CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Marketing Elective
MBA - S3
MODULE - 2
MODULE -2 Syllabus
Environmental Influence on Consumer Behaviour: Culture,
Subcultures. Social Class, Reference Groups, Opinion leadership-
Dynamics of Opinion Leadership Process -Measurement of Opinion
Leadership - Traits and Characteristics of Opinion Leaders -Relevance of
Opinion Leadership for a Marketer, Celebrity Endorsement, Family
Individual Determinants of Consumer Behaviour: Consumer's Needs
& Motivation, Emotions and Mood, Consumer Involvement, Consumer
Learning, Personality, Self-concept and Self-image, Consumer
Perception, Risk and Imagery.
Characteristics of Sub Culture
1. Uniqueness
2. Similarity
3. Exclusion
Types of Sub-culture in Indian Context
1. Nationality Sub-culture
2. Religious Sub- Culture
3. Geographic Sub-culture
4. Racial Sub-culture - USA & India
5. Age Sub-culture
6. Sex as a Sub-Culture
Impact of Sub-culture on Consumer Behaviour
● Unique traditions and behaviours
● Religious affiliation
● Urban, Sub-urban and rural Distinctions
● Consumption as per age group
Determinants of Social Class
1. Income
2. Occupation
3. Education
Dynamics of Opinion Leadership
1. Credibility
2. Information and Advice
3. Category - Specific
4. Two -Way Communication
Relevance of opinion leadership for a marketer
1. Advertising: Process of Stimulation and motivation,
2. Negative WOM ( Word of Mouth): Talk and share their experiences
3. Marketing Research: Tests and studies related to the usage of
product
4. Product Sampling: Sending a sample of particular product to a
customer
5. Retailing/ Personal Selling: Brand's target audience
6. Identifying Opinion Leaders: A list of questions prepared to identify
prospective opinion leaders
Reasons for growing CE
1. Establishment of Credibility
2. Ensured Attention
3. PR ( Public Relation) Coverage
4. Higher degree of Recall
5. Psychographic Connect
6. Demographic Connect
7. Mass Appeal
DISSOLUTION
Factors affecting family purchase decisions
1. Influence by decision stage
2. Influence by employment
3. Influence by gender
Influence of family on purchase decisions
1. Role of family members
2. Role of children
3. Role of spouses
4. Family Life Cycle Stage
5. Role of women
INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS
OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
NEEDS
A customer need is a need that motivates a customer
to purchase a product or service. The need can be
known (i.e., the customer can put it into words) or
unknown, and is the ultimate factor that determines
which solution the customer purchases.
1. Define the Scope
Customer Needs Process
– Mission Statement
2. Gather Raw Data
– Interviews
– Focus Groups
– Observation
3. Interpret Raw Data
– Need Statements
4. Organize the Needs
– Hierarchy
5. Establish Importance
– Surveys
– Quantified Needs
6. Reflect on the Process
– Continuous Improvement
Characteristics of Needs
1. Needs are dynamic
2. Needs exist in a hierarchy
3. Needs are internally or externally aroused
4. Needs arise conflicts
Types of Needs
1. Social Needs
2. Non-Social Needs
3. Functional Needs
4. Symbolic Needs
5. Hedonic Needs
EMOTIONS AND MOODS
What are emotions?
• Intense feelings that are
directed at someone or
something (Robbins and
Judge, 2013)
Features of emotions
• Strong feelings directed
towards some specific
target
• Reactions to an event
• Fleeting (come and go
quickly)
• Action oriented
(energize a person to
act)
Types of Emotions
1. Positive Human Emotions
● Love
● Appreciation
● Happiness
● Hope
● Enthusiasm
● Optimistic
2. Negative Human Emotions
● Fear
● Anger
● Guilt
● Depression
● Pride
● Jealousy
● Frustration
● Envy
What are moods?
• Feelings that tend to be
less intense than
emotions and that lack
a contextual stimulus.
Features of moods
• No specific reason for
the occurrence of
moods
• Long lasting than
emotions
• More experienced at
the cognitive level
The basic emotions
• Rene Descartes identified six basic emotions
1) Wonder
2) Love
3) Hatred
4) Desire
5) Joy
6) Sadness
Sources of emotions and moods
• Personality
• Day of the week and time of the day
• Weather
• Stress
• Social activities
• Sleep
• Exercises
• Age
• Sex
Personality
• Some people are more
prone to certain moods
and emotions
• Individuals differ in
affect intensity –
individual differences in
the strength with which
individuals experience
emotions
Day of the week and time of the
• Worst moods in the
day
beginning of the week and
good moods late in the week
• Some are morning people
and some evening
• Positive affect peaks around
the half point of our sleep
wake cycle
• Negative affect remains
constant throughout the day
Weather
• Only little association
between mood and
weather
• Illusory correlation-
tendency to associate
two events when in
reality there is no
connection
stress
• Effect of stressful events
build over time and
make moods worse
Social activities
• Positive mood increases
with physical (cycling)
or informal activities
(parties)
• People engage in social
interactions more when
they are in positive
mood
sleep
Good sleep has an impact
on moods
Sleep quality affects mood
and increased fatigue puts
workers at health risks of
disease, injury and
depression.
Exercise
• Exercise improves
moods to a certain
extent.
Age
• Negative moods decline
with age
• Positive moods of older
people last longer than
negative moods
Sex (male v/s female)
• Women are more expressive
• Women experience intense
emotions
• Women hold emotions longer
• Women express both positive
and negative emotions more
frequently
• Men experience powerful
emotions (anger) more
frequently than women (fear)
Factors influencing Consumer Involvement
1. Previous Experience
2. Interest
3. Perceived Risk of Negative Consequences
4. Situation
5. Social Visibility
Consumer Learning
Definition of Consumer Learning
According to Martyn Sloman, “Learning is the
process by which a person constructs knowledge,
skills and capabilities”.
According to Sanford, “Learning is a relatively
enduring behaviour change brought about as a
consequence of experience”.
Principles of Consumer Learning
The principles of learning are as follows:
1. Principles of Learning
2. Principle of Association
3. Principle of Effect
4. Principle of Readiness
5. Principle of Intensity
6. Principle of Reinforcement
7. Principle of Recency
1. Principles of learning:
2. Principle of Association
The process in which the pairing of two observations occurs (e.g., “dozen” and
“twelve”) is called association. This results in the arousal of thoughts. i.e., if one
thinks about one, the other comes into the mind simultaneously. Many principles
leave aconsiderable impact on the learning of associations:
i) Contiguity
Some objects are learned together. Such objects tend to correlate them. For
example, if a graphic comprises a diagram which is accompanied by text, then the
text should remind the associated diagram.
ii) Law of Effect
This law illustrates that there is a tendency for repetition of action when it is followed
by a delightful result. For example, a Commissioner appreciates the sub-inspector
for the method by which he handled a difficult arrest of a criminal. As a result, the
inspector links the praise with the arrest method and there is a probability that he
would use the same method again in the future.
iii) Practice
The stability of the association eventually increases with the redundancy of events.
For example, when an individual climbs a hill, again and again, the frequency of the
repetition will make an individual expert in climbing. But there is no guarantee that
only practice can contribute to the stability of the association. However, if some
reward is associated with it, then the reaction arising out of practice becomes more
effective and there is a tendency for its continuation in the future too.
3) Principle of Readiness
Readiness means determination and enthusiasm to acquire knowledge. Individuals,
who apply an enthusiastic approach towards learning, can learn in the best way and
if they lack the desire for learning, they cannot learn properly.
4) Principle of Effect
The emotional response of the learner defines the principle of effect. This principle
advocates that learning is stronger when supported by positive emotions and it is
weaker when supported by negative emotions.
5) Principle of Intensity
A learning exposure that is realistic, effective and pleasurable helps in the
enrichment of teaching, unlike an experience which is usually routine or unexciting.
According to the principle of intensity, the learner grasps more from the realistic
experience rather than experiencing poor substitutions. For example, the learner
who only focuses on reading books to learn about how to fly a plane will not gain
much knowledge as it requires practical learning.
6) Principle of Recency
According to this principle, the things that are learned recently are more likely to be
recalled by the learner. If a learner is acquiring new facts and is far away from old
facts for a long time. Then it is the tendency to forget those old facts if not
reanalysed recently. For example, it is easier to remember what happened
yesterday, but it is difficult to remember what happened a month ago or a year ago.
7) Principle of Reinforcement
Reinforcement is a technique which not only helps in the stability of
reaction but also has a tendency to activate the redundancy of
behaviour that has happened before. However, there is a difference
between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.
Consumer Learning Process
This process includes the below-mentioned phases:
Phase 1: Attention
The first step in the process of consumer learning is attention. The attention of
the customers can be targeted on the learning actions with the help of the
consumer learning process. There will be no learning in the absence of attention
as to bring the information into the active memory and maintain it, the presence
of attention is vital. This is the reason that attention must be maintained
throughout the complete learning process.
Phase 2: Expectancy
After the attention of consumers is grabbed, they expect something good to
occur. This gives birth to different inspirational ideas so that they can also be
involved in the significant phases of the learning process.
Phase 3: Retrieval of Relevant Information to Working Memory
In this stage, the long-term memory is accessed by the consumer to gain new
information or find out the solution to various problems.
Phase 4: Selective Perception
At this stage, the main focus of the customer remains on the main instructions
which are given importance in the presentation. The inability of the consumers
to learn due to improper attention is the result of the impossibility that the
teachers cannot examine the attention of the students just by mere inspection.
Phase 5: Encoding – Entry of Information into Long-Term Storage
Here, the consumer stores the facts and information which have already been
attended to, in the long-term memory, where a relation between the already
stored ones is built.
Phase 6: Responding
All the facts which were stored in the long-term memory are recollected by
the customer in this phase and are strongly used in the various activities. The
correct learning process is evident in the proper execution of work.
Phase 7: Feedback
Here, the level of work satisfaction obtained with the help of knowledge
received during the last stage is determined by the customers. If there is a
positive response to the performance in the feedback encouragement is
provided to the customers.
Phase 8: Cueing Retrieval
Here, all the facts are implemented or recalled by the consumer which was
clear in the previous stages, and then the main focus remains on the fact
preservation or simply the implementation of knowledge.
Sources of Personality
1. Biological Contribution
● Heredity
● Brain
● Physical Features
2. Social Factors
● Home Environment
● Family Members
● Social Groups
3. Cultural Factors
4. Situational Factors
5. Physical Environment
Personality Structure
Consumer Imagery