Download Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior
1. Cultural Factors
a. Culture
Set of values, perception, preferences and behaviors.
 These things determine a person’s wants and behavior.
b. Subculture
 It provides more specific identification and socialization for their
members
 It includes nationalities, religions, racial groups and geographic
regions
 Subculture makes up important market segments
c. Social Class
These are relatively homogeneous and enduring divisions in a society, which
are hierarchically ordered and whose members share similar values,
interests, and behavior
Features of social classes are:
 Those within each social class tend to behave more alike than persons
from two different social classes.
 Persons are perceived as occupying inferior or superior positions
according to social class
 Social class is indicated by a cluster of variables. E.g. Occupation,
income, wealth, education and value orientation, rather than by any
single variable
 Individuals can move from one social class to another, up or down
during their lifetime
 Social classes show distinct product and brand preferences in many
areas.
2. Social Factors
a. Reference Groups
Consist of all the groups that have a direct or indirect influence on the
person’s attitudes or behavior
 Groups having a direct influence on a person are called membership
groups
 People are also influenced by groups to which they do not belong.
Aspirational groups are those the person hopes to join, Dissociative
groups are those whose values or behavior an individual rejects.
Membership Groups
Primary Groups
(With whom the person interacts fairly
continuously and informally)
E.g. Family, Friends, Neighbors
Secondary Groups
(More formal and require less
continuous interaction)
E.g. Religious, Professional Group
Reference groups influence in following ways:
 Reference groups expose an individual to new behaviors and lifestyles
 They influence attitudes and self-concept
 They create pressures for conformity that may affect actual product and brand
choices
* Marketers should reach and influence the opinion leaders in the reference groups.
Opinion Leader is the person in informal product related communications who offers
advice or information about a specific product or product category, such as which of
several brands is best or how a particular product may be used.
b. Family
Family of Orientation
(One’s Parents)
Family of Procreation
(One’s Spouse & Childern)
* Marketer need to determine which member normally has the greater influence in
choosing various products.
c. Roles and Statuses
A role consists of the activities that a person is expected to perform. Each role
carries a status.
 People choose products that communicate their role and status in society
 Marketers are aware of the status symbol potential of products and
brands
3. Personal Factors
a. Age and Stage in the Life Cycle
 Family Life Cycle: Bachelor Stage, Newly married couples, Full Nest I,
Full Nest II, Full Nest III, Empty Nest I, Empty Nest II, Solitary
Survivor.
 Psychological Life-Cycle Stages
b. Occupation and Economic Circumstance
Occupation:
 Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have aboveaverage interest in their products and services
 A company can even specialize its products for certain occupational
groups
Economic Circumstances:
 Spendable Income (Level, Stability and time pattern)
 Savings and Assets (Liquid Asset %age)
 Debts, Borrowing Powering
 Attitude toward spending versus saving
c. Lifestyle
A lifestyle is the person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in
activities, interests and opinions.
Psychographics: It is the science of measuring and categorizing consumer
lifestyles. VALS (Value And Life Styles) framework has been the only
commercially available psychographics segmentation system to gain
widespread acceptance. Classification according to this:
Group
Actualizers
Fulfillers
Features of Consumer
Type of product they
purchase
Successful, Sophisticated, Upscale,
niche-oriented
Active
products
Mature,
Satisfied, Durability,
Functionality,
Comfortable, Reflective
and value in products
Achievers
Experiencers
Successful, Career and work
oriented
Young, Vital, Enthusiastic,
Impulsive and rebellious
Believers
Conservative, Conventional
& Traditional
Makers
Practical,
Self-sufficient,
Traditional, Family-oriented
Strugglers
Elderly,
Concerned,
constrained
Passive,
Resource
Established,
Prestige
products
High proportion of their
income on clothing, fast
food, music and movies
Familiar
products
that
emulate the purchases of
those with greater material
wealth
Products with practical or
functional purpose such as
tools, utility vehicles
Cautious customers who are
loyal to favorite brands.
First Four- Groups with greater resources
Last Four- Groups with fewer resources
d. Personality and Self-Concept
Personality means distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to
relatively consistent and enduring responses to environment.
 Personality is usually described in terms of traits as self-confidence,
dominance, autonomy, sociability, defensiveness and adaptability
 Personality can be a useful variable in analyzing consumer behavior
provided strong correlations exist between certain personality types and
product or brand choices.
Self Concept
Actual Self-Concept
Ideal Self-Concept
Others Self-Concept
* Marketers try to develop brand images that match the target market’s self-image.
* Which self will she try to satisfy in making a purchase?
4. Psychological Factors
a. Motivation
Motive is a need that is sufficiently pressing to drive the person to act
Biogenic Needs: Arise from physiological states of tension such as hunger,
thirst and discomfort
Psychogenic Needs: Arise from psychological states of tension such as need for
recognition, esteem or belonging.
Theories of Motivation
i. Freud’s Theory
 Psychological forces shaping people’s behavior are largely
unconscious and that a person cannot fully understand his or her
own motivations.
 When a person examines specific brands, he or she will react not
only to their stated capabilities but also to other, less conscious
cues.
 Motivation researchers collect in-depth interviews to uncover
deeper motives triggered by a product. They use techniques like
work association, sentence completion, picture interpretation and
role-playing.
ii. Maslow’s Theory
 Physiological Needs: Food, Water, Shelter
 Safety Needs: Security, Protection
 Social Needs: Sense of belonging, love
 Esteem Needs: Self-esteem, Recognition, Status
 Self-Actualization Needs: Self-development, Realization
Being Needs
Self Actualization
Esteem Needs
Belonging Needs
Safety Needs
Physiological Needs
Deficit Needs
iii. Herzberg’s Theory
 It is two factor theory: Dissatisfiers (factors that cause
dissatisfaction) and Satisfiers (factors that cause satisfaction)
 The absence of dissatisfiers is not enough; satisfiers must be
actively present to motivate a purchase
Implications of Herzberg’s Theory:
 Seller should do their best to avoid dissatisfiers
 Manufacturer should identify the major satisfiers or motivators of
purchase in the market and then supply them.
b. Perception
Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organizes and
interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the
world
 How the motivated person actually acts is influenced by his or
her perception of the situation
 People can emerge with different perceptions of the same object
because of three perceptual processes:
i. Selective Attention
A person cannot possibly attend to all of the stimuli, so most of them
are screened out- a process called selective attention
 People are more likely to notice stimuli that relate to a current
need.
 People are more likely to notice stimuli that they anticipate
 People are more likely to notice stimuli whose deviations are
large in relation to the normal size of the stimuli.
* Marketers have to work hard to attract consumer’s notice
i. Selective Distortion
It is the tendency to twist information into personal meanings and
interpret information in a way that will fit our preconceptions.
ii. Selective Retention
It means we are likely to remember good points mentioned about a
product we like and forget good points mentioned about competing
products.
c. Learning
Learning involves changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience
 Learning theorists believe that learning is produced through the interplay
of drives, stimuli, cues, responses and reinforcement.
 Drive: Strong internal stimulus impelling action
 Cues: Minor stimuli that determine when, where, and how a person
responds
 Some people generalize response to similar stimuli
 But some use discrimination- person has learned to recognize differences
in sets of similar stimuli and can adjust responses accordingly.
 Learning theory teaches marketers that they can build up demand for a
product by associating it with strong drives, using motivating cues, and
providing positive reinforcement.
d. Beliefs and Attitudes
Belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds about something
 These beliefs make up product and brand images and people act on their
images
 If some beliefs are wrong, manufacturer has to launch a campaign to
correct these beliefs
Several country-of-origin studies have found the following:
 The impact of country of origin varies with the type of product. E.g. Car
and lubricating oil.
 Certain countries enjoy a reputation for certain goods. E.g. Japan for
automobiles
 Sometimes the country-of-origin perception can extend beyond certain
products and encompass an entire country’s products. E.g. American
products are perceived as prestigious.
 The more favorable a country’s image, the more prominently the “Made
in…….” label should be displayed in promoting the brand.
 Attitude toward country of origin can change over time.
* Company can consider co-production with a foreign company that has a better name.
An attitude is a person’s enduring favorable or unfavorable evaluations, emotional
feelings, and action tendencies toward some object or idea.
 Attitude lead people to behave in a fairly consistent way toward similar objects
 So a company would be well advised to fit its product into existing attitudes rather
than to try to change people’s attitudes.