Summary of the book Consumer Behavior (Buying, Having and Being ed. 13)
SECTION 1 – Foundations of Consumer Behavior
Chapter 1 Buying, Having and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
Chapter objectives
- 1-1 Consumer behavior is a process
- 1-2 Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of different consumer segments
- 1-3 Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the rest of our lives
- 1-4 Our motivations to consume are complex and varied
- 1-5 Technology and culture create a new “always-on” consumer
- 1-6 Many types of specialists study consumer behavior
- 1-7 There are differing perspectives regarding how and what we should understand about
consumer behavior
1-1 Marketers compare consumers with other consumers by using demographics
à Using descriptive characteristics of a population to categorize consumers by terms of age, gender,
income, or occupation
The conversations we have with others transmit a lot of product information and is influential to
choices. For example, the growth of internet has created online consumption communities, where
members share opinions and recommendations.
Market segmentation strategies, an organization targets its product, service, or idea only to specific
groups of consumers rather than to everybody. They try to connect to a certain consumers lifestyle.
In this lifestyle customers choose often for brand loyalty (difficult to break for competitors)
Consumer behavior
à It is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or
dispose of products, services ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.
- From buyer behavior à ongoing process
- Exchange, transaction in which two organizations or people give and receive something of
value
A consumer is a person who identifies a need or desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of the
product during the three stages of the consumption process
1. Prepurchase
2. Purchase
3. Postpurchase
1-2 The most faithful customers are the heavy users. As a rule of thumb, marketers use the 80/20
rule: 20% of users account for 80% of sales.
Important demographic dimensions.
- Age, i.e., social media is a trend for a specific age group
- Gender
- Family Structure, i.e., older couples and bachelors are most likely to use home maintenance
services
- Social Class and Income, determines which group have the greatest buying power and
market potential
- Race and Ethnicity, i.e., McDonald’s smoothies are based on preferences the companies
discovered in ethnic communities
, - Geography, i.e., different name for a soda in different parts of a country. (pop, coke, soft
drink)
- Lifestyles, knowing what the customers feels, likes, or eats.
- Segmenting by Behavior: Relationships and big Data
à relationship marketing, interact with customers on a regular basis and give them solid
reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time
à database marketing, tracks specific consumers’ buying habits closely and tailors’ products
and messages precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information
à big data, the collection and analysis of extremely large datasets
User-generated content is a marketing phenomenon whereby everyone can voice their opinions
about products, brands and companies on blogs, podcasts, and social network sites.
à creates web 2.0: rebirth of the internet from a one-way transmission from producers to
customers to a social, interactive medium.
1-3 Popular culture is the music, movies, sports, books, celebrities, and other forms of entertainment
that the mass market produces and consumes
Role theory takes the view that much of consumers behavior resembles actions in a play. We as
consumers seek the lines, props, and costumes necessary to put on a good performance.
Types of relationships a person might have with a product:
- Self-concept attachment – the product helps to establish the user’s identity
- Nostalgic attachment – the product serves as a link with a past self
- Interdependence – the product is a part of the user’s daily routine
- Love – the product elicits emotional bonds of warmth, passion, or other strong emotion
1-4 people often buy products not for what they do, but for what they mean.
People choose largely because of their brand images – meaning that have been carefully crafted with
the help of rock stars, athletes, slickly produced commercials, and many millions of dollars
A need is something a person must have to live or achieve a goal. A want is a specific manifestation
of a need that personal and cultural factors determine. i.e., hunger is a need, but the way he or she
chooses to fulfil this need is a want (a burger or a salad)
1-5 Megacity: metropolitan area > 10 million people
Digital native is a new type of student (since 2001) who grew up “wired” in a highly networked,
always-on world where digital technology had always existed.
We’re entering a new era of the Internet of Things (IoT), refers to the growing network of internet
connected devices embedded in objects that speak to one another. We are witnessing in M2M
(machine-to-machine communication) and Artificial intelligence (AI) applications that get better
over time via machine learning i.e., Siri and Alexa.
1-6 A paradigm is a set of beliefs that guide our understanding of the world. There occurs a paradigm
shift when a competing paradigm challenges the dominant set of assumptions. The basic set of
assumptions underlying the dominant paradigm now is positivism (or modernism). Positivism
encourages us to stress the function of objects, to celebrate technology, and to regard the world as a
rational, ordered place with a clearly defined past, present, and future.
The newer paradigm of interpretivism (or postmodernism) questions these assumptions.
, A pastiche is a perspective rejects the value we assign to products because they help us to create
order; instead, its focus on regarding consumption as offering a set of diverse experiences.
Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), this label refers generally to research that regards consumption
from a social and cultural point of view rather than more narrowly as an economic exchange.
1-7 Consumer trends, underlying values that drive customers towards certain products and services
and away from others. Some important trends:
- Sharing economy, avoid ownership, start renting and sharing
- Authenticity and personalization, individualized rather than the mass
- Blurring of gender roles
- Diversity and multiculturalism
- Social shopping, comparing, and looking into reviews
- Income inequality
- Healthy and ethical living
- Simplification, more priority on experiences rather than acquiring things
- Interconnection and the internet of things, growth in consumer trend or smart homes
- Anonymity
Chapter 2 Consumer Well-Being
Chapter objectives
- 2.1 Ethical business is good business
- 2.2 Marketers have an obligation to provide safe and functional products as part of their
business activities
- 2.3 Consumer behavior impacts directly on major public policy issues that confront our
society
- 2.4 Consumer behavior can be harmful to individuals and to society
2.1 Ethical business is good business
Business ethics are rules of conduct that guide actions in the marketplace; these are the standards
against which most people in a culture judge what is right or wrong.
From marketerspace to consumerspace: people feel empowered to choose how, when, or if they will
interact with corporations
A need is a basic biological motive; a want represents one way that society has been taught to satisfy
the need
Products meet existing needs, and marketing activities only helps to communicate their availability
(Economics of Information)
Marketers simply do not know enough about people to manipulate them
SECTION 1 – Foundations of Consumer Behavior
Chapter 1 Buying, Having and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
Chapter objectives
- 1-1 Consumer behavior is a process
- 1-2 Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of different consumer segments
- 1-3 Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the rest of our lives
- 1-4 Our motivations to consume are complex and varied
- 1-5 Technology and culture create a new “always-on” consumer
- 1-6 Many types of specialists study consumer behavior
- 1-7 There are differing perspectives regarding how and what we should understand about
consumer behavior
1-1 Marketers compare consumers with other consumers by using demographics
à Using descriptive characteristics of a population to categorize consumers by terms of age, gender,
income, or occupation
The conversations we have with others transmit a lot of product information and is influential to
choices. For example, the growth of internet has created online consumption communities, where
members share opinions and recommendations.
Market segmentation strategies, an organization targets its product, service, or idea only to specific
groups of consumers rather than to everybody. They try to connect to a certain consumers lifestyle.
In this lifestyle customers choose often for brand loyalty (difficult to break for competitors)
Consumer behavior
à It is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or
dispose of products, services ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.
- From buyer behavior à ongoing process
- Exchange, transaction in which two organizations or people give and receive something of
value
A consumer is a person who identifies a need or desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of the
product during the three stages of the consumption process
1. Prepurchase
2. Purchase
3. Postpurchase
1-2 The most faithful customers are the heavy users. As a rule of thumb, marketers use the 80/20
rule: 20% of users account for 80% of sales.
Important demographic dimensions.
- Age, i.e., social media is a trend for a specific age group
- Gender
- Family Structure, i.e., older couples and bachelors are most likely to use home maintenance
services
- Social Class and Income, determines which group have the greatest buying power and
market potential
- Race and Ethnicity, i.e., McDonald’s smoothies are based on preferences the companies
discovered in ethnic communities
, - Geography, i.e., different name for a soda in different parts of a country. (pop, coke, soft
drink)
- Lifestyles, knowing what the customers feels, likes, or eats.
- Segmenting by Behavior: Relationships and big Data
à relationship marketing, interact with customers on a regular basis and give them solid
reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time
à database marketing, tracks specific consumers’ buying habits closely and tailors’ products
and messages precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information
à big data, the collection and analysis of extremely large datasets
User-generated content is a marketing phenomenon whereby everyone can voice their opinions
about products, brands and companies on blogs, podcasts, and social network sites.
à creates web 2.0: rebirth of the internet from a one-way transmission from producers to
customers to a social, interactive medium.
1-3 Popular culture is the music, movies, sports, books, celebrities, and other forms of entertainment
that the mass market produces and consumes
Role theory takes the view that much of consumers behavior resembles actions in a play. We as
consumers seek the lines, props, and costumes necessary to put on a good performance.
Types of relationships a person might have with a product:
- Self-concept attachment – the product helps to establish the user’s identity
- Nostalgic attachment – the product serves as a link with a past self
- Interdependence – the product is a part of the user’s daily routine
- Love – the product elicits emotional bonds of warmth, passion, or other strong emotion
1-4 people often buy products not for what they do, but for what they mean.
People choose largely because of their brand images – meaning that have been carefully crafted with
the help of rock stars, athletes, slickly produced commercials, and many millions of dollars
A need is something a person must have to live or achieve a goal. A want is a specific manifestation
of a need that personal and cultural factors determine. i.e., hunger is a need, but the way he or she
chooses to fulfil this need is a want (a burger or a salad)
1-5 Megacity: metropolitan area > 10 million people
Digital native is a new type of student (since 2001) who grew up “wired” in a highly networked,
always-on world where digital technology had always existed.
We’re entering a new era of the Internet of Things (IoT), refers to the growing network of internet
connected devices embedded in objects that speak to one another. We are witnessing in M2M
(machine-to-machine communication) and Artificial intelligence (AI) applications that get better
over time via machine learning i.e., Siri and Alexa.
1-6 A paradigm is a set of beliefs that guide our understanding of the world. There occurs a paradigm
shift when a competing paradigm challenges the dominant set of assumptions. The basic set of
assumptions underlying the dominant paradigm now is positivism (or modernism). Positivism
encourages us to stress the function of objects, to celebrate technology, and to regard the world as a
rational, ordered place with a clearly defined past, present, and future.
The newer paradigm of interpretivism (or postmodernism) questions these assumptions.
, A pastiche is a perspective rejects the value we assign to products because they help us to create
order; instead, its focus on regarding consumption as offering a set of diverse experiences.
Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), this label refers generally to research that regards consumption
from a social and cultural point of view rather than more narrowly as an economic exchange.
1-7 Consumer trends, underlying values that drive customers towards certain products and services
and away from others. Some important trends:
- Sharing economy, avoid ownership, start renting and sharing
- Authenticity and personalization, individualized rather than the mass
- Blurring of gender roles
- Diversity and multiculturalism
- Social shopping, comparing, and looking into reviews
- Income inequality
- Healthy and ethical living
- Simplification, more priority on experiences rather than acquiring things
- Interconnection and the internet of things, growth in consumer trend or smart homes
- Anonymity
Chapter 2 Consumer Well-Being
Chapter objectives
- 2.1 Ethical business is good business
- 2.2 Marketers have an obligation to provide safe and functional products as part of their
business activities
- 2.3 Consumer behavior impacts directly on major public policy issues that confront our
society
- 2.4 Consumer behavior can be harmful to individuals and to society
2.1 Ethical business is good business
Business ethics are rules of conduct that guide actions in the marketplace; these are the standards
against which most people in a culture judge what is right or wrong.
From marketerspace to consumerspace: people feel empowered to choose how, when, or if they will
interact with corporations
A need is a basic biological motive; a want represents one way that society has been taught to satisfy
the need
Products meet existing needs, and marketing activities only helps to communicate their availability
(Economics of Information)
Marketers simply do not know enough about people to manipulate them
