Chapter 5 - Consumer Markets and Buyer

Behavior

Beyond Meat: Changing Consumer Attitudes

and Behavior, One Burger at a Time
Changing ingrained consumer attitudes and
behaviors can be difficult. But Beyond Meat is off
to a good start with its plant-based meat
products. The Beyond Burger “cooks like a beef
patty. It sizzles, it oozes. And sizzle, we know, is
what sells.”

5.1 Define the consumer market and construct a simple model of

consumer buyer behavior.

Consumer buyer behavior is the buying behavior of final

consumers—individuals and households that buy goods and services
for personal consumption.
Consumer markets are made up of all the individuals and
households that buy or acquire goods and services for personal
consumption.

 A stimulus is something that causes something else to

happen ,develop or become more active. Marketing stimuli
consist of the 4P’s :product ,price , place and promotion. Other
stimuli are major events and forces in the
 environment :economic, technological......All these inputs enter
the buyer black box where they are turned into a set of buyer’s
response :what, how, where and when and which brand to
buy.....
 The marketer has to understand how the stimuli are changed
into responses inside the consumer black box which has 2
parts: the buyer’s characteristics influence how he reacts to
stimuli. and the buyer decision process itself affect the buying
behavior.

5.2 Explore the four major factors that influence consumer buyer
behavior.

1. Cultural Factors

Culture is the set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and

behaviors learned by a member of society from family and other
important institutions.
Subcultures are groups of people within a culture with shared
value systems based on common life experiences and situations.
Marketing to Hispanic American consumers: Select McDonald’s
restaurants in communities with deep Latin roots—here, Miami’s
iconic Little Havana neighborhood— launched Ritmo y Color
McDonald’s (Rhythm and Color McDonald’s) experiences,
transforming local restaurants into vibrant expressions of their
Hispanic roots.
 3 important subculture in the states
 1-Hispanic American consumers: they are deeply family
oriented, make shopping a family affair. Children have a big
saying in brand preferences and they are brand loyal
 2-African American consumers
 They are growing.
 Many companies develop special products for them since they
have high buying power.
 Ford multicultural campaign:”’ Brand new’’
 3-Asian American consumers
 They are well educated. Chinese are the largest group. they
shop frequently and are brand conscious and speak many
languages
Real Marketing 5.1:Micro- Influencers:
Sometimes Smaller Is Better
Instead of paying top dollar to a small
group of mega-influencers, many brands
now are partnering with a larger number
of smaller micro-influencers to give a more
authentic, focused, and affordable voice to
their brand.
2. Groups and Social Networks
GROUPS :
 Reference groups
 Opinion leaders : are people within a reference group who
because of special skills ,knowledge, personality exert social
influence on others
Also called influential's or leading adopters
Marketers use buzz marketing by enlisting or creating opinion
leaders to serve
as brand ambassadors who spread the word about their product.
When they talk consumers listen to them

 Word-of-mouth influence
 Influencer marketing
 Online social networks

Targeting Black American consumers: P&G’s “My Black Is

Beautiful” campaign aims to spark conversation by, for, and
about black women to effect positive change. The campaign helps
 to build positive relationships between P&G brands and black
consumers.

SOCIAL NETWORKS :
•Family is the most important consumer-buying organization in
society and can strongly influence buying behavior. Marketers are
interested in the roles and influence of the husband, wife and
children on the purchase of different products. Men in the Arab
world have three and half times the purchasing power of women.
•Women are evolving in our days....children have an effect....
-Social roles and status .A person belongs to many groups:
family, clubs, and organizations that a person belongs to that can
define role and social status .A role consists of the activities
people are expected to perform according to the persons around
them. Each role carries a status reflecting the general esteem
given to it by society. People choose products appropriate to their
role and status .Ex:role of a 30y old man :he is a brand manager,a
father at home,a football fan...this person requires different kind
of clothes depending on his role and status

3. Personal factors :

•Age and life-cycle stage:

• People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes

• Tastes in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age

related

• Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life-cycle—the

stages through which families might pass as they mature over time.
Marketers develop appropriate products and marketing plans for
each stage. Traditional family life cycle stage include young singles
and married couples with children..now there are a growing number
of alternatives: childless couples, divorced...

-Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her

psychographics(activities ,interests and opinions)

•Measures a consumer’s AIOs (activities, interests, opinions) to

capture information about a person’s pattern of acting and
interacting in the environment.

•Activities: works, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events....

•Interests: food, fashion..
•Opinions: about themselves, social issues.....
•The lifestyle shows how people act and interact in the world.
•Consumers don’t just buy products but they buy the value and
lifestyles this product represent

4. Psychological factors :
 Motivation / Perception / Learning / Beliefs and attitudes.

A motive (or drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing todirect

the person to seek satisfaction of the need.
Motivation research refers to qualitative research designed to
probe consumers’ hidden, subconscious motivations.
Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and
interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
Perceptual Processes :
 Selective attention is the tendency for people to screen out
most of the information to which they are exposed.
 Selective distortion is the tendency for people to interpret
information in a way that will support what they already believe.
ex: if you distrust a company, you might perceive
even honest ads as questionable.
 Selective retention is the tendency to remember good points
made about a brand they favor and forget good points made
about competing brands.

Learning is the change in an individual’s behavior arising

from experience and occurs through the interplay of: • Drives
• Stimuli
• Cues
• Responses
• Reinforcement

A drive is a strong internal stimulus that calls for action. A drive

becomes a motive when it is directed toward a particular stimulus
object ex: a person drive for self actualization might motivate him to
buy a camera. The consumer’s response to the idea of buying a
camera is conditioned by the surrounding cues: they are minor
stimuli that determine when, where and how the person
responds(hear of a special price, talk with a friend...)they will
influence the consumer’s response..suppose that consumer bought
the camera, if the experience is rewarding, the consumer will use
the camera more and more and his response will be reinforced

haracteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior

•-Beliefs and Attitudes influence people behavior. Through
learning, people acquire beliefs
Belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about something
based on: • Knowledge
• Opinion
• Faith
•If some of these beliefs are wrong and prevent purchase, the
marketer will want to launch a campaign to correct them
•Marketers are interested about beliefs that people formulate about
products because these beliefs makeup product and brand images
that affect buying behavior
•Beliefs may or may not carry an emotional charge

Attitudes describe a person’s relatively consistently favorable or

unfavorable evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward an object
or idea. Attitudes put people into a frame of mind of liking or
disliking things, of moving toward or away from them
You have attitudes regarding religion, politics,clothes,music....
Attitudes are difficult to change and may require many adjustments,
so a company should try to fit its products into existing attitudes
rather than trying to change them
Vidalia onion committee :ogres and onions campaigns :Shrek :onions
have layers,ogers have layers too

5.3 Understand the stages in the buyer decision process and the
major types of buying decision behavior.

Types of buying behaviour :

1. Complex buying behavior : It is when consumers are highly
involved and perceive is a significant differences
between brands .Consumers are highly involved when
the product is expensive , risky, purchased infrequently
and highly self expressive. Marketers here must help
buyers to learn about their product and they need to
differentiate it from competing products

2. Dissonance-reducing buying behavior : Is when consumer

are highly involved with an expensive infrequent or
risky purchase but see little difference among brands
ex: buying carpets..consumers shop little bit around and
than buy relatively quickly. After the purchase consumer
might experience post purchase dissonance (after sale
discomfort )when they notice some disadvantages .To
counter that, marketers should provide evidence and
support to help consumers feel good about their brands.
 3. Habitual buying behavior : It is under conditions of low
consumer involvement and little significant brand
difference. Ex : salt.
Consumers do not search for information about the
brands or evaluate brand characteristics ,they just
passively receive information as they watch television
or read magazines. Ad repetition creates brand
familiarity rather than brand conviction: consumers
select a brand because it is familiar. They don’t evaluate
here. Marketers use price and sales promotion to
stimulate product trial.

4. Variety-seeking buying behavior : low consumer

involvement but significant perceived brand differences.
Consumers do a lot of brand switching(ex:buying
cookies) .Brands switching occurs for the sake of variety
and not because of dissatisfaction...Marketers will try to
offer low prices, special deals coupons, free samples....

The buyer’s decision process :

1. Need recognition is the first stage of the buyer decision

process, in which the consumer recognizes a problem or need
triggered by:
- Internal stimuli: hunger,thirst....(it become high enough to
become a drive)
- External stimuli: advertisement, a discussion with a friend.
At this stage ,the marketer should research consumers to find out
what kind of needs or problem arise....

2. Information search is the stage of the buyer decision

process in which the consumer is motivated to search for more
information.
• Sources of information:
– Personal sources: family and friends and acquaintances
– Commercial sources: advertising, Internet, salespeople
– Public sources: mass media, consumer organizations
– Experiential sources: handling, examining, using the product

3. Alternative evaluation is the stage of the buyer decision

process in which the consumer uses information to evaluate
alternative brands in the choice set.
4. Purchase decision is the buyer’s decision about which
brand to purchase. The purchase intention may not be the
purchase decision due to:
 Attitudes of others: (if someone important to you think you
should buy this particular product)
 Unexpected situational factors: .(fist you think of expected
income, expected price than economy turns to worse like a
friend says he was disappointed or competitor has better
prices)

5. •The marketer job does not end when the product is bought.
After purchasing the consumer will be satisfied or dissatisfied
about the purchase. What determines whether the buyer is
satisfied or not :
•Relationship between: Consumer’s expectations and Product’s
perceived performance
•The larger the gap between expectation and performance, the
greater the consumer’s dissatisfaction.

Cognitive dissonance is buyer discomfort caused by

postpurchase conflict.
Postpurchase customer satisfaction is a key to building profitable
customer relationships. Most marketers go beyond merely
meeting the customer expectations—they aim to delight
customers

The Customer Journey

Customer journey: the sum of the ongoing experiences
consumers have with a brand that affect their buying behavior,
engagement, and brand advocacy over time.
By understanding the customer journey, marketers can work to
create brand experiences that will result in positive purchase
behavior, engagement, and brand advocacy over time.

5.4 Describe the adoption and diffusion process for new

products.

The Buyer Decision Process for New Products (1 of 3)

The adoption process is the mental process an individual goes
through from first learning about an innovation to final regular
use.
Stages in the adoption process include:
– Awareness – Interest – Evaluation – Trial – Adoption
 L’Oréal has invested deeply in technologies that make a
customer’s journey as full and fulfilling as possible. The ongoing
aim is “to provide services to our consumers to help them
discover, try, buy, and experience our brands.”
Isaaack/Shutterstock

1. Innovators: First to try new ideas, risk-takers.

2. Early Adopters: Opinion leaders, cautious but quick to adopt.
3. Early Majority: Adopt new ideas before most people.
4. Late Majority: Skeptical, adopt only after many others have.
5. Laggards: Resistant to change, adopt only when it becomes
widely accepted.

Analyzing and Using Marketing Information

Influence of Product Characteristics on Rate of Adoption
 Relative Advantage: How much better the product is
compared to existing options.
 Compatibility: How well the product fits with potential
customers' needs, values, and experiences.
 Complexity: How easy or difficult the product is to understand
and use.
 Trialability: How easily the product can be tested or tried on a
limited basis.
 Observability: How visible the product's benefits are to
others, making it easier for people to see its value.

Communicability: the degree to which the results of using an

information can be observed or described to others
It is the ease with which a product’s benefits or attributes can be
observed, imagined, or described to potential consumers. Products
that have a high degree of social visibility, such as fashion items, are
more easily diffused than products that are used in private, such as
a new type of deodorant. Similarly, a tangible product is promoted
more easily than an intangible product (such as a service).