
Place Political Personal Evaluation
Promotion Cultural Psychological Decision
Postpurchase
behavior

Buyer’s decisions
Product choice
Brand choice
Dealer choice
Purchase timing
Purchase amount
Characteristics Affecting
Consumer Behaviour
CULTURAL

Culture SOCIAL
PERSONAL
Subculture
Reference PSYCHOLOGICAL
Age
Social Class Groups
Occupation Motivation
Family
Economic Perception
Roles &
Situation
Status Learning
Lifestyle
Beliefs &
Personality Attitude
Cultural Factors
Culture
Subculture
Social Class

Buyer
 Culture
• Culture is the basic values, perceptions, wants & behaviours
learned by a member of society from family &other important
institutions . E.g. An American bride wears a white dress on her
wedding while a white dress is worn on occasion of mourning in
India.
• The cultural shift toward greater concern towards health &
fitness has created a huge industry for health & fitness services,
exercise equipment &clothing And lower fat and more natural
foods.
• Subculture : A group of people with shared value systems based on
common life experiences & situations. Subcultures include
nationalities, religions, racial groups &geographic regions. E.g.
Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi.
• Social Class: Relatively permanent &ordered divisions in a society
whose members share similar values, interests & behaviour.
Determined by income, occupation, education, wealth & other
variables. Social classes show distinct product & brand
preferences in areas such as clothing, home furnishing, leisure
activities & automobiles. E.g. upper Class, Middle class
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
Social classes, relatively homogeneous
and enduring divisions in a society that are
hierarchically ordered and whose members
share similar values, interests, and
behavior

Social classes have several

characteristics:
•Those within a class tend to behave
more alike than persons from two
different social classes.
•Persons are perceived as occupying
inferior or superior positions
according to social class.
•Social class is indicated by a cluster
of variables (occupation, income, etc.)
rather than by any single variable.
•Individuals can move up or down the
social-class ladder.
 Social Factors

Reference
Groups

Roles &
Family
Statuses
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
Social Factors
In addition to cultural factors, a
consumer’s behavior is influenced by such
social factors as reference groups, family,
and social roles and statuses.
A person’s reference groups consists of
all the groups that have a direct (face-to-
face) or indirect influence on his/her
attitudes or behavior.
Groups having a direct influence on a
person are called membership groups.
•Some memberships groups are
primary groups such as family,
friends, neighbors, and co-workers
with whom the person interacts fairly
continuously and informally.
•Some membership groups are
secondary groups such as religious,
professional groups that tend to be
more formal.
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
People are significantly influenced by
their reference groups in at least three
ways:
•Reference groups expose an
individual to new behaviors and
lifestyles, influencing attitudes and
self-concept.
•They create pressures for
conformity that may affect actual
product and brand choices.
•People are also influenced by groups
to which they do no belong:
Aspirational groups are those a
person hopes to join.
Dissociative groups are those whose
values or behavior an individual
rejects. The buyer evaluates these
elements together with the monetary
cost to form a total customer cost.
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?

Manufacturers of products and

brands where group influence is
strong must determine how to
reach and influence opinion leaders
in these reference groups.
An opinion leader is the person in
informal, product-related
communications who offers advice
or information about a specific
product or product category.
Marketers try to reach opinion
leaders by identifying demographic
and psychographic characteristics
associated with opinion leadership,
identifying the media read by
opinion leaders, and directing
messages at opinion leaders.
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?

Family
The family is the most important
consumer-buying organization in society,
and family members constitute the most
influential primary reference group.
We can distinguish between two families
in the buyer’s life.
The family of orientation consists of
parents and siblings.
A more direct influence on everyday
buying behavior is the family of
procreation –namely, one’s spouse and
children.
 Social Factors
• Groups: Two or more people who interact to
accomplish individual or mutual goals.
• Groups to which a person belongs are called
membership groups .
• Reference groups serve as direct or indirect
points of comparison or reference in forming a
persons attitude or behavior.
• Aspirational group is one to which a individual
wishes to belong.
• Opinion Leaders- people within a reference group
who because of special skills, knowledge,
personality exert influence on others.
 Family
• Family members can strongly influence
buying behaviour. Husband Wife
involvement varies widely by product
category and by stage in buying process.
Wife is the main purchasing agent in the
family in areas of food, household
products & clothing.
• Children also have a strong influence on
buying decisions e.g. Whirlpool ad, Surf
excel ad.
 Role & Status

• A role consists of the activities people are

expected to perform according to persons around
them e.g. you are somebody’s daughter/son at
home, student in an institution, friend in an
informal setting with friends. Tomorrow you will
play the role of a husband/ wife
• Each role carries a status reflecting the general
esteem given to it by society. People choose
products to show their status in society. E.g.
Scorpio for a CEO and ESTEEM for a VP.
 Influences on Consumer
Behavior

Personal Influences

Age and Family Life Lifestyle

Cycle Stage

Occupation & Personality &

Economic Circumstances Self-Concept
 PERSONAL FACTORS
• Age & Life Cycle
Stage: tastes in food,
clothing, furniture &
recreation are age
related. Buying is also
shaped by stage of
the family life cycle.
E.g. Gen Y ( under
25), Young
Professionals, DINKS
(25 to 34), Families
(35 to 54).
 Personal factors
• Occupation: A Person’s occupation effects the
goods & services bought.
• Economic Situation: Income, savings & Borrowing
power determine what kind of products a person
buys.
• Lifestyle: A person’s pattern of living as
expressed in his or her activities, interests and
opinions.
– Activities :-work, hobbies, shopping, sports,
social events
– Interests:-food, fashion, family, recreation
– Opinions:- About themselves, social issues,
business, products
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?

Personality and Self-Concept

Each person has personality
characteristics that influence his or her
buying behavior.
Personality: A set of distinguishing human
psychological traits that lead to relatively
consistent and enduring responses to
environmental stimuli.
•The idea is that brands have personalities
and consumers are likely to choose brands
whose personalities match their own.
 WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?
We define brand personality as the
specific mix of human traits that may be
Simplified Model
attributed to a particular brand. Jennifer
Aaker identified the following five traits:
•Sincerity (down-to-earth).
•Excitement (daring).
•Competence (reliable).
•Sophistication (upper-class).
•Ruggedness (outdoorsy).

•Consumers also choose and use brand that

have a brand personality consistent with
their own actual self-concept (how one
views themselves).
•Although in some cases, the match may be
based on the consumer’s ideal self-concept
(how we would like to view ourselves).
•Others self-concept (how we think others
see us).
WHAT INFLUENCES CONSUMER BEHAVIOR?

Lifestyles and Value

People from the same subculture, social
class, and occupation may lead quite
different lifestyles. A lifestyle is a
person’s pattern of living in the world as
expressed in activities, interests, and
opinions.
Lifestyle portrays the “whole person”
interacting with his or her environment.
Marketers search for relationships
between their products and lifestyle
groups.
Lifestyles are shaped partly by whether
consumers are money-constrained or time-
constrained.
Psychological Factors

Motivation

Beliefs &
Attitudes
Perception Learning
 KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Model of Consumer Behavior
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
The starting point for understanding
consumer behavior is the stimulus-
response model.
•The marketer’s task is to understand
what happens in the consumer’s
consciousness between the arrival of the
outside marketing stimuli and the ultimate
purchase decisions.
 KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Motivation: Freud, Maslow, Herzberg
A person has many needs at any given time.
Some needs are:
•Biogenic (arise from physiological states
of tension such as hunger).
•Others are psychogenic and arise from a
need for recognition, esteem, or belonging.
Sigmund Freud's Abraham Maslow
•A motive is a need that is sufficiently
pressing to drive the person to act.
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Freud’s Theory
Sigmund Freud assumed that the
psychological forces shaping people’s
behavior are largely unconscious, and that
a person cannot fully understand his or her
own motivations.
A technique called laddering can be used
to trace a person’s motivations from the
stated instrumental ones to the more
terminal ones.
Motivation researchers often collect “in-
depth interviews” to uncover deeper
motives triggered by a product.
•Projective techniques such as word
association, sentence completion, and
role-playing are used. Customer 2 is
mixed profitability.
 KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s Theory

Abraham Maslow sought to explain why
people are driven by particular needs at
particular times.
Maslow’s answer is that human needs are
arranged in a hierarchy, from the most
pressing to the least pressing.
In order of importance, they are:

•Physiological needs.

•Safety needs.
•Social needs.
•Esteem needs.
•Self-actualization needs.
 KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Motivational Hygiene
A similar point (with Maslow’s) is
made in Herzberg's “motivational
hygiene” theory, according to
which demotivators (or "hygiene
factors") have to be reduced as
well as motivators (or incentives)
increased, to develop positive
motivation (Herzberg 1966):
Herzberg’s Theory
Frederick Herzberg developed a two-
factor theory that distinguishes
dissatisfiers (factors that cause
dissatisfaction) from satisfiers (factors
that cause satisfaction). The absence of
dissatisfiers is not enough; satisfiers must
be present to motivate a purchase.
Herzberg’s theory has two implications:
•Sellers should do their best to avoid
dissatisfiers.
•Sellers should identify the major
satisfiers or motivators of purchase
in the market and supply them. These
satisfiers will make the major
difference as to which brand the
customer buys.
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Perception
How the motivated person actually acts is
influenced by his or her view or perception
of the situation.
•Perception is the process by which an
individual selects, organizes, and
interprets information inputs to create a
meaningful picture of the world.
•Perception depends not only on the
physical stimuli, but also on the stimuli’s
relation to the surrounding field and on
conditions within the individual.
•The key point is that perceptions vary
widely among individuals exposed to the
same reality.
•In marketing, perceptions are more
important than the reality, as it is
perceptions will affect consumers’ actual
behavior.
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Selective Attention
It has been estimated that a person is
exposed to over 1,500 ads or brand
communications a day. Because a person
cannot possibly attend to all of these,
most stimuli will be screened out—a
process called selective attention.
Selective attention means that
marketers have to work hard to attract
consumers’ notice.
People are more likely to notice
stimuli that relates to a current need.
People are more likely to notice
stimuli that they anticipate.
People are more likely to notice
stimuli whose deviations are large in
relation to the normal size of the
stimuli.
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Selective Distortion
Selective distortion is the tendency to
interpret information in a way that will fit
our preconceptions. Consumers will often
distort information to be consistent with
prior brands and product beliefs.
Examples of branded differences can be
found with virtually every type of product.
•Selective distortion can work to the
advantage of marketers with strong
brands when consumers distort
neutral or ambiguous brand
information to make it more positive.
 Selective Retention
•People will fail to register much
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
information to which they are exposed in
memory, but will tend to retain
information that supports their attitudes
and beliefs.
•Because of selective retention, we are
likely to remember good points about a
product we like and forget good points
about competing products.
 Memory Processes: Encoding
Memory encoding refers to how and where
KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
information gets into memory.
Memory encoding can be characterized
according to the amount or quantity of
processing that information receives at
encoding and the nature or quality of
processing that information receives at
encoding. The quantity and quality of
processing will be an important
determinant of the strength of an
association.
•In general, the more attention placed on
the meaning of information during
encoding, the stronger the resulting
associations in memory will be.
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
FACTORS
• Motivation: A person has many needs,
biological needs such as hunger, thirst or
discomfort, psychological needs such as
recognition, esteem or belonging. A need
becomes a motive when it is aroused to
sufficient level of intensity and the person
is directed to seek satisfaction. Two of
most popular theories on human motivation
are by : Sigmund Freud & Abraham Maslow.
 Perception
• All of us learn by the flow of information through
our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch &
taste. However each of us receives, organizes,
interprets this sensory information in an individual
way.
• Perception is the process by which people select,
organize & interpret information
– Selective Attention- the tendency of people to screen
out most of the information to which they are exposed.
– Selective Distortion- interpret info. That supports their
set beliefs.
– Selective Retention- retain info. That supports their
attitudes & beliefs.
 Learning
• Learning describes changes in an individual’s
behavior arising from experience.
• Most human behavior is learned. Learning occurs
through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues,
responses & reinforcement.
• A person has a drive for esteem. His drive
becomes a motive when it is directed toward a
stimulus object , which can be a big car. When
Hyundai announces its Gold coin offer it is giving
a cue to buy now. If the person goes ahead a buys
a Hyundai, it is a response. If he enjoys the
experience of the car, his response is reinforced
 Beliefs & Attitude
• Through doing & learning, people acquire beliefs &
attitudes, which in turn effect his buying behaviour.
• A belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds
about something.
• Beliefs may be based on real knowledge, opinion or
faith and may or may not carry an emotional charge.
• Beliefs make up a product or brand image which
effects buying behaviour.
• People have attitudes regarding religion, politics,
clothes, music, food & almost everything else.
• Attitude describes a person’s relatively consistent
evaluations, feeling & tendencies toward an object or
idea.
• Attitude put people in a frame of mind of liking or
disliking things. E.g. Chinese goods
 Four Types of Buying
Behavior
High Low
Involvement Involvement

Significant
differences Complex Variety-
between Buying Seeking
brands Behavior Behavior
Few
differences Dissonance- Habitual
between Reducing Buying Buying
brands Behavior Behavior
 Types of Buying Decision Behaviour
High Low
involvement Involvement
• Complex buying Behaviour:
Signif
icant
Complex Variety Consumer buying behaviour in
situations characterized by high
diff. Buying Seeking consumer involvement in a purchase
and significant perceived
b/w
brand
Behaviour buying differences among brands. E.g. Car,
House, TV
s Behaviour • Dissonance Reducing buying
Behaviour: CBB in situations
characterized by high involvement
Few Dissonance Habitual but few perceived differences
among brands e.g. Paints, Cement,
Diff. reducing buying • Habitual Buying behaviour: CBB in
situations characterized by low
b/w
brand Buying behaviour consumer involvement & few
significant brand differences. E.g.
s Behaviour •
Detergents, Toothpaste
Variety Seeking Buying Behaviour:
CBB in situations characterized by
low consumer involvement but
significant perceived brand
differences. E.g. Biscuits, Snacks
Selectivity

Selective attention – Marketers have to work hard to get consumer’s notice –

consumers are more likely to notice stimuli of current need, stimuli
they anticipate, stimuli whose deviations are large e.g. $25 off $100
rather than $5

Selective distortion – tendency to twist information into personal meanings that

will fit our preconceptions e.g. A customer of LG may interpret an
advertisement saying that they are No. 1 company in Microelectronics to
be No.1 company in all of consumer durables

Selective Retention – consumers likely to remember good points of products they

like and forget good points of competing products e.g. a user may
remember that Pears soap is the only soap good for dry skin though
in the market Dove and Mysore Sandal Gold is also good for dry skin
 Maslow’s Hierarchy
of 5
Needs
Self-
actualization
(self-development
and realization)

4 Esteem needs
(self-esteem, recognition)

Social needs
3 (sense of belonging, love)

Safety needs
2 (security, protection)

Psychological needs
1 (food, water, shelter)
 Consumer Buying
Problem Process
recognition

Information
search

Evaluation of
alternatives

Purchase
decision

Postpurchase
behavior
 Decision Making Sets
Total
Set Aware-
ness Consid-
Set eration
Set Choice
Set Decision
Successive Sets Involved in Customer Decision Making

1-43
 Indian Demographic Trends
• Nuclear Families: In Urban areas, the no. of
nuclear families is on the rise.
• Working Women
• Smaller Families: one child or two
• Educated Women
• Delayed marriages
• Dispersion of Population: Metros, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Chennai Pune, Gurgaon, Noida
• Uneven Economic Growth Rate: south India,
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab
• Diverging Consumer Markets: Rich getting richer
& on shopping spree. Poor getting Poorer
• Ageing Population