LECTURE 4 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

CB2601 Marketing
Selina Wan
2020-2021 Semester A

©McGraw-Hill Education.
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

 Describe the 5 stages in the consumer purchase decision

process.
 Distinguish among three variations of the consumer
purchase decision process: extended, limited, and routine
problem solving.
 Identify the major psychological and sociocultural
influences on consumer behavior.

©McGraw-Hill Education.
 MARKETING PLAN PROJECT GUIDELINE (JAN-JUN 2022)

©McGraw-Hill Education.
Why understand consumer behavior is
important to marketer?

Marketers can study actual consumer purchases to find out

what they buy, where, and how much. But learning about

WHYs of consumer buying behavior is not so easy.

What is consumer behavior?

Consumer behavior
The actions a person takes in
purchasing and using products and
services, including the mental and
social processes that come before
and after these actions.
Purchase Decision-Making Process
1. Problem Recognition – perceiving a need
Marketing helps consumers recognize an imbalance
between consumer’s ideal situation and consumer’s
actual situation

When will you purchase a new smartphone?

 Purchase Decision-Making Process
Information Search – seeking value
Internal search – recall information in memory
External search – seek information in outside environment

Personal sources Public sources Marketer- dominated

sources

Sources of
Information
 Purchase Decision-Making Process
Alternative evaluation – assessing value
How the consumer processes information to arrive at brand choices
 Purchase Decision-Making Process
Purchase Decision – buying value

Decide from WHOM to buy

Decide WHEN to buy

OR Not to buy a product at all ….Why?

 Purchase Decision-Making Process
Postpurchase Behavior – Realizing value
Evaluation process of the product after the purchase
Compares it with his or her expectations and is either
satisfied or dissatisfied.
=> if dissatisfied, marketer should determine whether the
product was deficient or consumer expectations were too
high.
 Purchase Decision-Making Process
Cognitive dissonance - the feeling of postpurchase
psychological tension or anxiety
Marketers’ job to comfort buyers that they made the right decision
Reduce dissonance through

-------------------------
-------------------------
-------------------------
Apple Consumer Journey Map and Consumer Touchpoints for Electronic Devices Sold in Apple
Stores

Goal: identify and illuminate “pain points” that

detract from a consumer experience
Is it necessary to go through all the five stages
purchase decision process for all products?
High-involvement purchase
Occasions typically have at least one of
three characteristics:
Is expensive
Can have serious personal consequences
Could reflect on one’s social image
There are three general variations in the consumer purchase decision
process based on consumer involvement and product knowledge…
Consumer Involvement and Marketing Strategy
High Involvement Low Involvement
Influences on the consumer purchase decision process from
both internal and external sources.
 Situation Influences
 Purchase situations will affect the purchase decision process

The purchase task

 The reason for engaging in the decision: own use vs. gifts
Social surroundings
 Others present when making a purchase decisions
Physical surroundings
 E.g. Store décor, music and crowding
Temporal effects
 Time of day or time available
Antecedent states
 The consumer’s mood or cash on hand
Influences on the consumer purchase decision process from
both internal and external sources.
Psychological Factors
1) Motivation – the energizing force that stimulates
behavior to satisfy a need.
=> Sometimes firms try to arouse multiple needs to stimulate
problem recognition

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Personality refers to person’s consistent behaviors or
responses to recurring situations.
Key traits – assertiveness, compliance, dominance, agression etc.
Also revealed in a person’s self-concept:
Actual self-concept (how they see themselves) & Ideal self-concept (how they want
to see themselves)
 So, (1) people’s possessions to some products/brands reflect their identities;
(2) people tend to choose the products/brands that improve their self-image
Psychological Factors
3) Perception – is the process by which an individual selects,
organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of
the world.
 Psychological Factors
i) Selective Perception
A filtering of exposure, comprehension, and retention

Selective exposure
• pay attention to messages that are consistent
with their own attitudes and beliefs / ignore
messages that are inconsistent with them

Selective comprehension
• interpret information that is consistent with a
person’s attitudes and beliefs

Selective retention
• Do not remember all the information they
see, read, or hear, even minutes after
exposure to it
ii) Perceived risk (before purchase!)
Represents the anxiety felt because the consumer
cannot anticipate the outcomes of a purchase but
believes that there may be negative consequences.
E.g.,
Financial risk
Risk of physical harm
Performance risk of the product
Psychosocial risk
4) Learning - those behaviors that result from repeated
experience and reasoning.

i) Behavioral learning – the process of developing automatic

responses to a situation built up through repeated exposure
to it.
Stimulus generalization Good taste
– occurs when a response
elicited by one stimulus Repeated exposure
(cue) is generalized to
another stimulus

Stimulus
From discrimination refers to
BLUE a person’s ability to
perceive differences in
Bottle stimuli
ii) Cognitive learning – consumer learn through thinking,
reasoning, and mental problem solving without direct
experience.
Involves making connections between two or more ideas or simply
observing the outcomes of others’ behaviors and adjusting your own
accordingly.
Benefits of understanding consumer learning:
Brand loyalty – is a favorable attitude toward and consistent
purchase of a single brand over time, which results from the
positive reinforcement of previous actions.

(rewarding LEARNING experience)-> Brand loyalty (habit formation!!)

5) Beliefs and Attitudes

Beliefs – consumer’s subjective perception of how a

product or brand performs on different attributes based on
personal experience, advertising, and discussions with
other people

“What is McCafe coffee?”

McCafe coffee is ______________
McCafe coffee tastes __________

Compared to Starbucks, McCafe

coffee is _________________.
Attitude – is a learned predisposition to respond to an object
or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable
way.
Attitudes are shaped by our values and beliefs, which are learned.

“Do you like McCafe Coffee?

When you evaluate McCafe Coffee,

_______ (a product attribute) becomes
important. If you believe McCafe has
this attribute, you are likely to have a
favourable attitude toward it.
 How can we change consumer attitude ?
“How McCafe changes your attitude from
unfavourable to favourable?”
1. Change beliefs about the
extent to which a brand
has certain attributes
“I think McCafé's coffee is not in high quality!”

2. Change perceived
importance of attributes
“To me, price is not important for me to drink
a premium coffee. If the coffee is made by a
premium coffee brand like Starbucks, I will
definitely purchase it without hesitation for
their high price”.

3. Add new product

“I used to drink Starbucks’ coffee, there is no
reason forattributes
me to choosetoother
thecoffee
product
brand.”
6) Consumer Lifestyle – a mode of living that is identified by how people
spend their time and resources, what they consider important in their
environments, and what they think of themselves and the world around
them.
=> People with different lifestyles receive and process information
differently and exhibit unique media preferences.

Combining psychology, lifestyle, and demographics can be used to uncover

consumer motivations for buying and using products and services
Influences on the consumer purchase decision process from
both internal and external sources.
 Sociocultural factors
1) Personal Influence – a consumer’s purchases are often
influenced by the views, opinions, or behaviors of others.
Two sources:
 i) Personal (e.g., friends/family members) viewed as trustworthy
 ii) Opinion leader - A
person with special skills, knowledge, personality,
or other characteristics, exert social influence on others

Tat Gor ( 達哥 ) is an
opinion leader for
playing video game Moses ( 陳豪 ) is an opinion leader for drinking coffee
 2) Reference groups – people to whom an individual looks as
a basis for self-appraisal or as a source of personal standards.

Associative group– a person

Aspirational Group –
actually belongs
wish to be a member of
or identified with

Dissociative group –
a person wishes to
maintain a distance
A brand community – “HOG” from due to differences
(Harley Owners Group –made up in values or behaviors
of Harley-Davidson fans)
 3) Social Class influence– A person’s occupation, source of
income, and education determine his or her social class
Social class is defined as the relatively permanent,
homogeneous divisions in a society into which people sharing
similar values, interests, and behavior can be grouped.
Three social class categories:
Upper, middle, and lower

Hierarchy of Drinks: Alcohol and Social

Class in Hong Kong (2001) by Dr. Eric Ma
4) Family influence – result from three sources:
i) Consumer socialization – people acquire the skills,
knowledge, and attitudes necessary to function as a
consumer
Children learn how to purchase (1) by interacting with adults
in purchase situations and (2) through their own purchasing
and product usage experiences
ii) Family Life Cycle – Consumers act and purchase
differently as they go through life.

From married to married with children

ii) Family Decision Making– Consumers act and purchase
differently as they go through life.

Two decision making styles:

 Spouse-dominant decisions
 Joint decisions

Family member roles:

 Information gatherer
 Influencer
 Decision maker
 Purchaser
 User
iii) Culture and subculture influences –

Japan subculture
Japan culture - Subgroups within the larger, or national,
culture with unique values, ideas, and attitudes
All in all…
To conduct consumer review for your marketing plan…

1. Identify the consumers who are most likely to buy your product –
the primary target market – in terms of (a) their demographic
characteristics and (b) any other kind of characteristics you
believe are important

2. Describe (a) the main points of differences of your product for

this group and (b) what problem they help solve for the
consumer in terms of the first stage in the consumer decision
process

3. For each of the four outside boxes (marketing mix, psychological,

sociocultural, and situational influences), identify several key
influences with respect to your product 
Takeaway!
The end!