CHAPTER 4: Opinion leaders — people within a

reference group who, because of

CONSUMER MARKETS AND CONSUMER
special skills, knowledge,
BUYER BEHAVIOR
personality, or other characteristics,
exert social influence on others.
 Buzz marketing involves enlisting or
Model of Consumer Behavior
even creating opinion leaders to
Consumers make many buying decisions serve as “brand ambassadors” who
every day, and the buying decision is the spread the word about a company’s
focal point of the marketer’s effort. product.
 Online Social Networks. Over the
past few years, a new type of social
Characteristics Affecting Consumer interaction has exploded onto the
Behavior scene—online social networking.
Online social networks are online
1. Cultural Factors. Exert a broad and deep
communities where people socialize
influence on consumer behavior. Marketers
or exchange information and
need to understand the role played by the
opinions.
buyer’s culture, subculture, and social class.
- Family. Family members can strongly
- Culture. It is the most basic cause of a
influence buyer behavior. The family is the
person’s wants and behavior. Human
most important consumer buying
behavior is largely learned.
organization in society, and it has been
2. Social Factors. A consumer’s behavior researched extensively.
also is influenced by social factors, such as
- Roles and Status. A person belongs to
the consumer’s small groups, family, and
many groups—family, clubs, organizations,
social roles and status.
online communities. The person’s position
- Groups and Social Networks. Many small in each group can be defined in terms of
groups influence a person’s behavior. both role and status.
Groups that have a direct influence and to
3. Personal Factors. A buyer’s decisions also
which a person belongs are called
are influenced by personal characteristics
membership groups. In contrast, reference
such as the buyer’s age and life-cycle stage,
groups serve as direct (face-to-face) or
occupation, economic situation, lifestyle,
indirect points of comparison or reference
and personality and self-concept.
in forming a person’s attitudes or behavior.
- Age and Life-Cycle Stage. People change
 Word-of-Mouth Influence and Buzz
the goods and services they buy over their
Marketing. The personal words and
lifetimes.
recommendations of trusted friends,
associates, and other consumers - Occupation. A person’s occupation affects
tend to be more credible than those the goods and services bought. Blue-collar
coming from commercial sources, workers tend to buy more rugged work
such as advertisements or clothes, whereas executives buy more
salespeople. business suits.
- Economic Situation. A person’s economic - Learning. Learning describes changes in an
situation will affect his or her store and
individual’s behavior arising from
product choices.
experience.
- Lifestyle. Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of
living as expressed in his or her
psychographics. - Beliefs and Attitudes.
It involves measuring consumers’ major AIO  A belief is a descriptive thought that
dimensions— activities (work, hobbies, a person has about something.
shopping, sports, social events), interests Beliefs may be based on real
(food, fashion, family, recreation), and knowledge, opinion, or faith and
opinions (about themselves, social issues, may or may not carry an emotional
business, products). charge. Attitude describes a
person’s relatively consistent
evaluations, feelings, and tendencies
- Personality and Self-Concept. Personality toward an object or idea.
refers to the unique psychological
characteristics that distinguish a person or
Types of Buying Decisions Behavior
group.
Complex Buying Behavior.
3. Psychological Factors. A person’s buying
choices are further influenced by four major Consumers undertake complex buying
psychological factors: motivation, behavior when they are highly involved in a
perception, learning, and beliefs and purchase and perceive significant
attitudes. differences among brands. For example, a
PC buyer may not know what attributes to
- Motivation. A need becomes a motive
consider.
when it is aroused to a sufficient level of
intensity. A motive (or drive) is a need that
is sufficiently pressing to direct the person
Habitual Buying Behavior.
to seek satisfaction.
Occurs under conditions of low-consumer
- Perception. Perception is the process by
involvement and little significant brand
which people select, organize, and interpret
difference. For example, take table salt.
information to form a meaningful picture of
the world. People can form different Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior.
perceptions of the same stimulus because
Occurs when consumers are highly involved
of three perceptual processes:
with an expensive, infrequent, or risky
 selective attention purchase but see little difference among
 selective distortion, and brands.
 selective retention.
For example, consumers buying carpeting
may face a high-involvement decision
because carpeting is expensive and self
expressive.
Variety-Seeking Buying Behavior. Stage 4: Purchase Decision. In the
evaluation stage, the consumer ranks
Consumers undertake variety-seeking
brands and forms purchase intentions.
buying behavior in situations characterized
Generally, the consumer’s purchase
by low consumer involvement but
decision will be to buy the most preferred
significant perceived brand differences. In
brand.
such cases, consumers often do a lot of
brand switching. Stage 5: Postpurchase Behavior. The
marketer’s job does not end when the
For example, when buying cookies, a
product is bought. After purchasing the
consumer may hold some beliefs, choose a
product, the consumer will either be
cookie brand without much evaluation, and
satisfied or dissatisfied and will engage in
then evaluate that brand during
postpurchase behavior of interest to the
consumption.
marketer.
The answer lies in the relationship between
The Buyer Decision Process the consumer’s expectations and the
product’s perceived performance.
Stage 1: Need Recognition. The buying
process starts with need recognition—the
buyer recognizes a problem or need.
Internal stimuli when one of the person’s
normal needs—for example, hunger or
thirst.
External stimuli. For example, an
advertisement or a discussion with a friend
might get you thinking about buying a new
car.
Stage 2: Information Search. An interested
consumer may or may not search for more
information. If the consumer’s drive is
strong and a satisfying product is near at
hand, he or she is likely to buy it then. If
not, the formation and the importance of
each source.
Stage 3: Evaluation of Alternatives. We
have seen how consumers use information
to arrive at a set of final brand choices. How
does the consumer choose among
alternative brands.