Summary Consumer Behavior
8 t h Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Consumer
Behavior
Consumer behavior reflects on the totality of consumers’ decisions with
respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services,
activities, experiences, people, and ideas by decision-making over time.
- Offering = Product, service, activity etc. offered by a marketing
organization to consumers.
- Acquisition = The process by which a consumer comes to own the
experience an offering.
The consumer experience is very critical. This part activates when a
consumer acquires an offering and starts the usage. But also, the other
interaction points during the customer journey contribute.
Consumers could dispose an offering, here they get rid of an offering
they have previously acquired. They recycle, give away, sell or lend them
to friends.
Money and Making Financial Decisions
Money is very important to people and can influence the decision making
in multiple ways. There are different attitudes of ways people spend their
money.
1. Stretched spenders – Live paycheck to paycheck and feel anxious
about situation
, 2. Carefree spenders – Live paycheck to paycheck and don’t feel
anxious at all
3. Security seekers – Don’t live paycheck to peycheck, yet feel anxious
about situation
4. Cushioned savers – Don’t live paycheck to paycheck and do not feel
anxious
Attitudes can differ over time and will have an huge impact on the
consumer’ behavior. Adding up to that, consumer behavior can involve
many people and involves many decisions over time.
What offering to acquire/use/dispose
Consumers base their answers on the money they can spend. They
categorize their options; other categories need more money than others.
Also, they choose between brands. When a product is acquired, it could
have multiple reasons.
- Money, materialism
- Personal goals and value
- Conflict
- Acceptance
These motives could also go the other way around, they could become
reasons not to buy a product or service. For consumers transparency of
the company could be very important, because the importance of what the
brand or company stands for is rising.
There are 8 ways to acquire an offering:
1. Buying – Normal way of acquiring a new product
2. Trading – Trading for other good or service
3. Renting or leasing – Instead of buying, consumers rent
4. Bartering – Consumers can exchange goods or services without
having money change hands
5. Gifting – Each society has many gift-giving occasions
6. Finding – Finding goods others have lost
7. Stealing – Stealing product from stores etc.
8. Sharing – Sharing product with friends or family
Besides acquiring an offering there are also ways of disposing an offering:
1. Find a new use for it - Using an old toothbrush to clean rust from
tools
2. Ged rid of it temporarily – Renting or lending an item
3. Get rid of it permanently – Throwing away, sending it to a recycle
centre or selling
1.2 What Affects consumer Behavior?
There are four broad domains that affect consumer behavior: the
phycological core, the process of making decisions, the consumer’s culture
and consumer behavior outcomes.
,1.3 Who Benefits from the Study of Consumer Behavior?
There are five different groups who use consumer research:
- Marketing Managers
They use the information for marketing strategies and tactics. Marketing is
the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers,
clients, partners, and society at large.
- Ethicists and Advocacy groups
Concerned consumers sometimes form advocacy groups to create public
awareness of inappropriate practices. They also influence other consumers
as well as the targeted companies through strategies such as media
statements and boycotts.
- Public Policy Makers and Regulators
It is crucial to develop policies and rules to protect consumers from unfair,
unsafe, or inappropriate marketing practices. Marketers’ decisions are
affected by these public policy actions.
- Academics
They need research and studies to teach courses on the subject and they
conduct research to get knowledge about consumer behavior when they
focus on how consumers act, think, and feel when acquiring, suing, and
disposing offerings.
- Consumers and Society
Protecting their privacy, a better understanding of consumer behavior can
pave the way for programs that benefit society. Research on charitable
donations can help nonprofit groups.
, 1.4 Making Business Decisions Based on the Marketing
Implications of Consumer Behavior
It is very important to design a marketing strategy that provides value
to the customer. Therefore, there are multiple pieces of information you
should know/do research for:
- How is the market segmented?
- How profitable is each segment?
- What are the characteristics of consumers in each segment?
- Are customers satisfied with existing offerings?
After answering the mentioned questions, the next step should take place.
Which is: Developing products. If a new product is developed you should
consider, what the ideas are of consumers for new products, what
attributes can be added or changed in the already existing offerings, how
the offering should be branded and what the package and logo should look
like.
The next step is the positioning. Positioning is profiling the desired
image; the image should reflect what the product is and how it differs from
the competition. To see what the consumers’ attitude is towards rivalling
brands a perceptual map is made. Brands in the same quadrant of the
map are perceived as offering similar benefits to consumers. The closer
companies are to one another on the map, the more similar they are
perceived to be. If or when a brand has become old, marketeers could
consider repositioning the brand and their products.
Making promotion and marketing communication decisions
Research contributes to making decisions about promotional/marketing
communications tools, including advertising, sales, promotions, personal
selling, and public relations. Due to research and general knowledge of the
companies’ segments and customers the following questions should be
answered.
- What are our communication objectives?
Example: Brand-name awareness
- What should our marketing communications look like?
Example: What words and visuals should we use to engage the desired
consumers?
- Where should advertising be placed?
Example: Digital advertising on Facebook
- When should we advertise?
Example: Selling more chocolate in the period before Easter or Christmas
- Has our advertising been effective?
Example: The use of copy testing or pretesting (testing the ad’s
effectiveness before it appears in public).
- What about sales promotion objectives and tactics?
Example: Receive a bigger following on Facebook with a 1-dollar coupon
post on Facebook, active for 2 weeks
- Have our sales promotions been effective?
Example: Compare sales before the advertising and after
8 t h Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Consumer
Behavior
Consumer behavior reflects on the totality of consumers’ decisions with
respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services,
activities, experiences, people, and ideas by decision-making over time.
- Offering = Product, service, activity etc. offered by a marketing
organization to consumers.
- Acquisition = The process by which a consumer comes to own the
experience an offering.
The consumer experience is very critical. This part activates when a
consumer acquires an offering and starts the usage. But also, the other
interaction points during the customer journey contribute.
Consumers could dispose an offering, here they get rid of an offering
they have previously acquired. They recycle, give away, sell or lend them
to friends.
Money and Making Financial Decisions
Money is very important to people and can influence the decision making
in multiple ways. There are different attitudes of ways people spend their
money.
1. Stretched spenders – Live paycheck to paycheck and feel anxious
about situation
, 2. Carefree spenders – Live paycheck to paycheck and don’t feel
anxious at all
3. Security seekers – Don’t live paycheck to peycheck, yet feel anxious
about situation
4. Cushioned savers – Don’t live paycheck to paycheck and do not feel
anxious
Attitudes can differ over time and will have an huge impact on the
consumer’ behavior. Adding up to that, consumer behavior can involve
many people and involves many decisions over time.
What offering to acquire/use/dispose
Consumers base their answers on the money they can spend. They
categorize their options; other categories need more money than others.
Also, they choose between brands. When a product is acquired, it could
have multiple reasons.
- Money, materialism
- Personal goals and value
- Conflict
- Acceptance
These motives could also go the other way around, they could become
reasons not to buy a product or service. For consumers transparency of
the company could be very important, because the importance of what the
brand or company stands for is rising.
There are 8 ways to acquire an offering:
1. Buying – Normal way of acquiring a new product
2. Trading – Trading for other good or service
3. Renting or leasing – Instead of buying, consumers rent
4. Bartering – Consumers can exchange goods or services without
having money change hands
5. Gifting – Each society has many gift-giving occasions
6. Finding – Finding goods others have lost
7. Stealing – Stealing product from stores etc.
8. Sharing – Sharing product with friends or family
Besides acquiring an offering there are also ways of disposing an offering:
1. Find a new use for it - Using an old toothbrush to clean rust from
tools
2. Ged rid of it temporarily – Renting or lending an item
3. Get rid of it permanently – Throwing away, sending it to a recycle
centre or selling
1.2 What Affects consumer Behavior?
There are four broad domains that affect consumer behavior: the
phycological core, the process of making decisions, the consumer’s culture
and consumer behavior outcomes.
,1.3 Who Benefits from the Study of Consumer Behavior?
There are five different groups who use consumer research:
- Marketing Managers
They use the information for marketing strategies and tactics. Marketing is
the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers,
clients, partners, and society at large.
- Ethicists and Advocacy groups
Concerned consumers sometimes form advocacy groups to create public
awareness of inappropriate practices. They also influence other consumers
as well as the targeted companies through strategies such as media
statements and boycotts.
- Public Policy Makers and Regulators
It is crucial to develop policies and rules to protect consumers from unfair,
unsafe, or inappropriate marketing practices. Marketers’ decisions are
affected by these public policy actions.
- Academics
They need research and studies to teach courses on the subject and they
conduct research to get knowledge about consumer behavior when they
focus on how consumers act, think, and feel when acquiring, suing, and
disposing offerings.
- Consumers and Society
Protecting their privacy, a better understanding of consumer behavior can
pave the way for programs that benefit society. Research on charitable
donations can help nonprofit groups.
, 1.4 Making Business Decisions Based on the Marketing
Implications of Consumer Behavior
It is very important to design a marketing strategy that provides value
to the customer. Therefore, there are multiple pieces of information you
should know/do research for:
- How is the market segmented?
- How profitable is each segment?
- What are the characteristics of consumers in each segment?
- Are customers satisfied with existing offerings?
After answering the mentioned questions, the next step should take place.
Which is: Developing products. If a new product is developed you should
consider, what the ideas are of consumers for new products, what
attributes can be added or changed in the already existing offerings, how
the offering should be branded and what the package and logo should look
like.
The next step is the positioning. Positioning is profiling the desired
image; the image should reflect what the product is and how it differs from
the competition. To see what the consumers’ attitude is towards rivalling
brands a perceptual map is made. Brands in the same quadrant of the
map are perceived as offering similar benefits to consumers. The closer
companies are to one another on the map, the more similar they are
perceived to be. If or when a brand has become old, marketeers could
consider repositioning the brand and their products.
Making promotion and marketing communication decisions
Research contributes to making decisions about promotional/marketing
communications tools, including advertising, sales, promotions, personal
selling, and public relations. Due to research and general knowledge of the
companies’ segments and customers the following questions should be
answered.
- What are our communication objectives?
Example: Brand-name awareness
- What should our marketing communications look like?
Example: What words and visuals should we use to engage the desired
consumers?
- Where should advertising be placed?
Example: Digital advertising on Facebook
- When should we advertise?
Example: Selling more chocolate in the period before Easter or Christmas
- Has our advertising been effective?
Example: The use of copy testing or pretesting (testing the ad’s
effectiveness before it appears in public).
- What about sales promotion objectives and tactics?
Example: Receive a bigger following on Facebook with a 1-dollar coupon
post on Facebook, active for 2 weeks
- Have our sales promotions been effective?
Example: Compare sales before the advertising and after
