Marketing for Pre-Master
328052-B-6
2021/2022
BLOCK 1
Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Consumer Behaviour
● What is Consumer Behaviour
○ “Consumer behaviour reflects the totality of consumer’s decisions with respect to the
acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences,
people, and ideas by (human) decision-making units (over time)”
○ Offering: a product, service, activity, experience or idea offered by a marketing
organization to consumers
○ Acquisition behaviour: other ways of obtaining goods and services, such as renting,
leasing, trading and sharing. It involves decisions about time and money. Acquisition
methods can be: buying, trading, renting or leasing, bartering, gifting, finding,
stealing (actual theft) and stealing (copying or sharing something)
○ Consumption (usage): the core of consumer behaviour. Whether and why we use
certain products symbolized who we are, what we value and what we believe
○ Disposition: how consumers get rid of an offering they have previously acquired.
Important for marketers to know how to address disposition concerns for profit.
○ Consumer behaviour also involves understanding whether, why, when, where, how,
how much, how often and for how long consumers will buy, use or dispose of an
offering
○ Decisions can be between categories (ex. music vs technology) or brands
● What factors affect it
○ The psychological core (motivation, ability and opportunity; exposure, attention,
perception and comprehension; memory and knowledge, and attitudes about an
offering)
○ The process of making decisions (1.
○ recognition, 2. information search; 3. judgement and decision-making; 4.
post-decision processes)
○ The consumer’s culture (social influences on consumer behaviour; consumer
diversity household and social class influences; psychographics: values, personality
and lifestyles)
■ Culture: the typical or expected behaviours, norms and ideas that
characterize a group of people
■ Reference groups: people whose values are shared and whose opinions one
respects
○ Consumer behaviour outcomes (innovations: adoption, resistance and diffusion;
symbolic consumer behaviour; marketing, ethics and social responsibility in Today’s
Consumer Society)
● Who benefits from studying it
○ Marketing managers
■ “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for
1
, customers, clients, partners and society at large”. Marketing is designed to
provide value to customers.
○ Ethicists and advocates
○ Public policy makers and regulators: consumer research airs in the development of
laws and public policy decisions regarding product safety, amd promotes our general
understanding of how consumers behave and why
○ Consumers
● How marketers apply consumer behaviour concepts
○ Studying consumer behaviour helps marketers understand how to segment markets
and how to decide which to target, how to position an offering and which
marketing-mix tactics will be most effective
Lecture 1
Misconceptions about consumer behaviour:
● Consumers are Sales Figures
● We should trust our intuition
How Companies often think of consumers
How should we think of consumers?
● The Organism is often ignored
2
,What is consumer behaviour?
● Individuals react on the basis of perception, not on the basis of objective reality
● Objective product features are not the same as consumer benefits
○ We need to understand consumers to better satisfy their needs
○ Our intuitions about what consumers perceive, think and will do are often wrong
The Decision Making Unit
● Initiator: recognize value in solving a particular issue and stimulate search for product
● Influencer: while not making the final decision, have input to it
● Decider: make the choice
● Purchaser: consummate the transaction
● User: Consume the product
Which fields does consumer behaviour draw on?
● Cognitive psychology
● Social psychology
● Cultural anthropology
● Economics
● Sociology
Consumer Decision Process Model
1. Need Recognition
a. Recognizing the difference between desired and actual state. Usually there is an
indifference zone and if there is a change in the desired state you go beyond the
3
, indifference zone (life stage changes, new tastes and new technologies). A change in
the actual state could be stock depletion, problem removal or problem avoidance
2. Search for information
a. Internal: retrieval from memory
b. External:
i. Marketer sources: advertising, company websites, stores, salespeople,
brochures
ii. Non-Marketer Sources: other consumers (incl. family and friends), consumer
organizations, government, media
3. Pre-purchase Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Purchase
5. Consumption
6. Post-Consumption Evaluation
7. Disposal
Key takeaways
● Perceptions are different from objective reality
● Objective product features are different from consumer benefits
● Consumer decision process can be broken down in a 7 stage process
● Motivation, opportunity and ability are key determinants of high-effort information
processing and decision making
4
328052-B-6
2021/2022
BLOCK 1
Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Consumer Behaviour
● What is Consumer Behaviour
○ “Consumer behaviour reflects the totality of consumer’s decisions with respect to the
acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences,
people, and ideas by (human) decision-making units (over time)”
○ Offering: a product, service, activity, experience or idea offered by a marketing
organization to consumers
○ Acquisition behaviour: other ways of obtaining goods and services, such as renting,
leasing, trading and sharing. It involves decisions about time and money. Acquisition
methods can be: buying, trading, renting or leasing, bartering, gifting, finding,
stealing (actual theft) and stealing (copying or sharing something)
○ Consumption (usage): the core of consumer behaviour. Whether and why we use
certain products symbolized who we are, what we value and what we believe
○ Disposition: how consumers get rid of an offering they have previously acquired.
Important for marketers to know how to address disposition concerns for profit.
○ Consumer behaviour also involves understanding whether, why, when, where, how,
how much, how often and for how long consumers will buy, use or dispose of an
offering
○ Decisions can be between categories (ex. music vs technology) or brands
● What factors affect it
○ The psychological core (motivation, ability and opportunity; exposure, attention,
perception and comprehension; memory and knowledge, and attitudes about an
offering)
○ The process of making decisions (1.
○ recognition, 2. information search; 3. judgement and decision-making; 4.
post-decision processes)
○ The consumer’s culture (social influences on consumer behaviour; consumer
diversity household and social class influences; psychographics: values, personality
and lifestyles)
■ Culture: the typical or expected behaviours, norms and ideas that
characterize a group of people
■ Reference groups: people whose values are shared and whose opinions one
respects
○ Consumer behaviour outcomes (innovations: adoption, resistance and diffusion;
symbolic consumer behaviour; marketing, ethics and social responsibility in Today’s
Consumer Society)
● Who benefits from studying it
○ Marketing managers
■ “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for
1
, customers, clients, partners and society at large”. Marketing is designed to
provide value to customers.
○ Ethicists and advocates
○ Public policy makers and regulators: consumer research airs in the development of
laws and public policy decisions regarding product safety, amd promotes our general
understanding of how consumers behave and why
○ Consumers
● How marketers apply consumer behaviour concepts
○ Studying consumer behaviour helps marketers understand how to segment markets
and how to decide which to target, how to position an offering and which
marketing-mix tactics will be most effective
Lecture 1
Misconceptions about consumer behaviour:
● Consumers are Sales Figures
● We should trust our intuition
How Companies often think of consumers
How should we think of consumers?
● The Organism is often ignored
2
,What is consumer behaviour?
● Individuals react on the basis of perception, not on the basis of objective reality
● Objective product features are not the same as consumer benefits
○ We need to understand consumers to better satisfy their needs
○ Our intuitions about what consumers perceive, think and will do are often wrong
The Decision Making Unit
● Initiator: recognize value in solving a particular issue and stimulate search for product
● Influencer: while not making the final decision, have input to it
● Decider: make the choice
● Purchaser: consummate the transaction
● User: Consume the product
Which fields does consumer behaviour draw on?
● Cognitive psychology
● Social psychology
● Cultural anthropology
● Economics
● Sociology
Consumer Decision Process Model
1. Need Recognition
a. Recognizing the difference between desired and actual state. Usually there is an
indifference zone and if there is a change in the desired state you go beyond the
3
, indifference zone (life stage changes, new tastes and new technologies). A change in
the actual state could be stock depletion, problem removal or problem avoidance
2. Search for information
a. Internal: retrieval from memory
b. External:
i. Marketer sources: advertising, company websites, stores, salespeople,
brochures
ii. Non-Marketer Sources: other consumers (incl. family and friends), consumer
organizations, government, media
3. Pre-purchase Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Purchase
5. Consumption
6. Post-Consumption Evaluation
7. Disposal
Key takeaways
● Perceptions are different from objective reality
● Objective product features are different from consumer benefits
● Consumer decision process can be broken down in a 7 stage process
● Motivation, opportunity and ability are key determinants of high-effort information
processing and decision making
4
