website content that consumers will want to share with others.

And, of course, marketers

are monitoring what is going viral to order to determine who is saying what
and to whom. One trend that seems to be emerging is online product reviews being
written by ethnic Canadians. In fact, recent immigrants to Canada are the most likely
to create viral buzz online about their purchases. For example, Asian Canadians tend
to be the first to trumpet or trash a new product by writing online reviews.
On the other hand, rumours about Kmart (snake eggs in clothing), McDonalds
(worms in hamburgers), Corona Extra beer (contaminated beer), and Snickers candy
bars in Russia (a cause of diabetes) have resulted in negative word of mouth, none of
which was based on fact. Overcoming or neutralizing negative word of mouth, especially
electronic or Internet-based word of mouth, is difficult and costly. Marketers
have found that supplying factual information, providing toll-free numbers for consumers
to call the company, giving appropriate product demonstrations, and monitoring
and responding to word-of-mouth activity on the Internet have proven helpful.

Reference Groups
Reference groups are people to whom an individual looks as a basis for self-appraisal
or as a source of personal standards. Reference groups affect consumer purchases
because they influence the information, attitudes, and aspiration levels that help set
a consumers standards. For example, one of the first questions one asks others when
planning to attend a social occasion is, What are you going to wear? Reference
groups have an important influence on the purchase of luxury products but not of
necessitiesreference groups exert a strong influence on the brand chosen when its
use or consumption is highly visible to others.
Consumers have many reference groups, but three groups have clear marketing
implications. A membership group is one to which a person actually belongs, including
fraternities and sororities, social clubs, and the family. Such groups are easily
identifiable and are targeted by firms selling insurance, insignia products, and charter
vacations. An aspiration group is one that a person wishes to be a member of or
wishes to be identified with, such as a professional society. Firms frequently rely on
spokespeople or settings associated with their target markets aspiration group in their
advertising. A dissociative group is one that a person wishes to maintain a distance
from because of differences in values or behaviours.

Family Influence
Family influences on consumer behaviour result from three sources: consumer socialization,
passage through the family life cycle, and decision making within the family
or household.
Consumer Socialization The process by which people acquire the skills, knowledge,
and attitudes necessary to function as consumers is consumer socialization . 30
Children learn how to purchase (1) by interacting with adults in purchase situations,
and (2) through their own purchasing and product usage experiences. Research shows
that children evidence brand preferences at age two, and these preferences often last a
lifetime. 31 As discussed in Chapter 1, this leads many companies to target children at
a very young age in the hopes of developing customers for life.
Family Life Cycle Consumers act and purchase differently as they go through life.
The family life cycle concept describes the distinct phases that a family progresses
through, from formation to retirement, each phase bringing with it identifiable purchasing
behaviours. 32 Figure 56 illustrates the traditional progression as well as contemporary
variations of the family life cycle. Today, the traditional familymarried
couples with children younger than 18 yearsconstitutes less than one-third of all
households. The remaining households include single parents; unmarried couples;
divorced, never-married, or widowed individuals; and older married couples whose
children no longer live at home.
reference groups
People to whom an individual
looks as a basis for selfappraisal
or as a source of
personal standards.
consumer socialization
The process by which people
acquire the skills, knowledge,

and attitudes necessary to

function as consumers.
family life cycle
The distinct phases that a
family progresses through,
from formation to retirement,
each phase bringing with
it identifiable purchasing
behaviours.

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