Consumer Behavior and Marketing Action Summary
Week 1
Learn the learning objectives
Do the weekly quizzes
Lectures are important for the practical side
Learning objectives
• Students understand the provided practical information and get a clear idea about what they can
expect from this course.
• Students understand what consumer behavior is.
▪ What is consumer behavior: the study of how and why individuals or groups acquire,
consume and dispose products
• Students can explain different types of consumer decisions
o 1. Habitual/Routine decision making
o 2. Limited Decision making
o 3. Extended decision making
Introduction
• Marketing professionals want to find out what consumers buy and why
• But this information is hidden in consumers’ minds
• Therefore, they will investigate how consumers respond to various marketing actions such as
advertising
What is Consumer Behavior?
Consumer Behavior: The study of how and why individuals or groups acquire, consume, and dispose products
- Products need to be disposed for the consumers to repurchase them
Consumer Consumption Process
1. Identify a need or desire
2. Make a purchase
3. And then dispose the product
We are influenced about this process by other people including influencers, celebrities, our network. Thus →
many people are involved in this process
The person who purchases the product doesn’t have to be the person who uses the products
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
• Image when you walk in a supermarket. How are we influenced by it?
Anatomy of Supermarket
• Products like milk, cheese, bread (everyday usage) are located on the back side because they want
you to go through all of the isles including the unhealthy ones
• Fresh and healthy products are located in the beginning because people tend to buy unhealthy
products if their cart already looks “heathy”
The Meaning of Consumption
• People often buy brands, not for what they do, but for what they mean
• Helps us to form bonds with others who share the same preferences
• Convey image or personality
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,Watching Shoppers TED Talk
• Anticipate shoppers’ needs and desires
• Discover the points of engagement and friction in the shopping process
• Improve the retail experience and measure how shoppers respond → shoppability
o Loyalty: If they frequently buy peaches, they can get a discount for their next purchase
Shoppable Stores
• Clearly communicate the benefits & value of the brands
• Provide a convenient and enjoyable shopping experience
• Satisfy consumers’ salient & latent needs
Types of Consumer Decisions
1. Habitual/Routine decision making
• Characteristics:
i. Buying low involvement, frequently purchased, low-cost items Need little research
and little decision effort
ii. Purchased almost automatically
iii. E.g., Bread, Toilet paper
• Marketers task:
i. For current customers: maintain brands’ quality, stock and value
ii. For non-customers: break normal buying habits
• Ways to market towards it:
i. Use promo to call attention for new brand
ii. Ads/promos focus on one message
iii. Message is often repeated
2. Limited decision making
• Characteristics:
i. Buying products occasionally
ii. Moderate amount of time while searching information
iii. Low to medium involvement
iv. Low to moderate cost goods
v. New brands may be considered for each purchase
vi. E.g., Cloths
• Marketers task:
i. Provide reasons for buying brand (not just reminding in an advertisement)
ii. E.g., Nike: find your greatness ad
3. Extended decision making
• Characteristics:
i. High involvement
ii. Expensive/infrequently bought products
iii. High degree of economic/performance/psychological risk
iv. Spend a lot of time on seeking information and deciding to buy it
v. E.g., a laptop
• Marketers task:
i. Promo message can be longer, more informative
ii. Marketers must work to reduce the consumers' perception of risk
iii. E.g., Volvo ad
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,Week 2
Learning objectives
• Students understand the consumer decision making process
o a. Problem recognition
o b. Information search
o c. Evaluation of alternatives
o d. Product choice
o e. Outcomes / post purchase evaluation
• Students can explain what the deliberation without attention effect is and are able to reflect on this
topic in a critical way
o The deliberation without attention effect hypothesis: conscious thinking leads to good choices
when it concerns simple choices. But its limited capacity has the consequence that it is not
efficient enough when it concerns complex choices
o Critique: The study by Dijksterhuis could not be replicated and show that the deliberation
without attention effect actually exists. You also need to take into account that it’s hard to
turn off your conscious thinking
Consumer Decision Process
1. Problem recognition
a. Occurs when a consumer sees a significant difference between their
current state and a desired/ideal state → there is some type of tension
b. Two types:
i. Opportunity recognition: ideal state moves upward → e.g.,
when you want a new car
ii. Need recognition: Actual state moves downward → e.g., when
you run out of gas
2. Information search → identify possible solutions to our problem
a. Reduces risks of decision making
i. Financial
ii. Psychological
iii. Social
iv. Time
b. Consumers need information to solve problems (categorization of information search)
i. Prepurchase vs. Ongoing search
1. Prepurchase search: consumers recognize a need and search the
marketplace for specific information
2. Ongoing search: Browsing for fun (intrinsic enjoyment of search process) or
staying up to date on what’s happening in the market
ii. Internal vs. External search
1. Internal search: scanning our own memory for information about product
alternatives
a. Past experience / knowledge
2. External search: obtaining product information from the environment
a. Ads, friends, consumer reports etc
iii. Deliberate vs. ‘accidental’ search
1. Deliberate search: our knowledge may be the result of directed learning
a. E.g., when you bought a birthday cake last month, you will
probably know where to buy the best one now
2. ‘Accidental’ Search: when information is acquired in a more passive
manner
a. E.g., mere exposure to ads, packaging, sales promotion (creates
association with products)
c. Brand switching
i. Changing brands even if the current brand satisfied the consumer’s needs
ii. When in good mood or little stimulation elsewhere (Sensory specific satiety)
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, iii. Sensory-specific Satiety: a cause of variety seeking when there is relatively little
stimulation in the environment of a consumer. and/or desire to choose new
alternatives over familiar ones
d. How many information is searched for?
i. When it involves an important purchase
ii. When there is a need to learn about the purchase
iii. When information is easily obtained
iv. Depends on prior knowledge
e. When do we stop searching?
i. We continue to search until the costs exceed the utility of information search (as
long as the process is not too time-consuming)
3. Evaluation of alternatives → important to understand product categorization
a. Product categorization:
i. Evoked set:
1. Products already in memory
2. Products are comparable to each other, i.e., they belong to the same
product category
ii. Consideration set (part of the evoked set)
1. The products that are considered for purchase
b. The success of brands depend on whether they belong to the evoked set of consumers →
position the brand in such a way that a consumer is able to add the brand to the evoked set
c. Products in an evoked set share similar features
d. When faced with a new product, consumers refer to already existing knowledge in familiar
product categories to form new knowledge
e. Important to understand how knowledge is represented in consumers’ cognitive structure
f. The way a product is grouped with other products has implications of who the competitors
are and on what criteria consumers make their choice
g. Product positioning: success depends on convincing the consumer that the product should
be considered in the category
i. E.g. the orange juice industry repositioned orange juice as a drink that could be
enjoyed all day, not just as a breakfast drink
4. Product choice/purchase decision
Part 3 – Are decision conscious?
a. Experiment – Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, van Baaren (2006)
i. ‘On making the right choice: the deliberation-without-attention effect’
ii. Experiment → what is the best car to buy?
1. Each car is described with 4 characteristics (A: 1 positive and 3 negative
characteristics, B: 2 pos / 2 bad, C: 2 pos / 2 bad, D, 3 pos / 1 neg)
2. 2 groups of participants: (1) not thinking (distracted by other task) and, (2)
thinking
3. Manipulation 1⁄2
iii. Results:
1. simple decisions are enhanced by conscious thought
2. Complex decisions are enhanced by unconscious thought
iv. Explanation:
1. Conscious thinking:
a. Limited capacity
b. Decision making requires cognitive
resources
2. Unconscious thinking:
a. No limited capacity
b. Decision making requires no cognitive
resources
v. Conclusion: it sometimes pays not to think hard about a complex problem
1. Deliberation-without-attention hypothesis: conscious thinking leads to
good choices when it concerns simple choices. But its limited capacity has
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