p. 167
PPT 5-15
PPT 5-16
p. 168
PPT 5-17
p. 168
PPT 5-18
Personal Factors
Age and Life Stage. People change the goods and services
they buy over their lifetimes.
Tastes in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often
age-related. Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family
life cycle.
Marketers often define their targets in terms of life-cycle
stage and develop appropriate products and marketing plans
for each stage.
Consumer information giant Nielsen’s PRIZM Lifestage
Groups system places U.S. households into one of 66
consumer segments and 11 life-stage groups based on
affluence, age, and family characteristics.
Life-stage segmentation provides a powerful marketing tool
for marketers in all industries to better find, understand, and
engage consumers.
Occupation. A person’s occupation affects the goods and
services they purchase.
Economic Situation. A person’s economic situation will
affect store and product choice. Marketers watch trends in
spending, personal income, savings, and interest rates.
Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or
her psychographics.
This involves measuring major AIO dimensions such as
activities (work, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events),
interests (food, fashion, family, recreation), and opinions
(about themselves, social issues, business, products). It
profiles a person’s whole patters of acting and interacting in
the world.
Personality and Self-Concept
Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics
that distinguish a person or group.
A brand personality is the specific mix of human traits that
may be attributed to a particular brand. One researcher
p. 167
Photo: Red Kap
p. 168
Key Term: Lifestyle
p. 168
Ad: Title Nine
p. 168
Key Term:
Personality
p. 169
Ad: MINI
PPT 5-19
p. 169
PPT 5-20
PPT 5-21
p. 171
PPT 5-22
p. 172
PPT 5-23
PPT 5-24
identified five brand personality traits:
1. Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and
cheerful)
2. Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date)
3. Competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful)
4. Sophistication (upper class and charming)
5. Ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough)
The basic self-concept premise is that people’s possessions
contribute to and reflect their identities; that is, “we are what
we have.”
Psychological Factors
Motivation
A motive (or drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing to
direct the person to seek satisfaction.
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud suggested that a person’s
buying decisions are affected by subconscious motives that
even the buyer may not fully understand.
Motivation research refers to qualitative research designed to
probe consumers’ hidden, subconscious motivations.
Abraham Maslow sought to explain why people are driven
by particular needs at particular times. He determined that
human needs are arranged in a hierarchal fashion.
Perception is the process by which people select, organize,
and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the
world.
Selective attention is the tendency for people to screen out
most of the information to which they are exposed.
Selective distortion describes the tendency of people to
interpret information in a way that will support what they
already believe.
Selective retention involves retaining information that
supports personal attitudes and beliefs.
Learning describes changes in an individual’s behavior
arising from experience.
p. 169
Key Term:
Motive (Drive)
p. 171
Figure 5.3:
Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs
p. 172
Key Term:
Perception
p. 172
Ad: American
Association of
Advertising
Agencies
p. 173
PPT 5-25
p. 173
PPT 5-26
A drive is a strong internal stimulus that calls for action.
A drive becomes a motive when it is directed toward a
particular stimulus object.
Cues are minor stimuli that determine when, where, and how
the person responds.
Beliefs and Attitudes
A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about
something.
An attitude is a person’s relatively consistent evaluations,
feelings, and tendencies toward an object or idea. Attitudes
are difficult to change.
Review Learning Objective 2: Name the four major factors
that influence consumer buyer behavior.
p. 173
Key Term: Learning
p. 173
Key Terms:
Belief, Attitude
Assignments, Resources
Use Real Marketing 5.2 here
Use Marketing Ethics here
Use Discussion Questions 5-1, 5-2 and 5-4 here
Use Video Case here
Use Outside Example 1 here
PPT 5-27
p. 174
PPT 5-28
PPT 5-29
p. 174
p. 174
List and define the major types of buying decision
behavior and the stages in the buyer decision process.
Buying Decision Behavior and the Buyer Decision
Process
Types of Buying Decision Behavior
Figure 5.4 shows types of consumer buying behavior based
on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of
differences among brands.
Complex Buying Behavior
Consumers undertake complex buying behavior when they
are highly involved in a purchase and perceive significant
differences among brands.
Consumers may be highly involved when the product is
Learning Objective
3
p. 174
Figure 5.4: Four
Types of Buying
Behavior
p. 174
Key Term: Complex
buying behavior
p. 175
p. 175
expensive, risky, purchased infrequently, and highly
self-expressive.
Typically, the consumer has much to learn about the product
category.
Marketers of high-involvement products must understand the
information-gathering and evaluation behavior of
high-involvement consumers.
Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior
Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when
consumers are highly involved with an expensive,
infrequent, or risky purchase, but see little difference among
brands.
After the purchase, consumers might experience
postpurchase dissonance (after-sale discomfort) when they
notice certain disadvantages of the purchased brand or hear
favorable things about brands not purchased.
To counter such dissonance, the marketer’s after-sale
communications should provide evidence and support to help
consumers feel good about their brand choices.
Habitual Buying Behavior
Habitual buying behavior occurs under conditions of low
consumer involvement and little significant brand difference.
Consumer behavior does not pass through the usual
belief-attitude-behavior sequence.
Consumers do not search extensively for information about
the brands, evaluate brand characteristics, and make weighty
decisions about which brands to buy.
They passively receive information as they watch television
or read magazines.
Because buyers are not highly committed to any brands,
marketers of low-involvement products with few brand
differences often use price and sales promotions to stimulate
variety-seeking buying behavior.
p. 174
Key Terms:
Dissonance-reducin
g buying behavior,
Habitual buying
behavior
p. 175
Ad: Bob’s Red Mill
p. 175
Key Term:
Variety-seeking
buying behavior
Consumers undertake variety-seeking buying behavior in
situations characterized by low consumer involvement but
significant perceived brand differences.
In such cases, consumers often do a lot of brand switching.
Assignments, Resources
Use Critical Thinking Exercise 5-6 here
Use Individual Assignment 1 here
Troubleshooting Tip
By and large, students have not been exposed to the
consumer behavior concepts in this chapter before. If
they have taken a sociology or human behavior
course, chances are very high that the concepts were
not presented in a way that allowed the students to
understand them as they apply to business in general
and marketing in particular. After presenting the
concepts of consumer behavior, have the students
discuss the concepts in terms of their own buying
habits, their backgrounds, and how they differ from
others in the class.
p. 175
PPT 5-30
p. 176
PPT 5-31
PPT 5-32
p. 177
PPT 5-33
The Buyer Decision Process
The buyer decision process consists of five stages:
1. Need recognition
2. Information search
3. Evaluation of alternatives
4. Purchase decision
5. Postpurchase behavior
Need Recognition
The buyer recognizes a problem or need triggered by either
internal stimuli or external stimuli.
Information Search
Information search may or may not occur.
Consumers can obtain information from any of several
sources.
Personal sources (family, friends, neighbors,
acquaintances)
Commercial sources (advertising, salespeople, Web
sites, dealers, packaging, displays)
Public sources (mass media, consumer-rating
organizations, Internet searches)
Experiential sources (handling, examining, using the
product)
Commercial sources inform the buyer.
Personal sources legitimize or evaluate products for the
buyer.
Evaluation of Alternatives
Alternative evaluation is how the consumer processes
information to arrive at brand choices.
How consumers go about evaluating purchase alternatives
depends on the individual consumer and the specific buying
situation.
In some cases, consumers use careful calculations and
p. 175
Figure 5.5: Buyer
Decision Process
p. 176
Key Term: Need
recognition
p. 176
Ad: Yelp
p. 176
Key Term:
Information search
p. 177
Key Term:
Alternative
evaluation
p. 177
PPT 5-34
PPT 5-35
p. 154
PPT-5-36
logical thinking.
At other times, the same consumers do little or no
evaluating; instead, they buy on impulse and rely on
intuition.
Purchase Decision
Generally, the consumer’s purchase decision will be to buy
the most preferred brand.
Two factors can come between the purchase intention and
the purchase decision.
1. Attitudes of others
2. Unexpected situational factors
Postpurchase Behavior
The difference between the consumer’s expectations and the
perceived performance of the item purchased determines the
degree of consumer satisfaction.
If the product falls short of expectations, the consumer is
disappointed; if it meets expectations, the consumer is
satisfied; if it exceeds expectations, the consumer is said to
be delighted.
Cognitive dissonance, or discomfort caused by postpurchase
conflict, occurs in most major purchases.
Review Learning Objective 3: List and define the major
types of buying decision behavior and the stages in the buyer
decision process.
p. 177
Key Terms:
Purchase decision,
Postpurchase
behavior
p. 178
Key Term:
Cognitive
dissonance
p. 178
Photo: Customer
Satisfaction
Assignments, Resources
Use Online, Mobile, and Social Media Marketing
here
Use Marketing by the Numbers here
Use Outside Example 2 here
PPT 5-37
p. 178
PPT 5-38
p. 178
p. 179
PPT 5-39
Describe the adoption and diffusion process for new
products.
The Buyer Decision Process for New Products
A new product is a good, service, or idea that is perceived by
some potential customers as new.
The adoption process is the mental process through which an
individual passes from first learning about an innovation to
final adoption. Adoption is the decision by an individual to
become a regular user of the product.
Stages in the Adoption Process
Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting
a new product:
1. Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the new
product, but lacks information about it.
2. Interest: The consumer seeks information about the
new product.
3. Evaluation: The consumer considers whether trying
the new product makes sense.
4. Trial: The consumer tries the new product on a small
scale to improve his or her estimate of its value.
5. Adoption: The consumer decides to make full and
regular use of the new product.
Individual Differences in Innovativeness
People differ greatly in their readiness to try new products.
The five adopter groups have differing values.
1. Innovators are venturesome—they try new ideas at
some risk.
2. Early adopters are guided by respect—they are
opinion leaders in their communities and adopt new
ideas early but carefully.
3. The early mainstream are deliberate—while rarely
leaders, they adopt new ideas before average persons.
4. The late mainstream are skeptical—they adopt an
innovation only after a majority of people have tried
it.
Learning Objective
4
p. 178
Key Terms: New
product, Adoption
process
p. 179
PPT 5-40
p. 180
PPT 5-41
5. Lagging adopters are tradition bound—they are
suspicious of changes and adopt the innovation only
when it has become something of a tradition itself.
People can be classified into the adopter categories shown in
Figure 5.6.
Influence of Product Characteristics on Rate of Adoption
Five characteristics are important in influencing an
innovation’s rate of adoption.
1. Relative advantage: The degree to which the
innovation appears superior to existing products.
2. Compatibility: The degree to which the innovation
fits the values and experiences of potential
consumers.
3. Complexity: The degree to which the innovation is
difficult to understand or use.
4. Divisibility: The degree to which the innovation may
be tried on a limited basis.
5. Communicability: The degree to which the results of
using the innovation can be observed or described to
others.
Review Learning Objective 4: Describe the adoption and
diffusion process for new products.
p. 179
Figure 5.6: Adopter
Categories Based
on Relative Time of
Adoption of
Innovations
Assignments, Resources
Use Discussion Question 5-5 here
Use Critical Thinking Exercises 5-7 and 5-8 here
Use Company Case here
Use Small Group Assignment 2 here
Use Individual Assignment 2 here
Troubleshooting Tip
Explaining that consumer behavior is usually offered
as a course unto itself can relieve some student
anxiety. Also helpful is continually reminding them
of how they can apply this material to better
appreciate their own purchasing motivations. This
can then lead them to recognize how a marketer
could approach understanding consumers’ motives in
general.