Agenda

 Article discussion
 Chapter 5 Consumer Decision Making
 Chapter 6 Business Marketing
 Harley Davidson Project
 Assignment: Exam!
 Study the concepts on the PP as they
relate to the book. Know your
definitions!
 Chapter 5
Consumer Decision
Making
 Chapter Objectives
 Understand the consumer decision-
making process.
 Explain the consumer’s post-purchase
evaluation process.
 Discuss the significance of consumer
involvement.
 Identify and understand the cultural
factors, social factors, individual
factors, and psychological factors that
affect consumer buying decisions.
 Consumer Behavior
 Consumer behavior is the process
a consumer uses to make
purchase decisions, as well as to
use and dispose of purchased
goods and services; also includes
factors that influence purchase
decisions and product use.
 Consumer Decision-
Making Process
 A five step process used by
consumers when buying goods and
services.
 Need recognition
 Information search

 Evaluation of alternatives

 Purchase

 Post-purchase behavior
 Need Recognition
 A need recognition is a result of an imbalance
between actual and desired states.
 Need recognition is triggered when a consumer is
exposed to either an internal or an external stimulus.
 Stimulus is any unit of input affecting one or more of
the five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing.
 Marketers can also create wants. Wants are the
recognition of an unfulfilled need and a product that will
satisfy it.
 Information Search
 Internal information search is the process of
recalling past information stored in the memory.
 External information search is the process of
seeking information in the outside environment.
 Non-marketing controlled information search
is a product information source that is not
associated with advertising or promotion.
 Marketing controlled information search is a
product information source that originates with
marketers promoting the product.
 Evoked set (consideration set) is a group of
brands resulting from an information search, from
which a buyer can choose.
 Evaluation of
Alternatives
 Pick an attribute; eliminate all
products/services not meeting that
attribute.
 Use cutoffs or minimum or maximums.
 Rank the attributes in order of
importance and then evaluate the
products/services on the most
important attributes
 Post-purchase Behavior
 Expectations are met—satisfied.
 Expectation not met—dissatisfied.
 Reduce those lingering doubts.
 Cognitive dissonance: inner tension
that a consumer experiences after
recognizing an inconsistency between
behavior and values or opinions.
 Reduce this with information;
communicate with the customer.
 Consumer Involvement
 Involvement: The amount of time and effort a buyer
invests in the search, evaluation, and decision
processes of consumer behavior.
 Routine response behavior: The type of decision
making exhibited by consumers buying frequently
purchased, low-cost goods and services; requires
little search and decision time.
 Limited decision making: The type of decision
making that requires a moderate amount of time for
gathering information and deliberating about an
unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category.
 Extensive decision making: The most complex
type of consumer decision making, used when buying
an unfamiliar, expensive product or an infrequently
bought item; requires use of several criteria for
evaluating options and much time for seeking
information.
 Continuum of Consumer
Buying Decisions
Routine Limited Extensive
Involvement low low/mod. high
Time short short/mod. long
Cost low low/mod. high
Info. Search internal mostly internal internal/external

# of Alternatives one few many

 Factors Determining the
Level of Consumer
Involvement
 Previous experience
 Interest
 Perceived risk of negative
consequences
 Situation
 Social visibility
 Marketing Implications of
Involvement
 High involvement purchases:
 Extensive and informative promotion
 Low involvement purchases:
 In-store promotion is important
 Coupons, cents-off deals, and 2 for 1
offers
 Link to a higher-involvement issues (low
in fat or cholesterol)
 Factors Influencing
Consumer Buying Decisions
 Cultural influences (culture and values,
subculture, social class)
 Social influences (reference groups, opinion
leaders, family)
 Individual influences (gender, age, family,
personality, self-concept, lifestyle)
 Psychological influences (perception, motivation,
learning, beliefs and attitudes)
 Cultural Influences
 Culture: the set of values, norms,
attitudes, and other meaningful
symbols that shape human behavior
and the artifacts, or products, of that
behavior as they are transmitted from
one generation to the next.
 Culture is pervasive.
 Culture is functional.
 Culture is learned.
 Culture is dynamic.
 Cultural
Influences/Subculture
 Subculture: A homogenous group of
people who share elements of the
overall culture as well as unique
elements of their own group.
 Cultural
Influences/Social Class
 Social Class: a group of people in a
society who are considered nearly equal
in status or community esteem, who
regularly socialize among themselves
both formally and informally, and who
share behavioral norms.
 Measured as a combination of occupation,
income, education, wealth, and other
variables.
 U.S. Social Classes
 Capitalist class
 Upper middle class
 Middle class
 Working class
 Working poor
 Underclass
Social Influences/Reference
Groups
 Reference group : a group in society that
influences an individual’s purchasing
behavior.
 Primary membership group: (direct)
regular interaction, informal, face-to-face
(friends, family)
 Secondary membership group: (direct)
less consistent, more formal (clubs, religion,
professional group)
 Aspirational group: a group you would like
to join
 Non-aspirational group: a group you do
not want to associate with
 Social Influences/Opinion
Leaders
 Opinion leader: an individual who
influences the opinions of others.
 Social Influences/Family
 Socialization process: how cultural
values and norms are passed down
to children.
 Individual
Influences/Gender
 Men and women have different
needs
 Men and women shop differently
 Changing roles of men and women in
society
 Individual Influences/Age
and Family Life Cycle Stage
 The age of a consumer generally
indicates what products they are
interested in.
 Consumers are often defined in terms
of their family life cycle:
 Young singles
 Young married with children
 Middle-aged married without children
 Lifelong singles
 Childless couples
 Individual
Influences/Personality,
Self-Concept, and Lifestyle
 Personality: a way of organizing and grouping the
consistencies of an individual’s reactions to situations.
 Self-concept: self perception, how consumers
perceive themselves. Self-concept combines:
 Ideal self image: the way an individual would like to be.
 Real self image: the way an individual actually perceives
himself or herself.
 Lifestyle: a mode of living as identified by a person’s
activities, interests, and opinions. (Psychographics)
 Psychological
Influences/Perception
 Perception: the process by which people select,
organize, and interpret stimuli into a meaningful
and coherent picture.
 Selective exposure: the process whereby a
consumer notices certain stimuli and ignores
others.
 Selective distortion: a process whereby a
consumer changes or distorts information that
conflicts with his or her feelings or beliefs.
 Selective retention: a process whereby a
consumer remembers only that information that
supports his or her personal beliefs.
 Psychological
Influences/Motivation
 Motive: a driving force that causes a
person to take action to satisfy
specific needs. (Hungry=Eat)
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: a
method of classifying human needs
and motivations into 5 categories in
ascending order of importance:
physiological, safety, social, esteem,
and self-actualization.
 Psychological
Influences/Learning
 Learning: a process that creates changes in
behavior, immediate or expected, through
experience and practice.
 Experiential: when experience changes your behavior
 Conceptual: learned but not through direct experience
 Stimulus generation: a form of learning that occurs
when one response is extended to a second stimulus
similar to the first.
 Stimulus discrimination: a learned ability to
differentiate among similar products.
 Psychological
Influences/Beliefs and
Attitudes
 Beliefs: an organized pattern of
knowledge that an individual holds as
true about his or her world.
 Attitude: a learned tendency to
respond consistently toward a given
object.