Chapter 5
CONSUMER MARKETS AND
BUYER BEHAVIOR
MARKETING STARTER: CHAPTER 5
Lenovo: Understanding Customers and Building Profitable Relationships
Synopsis
Lenovo’s marketers spend a great deal of time thinking about customers and their buying behavior. The company
highly values the input of its customers and tracks it accordingly. By listening and communicating constantly with
their customers and taking into consideration their input when it comes to product development and improvement,
Lenovo has been successful in building emotional relationships with its customers. Lenovo set up its own discussion
forums and actively asked customers to share their ideas, experiences, and tips with Lenovo’s product, design, and
development teams. By doing so, Lenovo was able to better connect with its customers and provide even better
customer service. The company has positively shaped and influenced customers’ perceptions of Lenovo’s brand
personality by trying to listen to them and understand them.
Discussion Objective
A focused 10-minute discussion of the Lenovo story will help students appreciate the various factors that affect how
customers feel about, buy, and consume products. The goal is to explore the reasons why customers buy Lenovo
products, and what the product adds to their lives. Because of its efforts to create emotional connections with its
customers, Lenovo has fostered a loyal fan base. It is likely that some of your students will know about Lenovo’s
products, and a few may have their own stories to share with the class. You will want to capitalize on these students’
testimonials as you explore the brand together.
Starting the Discussion
Start this discussion by asking students what Lenovo is really selling its customers in addition to the main product.
What are the unique customer insights that have fueled Lenovo’s continued growth? What does Lenovo understand
about its customers better than the competition? Tour the Lenovo website at http://www.lenovo.com/. Note the ways
in which the website connects with customers and how easy it is to navigate to community boards and discussions.
Discussion Questions
1. In addition to the main products, what is Lenovo selling its customers? How does this product enable users
to engage more with the company? (Ultimately, Lenovo has positively influenced its customers’ perceptions
of its products, and its two-way dialogue has resulted in more satisfactory outcomes for them.)
2. What is it about Lenovo’s engagement that engenders such loyalty customers? (Engagement with Lenovo’s
customers does not stop when a product is purchased. Lenovo has actively asked customers to share their
ideas, user experience, and tips with Lenovo’s teams. By doing so, Lenovo was able to better connect with
its customers and provide even better customer service.)
3. How does the chapter-opening story relate to the major concepts in the consumer behavior chapter? (The
story highlights the depth of factors that affect how consumers think, feel, and act toward brands. Lenovo
really understands what makes consumers tick and, as a result, delivers an exceptional brand experience to
loyal consumers. Keep the Lenovo example active as you discuss characteristics affecting consumer
behavior, types of buying decision behavior, the buyer decision process, and other chapter topics.)
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Use Power Point Slide 5-1 Here
In this chapter, we continue our marketing journey with a closer look at the most important
element of the marketplace—customers.
The goal of marketing is to affect how customers think about and behave toward the organization
and its market offerings. But to affect the whats, whens, and hows of buying behavior, marketers
must first understand the whys.
We look first at final consumer buying influences and processes and then at the buying behavior
of business customers.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
Use Power Point Slide 5-2 here
1. Define the consumer market and construct a simple model of consumer buyer behavior.
2. Name the four major factors that influence consumer buyer behavior.
3. List and define the major types of buying decision behavior and stages in the buyer decision
process.
4. Describe the adoption and diffusion process for new products.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
p. 156 INTRODUCTION
Lenovo’s business model is built on customer satisfaction,
innovation, and operational efficiency. Lenovo’s product
design and engineering teams listen to their customers
through various channels.
The company is quick to respond to their customers and
takes their input into consideration, as when customers
complained about the removal of the TrackPoint buttons
from the ThinkPad.
Lenovo continuously focuses on exceeding customer
expectations and creating customer delight. Its success is
owed to a large extent to its efforts to broaden conversations
and discussions with consumers.
p. 157
Photo: Lenovo
Opening Vignette Questions
1. How does Lenovo successfully differentiate itself
from its competitors in today’s crowded
electronics marketplace?
2. How does Lenovo distinguish itself in customer
engagement?
3. How has Lenovo succeeding in understanding its
customers and expanding the appeal of its
products?
p. 158
PPT 5-3
PPT 5-4
Define the consumer market and construct a simple
model of consumer buyer behavior.
Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of
final consumers—individuals and households who buy
goods and services for personal consumption.
All of these consumers combine to make up the consumer
market.
The American consumer market consists of more than 323
million people.
Learning Objective
1
p. 158
Key Terms:
Consumer buyer
behavior, Consumer
market
Assignments, Resources
Use Critical Thinking Exercise 5-6 here
Use Small Group Assignment 1 here
p. 158
PPT 5-5
Model of Consumer Behavior
The central question for marketers is: How do consumers
respond to various marketing efforts the company might use?
The starting point is the stimulus-response model of buyer
behavior shown in Figure 5.1.
Marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price,
place, promotion.
Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s
environment: economic, technological, social, and cultural.
The marketer wants to understand how the stimuli are
changed into responses inside the consumer’s “black box,”
which has two parts.
1. The buyer’s characteristics influence how he or she
perceives and reacts to the stimuli.
2.
3. The buyer’s decision process itself affects the buyer’s
behavior.
4.
p. 159
Figure 5.1: Model
of Buyer Behavior
Review Learning Objective 1: Define the consumer market
and construct a simple model of consumer buyer behavior.
p. 159
PPT 5-6
Name the four major factors that influence consumer
buyer behavior.
Learning Objective
2
PPT 5-7
p. 159
PPT 5-8
p. 159
PPT 5-9
p. 161
p. 162
PPT 5-10
PPT 5-11
Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior
Cultural Factors
Culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and
behavior.
Marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts.
Subcultures are groups of people with shared value systems
based on common life experiences and situations.
The U.S. Hispanic market consists of more than 55 million
consumers.
More than 44 million African-American consumers wield
nearly $1.3 trillion in annual buying power.
Asian Americans are the most affluent U.S. demographic
segment.
Many marketers now embrace a total market strategy—the
practice of including ethnic themes and cross-cultural
perspectives within their mainstream marketing.
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 but is
measured as a combination of occupation, income,
education, wealth, and other variables.
Major American social classes:
Upper Class
Middle Class
Working Class
Lower Class
Social classes show distinct product and brand preferences in
areas such as clothing, home furnishings, travel and leisure
activities, financial services, and automobiles.
p. 159
Figure 5.2: Factors
Influencing
Consumer Behavior
p. 159
Key Term: Culture
p. 159
Key Term:
Subculture
p. 159
Photo: Toyota
p. 161
Ad: U.S. Forest
Service
p. 162
Photo:
Bloomingdale’s
p. 161
Key Term: Total
market strategy
p. 162
Key Term: Social
Class
Assignments, Resources
Use Discussion Question 5-3 here
Use Additional Project 1 and 2 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 1 to 3 here
p. 162
PPT 5-12
PPT 5-13
p. 164
PPT 5-14
p. 166
Social Factors
Groups and Social Networks. A person’s behavior is
influenced by many small groups, including membership
groups, aspirational groups, and reference groups.
Marketers use word-of-mouth influence and buzz
marketing to spread the word about their brands.
Opinion leaders are people within a reference group who,
because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or other
characteristics, exert social influence on others.
This small percentage of Americans is referred to as the
influentials or leading adopters.
Online social networks are online communities where
people socialize or exchange information and opinions.
Family. The family is the most important consumer buying
organization in society.
Forty-one percent of men identify themselves as
primary grocery shoppers in their households, and 39
percent handle most of their household’s laundry.
Women account for 60 percent of all new technology
purchases and influence more than 80 percent of all
new car purchases.
The nation’s kids and tweens influence an estimated
$1.2 trillion of spending annually.
Roles and Status. A role consists of the activities people are
expected to perform. Each role carries a status reflecting the
general esteem given to it by society.
p. 162
Key Term: Group
p. 163
Key Term:
Word-of-mouth
influence, Opinion
leader
p. 163
Key Term: Online
social networks
p. 164
Photo: Dunkin’
Donuts
p. 165
Photo: Disney
p. 166
Photo: Family
buying influences
Assignments, Resources
Use Real Marketing 5.1 here
Use Additional Project 3 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 4 here