Chapter 1

Consumers Rule

By Michael R. Solomon

Consumer Behavior
Buying, Having, and Being
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What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer Behavior:
The study of the processes involved when individuals or
groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products,
services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires

Role Theory:
Identifies consumers as actors on the marketplace stage

Consumer Behavior is a Process:

Exchange: A transaction in which two or more
organizations give and receive something of value

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Some Issues That Arise During Stages in

the Consumption Process

Figure 1.1

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Consumers Impact on
Marketing Strategy
Market Segmentation:
Identifies groups of consumers who are similar to
one another in one or more ways and then devises
marketing strategies that appeal to one or more
groups

Demographics:
Statistics that measure observable aspects of a
population
Ex.: Age, Gender, Family Structure, Social Class and
Income, Race and Ethnicity, Lifestyle, and
Geography
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A Lesson Learned
Nike was forced to pull
this advertisement for a
running shoe after
disabilities rights groups
claimed the ads were
offensive.
How could Nike have
done a better job of
getting its message
across without offending
a powerful demographic?

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Market Segmentation
Finely-tuned marketing
segmentation strategies
allow marketers to
reach only those
consumers likely to be
interested in buying
their products.

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Consumers Impact on
Marketing Strategy (cont.)
Relationship Marketing: Building
Bonds with Consumers
Relationship marketing:
The strategic perspective that stresses the long-term,
human side of buyer-seller interactions

Database marketing:
Tracking consumers buying habits very closely, and
then crafting products and messages tailored
precisely to peoples wants and needs based on this
information
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Marketings Impact on Consumers

Marketing and Culture:
Popular Culture:
Music, movies, sports, books, celebrities, and other
forms of entertainment consumed by the mass
market.

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Popular Culture

Companies often create product icons to develop an

identity for their products. Many made-up creatures and
personalities, such as Commander Safeguard etc, which
are widely recognized figures in popular culture.
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Consumer Behavior Involves

Many Different Actors
Consumer:
A person who identifies a need or desire, makes a
purchase, and then disposes of the product
Many people may be involved in this sequence of
events.
Purchaser / User / Influencer

Consumers may take the form of organizations

or groups.

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VDO AD
vdos\Commander Safeguard Complete 5 P
art 1 [www[1].keepvid.com].mp4

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Popular Culture

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VDO ADS
vdos\pepsi call.mp4
vdos\walls noori.mp4

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 Marketers play a significant role in our view of the

world and how we live in it.

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Marketings Impact on Consumers: The

Meaning of Consumption
The Meaning of Consumption:
People often buy products not for what they do,
but for what they mean.
Types of relationships a person may have with a
product:

Self-concept attachment
Nostalgic attachment
Interdependence
Love

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VDO AD
vdos\Coke ad (Coke and Meal, Part1) [
www[1].keepvid.com].mp4

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Discussion Question

What kind of statement does the Nike

Swoosh make?

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Discussion
Question
Discussion
Question
Discussion
Question

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Marketings Impact on Consumers: The

Meaning of Consumption (cont.)

Consumption includes intangible

experiences, ideas and services in
addition to tangible objects.

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Marketings Impact on Consumers: The

Global Consumer
By 2006, the majority of people on earth
will live in urban centers.
Sophisticated marketing strategies
contribute to a global consumer culture.
Even smaller companies look to expand
overseas.

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The Global Consumer

American products like Levi jeans are in
demand around the world.

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The Global Consumer

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Marketings Impact on Consumers:

Virtual Consumption
The Digital Revolution is one of the most
significant influences on consumer behavior.
Electronic marketing increases convenience
by breaking down the barriers of time and
location.
U-commerce:
The use of ubiquitous networks that will slowly but surely
become part of us (i.e., wearable computers, customized
advertisements beamed to cell phones, etc.)

Cyberspace has created a revolution in C2C

(consumer-to-consumer) activity.
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Virtual Brand Communities

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Blurred Boundaries
Marketing and Reality
Marketers and consumers coexist in a
complicated two-way relationship.
Its increasingly difficult for consumers to
discern the boundary between the
fabricated world and reality.
Marketing influences both popular culture
and consumer perceptions of reality.

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Blurred Boundaries
Marketing managers
often borrow imagery
from other forms of
popular culture to
connect with an
audience. This line of
syrups adapts the look
of a pulp detective
novel.
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Marketing Ethics and Public Policy

Business Ethics:
Rules of conduct that guide actions in the
marketplace
The standards against which most people in the
culture judge what is right and what is wrong, good
or bad

Notions of right and wrong differ among

people, organizations, and cultures.

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Needs and Wants:

Do Marketers Manipulate Consumers?
Consumerspace
Do marketers create artificial needs?
Need: A basic biological motive
Want: One way that society has taught us that need can be
satisfied

Are advertising and marketing necessary?

Economics of information perspective: Advertising is an
important source of consumer information.

Do marketers promise miracles?

Advertisers simply dont know enough to manipulate
people.
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Discussion Question
This ad was created
to counter charges
that ads create
artificial needs.
Do you agree with the
premise of the ad?
Why or why not?

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Consumerism

Culture Jamming:
A strategy to disrupt efforts by the corporate world to
dominate our cultural landscape

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Culture Jamming
Adbusters Quarterly
is a Canadian
magazine devoted to
culture jamming. This
mock ad skewers
Benetton.

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Consumerism and
Consumer Research
Green Marketing:
When a firm chooses to protect or enhance the natural
environment as it goes about its activities
Reducing wasteful packaging
Donations to charity

Social Marketing:
Using marketing techniques to encourage positive activities
(e.g. literacy) and to discourage negative activities (e.g.
drunk driving)

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Consumer Related Issues

UNICEF sponsored this advertising campaign against child labor.

The field of consumer behavior plays a role in addressing important
consumer issues such as child exploitation.
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The Dark Side of

Consumer Behavior
Consumer Terrorism:
An example: Susceptibility of the nations food
supply to bioterrorism

Addictive Consumption:
Consumer addiction:
A physiological and/or psychological dependency on
products or services

Compulsive Consumption:
Repetitive shopping as an antidote to tension,
anxiety, depression, or boredom
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The Dark Side of

Consumer Behavior (cont.)
Consumed Consumers:
People who are used or exploited, willingly or not, for
commercial gain in the marketplace

Illegal Activities:
Consumer Theft:
Shrinkage: The industry term for inventory and cash
losses from shoplifting and employee theft

Anticonsumption:
Events in which products and services are
deliberately defaced or mutilated

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Consumer Behavior
As a Field of Study
Consumer behavior only recently a
formal field of study
Interdisciplinary influences on the
study of consumer behavior
Consumer behavior studied by researchers from
diverse backgrounds
Consumer phenomena can be studied in different
ways and on different levels

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The Wheel of Consumer Behavior

Figure 1.3

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