SUMMARY
COURSE: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND MARKETING ACTION
BOOK: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR (7TH ED.)
ALSO INCLUDES:
DIJKSTERHUIS, ET. AL (2006). ON MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE.
HUIZENGA, ET. AL. (2012) FOUR EMPIRICAL TESTS OF UNCONSCIOUS THOUGHT THEORY
LAMMERS, H. B. (2000). EFFECTS OF DECEPTIVE PACKAGING AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT ON
PURCHASE INTENTION
HOLLAND ET. AL (2005). SMELLS LIKE CLEAN SPIRIT.
GREENWALD, A.G., MCGHEE, D.E. & SCHWARTZ, J.K.L. (1998). MEASURING IN INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICIT COGNITION.
RAMBARAN, J.A., DIJKSTRA, J.K. MUNNIKSMA, A. CILLESSEN, A.H.N. (2015). THE
DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENTS’ FRIENDSHIPS AND ANTIPATHIES.
AGHAKHANI, H. & MAIN, K.J. (2019). CAN TWO NEGATIVES MAKE A POSITIVE? SOCIAL
EXCLUSION PREVENTS CARRYOVER EFFECTS FROM DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING.
LAPIERRE, M.A. (2015). DEVELOPMENT AND PERSUASION UNDERSTANDING: PREDICTING
KNOWLEDGE OF PERSUASION/SELLING INTENT FROM CHILDREN’S THEORY OF MIND.
BY: ESMÉE LIEUW ON
ESMEE LIEUW ON 1
, WEEK 1: INTRODUCTIONS
Chapter 1
● Marketers find it useful to categorize consumers in terms of age, gender, income, occupation →
descriptive characteristics of a population, a.k.a. demographics
● Knowledge of consumer characteristics plays an extremely important role in many marketing
applications, such as when a manufacturer defines the market for a product or an ad agency decides on
the appropriate techniques to employ when it targets a certain group of consumers
● Consumption communities = members share opinions and recommendations about anything from
baseball fantasy league team lineups to iPhone apps
❖ Could lead to peer pressure to reject or actually buy things for group approval
● Market segmentation strategies = an organization targets its product/service/idea only to specific
groups of consumers rather than to everybody
● Brands often have clearly defined images that advertising, packaging, branding and other marketing
elements help to shape
❖ People often purchase a product because they like its image or because its ‘personality’
corresponds with their own
❖ Even people can be considered a ‘brand’ that others like or not
❖ When products/services satisfy people’s needs/desires, it leads to brand loyalty (= a bond
between product and consumer that is difficult for competitors to break)
● Consumer behavior = the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups
select/purchase/use or dispose of products/services/ ideas/experiences to satisfy needs and desires
❖ Ongoing process
❖ The exchange (= transaction in which 2 or more organizations/people give and receive
something of value) is an important part of CB (expanded view on this process includes issues
that influences the consumer before/during/after a purchase)
❖ Consumer = a person who identifies a need/desire, makes a purchase, and then disposes of
the product during the 3 stages of the consumption process
● Organizations exist to satisfy needs → Marketers can satisfy these needs only to the extent that they
understand the people/organizations that will use the products and services they sell (why we need
to study CB)
● No longer mass culture → every consumer has different preferences and thus requires an infinite
number of choices
❖ Important to identify distinct market segments and to develop specialized messages/products
for these groups
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,● Heavy users → 80/20 rule: 20% of the users account for 80% of the sales
● One’s lifestyle, even if shared demographic characteristics such as gender or age, will determine which
products are attractive to us
● The philosophy of relationship marketing is interacting with consumers on a regular basis, give them
solid reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time
● Database marketing tracks specific consumers’ buying habits closely and tailors products and
messages precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information
● In this very moment, people are generating massive amounts of information that holds tremendous
value for marketers → we are buried by data that come from many sources → this collection and
analysis of large datasets is called Big Data
● Companies, nonprofits, political parties, governments have the ability now to sift through massive
quantities of information that enables them to make precise predictions about what products we will
buy, charities we’ll donate to, what candidates we will vote for etc. & what incentives we need to make
it more likely to happen
● Biggest marketing phenomenon of this decade: user-generated content (UGC) = everyone can voice
their opinions about products, brands, companies on blogs, podcasts, social media
❖ Led to Web 2.0 = rebirth of the internet from one-way transmission from producers to
consumers to a social, interactive medium
● Ads show us how we should act and how to evaluate others based on the products based on the
products they (don’t) buy → reliance on marketers to tell consumers what is safe and performs as
promised
● Popular culture (music, movies, sports, books etc.) = a product of and inspiration for marketers,
influencing how people view cultural events to social issues
● The sociological perspective of role theory takes the view that much of CB resembles actions in a play
→ What kind of relationship does a person hold with a product?
❖ Self-concept attachment = the product helps establish user’s identity
❖ Nostalgic attachment = the product serves a link with past self
❖ Interdependence = the product is part of user’s daily routine
❖ Love = the product elicits emotional bonds of warmth, passion, or other strong emotion
● “People often by products not for what they do, but for what they mean” → the basic function is
important, but the roles products play in our lives extend well beyond the tasks they perform
● The difference between wanting and needing something:
❖ A want is a specific manifestation of a need that personal and cultural factors determine
❖ A need is something a person must have to live or achieve a goal
❖ Ex. hunger is a need, a lack of food creates a tension state that a person is motivated to reduce
● “Always-on consumer” → has instant access to people, places, products with the click of a button
❖ Leads to certain advances:
★ Digital natives (= growing up ‘wired’ in a highly networked, always-on world where
digital technology had always existed)
★ Electronic marketing (= doing tasks like shopping, reading a newspaper, checking
the weather are possible now)
★ The era of The Internet of Things (IoT) (= refers to growing network of
interconnected devices embedded in objects that speak to one another, ex.
autonomous vehicles or ‘smart’ homes)
★ Revolution in M2M (= machine-to-machine communication)
★ Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets better over time with machine learning
● One general way in which we classify consumer research is in terms of the fundamental assumptions
the researchers make about what they study and how they study it
❖ A set of beliefs that guide our understanding of the world is a paradigm (dominates the
discipline of consumer behavior)
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, ❖ The basic set of assumptions underlying the dominant paradigm at this point in time is
positivism
★ Human reason is supreme and there is a single, objective truth that science can
discover
★ Encourages celebration of technology, to regard the world as a rational, ordered place
with clear past/present/future
❖ The newer paradigm of interpretivism questions these assumptions
★ Argue that our society emphasizes science and technology too much, ignoring the
complexities of the social and cultural world in which we really live
★ Stress the importance of symbolic, subjective experiences and the idea that meaning
is in the mind of the person (no right or wrong answers because everyone perceives
differently)
● Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) refers generally to research that regards consumption from a social
and cultural POV rather than more narrowly as an economic exchange
● Consumer trends are underlying values that drive consumers towards certain products and services
and away from others
❖ Understanding of these trends = better chance of success
❖ Think of trends like sharing economy, authenticity and personalization, blurring of gender
roles, social shopping
Lecture:
● Per learning objective there will be 1 or more questions in exam related to that learning objective
● Learning objectives of today:
❖ Students understand what consumer behavior is
❖ Students can explain different types of consumer decisions
● Marketing professionals want to find out what consumers buy and why → information is hidden in
consumers’ minds → investigate how consumers respond to various marketing actions such as ads
● Consumer behavior = study of how and why individuals or groups acquire, consume and dispose
products
● Consumption process: identify a need/desire → make a purchase → dispose of the product
● Consumers don’t make this decision themselves → influenced by peers and bloggers, celebrities,
influencers, designers etc.
● The person that buys the product is not necessarily the user of the product (ex. kids candy), so
marketers have to appeal to both groups
● Why is consumer behavior important?
❖ Consumers have a huge impact on marketing strategies
❖ “Firms exist to satisfy consumers’ needs”
❖ Consumers have a huge impact on consumer behavior since manufacturers want to know how
we are motivated to buy their products
❖ Imagine when you walk in a supermarket. How are we influenced by it? → think of the store
layout, discount banners, free samples
● The unconscious mind, defaults and willpower reserves
❖ Unconscious mind: even when you consciously try not to purchase products, your
unconscious mind may be triggered by ads and that to which it is exposed to in the store or
because of what you consume in daily life
❖ Defaults: what you get something unless you actively get something else, the default size of a
product will influence how much you eat
❖ Willpower reserves: “i can resist anything except temptation” when we’re tired, distracted
etc. you’re likely to make different decisions
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