Chapter#03
Analyzing Consumer Markets
Marketers must have a thorough understanding of how consumers think, feel, and act and offer clear
value to each and every target consumer.
What Influences Consumer Behavior?
Consumer behavior 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 want
CULTURAL FACTORS
Culture, subculture, and social class are particularly important influences on consumer buying behavior.
Culture is the fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Through family and other key
institutions, a child growing up in the United States is exposed to values such as achievement and
success, activity, efficiency and practicality, progress, material comfort, individualism, freedom, external
comfort, humanitarianism, and youthfulness. A child growing up in another country might have a
different view of self, relationship to others, and rituals. Each culture consists of smaller Subcultures that
provide more specific identification and socialization for their members. Subcultures include
nationalities, religions, racial groups, and geographic regions.
Social classes:
Upper uppers
Lower uppers
Upper middles
Middle class
Working class
Upper lowers
Lower lowers
Characteristics of social classes:
Within a class, people tend to behave alike
Social class conveys perceptions of inferior or superior position
Class may be indicated by a cluster of variables (occupation, income, wealth)
Class designation is mobile over time
FAMILY
The family is the most important consumer buying organization in society, and family members
constitute the most influential primary reference group. There are two families in the buyer’s life. The
family of orientation consists of parents and siblings. From parents a person acquires an orientation
toward religion, politics, and economics and a sense of personal ambition, self-worth, and love. Even if
the buyer no longer interacts very much with his or her parents, parental influence on behavior can be
significant. Almost 40 percent offamilies have auto insurance with the same company as the husband’s
parents. A more direct influence on everyday buying behavior is the family of procreation—namely, the
person’s spouse and children.
ROLES AND STATUS
We each participate in many groups—family, clubs, organizations—and these are of ten an important
source of information and help to define norms for behavior. We can define a person’s position in each
group in terms of role and status. A role consists of the activities a person is expected to perform. Each
role in turn connotes a status. People choose products that reflect and communicate their role and their
actual or desired status in society. Marketers must be aware of the status-symbol potential of products
and brands.
PERSONAL FACTORS
Personal characteristics that influence a buyer’s decision include age and stage in the life cycle,
occupation and economic circumstances, personality and self-concept, and lifestyle and values. Because
many of these have a direct impact on consumer behavior, it is important for marketers to follow them
closely
AGE AND STAGE IN THE LIFE CYCLE Our taste in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation is often related
to our age. Consumption is also shaped by the family life cycle and the number, age, and gender of
people in the household at any point in time.
OCCUPATION AND ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES Occupation also influences consumption patterns.
Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have above-average interest in their products and
services and eventail or products for certain occupational groups: Computer software companies,for
example, design different products for brand managers, engineers, lawyers,and physicians.
PERSONALITY AND SELF-CONCEPT We often describe personality in terms of such traits as self-
confidence, dominance, autonomy, deference, sociability, defensiveness, and adaptability. Brands also
have personalities, and consumers are likely to choose brands whose personalities match their own. We
define brand personality as the specific mix of human traits that we can attribute to a particular brand.
LIFESTYLE AND VALUES People from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may adopt quite
different lifestyles. A lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in activities,
interests, and opinions
Key Psychological Processes
The starting point for understanding consumer behavior is the stimulus-response model shown in Figure
6.1. Marketing and environmental stimuli enter the consumer’s consciousness, and a set of
psychological processes combine with certain consumer characteristics to result in decision
processes and purchase decisions. 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.
Four key psychological processes—motivation, perception, learning, and memory—fundamentally
influence consumer responses.
MOTIVATION
We all have many needs at any given time. Some needs are biogenic; they arise from physiological states
of tension such as hunger, thirst, or discomfort. Other needs are psychogenic; they arise from
psychological states of tension such as the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging. A need becomes
a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity to drive us to act. Motivation has both
direction—we select one goal over another—and intensity—we pursue the goal with more or less vigor.
Three of the best-known theories of human motivation—those of Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow,
and Frederick Herzberg—carry quite different implications for consumer analysis and marketing strategy
MASLOW’S THEORY Abraham Maslow sought to explain why people are driven by particular needs at
particular times. His answer is that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy from most to least pressing
—from physiological needs to safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self- actualization needs
(see Figure 6.2). People will try to satisfy their most important need first and then move to the next. For
example, a starving man (need 1) will not take an interest in the latest happenings in the art world (need
5), nor in the way he is viewed by others (need 3 or 4), nor even in whether he is breathing clean air
(need 2), but when he has enough food and water, the next most important need will become salient.
PERCEPTION
A motivated person is ready to act—how is influenced by his or her perception of the situation. In
marketing, perceptions are more important than reality because they affect consumers’ actual behavior.
Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and interpret information inputs to create a
meaningful picture of the world
LEARNING
When we act, we learn. Learning induces changes in our behavior arising from experience. Most human
behavior is learned, though much learning is incidental. Learning theorists believe learning is produced
through the interplay of
drives,
stimuli,
cues,
responses, and
reinforcement.
Emotions:
A brand or product may make a consumer feel proud, excited, or confident. An ad may create feelings of
amusement, disgust, or wonder. Brands like Hallmark, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola have made an
emotional connection with loyal customers for years.
Crafting the Brand Positioning
No company can win if its products and services resemble every other product and offering.
As part of the strategic brand management process, each offering must represent the right kinds
of things in the minds of the target market.
Developing a Brand Positioning
All marketing strategy is built on segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP). A company discovers
different needs and groups of consumers in the market place, targets those it can satisfy in a superior
way, and then positions its offerings so the target market recognizes its distinctive offerings and images.
By building customer advantages, companies can deliver high customer value and satisfaction, which
lead to high repeat purchases and ultimately to high company profitability.
Understanding Positioning and Value Propositions
Positioning is the act of designing a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the
minds of the target market. The goal is to locate the brand in the minds of consumers to maximize the
potential benefit to the firm. A good brand positioning helps guide marketing strategy by clarifying the
brand’s essence, identifying the goals it helps the consumer achieve, and showing how it does so in a
unique way. Everyone in the organization should understand the brand positioning and use it as context
for making decisions.