CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOR:Model of consumer behavior, Cultural Factors

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Principles of Marketing MGT301

Lesson 14

Lesson overview and learning objectives:

In last Lesson we discussed the Consumer Markets and consumer behavior and its importance and

applications for the marketing process. Today we will be continuing the same topic and will discuss

the Consumer buying model. Some factors that can influence the consumer decision regarding

purchases will also be discussed in today's Lesson.

So our today's topic is:

CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOR:

A. Model of consumer behavior

Consumers make many buying decisions every day. Most large companies research consumer

buying decisions in great detail to answer questions about what consumers buy, where they buy,

how and how much they buy, when they buy, and why they buy. Marketers can study actual

consumer purchases to find out what they buy, where, and how much. But learning about the whys

of consumer buying behavior is not so easy--the answers are often locked deep within the

consumer's head.

The central question for marketers is: How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the

company might use? The company that really understands how consumers will respond to

different product features, prices, and advertising appeals has a great advantage over its

competitors. The starting point is the stimulus-response model of buyer behavior shown in Figure

. This figure shows that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumer's "black box" and produce

certain responses. Marketers must figure out what is in the buyer's black box.3

Model of consumer behavior

Marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. Other stimuli

include major forces and events in the buyer's environment: economic, technological, political, and

cultural. All these inputs enter the buyer's black box, where they are turned into a set of observable

buyer responses: product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase

amount.

The marketer wants to understand how the stimuli are changed into responses inside the

consumer's black box, which has two parts. First, the buyer's characteristics influence how he or

she perceives and reacts to the stimuli. Second, the buyer's decision process itself affects the

buyer's behavior. This chapter looks first at buyer characteristics as they affect buying behavior,

and then discusses the buyer decision process.

Principles of Marketing MGT301

Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural, social, personal, and psychological

characteristics, as shown in Figure For the most part, marketers cannot control such factors, but

they must take them into account.

B. Factors influencing consumer behavior

Markets have to be understood

before marketing strategies can be

developed. People using consumer

markets

buy

goods

and

services

for

personal consumption.

Consumers vary tremendously in age,

income, education, tastes, and other factors.

Consumer behavior is influenced by the buyer's characteristics and by the buyer's decision process.

Buyer characteristics include four major factors: cultural, social, personal, and psychological. We

can say that following factors can influence the Buying decision of the buyer:

Cultural

Social

Personal

Psychological

a. Cultural Factors

Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behavior. The marketer

needs to understand the role played by the buyer's culture, subculture, and social class.

I. Culture

Culture is the most basic cause of a person's wants and behavior. Human behavior is largely

learned. Growing up in a society, a child learns basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors

from the family and other important institutions. A person normally learns or is exposed to the

following values: achievement and success, activity and involvement, efficiency and practicality,

progress, material comfort, individualism, freedom, humanitarianism, youthfulness, and fitness and

health.

Every group or society has a culture, and cultural influences on buying behavior may vary greatly

from country to country. Failure to adjust to these differences can result in ineffective marketing or

embarrassing mistakes. For example, business representatives of a U.S. community trying to

market itself in Taiwan found this out the hard way. Seeking more foreign trade, they arrived in

Taiwan bearing gifts of green baseball caps. It turned out that the trip was scheduled a month

before Taiwan elections, and that green was the color of the political opposition party. Worse yet,

the visitors learned after the fact that according to Taiwan culture, a man wears green to signify

that his wife has been unfaithful. The head of the community delegation later noted, "I don't know

whatever happened to those green hats, but the trip gave us an understanding of the extreme

Principles of Marketing MGT301

differences in our cultures." International marketers must understand the culture in each

international market and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.

II. Subculture

Each culture contains smaller subcultures or groups of people with shared value systems based on

common life experiences and situations. Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial groups,

and geographic regions. Many subcultures make up important market segments, and marketers

often design products and marketing programs tailored to their needs. Here are examples of four

such important subculture groups.

III. Social Class

Almost every society has some form of social class structure. Social Classes are society's relatively

permanent and ordered divisions whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors.

Social class is not determined by a single factor, such as income, but is measured as a combination

of occupation, income, education, wealth, and other variables. In some social systems, members of

different classes are reared for certain roles and cannot change their social positions. Marketers are

interested in social class because people within a given social class tend to exhibit similar buying

behavior.

Social classes show distinct product and brand preferences in areas such as clothing, home

furnishings, leisure activity, and automobiles.

b. Social Factors

A consumer's behavior also is influenced by social factors, such as the consumer's small groups,

family, and social roles and status.

I. Groups

Many small groups influence a person's behavior. Groups that have a direct influence and to which

a person belongs are called membership groups. In contrast, reference groups serve as direct (face-

to-face) or indirect points of comparison or reference in forming a person's attitudes or behavior.

Reference groups to which they do not belong often influence people. Marketers try to identify

the reference groups of their target markets. Reference groups expose a person to new behaviors

and lifestyles, influence the person's attitudes and self-concept, and create pressures to conform

that may affect the person's product and brand choices.

The importance of group influence varies across products and brands. It tends to be strongest

when the product is visible to others whom the buyer respects. Manufacturers of products and

brands subjected to strong group influence must figure out how to reach opinion leaders--people

within a reference group who, because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or other

characteristics, exert influence on others.

Many marketers try to identify opinion leaders for their products and direct marketing efforts

toward them. In other cases, advertisements can simulate opinion leadership, thereby reducing the

need for consumers to seek advice from others.

The importance of group influence varies across products and brands. It tends to be strongest

when the product is visible to others whom the buyer respects. Purchases of products that are

bought and used privately are not much affected by group influences because neither the product

nor the brand will be noticed by others.

II. Family

Family members can strongly influence buyer behavior. The family is the most important

consumer buying organization in society, and it has been researched extensively. Marketers are

interested in the roles and influence of the husband, wife, and children on the purchase of different

products and services.

Husband-wife involvement varies widely by product category and by stage in the buying process.

Buying roles change with evolving consumer lifestyles.

Such changes suggest that marketers who've typically sold their products to only women or only

men are now courting the opposite sex. For example, with research revealing that women now

account for nearly half of all hardware store purchases, home improvement retailers such as Home

Principles of Marketing MGT301

Depot and Builders Square have turned what once were intimidating warehouses into female-

friendly retail outlets. The new Builders Square II outlets feature decorator design centers at the

front of the store. To attract more women, Builders Square runs ads targeting women in Home,

House Beautiful, Woman's Day, and Better Homes and Gardens. Home Depot even offers bridal

registries.

Similarly, after research indicated that women now make up 34 percent of the luxury car market,

Cadillac has started paying more attention to this important segment. Male car designers at Cadillac

are going about their work with paper clips on their fingers to simulate what it feels like to operate

buttons, knobs, and other interior features with longer fingernails. The Cadillac Catera features an

air-conditioned glove box to preserve such items as lipstick and film. Under the hood, yellow

markings highlight where fluid fills go.

Children may also have a strong influence on family buying decisions. For example, it ran ads to

woo these "back-seat consumers" in Sports Illustrated for Kids, which attracts mostly 8- to 14-

year-old boys. "We're kidding ourselves when we think kids aren't aware of brands," says Venture's

brand manager, adding that even she was surprised at how often parents told her that kids played a

tie-breaking role in deciding which car to buy.

In the case of expensive products and services, husbands and wives often make joint decisions.

III. Roles and Status

A person belongs to many groups--family, clubs, organizations. The person's position in each

group can be defined in terms of both role and status. A role consists of the activities people are

expected to perform according to the persons around them.

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