Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and
Being
Thirteenth Edition, Global Edition
Chapter 1
Buying, Having, and
Being: An Introduction to
Consumer Behavior
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Learning Objectives
When you finish reading this chapter you will
understand why:
1.1 Consumer behavior is a process.
1.2 Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of different
consumer segments.
1.3 Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the rest of our
lives.
1.4 Our motivations to consume are complex and varied.
1.5 Technology and culture create a new “always on” consumer.
1.6 Many types of specialists study consumer behavior.
1.7 There are differing perspectives regarding how and what we should
understand about consumer behavior.
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Learning Objective 1.1
Consumer behavior is a process.
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People in the Marketplace
• Consumption Communities
• Market Segmentation Strategies
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What Is 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.
Marketers can satisfy these needs only to the extent that they
understand the people or organizations.
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Who Is Consumer?
A consumer is a person who identifies a need or desire,
makes a purchase, and then disposes of the product during
the three stages of the consumption process.
In many cases, however, different people play a role in this
sequence of events.
Consumers may take the form of organizations or groups.
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Figure 1.1 Stages in the Consumption
Process
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• How do you decide that you need a product?
• What about a purchase makes it pleasant or stressful for
you?
• When using the product, what determines if the
experience is pleasant?
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Learning Objective 1.2
Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of
different consumer segments.
BMW anticipates
changes in consumer
behavior as it
develops electric car
models like the i8
that satisfy dual
desires for style and
environmental
responsibility.
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Consumers Are Different
• Heavy Users (most loyal customers)
• 80/20 Rule: 20 percent of users account for 80 percent of
sales. (not a strict proportion)
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Segmenting Consumers
Demographics: Lifestyle, Personality, Culture etc.
• Age
• Gender
• Family structure
• Social class/income
• Race/ethnicity
• Geography
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Redneck Bank Targets by Social Class
The Redneck Bank
takes a unique
approach to social
class segmentation
(yes, this is a real
bank).
People who belong to
the same social class
are approximately
equal in terms of their
incomes and social
standing in the
community. This bank
boastfully targets
rednecks.
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Segmenting by Behavior:
Relationships and “Big Data”
• Database Marketing: Database marketing tracks specific
consumers’ buying habits very closely and crafts
products and messages tailored precisely to people’s
wants and needs based on this information. The
collection and analysis of extremely large datasets is
called Big Data.
• Relationship Marketing: interacting with customers on a
regular basis and giving them solid reasons to maintain
a bond with the company over time.
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Big Data
• In addition to the huge volume of information marketers now
have to play with, its velocity (speed) also enables companies to
make decisions in real time that used to take months or years.
Walmart alone collects more than 2.5 petabytes of data every
hour from its customer transactions.
(1petabyte =1 million gigabytes (GB))
Forward-looking companies mine the gold
they find in “Big Data.”
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Learning Objective 1.3
Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the
rest of our lives.
We are surrounded by elements of popular culture—the good, the bad, and
the ugly. This ad for the Museum of Bad Art reminds us of that.
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User-generated Content
• Everyone can voice their opinions about products, brands,
and companies on blogs, podcasts, and social networking
sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and even film their
own commercials that thousands view on sites such as
YouTube.
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Popular Culture Is Marketing Is
Popular Culture . . .
• Music Marketers influence preferences
for movie and music heroes,
• Movies
fashions, food, and decorating
• Sports choices. Marketers play a
significant role in our view of the
• Books
world and how we live in it.
• Celebrities
• Other forms of
Popular culture is both a
entertainment
product of and an inspiration for
marketers.
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Consumer-Brand Relationships
• Role Theory: Because people act out many roles, they
sometimes alter their consumption decisions depending on
the particular “play” they are in at the time.
• The criteria they use to evaluate products and services in
one of their roles may be quite different from those they
use in other roles.
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Consumer-Brand Relationships
Some of the types of relationships a person might have with
a product:
• Self-concept attachment
• Nostalgic attachment
• Interdependence
• Love
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• What kind of relationship do you have with your phone?
• Do these feelings correspond to the types of relationships
consumers may develop with products?
• How do these relationships affect your behavior?
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Learning Objective 1.4
Our motivations to consume are complex and varied.
People often buy products not for what they do, but for what
they mean (brand images: lifestyle statements and bonds
with others).
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Motivation (ranges from the practical
to the fanciful)
• Need: something a person must have to live or achieve a goal.
• Want: a specific manifestation of a need that personal and
cultural factors determine.
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• Describe a need and a want you have and explain the
motivation for the want.
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Learning Objective 1.5
Technology and culture create a new “always on”
consumer. We instantly access people, places, and
products with the click of a link.
Digital revolution is one of the most significant influences on
consumer behavior.
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The Digital Native: Living a Social
[Media] Life
• Digital Native: These consumers grew up “wired” in a
highly networked, always-on world where digital
technology had always existed.
• Lifelog: Today some of us wear tiny cameras that allow us
to create a lifelog of every event we experience throughout
the day.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Growing network of
interconnected devices embedded in objects that speak to
one another. (Autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars), the
“smart home” products, etc.)
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The Digital Native: Living a Social
[Media] Life
• M2M (machine-to-machine communication)
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Robot companions (serve drinks or help disabled people to
carry out routine tasks.)
Artificial intelligence (AI) applications that get better over
time via machine learning already interact with us in the form
of voice recognition software in digital assistants like Siri and
Alexa.
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• How has your daily life changed because of social media?
• What does your virtual life look like?
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Learning Objective 1.6 (1 of 2)
Many types of specialists study consumer behavior.
Table 1.1 Interdisciplinary Research Issues in Consumer Behavior
Disciplinary Focus Magazine Usage Sample Research Issues
Experimental Psychology: product role in How specific aspects of magazines, such as their
perception, learning, and memory processes design or layout, are recognized and interpreted;
which parts of a magazine people are most likely to
read.
Clinical Psychology: product role in How magazines affect readers’ body images (e.g.,
psychological adjustment do thin models make the average woman feel
overweight?)
Microeconomics/Human Ecology: product role Factors influencing the amount of money a
in allocation of individual or family resources household spends on magazines.
Social Psychology: product role in the behavior Ways that ads in a magazine affect readers’
of individuals as members of social groups attitudes toward the products depicted; how peer
pressure influences a person’s readership decisions
Sociology: product role in social institutions and Pattern by which magazine preferences spread
group relationships through a social group (e.g., a sorority)
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Learning Objective 1.6 (2 of 2)
Table 1.1 [continued]
Disciplinary Focus Magazine Usage Sample Research Issues
Macroeconomics: product role in consumers’ Effects of the price of fashion magazines and
relations with the marketplace expense of items advertised during periods of high
unemployment
Semiotics/Literary Criticism: product role in the Ways in which underlying messages communicated
verbal and visual communication of meaning by models and ads in a magazine are Interpreted
Demography: product role in the measurable Effects of age, income, and marital status of a
characteristics of a population magazine’s readers
History: product role in societal changes over Ways in which our culture’s depictions of “femininity”
time in magazines have changed over time
Cultural Anthropology: product role in a society’s Ways in which fashions and models in a magazine
beliefs and practices affect readers’ definitions of masculine versus
feminine behavior (e.g., the role of working women,
sexual taboos)
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Figure 1.2 The Pyramid of Consumer
Behavior
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Learning Objective 1.7
There are differing perspectives regarding what we should
understand about consumer behavior and how we should
study it.
We call a set of beliefs that guide our understanding of the
world a paradigm.
Consumer behavior discipline is in the middle of a paradigm
shift, which occurs when a competing paradigm challenges
the dominant set of assumptions.
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Interpretivist approach says ordered, rational
Positivist vs er us
view of behavior ignores the complex social and
cultural World. We each construct our own
Interpretivist meanings based on our unique and shared
cultural experiences, so there are no right or
wrong answers.
Table 1.2 Positivist versus Interpretivist Approaches to Consumer
Behavior
Assumptions Positivist Approach Interpretivist Approach
(Modernism) - Dominant (Postmodernism) - Has
paradigm now gained momentum
Nature of reality Objective, tangible Socially constructed
Goal Single Prediction Multiple understanding
Knowledge Time-free, context Time-bound, context
Generated independent dependent
View of Causality Existence of real Causes Multiple, simultaneous
shaping events
Research Separation between Interactive, cooperative with
Relationship researcher and subject researcher being part of
phenomenon under study
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• What are consumer trends today?
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Consumer Trends
• Sharing economy
• Authenticity and personalization
• Blurring of gender roles
• Diversity and multiculturalism
• Social shopping
• Income inequality
• Healthy and ethical living
• Simplification
• Interconnection and the Internet of Things
• Anonymity
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Chapter Summary
1. Consumer behavior is a process.
2. Marketers have to understand the wants and needs of
different consumer segments.
3. Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways to the rest
of our lives.
4. Our motivations to consume are complex and varied.
5. Technology and culture create a new “always on” consumer.
6. Many types of specialists study consumer behavior
7. There are differing perspectives regarding how and what we
should understand about consumer behavior.
Copyright © 2020 Pearson Education Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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