IV. END–OF-CHAPTER ANSWER GUIDE
Chapter Questions and Activities
QUESTIONS: TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
6.1 What is consumer behavior? Why is it important for marketers to understand consumer behavior?
6.2 Explain habitual decision making, limited problem solving, and extended problem solving. What
is the role of perceived risk in the decision process?
6-3 Explain the steps in the consumer decision-making process?
6-4 What is perception? Explain the parts of the perception process: exposure, attention, and
interpretation. For marketers, what are the implications of each of these components?
Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information from the outside
world. The issues that marketers need to understand during the perceptual
process include:
a. Exposure—the stimulus must be within the range of people’s sensory receptors to be noticed.
b. Interpretation—consumers assign meaning to the stimulus. This meaning is influenced by
c. Attention—is the extent to which mental processing activity is devoted to a particular
stimulus.
6-5 Describe Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as it relates to motivation.
The hierarchy of needs categorizes motives according to five levels of importance, the more basic
6-6 How does gamification influence consumers’ motivation to interact with brands?
Marketers use their understanding of consumer needs for prestige, status, and accomplishment when
.
6-7 What is behavioral learning? What is cognitive learning?
Learning is a relatively permanent change in consumer behavior that is caused by experience or
6-8 What are the three components of attitudes?
6-9 What is personality?
6-10 What is family life cycle?
6-11 Explain what lifestyle means.
6-12 How do situational influences, such as the physical environment and time, shape consumer
purchase decisions?
When, where, and how consumers shop—situational influences—shape their purchase choices. Some
important situational cues are physical surroundings and time pressures. Marketers know that
dimensions of the physical environment, including decor, smells, lighting, music, and even
temperature, influence consumption. Sensory marketing is becoming big business. Specialized
6-13 What are cultures, subcultures, and micro cultures? How do culture, subcultures, and microcultures
influence consumer behavior?
Think of culture as a society’s personality. Culture can be thought of as the learned values and
patterns of behavior that stem from the shared meanings, rituals, and traditions among members of a
6-14 What is the significance of social class to marketers?
6-15 What are reference groups, and how do they influence consumers?
6-16 What are opinion leaders?
6-17 What are gender roles?
Some of the strongest pressures to conform come from our gender roles, society’s expectations
regarding the appropriate attitudes, behaviors, and appearance for men and women. Numerous
products take on masculine or feminine attributes, and consumers often associate them with one
Men’s sex roles are changing too. Men are concerned as never before with their appearance. Men
spend $7.7 billion on grooming products globally each year. In Europe, 24 percent of men younger
6-18. How do B2B markets differ from consumer markets?
Business and organizational customers are usually few in number, may be geographically
concentrated, and often purchase higher-priced products in larger quantities. Businesses purchase
6-19 Explain what we mean by derived demand, inelastic demand, fluctuating demand, and joint demand.
Demand in business markets differs from consumer demand. Most demand for business-to-business
products is derived, inelastic, fluctuating and joint.
Derived Demand
Inelastic demand means that it usually does not matter if the price of a business-to-business product
Fluctuating Demand
Joint demand occurs when two or more goods are necessary to create a product. For example,
6-20 How do we generally classify B2B markets?
Business-to-business markets can be broken into three general categories. The major categories are
producers, resellers, and organizations. NAICS refers to the North American Industry Classification
6-21 Describe the buyclass framework. What are new-task buys, modified rebuys, and straight rebuys?
A buyclass framework identifies the degree of effort required of the firm’s personnel to collect
information and make a purchase decision.
6-22 What is a buying center? What are the roles of the various people in a buying center?
A buying center is a group of people in an organization who influence and participate in particular
purchasing decisions. The various roles played by members of the buying center include:
User: a member of a business-buying center who will actually use a business product.
Initiator: the member of a business buying center that first recognizes that a purchase needs
to be made and notifies others in the organization.
6-23 Explain the steps in the business buying decision process.
The stages in the business buying decision process (see Figure 6.10 for more detail and explanation)
are:
a. Problem Recognition
b. Information Search
c. Evaluation of Alternatives
d. Product and Supplier Selection
e. Postpurchase Evaluation
6-24 What is single sourcing? Multiple sourcing? Outsourcing?
Single sourcing is the process of buying a particular product from only one supplier. Multiple
sourcing is the business practice of buying a particular product from several suppliers. Outsourcing is
6-25 Explain the role of intranets and extranets in B2B e-commerce. Describe the security issues firms face
in B2B e-commerce and some safeguards firms use to reduce their security risks.
An intranet is an internal corporate computer network that uses Internet technology to link company
departments, employees, and databases. They allow companies to process internal transactions with
ACTIVITIES: APPLY WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED
6-26 Creative Homework/Short Project This chapter indicated that consumers go through a series of steps
(from problem recognition to postpurchase evaluation) as they make purchases. Write a detailed report
describing what you as a consumer would do in each of these steps when deciding to purchase one of
the following products:
a. A suit for an upcoming job interview
b. A piece of jewelry to be given to a special friend for his or her birthday
c. A fast-food lunch
d. A Christmas tree
6-27 In Class, 10–25 Minutes for Teams During the last week of class, your professor explains how she
wants to employ a gamification strategy next semester to further motivate and engage students, and
she is asking for your help. Develop a simple gamification strategy that she can use in the classroom.
Describe what the goals should be, how progress will be measured, and what the reward system will
be.
6-28 Creative Homework/Short Project You probably had more than one school in mind before you
ultimately decided on the college or university you are now attending. To better understand how
consumers make decisions, prepare an outline that shows how internal influences like perception,
motivation, and so on had an impact on the decision you made about which school to attend. Include
specific examples for each type of internal influence in your outline.