Chapter 4 - Summary - Belch and Belch

§  Consumer behavior can be defined as the process and activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs and desires.

§  The first stage in the consumer decision-making process is problem recognition, which occurs when the consumer perceives a need and becomes motivated to solve the problem. The problem recognition stage initiates the subsequent decision processes.

§  Sources of Problem Recognition

§  Out of Stock

§  Dissatisfaction

§  New Needs/Wants

§  Related Products/Purchases

§  Marketer-Induced Problem Recognition

§  New Products

§  Examining Consumer Motivations

§  To better understand the reasons underlying consumer purchases, marketers devote considerable attention to examining motives—that is, those factors that compel a consumer to take a particular action. Some theories are the Hierarchy of Needs, Psychoanalytic Theory and Motivation Research in Marketing.

§  The second stage in the consumer decision-making process is information search.

§  Once consumers perceive a problem or need that can be satisfied by the purchase of a product or service, they begin to search for information needed to make a purchase decision. The initial search effort often consists of an attempt to scan information stored in memory to recall past experiences and/or knowledge regarding various purchase alternatives. This information retrieval is referred to as internal search.

§  If the internal search does not yield enough information, the consumer will seek additional information by engaging in external search. External sources of information include:

§  Personal sources, such as friends, relatives, or co-workers.

§  Marketer-controlled (commercial) sources, such as information from advertising, salespeople, or point-of-purchase displays and the Internet.

§  Public sources, including articles in magazines or newspapers and reports on TV.

§  Personal experience, such as actually handling, examining, or testing the product.

§  Perception: Knowledge of how consumers acquire and use information from external sources is important to marketers in formulating communication strategies. Marketers are particularly interested in (1) how consumers sense external information, (2) how they select and attend to various sources of information, and (3) how this information is interpreted and given meaning. These processes are all part of perception, the process by which an individual receives, selects, organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world.

§  The evoked set is generally only a subset of all the brands of which the consumer is aware. The consumer reduces the number of brands to be reviewed during the alternative evaluation stage to a manageable level. The exact size of the evoked set varies from one consumer to another and depends on such factors as the importance of the purchase and the amount of time and energy the consumer wants to spend comparing alternatives.

§  Evaluative criteria are the dimensions or attributes of a product or service that are used to compare different alternatives. Evaluative criteria can be objective or subjective. For example, in buying an automobile, consumers use objective attributes such as price, warranty, and fuel economy as well as subjective factors such as image, styling, and performance.

§  Integration processes are the way product knowledge, meanings, and beliefs are combined to evaluate two or more alternatives. Analysis of the integration process focuses on the different types of decision rules or strategies consumers use to decide among purchase alternatives.

§  At some point in the buying process, the consumer must stop searching for and evaluating information about alternative brands in the evoked set and makes a purchase decision. As an outcome of the alternative evaluation stage, the consumer may develop a purchase intention or predisposition to buy a certain brand.

§  The consumer decision process does not end with the purchase. After using the product or service, the consumer compares the level of performance with expectations and is either satisfied or dissatisfied. Satisfaction occurs when the consumer’s expectations are either met or exceeded; dissatisfaction results when performance is below expectations. The post purchase evaluation process is important because the feedback acquired from actual use of a product will influence the likelihood of future purchases.

§  Another possible outcome of purchase is cognitive dissonance, a feeling of psychological tension or post purchase doubt that a consumer experiences after making a difficult purchase choice.

§  Variations in Consumer Decision Making: Marketers of new brands or those with a low market share face a different challenge. They must find ways to disrupt consumers’ routine choice process and get them to consider different alternatives. High levels of advertising may be used to encourage trial or brand switching, along with sales promotion efforts in the form of free samples, special price offers, high-value coupons, and the like.

§  The Consumer Learning Process: consumer learning has been defined as “the process by which individuals acquire the purchase and consumption knowledge and experience they apply to future related behavior.” Two basic approaches to learning are the behavioral approach and cognitive learning theory.

§  Behavioral Approach: Classical conditioning assumes that learning is an associative process with an already existing relationship between a stimulus and a response. Probably the best-known example of this type of learning comes from the studies done with animals by the Russian psychologist Pavlov

§  Cognitive Learning Theory: Behavioral learning theories have been criticized for assuming a mechanistic view of the consumer that puts too much emphasis on external stimulus factors. They ignore internal psychological processes such as motivation, thinking, and perception; they assume that the external stimulus environment will elicit fairly predictable responses. Many consumer researchers and marketers disagree with the simplified explanations of behavioral learning theories and are more interested in the complex mental processes that underlie consumer decision making.

§  Environmental Influences on Consumer Behavior:

§  The broadest and most abstract of the external factors that influence consumer behavior is culture, or the complexity of learned meanings, values, norms, and customs shared by members of a society

§  Subcultures may be based on age, geographic, religious, racial, and/or ethnic differences.

§  Social class refers to relatively homogeneous divisions in a society into which people sharing similar lifestyles, values, norms, interests, and behaviors can be grouped.

§  A reference group is “a group whose presumed perspectives or values are being used by an individual as the basis for his or her judgments, opinions, and actions.” Consumers use reference groups as a guide to specific behaviors, even when the groups are not present

§  The final external factor is the purchase and usage situation. The specific situation in which consumers plan to use the product or brand directly affects their perceptions, preferences, and purchasing behaviors. Three types of situational determinants may have an effect: the specific usage situation, the purchase situation, and the communications situation.