Chapter 05 – Understanding Consumer Behavior
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CHAPTER CONTENTS
PAGE
POWERPOINT RESOURCES TO USE WITH LECTURES ……………………………………. 5-2
LEARNING OBJECTIVES (LO) …………………………………………………………………………….. 5-3
KEY TERMS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5-3
LECTURE NOTES
• Chapter Opener: Enlightened Carmakers Know What Custom(h)ers and Influenc(h)ers
Value …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5-4
• Consumer Purchase Decision Process and Experience (LO 5-1; LO 5-2) ……………… 5-5
• Psychological Influences on Consumer Behavior (LO 5-3)…………………………………. 5-13
• Sociocultural Influences on Consumer Behavior (LO 5-4) ………………………………….. 5-22
APPLYING MARKETING KNOWLEDGE ……………………………………………………………. 5-31
BUILDING YOUR MARKETING PLAN ……………………………………………………………….. 5-33
VIDEO CASE (VC)
• VC-5: Coppertone: Creating the Leading Sun Care Brand …………………………………. 5-34
APPENDIX D CASE (D)
• D-5: Decoding a Purchase Decision …………………………………………………………………. 5-39
IN-CLASS ACTIVITY (ICA)
• ICA 5-1: Buying Process for Starbucks Via™ Refreshers Instant Coffee……………….. 5-41
CONNECT APPLICATION EXERCISES ……………………………………………… 5-45
• Psychological Influences Click and Drag*
• Purchase Decision Process Click and Drag*
• Situational Influences Click and Drag*
• Consumer Lifestyle: VALS Click and Drag*
• Groupon: Helping Consumers with Purchase Decisions Video Case
• iSeeit! Video Case: Consumer Decision Process Video Case
• Understanding Problem-Solving Variations Click and Drag*
• Coppertone Video Case Video Case
*Note: An alternate version of each Click and Drag exercise is available in Connect for students with
accessibility needs.
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POWERPOINT RESOURCES TO USE WITH LECTURES
PowerPoint
Textbook Figures Slide
Figure 5-1 Purchase decision process consists of five stages ………………………………………………….. 5-4
Figure 5-2 Common Consumer Selection Criteria for evaluation of smartphones ……………………… 5-7
Figure 5-3 Comparison of problem-solving variations: extended, limited, and routine ……………… 5-13
Figure 5-4 Apple consumer journey map and consumer touchpoints ………………………………………. 5-17
Figure 5-5 Influences on the consumer purchase decision process come from both internal and
external sources ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 5-18
Figure 5-5 Hierarchy of needs …………………………………………………………………………………………… 5-20
Figure 5-6 Modern family life cycle stages and flows …………………………………………………………… 5-36
Marketing Matters, Making Responsible Decisions, and Marketing Insights
Marketing Matters—Customer Value: How Much is a Satisfied Customer Worth? ……………………. 5-11
Making Responsible Decisions—Ethics: The Ethics of Subliminal Messages …………………………… 5-23
Marketing Insights About Me: Identifying Your VALS Profile: What Motivates You? …………….. 5-30
Marketing Matters—Customer Value: BZZAgent—The Buzz Experience ……………………………….. 5-33
Videos
5-2: Dove Video ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5-32
5-3: Nissan Ad ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5-39
5-4: Coppertone Video Case ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5-42
In-Class Activity (ICA)
ICA 5-1: Buying Process for Starbucks Via™ Refreshers Instant Coffee …………………………………… 5-48
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES (LO)
After reading this chapter students should be able to:
LO 5-1: Describe the stages in the consumer purchase decision process.
LO 5-2: Distinguish among three variations of the consumer purchase decision process: routine,
limited, and extended problem solving.
LO 5-3: Identify the major psychological influences on consumer behavior.
LO 5-4: Identify the major sociocultural influences on consumer behavior.
KEY TERMS
attitude
motivation
beliefs
opinion leaders
brand community
perceived risk
brand loyalty
perception
consumer behavior
personality
family life cycle
purchase decision process
involvement
reference groups
learning
social class
subcultures
word of mouth
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LECTURE NOTES
ENLIGHTENED CARMAKERS KNOW WHAT CUSTOM(H)ERS AND
INFLUENC(H)ERS VALUE
• Women are a driving force in the U.S. automobile industry. Women:
a. Influence 84 percent of new-car buying decisions.
b. Are designers, engineers, and marketing executives.
• Women think and feel differently about key elements of the new-car-buying process
than men.
a. The sense of styling.
• Men are concerned about a car’s exterior lines and accents or “curb appeal.”
• Women are concerned about a car’s interior design and finishes, which:
– Fit their proportions. – Offer ample storage space.
– Provide good visibility. – Make for effortless parking.
b. The need for speed.
• Men think about how many seconds it takes to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour.
c. The substance of safety.
• Men want safety features that help avoid an accident, such as antilock brakes
and responsive steering.
d. The shopping experience.
• Men decide upfront what car they want and set out alone to find it.
• Women approach their car buying behavior as an intelligence-gathering
operation, using “CROPing” or “CRedible OPinions.”
• Before making a purchase decision, women:
– Visit auto-buying websites.
– Read car-comparison articles.
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• Women:
– Dislike the car-buying process, particularly negotiating with car dealer
salespeople.
• Consumer behavior:
a. Consists of the actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and
services.
b. Includes the mental and social processes that come before and after these actions.
• The behavioral sciences answer questions such as:
a. Why do people choose one product or brand over another?
b. How do consumers make these choices?
c. How do companies use this knowledge to provide value to consumers?
I. CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION PROCESS
AND EXPERIENCE [LO 5-1]
[Figure 5-1] The purchase decision process is the five stages a buyer passes through in
making choices about which products and services to buy:
1. Problem recognition. 4. Purchase decision.
2. Information search. 5. Postpurchase behavior.
3. Alternative evaluation.
[ICA 5-1: Buying Process for Starbucks Via™ Ready Brew Instant Coffee]
A. Problem Recognition: Perceiving a Need
• Problem recognition perceives a difference between a person’s ideal and actual
situations big enough to trigger a decision.
• In marketing, advertisements or salespeople:
a. Can activate a consumer’s decision process by…
b. Showing the shortcomings of competing or currently owned products.
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B. Information Search: Seeking Value
After recognizing a problem, a consumer begins to search for information about
which product or service might satisfy the newly discovered need.
• An internal search:
a. Involves scanning one’s memory for previous experiences with products or
brands.
b. Is often sufficient for frequently purchased products.
• An external search:
a. May be necessary when past experience or knowledge is insufficient, or…
b. The risk of making a wrong decision is high, or…
c. The cost of gathering information is low.
• The primary sources of external information are:
a. Personal sources, such as relatives and friends whom the consumer trusts.
b. [Figure 5-2] Public sources, including:
• Product-rating organizations like Consumer Reports.
c. Marketer-dominated sources, such as information from sellers that include:
• Advertising. • Salespeople.
• Company websites. • Point-of-purchase displays in stores.
C. Alternative Evaluation: Assessing Value
• The information stage clarifies the problem for consumers by:
a. Suggesting criteria to use for the purchase.
b. Providing brand names that might meet the criteria.
c. Developing consumer value perceptions.
• A consumer’s evaluative criteria are:
a. Factors that represent both the objective attributes of a brand and the
subjective ones a consumer uses to compare different products and brands.
b. Often mentioned or displayed in advertisements.
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• Consumers often have several criteria for evaluating brands.
a. This establishes the consideration set—the group of brands that a consumer
would consider acceptable from among all the brands in the product class of
which he or she is aware.
b. Consumers can change their evaluative criteria to create a different
consideration set of models and brands if the alternatives are unsatisfactory.
c. Example: Figure 5-2.
• Evaluative criteria:
– A retail price of $700 or less.
D. Purchase Decision: Buying Value
• Having examined the alternatives in the consideration set, two choices remain:
a. From whom to buy is determined by an evaluation of:
• The seller’s terms of sale.
b. When to buy is determined by:
• Whether the product/preferred brand is on sale.
• Whether the manufacturer offers a coupon/rebate.
• The Internet allows consumers to:
a. Gather information.
b. Evaluate alternatives.
c. Make buying decisions.
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• Example: 45 percent of consumers with price comparison smartphone apps:
a. Routinely compare prices for identical products across different sellers…
b. At the point of purchase prior to making a purchase decision.
E. Postpurchase Behavior: Realizing Value
• After buying a product, the consumer:
a. Compares it with his/her expectations and…
b. Is either satisfied or dissatisfied.
• If the consumer is dissatisfied, marketers must determine whether:
a. The product was deficient.
b. Consumer expectations were too high. If expectations are too high:
• A company’s advertising or the salesperson…
• May have oversold the product’s features and benefits.
c. Product deficiency may require a design change.
• Customers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the consumption or use experience
affects consumer communication and repeat-purchase behavior.
a. Satisfied buyers:
• Tell three other people about their experience.
• Tend to buy from the same seller each time a purchase decision arises.
b. Dissatisfied buyers:
c. The financial impact of repeat-purchase behavior can be significant.
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MARKETING MATTERS
Customer Value: How Much Is a Satisfied Customer Worth?
What is the financial value of a loyal customer over time?
• Marketers attempt to calculate this figure to demonstrate how much a satisfied
customer is worth. Some examples:
a. Frito-Lay. Loyal customers in the southwestern U.S buy 21 pounds of snack
chips worth $52.50 annually.
b. Exxon. Loyal customers $500 annually for its gasoline, excluding other
purchases made.
c. Kimberly Clark. Loyal customers buy 6.7 boxes of Kleenex tissues annually,
which translates into $994 over 60 years (in today’s dollars).
• These calculations have focused marketer attention on the buying experience,
customer satisfaction, and retention. Example: Ford Motor Company.
a. Set a target of increasing customer retention, which is…
• The percentage of Ford owners whose…
b. Each additional percentage point is worth a staggering $100 million in profits.
• Research shows that:
a. A 5 percent improvement in customer retention…
b. Can increase profits by 70 to 80 percent!
• The goal of many firms is to focus on postpurchase behavior to:
a. Maximize customer satisfaction, which…
b. Can lead to increased retention.
c. Tools to do this include:
• Provide toll-free telephone numbers.
• Offer liberalized return and refund policies.
• Engage in extensive staff training to
– Handle complaints. – Record suggestions.
– Answer questions. – Solve consumer problems.
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d. Such efforts:
• Produce positive postpurchase communications among consumers.
• Foster relationship building between sellers and buyers.
• Consumers are often faced with two or more highly attractive alternatives when
making a purchase.
a. After purchasing a product, they may have second thoughts and ask the
question, “Should I have purchased this?”
F. Consumer Involvement Affects Problem-Solving [LO 5-2]
• Sometimes consumers don’t engage in the five-stage purchase decision process
depending on their level of involvement.
• Level of involvement.
a. Is the personal, social, and economic significance of the purchase to the
consumer.
b. Consumers may sometimes skip or minimize one or more steps in the
purchase decision process.
c. High-involvement purchases have at least one of three characteristics:
• Is expensive.
• Can have serious personal consequences.
• Could reflect on one’s social image.
• With high involvement purchases, consumers are:
• Low-involvement purchases barely involve any thought.
• [Figure 5-3] There are three general problem-solving variations in the consumer
purchase decision process.
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1. Extended Problem Solving.
a. Each of the five stages of the consumer purchase decision process is used.
• Includes considerable time and effort on external information search.
• Identifies and evaluates the attributes of several brands in the
consideration set.
b. Exists in high-involvement purchases (autos, audio systems, etc.).
2. Limited Problem Solving.
a. Consumers seek some information or rely on friends to evaluate alternative
brands and attributes.
b. Is used in purchase situations that do not merit a great deal of time or effort.
3. Routine Problem Solving.
a. Consumers spend little effort seeking external information and evaluating
alternatives.
4. Consumer Involvement and Marketing Strategy.
a. For low-involvement products whose brands are market share leaders,
marketers should:
• Maintain product quality.
• Avoid stockouts so buyers won’t substitute a competing brand.
• Develop and air repetitive ads that:
b. For low-involvement products whose brands are market challengers,
marketers should break consumer habits by:
• Using free samples, coupons, and rebates to encourage trial of their brand.
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c. For high-involvement products whose brands are market share leaders,
marketers should use:
• Advertising and personal selling.
• Social media to create online experiences for their company or brand.
d. For high-involvement products whose brands are market challengers,
marketers should use:
G. Situational Influences that Affect Purchase Decisions
• Five situational influences impact the consumer’s purchase decision process:
a. Purchase task. The reason for engaging in the decision.
H. Putting the Purchase Decision Process into Practice: Consumer Touch Points
and Consumer Journey Maps.
• “Moments of truth” are:
• The times and places that most influence what, when, where, and how
purchase decisions are triggered;
• Information is sought and evaluated;
• Marketers view the purchase decision process and consumer experience through
the lens of consumer touch points and consumer journey maps.
• Consumer touchpoints are points of contact with a consumer from start to finish
in the purchase decision process.
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• [Figure 5-4] Consumer journey map is a visual of all touch points a consumer
comes into contact with a company’s products, services, or brands—before,
during, and after purchase.
• [Figure 5-5] shows the many influences that affect the consumer purchase
decision process.
• The decision to buy a product also involves important psychological and
sociocultural influences.
LEARNING REVIEW
5-1. What is the first stage in the consumer purchase decision process?
5-2. The brands a consumer considers buying out of the set of brands in a product
class of which the consumer is aware are collectively called the __________.
5-3. What is the term for postpurchase anxiety?
II. PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR [LO 5-3]
• Psychology helps marketers understand why and how consumers behave as they do.
• Concepts such as motivation and personality; perception; learning; values, beliefs,
and attitudes; and lifestyle are useful for interpreting buying processes.
A. Consumer Motivation and Personality
Motivation and personality explain why people do some things and not others.
1. Motivation.
a. Motivation is the energizing force that stimulates behavior to satisfy a need.
b. Marketers try to arouse these needs.
c. [Figure 5-5] These needs are hierarchical, ranging from basic to learned
needs:
• Physiological needs, such as water, food, and shelter, are basic to survival
and must be satisfied first.
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• Safety needs involve self-preservation, such as physical and financial well-
being.
• Social needs are concerned with love and friendship.
[Video 5-1: Match.com Video]
• Personal needs involve the need for achievement, status, prestige, and
self-respect.
• Self-actualization needs involve personal fulfillment.
2. Personality.
a. Personality refers to a person’s consistent behaviors or responses to recurring
situations.
b. Key personality traits:
• Are enduring characteristics within a person or in his or her relationship
with others.
c. A person’s self-concept is the way:
• People see themselves.
• They believe others see them.
d. People:
• Have an actual self-concept (how they see themselves).
B. Consumer Perception
Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets
information to create a meaningful picture of the world.
1. Selective Perception.
a. Is the filtering process of exposure, comprehension, and retention by the
human brain to organize and interpret information.
b. Consists of:
• Selective exposure.
– Occurs when people:
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* Pay attention to messages that are consistent with their own
attitudes and beliefs.
• Selective comprehension.
– Involves interpreting information so that it is consistent with a
person’s attitudes and beliefs.
• Selective retention.
– Means that consumers do not remember all the information they see,
read, or hear, even minutes after exposure to it.
• Subliminal perception.
– Means that people see or hear messages without being aware of them.
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MAKING RESPONSIBLE DECISIONS
Ethics: The Ethics of Subliminal Messages
Embedded messages and images have been a controversial topic for over 50 years.
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has denounced subliminal
messages as deceptive.
• Consumers:
a. Spend $50 million a year for subliminal messages designed to help them raise
their self-esteem, stop compulsive buying, quit smoking, or lose weight.
2. Perceived risk.
a. Represents the anxiety felt because the consumer cannot anticipate the
outcomes of a purchase but believes that there may be negative consequences.
b. Negative consequences of perceived risk include the:
• Size of the financial outlay required to buy the product.
c. Perceived risk affects a consumer’s information search because the greater the
perceived risk, the more extensive the external search is likely to be.
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d. Marketers try to reduce a consumer’s perceived risk and encourage purchases
by using one or more strategies:
• Obtaining seals of approval—Fresh Step’s Good Housekeeping seal.
• Securing endorsements from influential people—Promise soft spread.
C. Consumer Learning
• Much consumer behavior is learned, such as:
a. Information sources to consult about products.
b. Evaluative criteria to use to assess alternatives.
c. How to make purchase decisions.
• Learning: Those behaviors that result from repeated experience and reasoning.
1. Behavioral Learning.
a. Is the process of developing automatic responses to a type of situation built up
through repeated exposure to it.
b. Four variables are key to how consumers learn from repeated experience:
• A drive is a need that moves an individual to action.
c. Marketers use two concepts from behavioral learning theory:
• Stimulus generalization occurs when a response elicited by one stimulus
(cue) is generalized to another stimulus.
• Stimulus discrimination refers to a person’s ability to perceive differences
in stimuli among similar products.
2. Cognitive Learning.
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b. Involves:
• Making connections between two or more ideas.
• Observing the outcomes of others’ behaviors.
• Adjusting one’s own behavior accordingly.
c. Firms influence this type of learning by:
• Using repetitive advertising messages.
3. Brand Loyalty.
a. Is a favorable attitude toward and consistent purchase of a single brand over
time.
b. Relates to habit formation—the basis for routine problem solving.
D. Consumer Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes
These play a central role in consumer decision making and related marketing actions.
1. Attitude Formation.
a. An attitude is a learned predisposition to respond to an object or class of
objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way.
• Attitudes shaped by our values and beliefs, which are learned.
• Values vary by level of specificity and include:
– Core values, such as material well-being and humanitarianism.
– Personal values, such as thriftiness and ambition.
• Marketers are more concerned with personal values, which affect attitudes
by influencing the importance assigned to specific product attributes.
b. Beliefs are a consumer’s subjective perception of how a product or brand
performs on different attributes.
• Beliefs are based on personal experience, advertising, and discussions
with other people.
• Beliefs about product attributes create the favorable or unfavorable
attitudes the consumer has toward certain products, services, and brands.
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2. Attitude Change.
Marketers use three approaches to try to change consumer attitudes toward
products and brands:
a. Changing beliefs about the extent to which a brand has certain attributes—
Hellmann’s mayonnaise Omega 3 content.
E. Consumer Lifestyle
• Lifestyle is a mode of living that is identified by:
a. How people spend their time and resources.
b. What they consider important in their environment.
c. What they think of themselves and the world around them.
• Psychographics:
a. Combines consumer psychology, lifestyle, and demographics to uncover
motivations for buying and using offerings.
• [Figure 5-7] VALS is a psychographic system that identifies eight (8) consumer
segments based on their:
a. Primary motivation for buying and having certain products and services.
b. Resources.
• According to VALS researchers, consumers buy products and services and seek
experiences that give shape, substance, and satisfaction to their lives.
a. Consumers are inspired by one of three primary motivations—ideals,
achievement, and self-expression—that give meaning to them or the world
and govern their activities.
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MARKETING INSIGHTS ABOUT ME
What Motivates You?: Identifying Your VALS Type
d. VALS explains why and how consumers make purchase decisions.
• Ideals-motivated groups. Consumers motivated by ideals are guided by
knowledge and principles. They are divided into two segments:
– Thinkers:
* Are mature, reflective, and educated; value order, knowledge, and
responsibility.
– Believers:
* Have fewer resources.
• Achievement-motivated groups. Consumers motivated by achievement
look for products and services that demonstrate success to their peers or to
a peer group they aspire to. These include:
– Achievers:
* Are busy, goal-directed, and have a deep commitment to career
and family.
– Strivers:
* Are trendy, fun-loving, and less self-confident than achievers.
* Have lower levels of education and household income.