let's continue with the consumer behavior
aspect of market sensing. specifically
in this lesson and we'll look at the influences on the purchase decision process.
last lesson, we talked about consumer decision-making process
being problem recognition, information search,
evaluation of altaernatives, purchase
and post-purchase evaluation. you can find a nice
summary these stages at this website. and also
this website you can find a summary the influences
we're going to be discussing. wouldn't it be nice if
put consumers alone room and watch them
go through this process. unfortunately
for marketers consumers go through this process
in a complex world with a variety of external influences.
we can group those external influences
as situational, psychological
and sociocultural. take a look at these three categories
at external influences on consumer decision-making
one by one. first of all
situational influences. what are the physical surroundings
like that the consumer is in when they're purchasing a product
or considering purchase? for example look at
how mcdonald's has changed its physical surrounding
from being a playground in primary colors
to more cafe Starbucks competitors sort
of product. big change in the physical surroundings
there. some people will choose
not to shop at Walmart simply because they do not like the physical surrounding
there. another major situational influence
is social surrounding. what about the
salespeople at a particular store? have you ever shopped at a particular store
because you liked
salesperson there or did not shop at this store
because you didn't like the people who were in that particular setting?
another situational
influence is time. how much time a consumer has to go through
researching that process and also
what time day, week, or year it is.
for example certain products sell very well
in the second week of February because of
Valentine's Day -- chocolate, lingerie,
flowers, teddy bears -- all
related to a situational influence.
another situational influence is the reason for purchase.
are you buying for yourself? are you buying for a gift?
if it is a gift, your how important is the person you're buying
for. is their any risk involved in your purchase if you
make a wrong purchase? another situational
influence the mode of the shopper. some shoppers will buy more
or less depending upon their mood and whether or not they like to shop.
in addition to situational influences
there are a number of psychological influences
on consumers as they go through this buying process. first of all
perception. perception
is our process of selecting all the
signals and information that are going on outside of us.
we can't possibly
interpret everything that's happening in our marketing environment
so we select and then
organizing that information we select and
interpret that information. that process is the
process of perception and we'll discuss that
more. another psychological influence
is motives or motivation. what's the internal
force that affects our behavior
to listen to this particular lecture? my guess is
it was an assignment or you didn't understand a
particular topic or you're trying to prepare for a quiz or a test.
I'm guessing most of you aren't listening to this particular
lesson just because you wanted. there's probably
some other driving force. other psychological influences
are learning, attitude, personality and
self-concept and lifestyle. and look at the last four
later. let's first take
at the first one -- perception.
I mentioned earlier that we can't
possibly perceive everything that's going on
in our environment so we have a tendency to practice
what's called selective perception.
since we can't see everything we see what we think is important
or what currently supports our points of view.
for example in this Fed Ex logo which I think you've seen
many times, how many see an arrow
regularly? or do you never process that?
are you saying what arrow? this arrow right here.
my guess is now that the arrow's been pointed
out to you,every time you will see the Fed Ex logo
you are now notice it when previously you didn't.
what about this image? what do you see?
do you see a young man lady
or an old woman?
if you're seeing a young lady, this is her hair
with her hat.
here's her eyes, her nose, her ear.
on her chin on the right side
her necklace and her
fur. if you're seeing an older lady,
this is her hair. this is her
bonnet.
this is her nose.
what the other person's necklace is the older person's mouth.
what was the other person's
neckline is her chin.
and again this is her fur. so it's
interesting that sometimes we
seee what we want to see or hear what we want to hear.
and so if you have a particular perception
about a product or service -- even
a marketer tells you otherwise --
you don't perceive it that way because we all tend to hear
things that support our personal
beliefs and perception. that's why
we'll talk later about how we can go about changing
people's attitudes and perception
as marketers. so we practice
selective perception because we can't possibly
perceive everything that's going on in our environment
because we tend to hear things that support our own beliefs
and not hear or pay attention to
things that don't support their views.
this affects marketers when they're trying to convince you
to buy their products and services.
let's talk next a little bit about motivation.
there's a website for reference there. probably one of the most
well recognized theories on
motivation is based upon Abraham
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
he said that people are motivated by
different things at different times and so we can't motivate
all people by the same technique.
he says that the most basic level of need
in physiological. note -- that's not
psychological. at the beginning it's like physical --
physiological needs are our most basic needs.
needs for food,
water, shelter,
basic clothing. once our physical
have been met they no longer
serve to motivate us and then
move to a higher level of motivation
and is for safety. once we feel
our physical needs met and we're safe,
we will then reach out trying to connect with other people.
you can understand most how someone who doesn't
feel safe won't be reaching out to connect with other people.
next after we connect with other people
our feeling about ourselves --
our self-esteem -- is our next
and then at the very end -- self
actualization -- being all we were created to be. if
you think about college-- for example--
that's trying to market itself to a consumer
or perhaps to you, they might tell you that the reason to attend their
college is so that you can better provide
for your physical needs. they might also say
the reason to attend college is to provide
job security or safety within your job.
they might say the reason to attend
college is to meet other people
and connected with other people in your age.
another reason to attend college would be to
feel good about yourself and her skills and
abilities -- your own self-esteem. another reason to attend college
the highest level of need -- would be to be all that you can be.
so the question is -- what motivates you to learn
or attend college? what level of need
is there? we discussed one product
that might market itself at all different levels
of needs. but we could also discuss
products designed for each level.
obviously most basic foods are designed to meet
physiological. while security systems,
funeral planning, insurance is designed to meet
safety needs. events
or places where you can meet other people
are designed and marketed to meet social needs.
some again, motivation is a huge
psychological influence on people as they go through the consumer decision-making
process. let's look at other psychological
influences besides perception and motives.
let's think about learning. we learn
through thinking or through behaviors.
if we try a product several times and we
like it we might become what is called
brand loyal. so brand loyalty
is a learned behavior. on flip side,
we might try a product and not like it and
and therefore we have learned that we do
like that particular
product. one of the biggest challenges marketers face
is people attitudes toward brand
or object -- their individual evaluation
of a brand or object. and a lot of that is based
on their perception. some might say
when you're talking to consumers perception
is reality to them. in other words
if they perceive your brand that way it is
that way whether it is or not --
unless we can change their attitude
or their perception. so let's look at some ways
we can change people's attitudes.
one-way would be to take a negative attribute
and turn it into a positive one.
maybe a negative attribute might be
that your local community college
doesn't offer the ability to his participate
on collegiate athletic teams.
we could take that negative attribute and
say that if you intend that local community college
you'll be focused on learning activities
that help you get a job/career and
you won't have those distractions and you don't have to pay
to support collegiate athletics when that's not really
why you go to college. another way
to change attitude is to capitalize
on a positive attribute. perhaps
your college has a positive
attributes like small class
sizes but maybe people don't realize how important that is.
so what you could do would be to emphasize how importance it is to
learn in environment where your professors know your name and
and communicating and care about you. and all of a sudden
people realize the importance of
that particular attribute.
you might also add a new attribute. maybe there's a new major
or program you hadn't previously offered that
people are very interesting in. you might add that attribute.
you might also change their belief
about an existing attribute -- similar to what we talked about
before -- turning a negative attribute into a positive one. but it
doesn't even have to be negative.
it might be an attribute they just don't realize how
important that attribute is. so
what we discussed here in the importance of
consumers attitudes on going through that consumer decision-making process
of problem recognition, information search,
evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation
and how we can affect
their attitudes. additionally
a person's personality -- their consistent response to a situation --
some people might respond to a situation one-way
and other another, another way.
people buy products that support
their personality. they wouldn't be caught wearing
particular type of clothing or using a
particular brand or drinking particular beverage
because it doesn't match their personality.
occasionally people buy a product or service
to support an area of their personality that they think
is weak. even though it may appear they very logically go through that purchase
decision making process
sometimes personality
decisions have a huge influence
on what they ultimately decide to buy --
even if the evaluative criteria for their consideration set
doesn't necessarily point to that particular product or service.
and lastly their lifestyle -- how they spend their time --
is a significant psychological influence.
so we talked before about the importance of recognizing that
people don't go through this decision making process
in isolation. there are situational and
psychological influences --
and now let's also discuss some sociocultural
influences on the consumer decision-making process.
what are some of the social cultural influences.
first of all -- their roles. what about
a mother who is also a spouse who
is also a student who is also a friend
who is also a coworker might decide
where they're going to eat tonight based upon what role
they're going to be playing tonight.
another major influence is family
influence. we call the
process by which you learn to be a consumer --
consumer socialization. a lot of that process
is just learned through your family
as you grow. for example you're going
through the checkout line and it rings up
$17.99 and instead of $27.99
what did you observe your parents do? did they tell the clerk
it rang up wrong or did they quietly
walked outside and then celebrate their deal?
that's an example of how you learn what to do
as you grow up as a consumer and be "socialized"
as consumers. were you -- as a child
taught to bargain at garage sales --
or to pay full price? all those family
influences affect how you go through that
purchase decision making process.
family life cycle
influences that process.
as a young single you spend most of
your money on your self and things you want.
if you have children or if you're a young couple
then all of a sudden your entertainment options change.
instead of going to a bar or at night
club or a PG or R movie
you now go to Chuck E Cheese or a Disney movie.
as you
move into full nest
you spend a lot of money on lessons
and cereals and
orthodontic care. and then as you move
into empty nest and older singles
again what you buy changes
based upon your family life cycle.
also your family affects how you
go about making those decisions. as you go through
that purchase decision making process, does
the husband make most of the decisions for the family?
the wife make most of the decisions?
are the decisions shared? or does it depend upon product
category where the wife might make more
most the health care decisions maybe the husband might make
most of the gardening decisions.
family decision processes
affect decisions.
reference group and opinion leaders.
reference group are people that you are either
members of so you might be a member of a particular class or
particular group people at work or whatever that would
influence your purchase. for example if I went to school today
and all the people in my department decided to go out to eat --
even though I brought my lunch -- I might follow the lead of
my membership reference group and even
eat at a restaurant I would not normally choose
as part of my purchase decision process.
aspirational reference group are groups that you
want to be her and aren't currently
and sometimes we buy products used by people
in those groups because we want to be like them.
disassociative reference group are groups of people that
you don't want to be a part. and so if you see a particular product or service
as used by a member of
that particular group, you would not buy that particular product.
social class -- whether you're in the upper
class, middle class, or working or lower class
might decide where you would go as part of your purchase decision process.
while an upper-class family might go on European vacation,
a middle class family might on Disney World vacation,
and a working class family might come to a state park
-- just to illustrate how social class affects our purchase decision.
and lastly we talked about this last topic
in a previous lecture -- our culture and
subculture affects our purchase decision. I hope this has clearly
illustrated to you how people go through the purchase decision making
process
using routine problem-solving behavior
or limited or extended problem solving
depending upon the level importance of that
product to them -- how there are situational,
psychological, and sociocultural
influences on consumer purchases.