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Consumer Behaviour
Contents
1. Nature, Scope and Importance of consumer behaviour.
2. Consumer Research.
3. Consumer Learning
4. Consumer Perception
5. Consumer Involvement
6. Attitude, Culture, Lifestyle and Socialism
7. Consumer Motivation
8. Consumer Decision Making
9. Consumerism
1. Nature Scope and Importance of Consumer behaviour. :
Consumer behaviour is defined as “The dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behaviour and the environment b which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of lives”. IT means that the buying habits of the consumer are greatly affected by their thought process and their feelings experienced. Human beings are greatly influenced in their buying actions by various factors like opinion of others, marketing stimuli like product, advertising, packaging and product appearance.
Importance of Consumer behaviour:
• Ever increasing intensifying competition.
• More aggressive competitors emerging with greater frequency.
• Changes basis of competition.
• Geographic sources of competition are becoming wider.
• Niche attacks are becoming frequent.
• Pace of innovation is rapid.
• Price competition becoming more aggressive
• Product differentiation is declining.
As a principal, the marketing concept involves understanding the needs of the consumers and translating these needs into products or services to satisfy these needs. The basic objective in marketing is to achieve the goal of profit making through customer satisfaction. To do this, an organization should understand the consumer and be as close to them as possible.
Consumer behaviour is Dynamic:
The feelings, thinking, perceptions and actions of the customer and the society at large keep changing frequently. For example number of working women is on rise and this has changed the concept of shopping. The dynamic nature of the consumer behaviour offers challenges to marketers and the task of creating marketing strategies becomes complex, and exciting. Strategies that work today may not work tomorrow. Strategies adopted in one market ma not work in another. The product life cycle are becoming shorter and create additional pressures on marketers to bring innovative products and concepts. The concept ‘value’ changes from time to time. Mahindra and mahindra had to come out with ‘Scorpio’ within launch of ‘Bolero’.
Consumer behaviour involves interactions:
Consumer behaviour involves interactions among peoples thinking, feelings, and actions and the environment. This forces marketers to understand three things:
• What products and services mean to customers.
• What influences shopping, purchase, and consumption.
• What consumers nee to do to purchase and consume products and services.
Consumer behaviour involves exchange:
Consumer behaviour involves exchanges between human beings. People give up something of value to others and receive something in return. Much of consumer behaviour involves people giving up money to obtain product and services, that is, exchanges consumers and sellers. The role of marketing in society is to help create exchange by formulating and implementing marketing strategies.
2. Consumer Research :
Consumer research is the systematic collection and analysis of consumer information for the purpose of important decision making for marketing. Consumer research plays an important role in marketing process, helps in consumer measurement, market potential, sales forecast, each element like product mis, distribution mix, price, effectiveness of and advertisement campaign, consumer acceptance of a product. In fiercely competitive situation, it is extremely critical for and organization to monitor the customer relationship on a regular basis.
Consumer research is used for two purposes:
• Routine problem analysis .i.e. product potential, sales forecasting.
• Non-routing problem analysis .i.e. new product launch, success of promotional schemes.
Needs for Consumer Research:
• How do consumers interpret information about marketing stimuli such as products, stores, and advertising?
• How do consumers choose from among alternative product classes, products, and brands?
• How do consumers form evaluation of products and brands?
• How does consumer interpret the benefits of market offerings?
• How do behaviour and environment affect consumer beliefs and attitudes?
• Why consumers are more interested or involved in some products or brands than others?
• How d marketing strategies influence consumer’s beliefs and attitudes?
Answers to such questions can only be obtained through consumer feedback and for this it is imperative to study Consumer Research and integrate it into the overall marketing function.
Approaches to Consumer Research:
There are two main categories of research methods. Secondary research uses research that has already been done by someone else. For example, marketers often find information compiled by the U.S. Census very useful. However, in some cases, information specific enough to satisfy a firm’s needs is not publicly available. For example, a firm will have to run its own research to find out whether consumers would prefer that more vanilla taste be added to its soft drink brand. Original research that a firm does for itself is known as primary research.
There is no one perfect primary research method. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and thus the appropriate method must be selected based on research needs.
Surveys are useful for getting a great deal of specific information. Surveys can contain open-ended questions (e.g., "In which city and state were you born? ____________") or closed-ended, where the respondent is asked to select answers from a brief list (e.g., "__Male ___ Female." Open ended questions have the advantage that the respondent is not limited to the options listed, and that the respondent is not being influenced by seeing a list of responses. However, open-ended questions are often skipped by respondents, and coding them can be quite a challenge. In general, for surveys to yield meaningful responses, sample sizes of over 100 are usually required because precision is essential. For example, if a market share of twenty percent would result in a loss while thirty percent would be profitable, a confidence interval of 20-35% is too wide to be useful.
Surveys come in several different forms. Mail surveys are relatively inexpensive, but response rates are typically quite low—typically from 5-20%. Phone-surveys get somewhat higher response rates, but not many questions can be asked because many answer options have to be repeated and few people are willing to stay on the phone for more than five minutes. Mall intercepts are a convenient way to reach consumers, but respondents may be reluctant to discuss anything sensitive face-to-face with an interviewer.
A survey, as any kind of research, is vulnerable to bias. The wording of a question can influence the outcome a great deal. For example, more people answered no to the question "Should speeches against democracy be allowed?" than answered yes to "Should speeches against democracy be forbidden?" For face-to-face interviews, interviewer bias is a danger, too. Interviewer bias occurs when the interviewer influences the way the respondent answers. For example, unconsciously an interviewer that works for the firm manufacturing the product in question may smile a little when something good is being said about the product and frown a little when something negative is being said. The respondent may catch on and say something more positive than his or her real opinion. Finally, a response bias may occur—if only part of the sample responds to a survey, the respondents’ answers may not be representative of the population.
The case of "The Pentagon Declares War on Rush Limbaugh" illustrated that biased surveys are often taken at face value. It was reported in the national media, without question of the validity of the research, that only 3.8% of listeners to the Armed Forces Network wanted to listen to Rush Limbaugh. It turned out, however, that this inference was based on the question "What single thing can we do to improve programming?" Only if a respondent wrote in an answer mentioning Rush Limbaugh were he or she counted as wanting to listen to Rush.
Experiments are used when the researcher wants to rule out all but one explanation for a particular observation. Suppose, for example, that we observe that sales of our brand increase when we send out coupons. However, retailers may also give us better shelf space when the coupon is out; thus, we can’t tell if it was the coupon or the shelf-placement that caused sales to increase—the two variables are confounded. In an experiment, we carefully control what varies. In this case, we invite in one hundred people and ask them to shop in a simulated store. Half of the respondents are randomly selected and get a coupon; the others do not. Since the only difference here was whether the subjects got a coupon or
not, we can be more confident that differences in brand choice were due to the coupon. Experiments do, however, have a serious drawback in that the consumer is removed from his or her natural surroundings. For example, if we pay some consumers to come into a lab and watch TV "as you normally would," these consumers, figuring that they are being paid, may give more attention to the advertisements than they would at home.
Focus groups involve getting a group of 6-12 consumers together to discuss product usage. Focus groups are especially useful if we do not have specific questions to ask yet, since we don’t know what consumers’ concerns might be. We start out talking broadly about the need that a product might serve, and only gradually move toward the product itself. For example, a firm considering the marketing of sugar free cookies might start out its group talking about snacks—why people consume them and the benefits they expect. Gradually, we then move toward concerns people have about snacks. Eventually, we address sugar content and concerns that consumers have about that. Only toward the end of the session do we show consumers the actual product we are considering and ask for feedback. We postpone our consideration of the actual product toward the end because we want to be sure that we find out about the consumer’s needs and desires rather than what he or she thinks about the specific product we have on the drawing board right now (that product can be changed, and it can be repositioned). Drawbacks of focus groups include high costs and the fact that generalization toward the entire population is difficult for such small sample sizes. The fact that focus groups involve social interaction also means that participants may say what they think will make themselves look good rather than what they really believe (the social desirability bias).
Personal interviews involve in-depth questioning of an individual about his or her interest in or experiences with a product. The benefit here is that we can get really into depth (when the respondent says something interesting, we can ask him or her to elaborate), but this method of research is costly and can be extremely vulnerable to interviewer bias.
Projective techniques are used when a consumer may feel embarrassed to admit to certain opinions, feelings, or preferences. For example, many older executives may not be comfortable admitting to being intimidated by computers. It has been found that in such cases, people will tend to respond more openly about "someone else." Thus, we may ask them to explain reasons why a friend has not yet bought a computer, or to tell a story about a person in a picture who is or is not using a product. The main problem with this method is that it is difficult to analyze responses.
Observation of consumers is often a powerful tool. Looking at how consumers select products may yield insights into how they make decisions and what they look for. For example, some American manufacturers were concerned about low sales of their products in Japan. Observing Japanese consumers, it was found that many of these Japanese consumers scrutinized packages looking for a name of a major manufacturer—the product specific-brands that are common in the U.S.
(e.g., Tide) were not impressive to the Japanese, who wanted a name of a major firm like Mitsubishi or Proctor & Gamble. Observation may help us determine how much time consumers spend comparing prices, or whether nutritional labels are being consulted. Physiological measures are occasionally used to examine consumer response. For example, advertisers may want to measure a consumer’s level of arousal during various parts of an advertisement.
Types of Data:
Primary Data: Data collected at first hand either by the researcher or by someone especially for the purpose of the study are known as primary data.
Secondary Data: Data which have been collected earlier for some other purpose are secondary data in hands of marketing researcher.
3. Consumer Learning :
Learning is defined as a permanent change in the behaviour of a consumer as a result of past experience.
The characteristic features of learning are as under:
• Learning involves a change in behaviour. This change may or may not be an important over previous behaviour.
• Learning is a process, which continuously evolves and changes as a result of newly acquired knowledge.
• Learning can occur by increase in knowledge through reading books, articles, observation, thinking, and through discussions.
• The behaviour change is based on some form of practice or exception.
Thus we see that learning is based on two vital aspects that are behaviour and experience. Learning can be either intentional or incidental. Intentional learning occurs when the individual is deliberately searching for the information on the feature, benefits etc of the product before a purchase. Incidental learning occurs when the information comes to him on its own either through the print or electronic media, exhibitions etc.
4. Consumer Perception :
It is selection, organisation, and interpretation of marketing and environmental stimuli into a cohesive picture. Following are the some feature of perception, which are as under:
• Perception is a mental process, whereby an individual selects data or information from the environment, organizes it and draws significance or meaning from it.
• Perception is a basically a cognitive or thinking process and an individual’s activities, emotions, feelings etc. are based on his perception of his perception of his surroundings or environment.
• Perception being an intellectual and cognitive process will be subjective in nature. This means that different people may perceive the same environment differently based on the effect of the environment.
Characteristics Affecting Perception:
Characteristic effecting perception can be divided into sensory elements and structural elements.
Colour: Colour has important sensory connotations. Evidence suggests that red is regarded as warm, sensual and not intimidating. Blue is seen as conforming and is regarded to be colour that attempts to convey friendlier image. Pepsi attempt to cash on the blue colour of the Indian cricket team during the recent World Cup cricket matches has received a similar response. Many retailers in Mumbai call it ‘Ghaslet Pepsi’. This is because Indians are more used to identify blue with kerosene and their long term association with blue colour of kerosene led to call blue Pepsi as Ghaslet Pepsi.
Taste: Taste is another sensory factor that will condition consumers brand perceptions. The importance of taste is illustrated by P&G blunder when it first introduced Pringles potato chips. The chips were packed in an easy-to-stack cylindrical can to avoid breakage of chips. The consumers responded by saying that the packaging resembles a tennis ball can. Further consumers felt that the chips tasted like tennis ball.
Smell: Smell is important for food products and cosmetics products. In one study, two fragrances were added to the same facial tissue. Consumers perceived one facial issue as elegant and expensive and the other as a product to use in the kitchen.
Sound: Sound is another important sensory stimulus. Advertisers have traditionally used accent to convey status and authority. Even in case of serials, voice is being used to create an impact on the masses. The ‘Binaca geetmala’ was characterised by the voice of Amin Sayani.s
Feel: The feel of certain products will also influence consumer’s perceptions. Softness is considered a desirable attribute in many paper products. Feel is also a means of determining quality. Consumer often use of a textile fabric, clothing, carpeting, or furniture to evaluate quality. For example, a smooth, velvety feel in textile fabrics is considered an indication of quality.
Structural Elements:
Intensity and Size: The brighter and advertisement and larger the size, more it is able to attract the attention of potential consumers. Such large advertisements can be in the form of full page advertisements in newspapers or in the form of large hoardings on the road.
Position: Attraction towards and advertisement depends largely on the place where it is positioned. Positioning includes the page of a newspaper. Similarly, the placement of product for display on shelves at the retail outlet plays an important role in attracting the attention of the consumers.
Contrast: A black and white advertisement with a small spot used by Jet Airways is likely to attract attention. A quite commercial after a loud program can attract attention like the advertisement of ‘De Beers’ diamond after listening to a frantic rock show.
Novelty: It is observed that anything which is different from what is normally expected tends to attract attention like an unusual bottle shape or different packaging material. For e.g. ‘Frooti’ was the first to introduce the soft drink in tetra pack or when Pepsi and Coke were launched in small cans.
Repetition: Advertisements are repeated often to enable consumers to brand recall as well as stimulate them and create a strong desire for interest in the purchase of the product. Repetition is particularly important in case of low involvement convenience goods like soaps, toothpastes.
Consumer Characteristics Affecting Perception:
Stimulus Discrimination: One of the basic questions regarding the effect of marketing stimuli. The ability to discriminate among stimuli is learned. Generally, frequent users of a product are better able to notice small difference in product characteristic between brands.
Threshold levels: The ability of consumer to detect the various in sensory elements is determined by their threshold level. Some consumers are more sensitive to these stimuli than others. This will be quite clear from the fact tea and coffee companies employ persons called tea or coffee ‘tasters’.
Just Noticeable difference: It is based on the differential threshold of a consumer. A consumer will not be able to detect any change in stimulus below his threshold. For e.g. If an unbranded detergent cost 5 percent less that consumer is regular brand, the consumer ma not notice the difference. However, if the same unbranded product costs less than 30 percent less than he is definitely going to notice the difference.
Weber’s Law: It states that the stronger the stimulus, the greater the change required for the stimulus to be seen as different. The most important application of this law is in price. One critical implication is that the higher the original price of an item, the greater the markdown required to increase sales. For e.g. If price of a Mercedes Benz S class is reduced by 25000/-, it will not have any impact on sales because the basic price is in several Lakhs that a difference of Rs25000/- may not be noticeable for consumers. On the other hand a price reduction of even Rs5000/- for a maruti 800 is seen to push sales substantially because of its low original price.
Absolute Threshold: It is stimulus below which consumers cannot detect the stimulus at all. It is also referred to as subliminal perception .i.e. perception of stimulus below the conscious level. One of the major controversies regarding consumer perceptions is whether consumers can actually perceive marketing stimuli below their absolute level.
Adaptation law: It is the level at which consumer’s no longer notice a frequently repeated stimulus. An individual walking into an air-conditioned room, kitchen full of fragrance, or a noisy party will notice these stimuli after a period of time. Consumer differs in their level of adaptation. Some tune out more quickly then others. Novelty, humour, contrast, and movement are all stimulus effects that may gain consumer’s attention and reduce their attention and reduce their adaptation.
Price and Quality Perceptions: Price perceptions directly influence consumer’s perceptions of brand quality and determine their purchasing behaviour. For e.g. Parker pens were positioned as expensive, hand finished pens. In order to achieve large volume of growth and to share a pie of the explosive growing ballpoints, Parker entered this market for cheap pens moving away from its traditional positioning. The results were disastrous because company’s image was not consistent with its price. In the late eighties, it moved back to its strength, high priced fountain pens, with an ad campaign featuring style and luxury. This shift made the company profitable again.
5. Consumer Involvement:
Involvement: A consumer is said to have a high involvement in purchase, when he considers the product be important and strongly identifies with it.
Conditions for involvement:
A consumer is likely to be more involved with a product when:
• The consumer’s self image is tied to the product e.g. aggressive youth craving for power identify themselves with the Enfield Bullet. Khadi is preferred by politicians and budding politicians. Similarly, we find politician preferring a multi-utility vehicle like Scorpio or Tata Safari.
• Product has a symbolic meaning tied to consumer values e.g. ownership of a BMW car, a cross pen, Rolex watches have s symbolic value of the affluent class.
• Product is expensive .e.g. Jewellery, real estate etc.
• It has some important functional value e.g. fuel efficiency of a vehicle, cricket gear for a cricketer.
• Product has an emotional appeal e.g. buying of a gift article, buying of articles for religious purpose.
• Product is continually of interest to the consumer .e.g. fashion-conscious customer has continuous appeal in clothing and apparel.
• Product entails significant risk e.g. buying a technology complex product, buying a house.
• Product is identified with the norms of the group. E.g. School children buying ‘Pokemans’ articles.
Type of Involvement:
Situational Involvement:
It is one that occurs only in specific situations and is temporary. For e.g. a person buying suit for marriage. Formal dressing for the marriage is a necessary and
hence a person not very fashion-conscious about clothes gets involved temporary for his marriage in a piece of suit.
Enduring Involvement: It indicates an ongoing interest in the product category. For example,
Attitudes:
Definition. Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumer’s (1) beliefs about, (2) feelings about, (3) and behavioral intentions toward some object--within the context of marketing, usually a brand or retail store. These components are viewed together since they are highly interdependent and together represent forces that influence how the consumer will react to the object.
Beliefs. The first component is beliefs. A consumer may hold both positive beliefs toward an object (e.g., coffee tastes good) as well as negative beliefs (e.g., coffee is easily spilled and stains papers). In addition, some beliefs may be neutral (coffee is black), and some may be differ in valance depending on the person or the situation (e.g., coffee is hot and stimulates--good on a cold morning, but not good on a hot summer evening when one wants to sleep). Note also that the beliefs that consumers hold need not be accurate (e.g., that pork contains little fat), and some beliefs may, upon closer examination, be contradictory (e.g., that a historical figure was a good person but also owned slaves).
Since a consumer holds many beliefs, it may often be difficult to get down to a "bottom line" overall belief about whether an object such as McDonald’s is overall good or bad. The Multi-attribute (also sometimes known as the Fishbein) Model attempts to summarize overall attitudes into one score using the equation:
That is, for each belief, we take the weight or importance (Wi) of that belief and multiply it with its evaluation (Xib). For example, a consumer believes that the taste of a beverage is moderately important, or a 4 on a scale from 1 to 7. He or she believes that coffee tastes very good, or a 6 on a scale from 1 to 7. Thus, the product here is 4(6) =24. On the other hand, he or she believes that the potential of a drink to stain is extremely important (7), and coffee fares moderately badly, at a score -4, on this attribute (since this is a negative belief, we now take negative numbers from -1 to -7, with -7 being worst). Thus, we now have 7(-4) =-28. Had these two beliefs been the only beliefs the consumer held, his or her total, or aggregated, attitude would have been 24+ (-28) =-4. In practice, of course, consumers tend to have many more beliefs that must each be added to obtain an accurate measurement.
Affect. Consumers also hold certain feelings toward brands or other objects. Sometimes these feelings are based on the beliefs (e.g., a person feels nauseated when thinking about a hamburger because of the tremendous amount of fat it contains), but there may also be feelings which are relatively independent of beliefs. For example, an extreme environmentalist may believe that cutting down trees is morally wrong, but may have positive affect toward Christmas trees because he or she unconsciously associates these trees with the experience that he or she had at Christmas as a child.
Behavioral intention. The behavioral intention is what the consumer plans to do with respect to the object (e.g., buy or not buy the brand). As with affect, this is sometimes a logical consequence of beliefs (or affect), but may sometimes reflect other circumstances--e.g., although a consumer does not really like a restaurant, he or she will go there because it is a hangout for his or her friends.
Attitude-Behavior Consistency. Consumers often do not behave consistently with their attitudes for several reasons:
o Ability. He or she may be unable to do so. Although junior high school student likes pick-up trucks and would like to buy one, she may lack a driver’s license.
o Competing demands for resources. Although the above student would like to buy a pickup truck on her sixteenth birthday, she would rather have a computer, and has money for only one of the two.
o Social influence. A student thinks that smoking is really cool, but since his friends think it’s disgusting, he does not smoke.
o Measurement problems. Measuring attitudes is difficult. In many situations, consumers do not consciously set out to enumerate how positively or negatively they feel about mopeds, and when a market researcher asks them about their beliefs about mopeds, how important these beliefs are, and their evaluation of the performance of mopeds with respect to these beliefs, consumers often do not give very reliable answers. Thus, the consumers may act consistently with their true attitudes, which were never uncovered because an erroneous measurement was made.
Attitude Change Strategies. Changing attitudes is generally very difficult, particularly when consumers suspect that the marketer has a self-serving agenda in bringing about this change (e.g., to get the consumer to buy more or to switch brands).
Changing affect. One approach is to try to change affect, which may or may not involve getting consumers to change their beliefs. One strategy uses the approach of classical conditioning try to "pair" the product with a liked stimulus. For example, we "pair" a car with a beautiful woman. Alternatively, we can try to get
people to like the advertisement and hope that this liking will "spill over" into the purchase of a product. For example, the Pillsbury Doughboy does not really emphasize the conveyance of much information to the consumer; instead, it attempts to create a warm, fuzzy image. Although Energizer Bunny ads try to get people to believe that their batteries last longer, the main emphasis is on the likeable bunny. Finally, products which are better known, through the mere exposure effect, tend to be better liked--that is, the more a product is advertised and seen in stores, the more it will generally be liked, even if consumers to do not develop any specific beliefs about the product.
Changing behavior. People like to believe that their behavior is rational; thus, once they use our products, chances are that they will continue unless someone is able to get them to switch. One way to get people to switch to our brand is to use temporary price discounts and coupons; however, when consumers buy a product on deal, they may justify the purchase based on that deal (i.e., the low price) and may then switch to other brands on deal later. A better way to get people to switch to our brand is to at least temporarily obtain better shelf space so that the product is more convenient. Consumers are less likely to use this availability as a rationale for their purchase and may continue to buy the product even when the product is less conveniently located. (Notice, by the way, that this represents a case of shaping).
Changing beliefs. Although attempting to change beliefs is the obvious way to attempt attitude change, particularly when consumers hold unfavorable or inaccurate ones, this is often difficult to achieve because consumers tend to resist. Several approaches to belief change exist:
o Change currently held beliefs. It is generally very difficult to attempt to change beliefs that people hold, particularly those that are strongly held, even if they are inaccurate. For example, the petroleum industry advertised for a long time that its profits were lower than were commonly believed, and provided extensive factual evidence in its advertising to support this reality. Consumers were suspicious and rejected this information, however.
o Change the importance of beliefs. Although the sugar manufacturers would undoubtedly like to decrease the importance of healthy teeth, it is usually not feasible to make beliefs less important--consumers are likely to reason, why, then, would you bother bringing them up in the first place? However, it may be possible to strengthen beliefs that favour us--e.g., a vitamin supplement manufacturer may advertise that it is extremely important for women to replace iron lost through menstruation. Most consumers already agree with this, but the belief can be made stronger.
o Add beliefs. Consumers are less likely to resist the addition of beliefs so long as they do not conflict with existing beliefs. Thus, the beef industry
has added beliefs that beef (1) is convenient and (2) can be used to make a number of creative dishes. Vitamin manufacturers attempt to add the belief that stress causes vitamin depletion, which sounds quite plausible to most people.
o Change ideal. It usually difficult, and very risky, to attempt to change ideals, and only few firms succeed. For example, Hard Candy may have attempted to change the ideal away from traditional beauty toward more unique self expression.
One-sided vs. two-sided appeals. Attitude research has shown that consumers often tend to react more favorably to advertisements which either (1) admit something negative about the sponsoring brand (e.g., the Volvo is a clumsy car, but very safe) or (2) admits something positive about a competing brand (e.g., a competing supermarket has slightly lower prices, but offers less service and selection). Two-sided appeals must, contain overriding arguments why the sponsoring brand is ultimately superior--that is, in the above examples, the "but" part must be emphasized.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Celebrity Endorsements. The ELM suggests that consumers will scrutinize claims more in important situations than in unimportant ones. For example, we found that in the study of people trying to get ahead of others in a line to use photo copiers, the compliance rate was about fifty percent when people just asked to get ahead. However, when the justification "... because I have to make copies" was added, compliance increased to 80%. Since the reason offered really did not add substantive information, we conclude that it was not extensively analyzed--in the jargon of the theory, "elaboration" was low.
The ELM suggests that for "unimportant" products, elaboration will be low, and thus Bill Cosby is able to endorse Coke and Jell-O without having any special credentials to do so. However, for products which are either expensive or important for some other reason (e.g., a pain reliever given to a child that could be harmed by using dangerous substances), elaboration is likely to be more extensive, and the endorser is expected to be "congruent," or compatible, with the product. For example, a basket ball player is likely to be effective in endorsing athletic shoes, but not in endorsing automobiles. On the other hand, a nationally syndicated auto columnist would be successful in endorsing cars, but not athletic shoes. All of them, however, could endorse fast food restaurants effectively.
Appeal approaches. Several approaches to appeal may be used. The use of affect to induce empathy with advertising characters may increase attraction to a product, but may backfire if consumers believe that people’s feelings are being exploited. Fear appeals appear to work only if (1) an optimal level of fear is
evoked--not so much that people tune it out, but enough to scare people into action and (2) a way to avoid the feared stimulus is explicitly indicated--e.g., gingivitis and tooth loss can be avoided by using this mouth wash. Humor appears to be effective in gaining attention, but does not appear to increase persuasion in practice. In addition, a more favorable attitude toward the advertisement may be created by humorous advertising, which may in turn result in increased sales. Comparative advertising, which is illegal in many countries, often increases sales for the sponsoring brand, but may backfire in certain cultures.
Culture:
Culture is part of the external influences that impact the consumer. That is, culture represents influences that are imposed on the consumer by other individuals.
The definition of culture offered in the text is "That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society." From this definition, we make the following observations:
• Culture, as a "complex whole," is a system of interdependent components.
• Knowledge and beliefs are important parts. In the U.S., we know and believe that a person who is skilled and works hard will get ahead. In other countries, it may be believed that differences in outcome result more from luck. "Chunking," the name for China in Chinese literally means "The Middle Kingdom." The belief among ancient Chinese that they were in the centre of the universe greatly influenced their thinking.
• Other issues are relevant. Art, for example, may be reflected in the rather arbitrary practice of wearing ties in some countries and wearing turbans in others. Morality may be exhibited in the view in the United States that one should not be naked in public. In Japan, on the other hand, groups of men and women may take steam baths together without perceived as improper. On the other extreme, women in some Arab countries are not even allowed to reveal their faces. Notice, by the way, that what at least some countries view as moral may in fact be highly immoral by the standards of another country. For example, the law that once banned interracial marriages in South Africa was named the "Immorality Act," even though in most civilized countries this law, and any degree of explicit racial prejudice, would itself be considered highly immoral.
Culture has several important characteristics: (1) Culture is comprehensive. This means that all parts must fit together in some logical fashion. For example, bowing and a strong desire to avoid the loss of face are unified in their
manifestation of the importance of respect. (2) Culture is learned rather than being something we are born with. We will consider the mechanics of learning later in the course. (3) Culture is manifested within boundaries of acceptable behavior. For example, in American society, one cannot show up to class naked, but wearing anything from a suit and tie to shorts and a T-shirt would usually be acceptable. Failure to behave within the prescribed norms may lead to sanctions, ranging from being hauled off by the police for indecent exposure to being laughed at by others for wearing a suit at the beach. (4) Conscious awareness of cultural standards is limited. One American spy was intercepted by the Germans during World War II simply because of the way he held his knife and fork while eating. (5) Cultures fall somewhere on a continuum between static and dynamic depending on how quickly they accept change. For example, American culture has changed a great deal since the 1950s, while the culture of Saudi Arabia has changed much less.
It should be noted that there is a tendency of outsiders to a culture to overstate the similarity of members of that culture to each other. In the United States, we are well aware that there is a great deal of heterogeneity within our culture; however, we often underestimate the diversity within other cultures. For example, in Latin America, there are great differences between people who live in coastal and mountainous areas; there are also great differences between social classes.
Cultural rules can be categorized into three types. Formal rules carry relatively explicit standards as to how one should behave, and violations often carry severe sanctions. For example, in many countries, two forms of the second pronoun (you) exist, with different levels of deference associated with each (e.g., tú and usted in Spanish and tu and vous in Spanish—German even has three levels!) In Japan, senior executives will enter and leave a meeting room before subordinates in a very deliberate manner. Informal rules, on the other hand, are less explicit and may not carry sanctions for violation. For example, in the U.S., most people would consider eating dinner at 10:00 p.m. weird, while this is perfectly normal in parts of Latin American and Southern Europe. Finally, technical cultural rules involve implicit standards as to what constitutes a good product. For example, in India, a movie must have at least seven songs to be successful; in the U.S., preempting the soundtrack for that amount of time would not be desirable.
Language is an important element of culture. It should be realized that regional differences may be subtle. For example, one word may mean one thing in one Latin American country, but something off-color in another. It should also be kept in mind that much information is carried in non-verbal communication. In some cultures, we nod to signify "yes" and shake our heads to signify "no;" in other cultures, the practice is reversed.
Different perspectives exist in different cultures on several issues; e.g.:
• Monochronic cultures tend to value precise scheduling and doing one thing at a time; in polychronic cultures, in contrast, promptness is valued less, and multiple tasks may be performed simultaneously. (See text for more detail).
• Space is perceived differently. Americans will feel crowded where people from more densely populated countries will be comfortable.
• Symbols differ in meaning. For example, while white symbols purity in the U.S., it is a symbol of death in China. Colours that are considered masculine and feminine also differ by culture.
• Americans have a lot of quite shallow friends toward whom little obligation is felt; people in European and some Asian cultures have fewer, but more significant friends. For example, one Ph.D. student from India, with limited income, felt obligated to try buy an airline ticket for a friend to go back to India when a relative had died.
• In the U.S. and much of Europe, agreements are typically rather precise and contractual in nature; in Asia, there is a greater tendency to settle issues as they come up. As a result, building a relationship of trust is more important in Asia, since you must be able to count on your partner being reasonable.
• In terms of etiquette, some cultures have more rigid procedures than others. In some countries, for example, there are explicit standards as to how a gift should be presented. In some cultures, gifts should be presented in private to avoid embarrassing the recipient; in others, the gift should be made publicly to ensure that no perception of secret bribery could be made.
The United States has undergone some changes in its predominant culture over the last several decades. Again, however, it should be kept in mind that there are great variations within the culture. For example, on the average, Americans have become less materialistic and have sought more leisure; on the other hand, the percentage of people working extremely long hours has also increased. The text discusses changes in values in more detail.
Significant changes have occurred in gender roles in American society. One of the reasons for this is that more women work outside the home than before. However, women still perform a disproportionate amount of housework, and men who participate in this activity tend to do so reluctantly. In general, commercials tend to lag somewhat behind reality—e.g., few men are seen doing housework, and few women are seen as buyers and decision makers on automobile purchases.
Subculture refers to a culture within a culture. For example, African Americans are, as indicated in the group name, Americans; however, a special influence of
the African American community is often also present. For example, although this does not apply to everyone, African Americans tend to worship in churches that have predominantly African American membership, and church is often a significant part of family life.
Different perspectives on the diversity in U.S. culture exist. The "melting pot" metaphor suggests that immigrants gradually assimilate after they arrive. Therefore, in the long run, there will be few differences between ethnic groups and instead, one mainstream culture that incorporates elements from each will result. The "salad bowl" metaphor, in contrast, suggests that although ethnic groups will interact as a whole (through the whole mix of salad) and contain some elements of the whole (through the dressing), each group will maintain its own significant traits (each vegetable is different from the others). The "melting pot" view suggests that one should run integrated promotions aimed at all groups; the "salad bowl" approach suggests that each group should be approached separately.
Subculture is often categorized on the basis of demographics. Thus, for example, we have the "teenage" subculture and the "Cuban-American" subculture. While part of the overall culture, these groups often have distinguishing characteristics. An important consequence is that a person who is part of two subcultures may experience some conflict. For example, teenage native Americans experience a conflict between the mainstream teenage culture and traditional Indian ways.
Values are often greatly associated with age groups because people within an age-group have shared experiences. For example, it is believed that people old enough to have experienced the American Depression are more frugal because of that experience.
Regional influence, both in the United States and other areas, is significant. Many food manufacturers offer different product variations for different regions. Joel Garreau, in his book The Nine Nations of North America, proposed nine distinct regional subcultures that cut across state lines. Although significant regional differences undoubtedly exist, research has failed to support Garreau’s specific characterizations
Demographics and Social Stratification
Demographics are clearly tied to subculture and segmentation. Here, however, we shift our focus from analyzing specific subcultures to trying to understand the implications for an entire population of its makeup.
Several issues are useful in the structure of a population. For example, in some rapidly growing countries, a large percentage of the population is concentrated among younger generations. In countries such as Korea, China, and Taiwan, this
has helped stimulate economic growth, while in certain poorer countries, it puts pressures on society to accommodate an increasing number of people on a fixed amount of land. Other countries such as Japan and Germany, in contrast, experience problems with a "graying" society, where fewer non-retired people are around to support an increasing number of aging seniors. Because Germany actually hovers around negative population growth, the German government has issued large financial incentives, in the forms of subsidies, for women who have children. In the United States, population growth occurs both through births and immigration. Since the number of births is not growing, problems occur for firms that are dependent on population growth (e.g., Gerber, a manufacturer of baby food). Social class is a somewhat nebulous subject that involves stratifying people into groups with various amounts of prestige, power, and privilege. In part because of the pioneering influence in American history, status differentiations here are quite vague. We cannot, for example, associate social class with income, because a traditionally low status job as a plumber may today come with as much income as a traditionally more prestigious job as a school teacher. In certain other cultures, however, stratification is more clear-cut. Although the caste system in India is now illegal, it still maintains a tremendous influence on that society. While some mobility exists today, social class awareness is also somewhat greater in Britain, where social status is in part reinforced by the class connotations of the accent with which one speaks.
The text speaks of several indices that have been used to "compute" social class in the United States, weighing factors such as income, the nature of one’s employment, and level of education. Taken too literally, these indices are not very meaningful; more broadly speaking, they illustrate the reality that social status is a complex variable that is determined, not always with consensus among observers, by several different variables.
Motivation, Personality, and Emotion:
Perspectives on Consumer Behavior and Motivation. We considered several perspectives on behavior as a way to understand what motivates the consumer. Each of these perspectives suggests different things as to what the marketer should do and what can (and cannot) be controlled. Note that each perspective tends to contain a "grain" oftruth and that one should not be too dogmatic in emphasizing one over the others.
• The Hard Core Behavioral perspective is based on learning theories such as operant and classical conditioning. These theories suggest that consumers must learn from their own experiences--i.e., in order to avoid getting sick from overeating, a consumer must experience the stomach and other ailments resulting from gluttony rather than merely observing other people who overeat
and get sick. This suggests, then, that it is important to reward good behavior (e.g., buying our brand) to the extent possible. Money spent on advertising is seen as less useful. Hard core behaviorists tend to look at observable behaviour.
• (e.g., buying our brand or buying another) rather than trying to find out what is going on inside the heads of consumers--i.e., hard core behaviorists do not like to mess with "mushy" things like attitudes.
• The Social Learning Perspective, in contrast, allows for vicarious learning--i.e., learning obtained by watching others getting good or bad consequences for behavior. The models that may be observed and imitated include peers and family members as well as relevant others that may be observed in
• advertising. From our study of social influences, we know that certain people are more likely to be imitated than others--e.g., those that are more similar to ourselves based on relevant factors such as age, social status, or ethnic group. Consider, for example, the poor man who is rejected by women because of his dandruff until he gets "with it" and uses Head ‘n’ Shoulders shampoo. Other dandruff sufferers are likely to learn from the model’s experience. Generally, observations are made of overt behavior, but some room is made for individual reasoning in learning from others. This perspective is clearly more realistic than that of the "Hard Core" view, but it should be noted that the strength of learning tends to be greater for that gained from own experience.
• The Cognitive approach emphasizes consumer thinking rather than mere behavior--we will encounter this to a great extent when we study decision making and attitudes. Here, the emphasis is on how people reason themselves to the consequences of their behavior. Note that it is often somewhat more difficult to attempt to "get into" a consumer’s head than it is to merely observe his or her behavior, and what we "observe" is somewhat more subjective. Note also that a wealth of different factors influence people’s thinking, and some expectations and assumptions that we hold tend to be culturally influenced (e.g., an American assumes that hard work will tend to lead to a promotion, while members of certain other cultures believe that personal relationships, and perhaps even luck, tend to be more important).
• The Biological approach suggests that most behavior is determined by genetics or other biological bases. By this perspective, it is suggested that consumers eat the foods they eat in large part because the body craves these foods. Note that although craving for fatty foods seems quite maladaptive in today’s society, it could have been very adaptive earlier in human history where food was scarce and obtaining as many calories as possible helped ensure survival. Clearly, this perspective is very misleading when one takes it as the only explanation of behavior--for example, people in different cultures learn to enjoy various kinds of foods. The main implication of biological determinism is that the marketer must adapt--for example, food advertisements are more likely to be effective when people are hungry, and thus they might better be run in the late afternoon rather than in the late morning.
• The Rational Expectations perspective is based on an economic way of looking at the World. Economists assume that people think rationally and have perfect information, even though they know very well that these assumptions are often unrealistic. However, despite the unrealistic assumptions made, economists often make relatively accurate predictions of human behavior. (The Cognitive perspective, however, is able to identify certain significant exceptions to rational behavior, however).
• The Psychoanalytic perspective is based on the work of historical psychologists such as Sigmund Freud who suggest that (1) much behavior has a biological basis which is (2) often sexual in nature, and (3) that early experiences in childhood will have a profound, but unconscious effect on later life--e.g., people who are rejected in an early, "oral" phase of development may become "oral retentive" and end up as wine connoisseurs later in life. Because of societal injunctions against explicit discussion of sexuality in Western society at Freud’s time [late 1800s to mid 1900s], many objects were thought to take on seemingly unrelated symbolic meanings--e.g., a tie might become a symbol of a male reproductive organ. Although modern psychologists certainly recognize that early experiences may influence later psychological well being, the psychoanalytic view has largely been discredited today as being much too centered on the issue of sex. However, this perspective enjoys a great deal of popularity among many advertising executives. It should be noted that Freudian psychology tends to violate the
cherished scientific ideal of parsimony, where a scientist is expected to propose the simplest theory that will account for observed phenomena.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The late Abraham Maslow suggested the intuitively appealing notion that humans must satisfy the most basic objectives before they can move onto "higher level" ones. Thus, an individual must satisfy physiological needs (such as food and liquid) before he or she will be able to expend energy on less fundamental objectives such as safety. Only when basic objectives have been met will a person move on to seek such objectives as love and belonging, and only a small minority of people make it as far as seeking self-actualization.
Maslow’s Hierarchy is useful in understanding different needs of consumers across the World. However, one must be careful not to take it too literally, since people may occasionally "swing" between needs. For example, a homeless person who currently does not have shelter may seek that out even though he or she is hungry.
Properties of motivation. Motivation is described through several properties:
• Motivation is composed of energy and direction. A person may or may not have enough motivation to engage in a given activity. For example, a person may be motivated enough to go and shop for food, but not enough to engage in a comprehensive exercise program.
• Motives may be overt, hidden, and multiple. Some motivations are publicly expressed (e.g., the desire to buy an energy efficient house), while others (e.g., the desire to look wealthy by buying a fancy car) are not. Individuals may also hold multiple motivations (e.g., buy a car and save money for retirement) which may conflict.
• Many motivations are driven by the desire for tension reduction (e.g., eliminate thirst or hunger).
• Motivations can be driven by both internal and external factors. That is, a person may want a painting either because he or she likes it (internal motivation) or because this will give her status among the artistic elite (external).
• Motivations may have either a positive or negative valence--people may either be motivated to achieve something (e.g., get a promotion at work) or avoid something (e.g., being hospitalized without having adequate insurance).
• Consumers are motivated to achieve goals. Achieving these goals may require sustained activity over time (e.g., exercising every day for months or years) as opposed to just taking some action once.
• Consumers maintain a balance between the desires for stability and variety. Most consumers want some variety (e.g., they do not want to eat the same meal every day), but also want a certain stability (they do not want to try an entirely new food every day).
• Motivation reflects individual differences. Different consumers are motivated to achieve different things, and it may be difficult to infer motivations from
• looking at actual behavior without understanding these differences in desired outcomes.
The reality that consumers are frequently motivated by multiple motives suggests a possibility that motives may conflict. Three main types of conflict exists:
• Approach-avoidance. One alternative has both positive consequences (that one wishes to seek out) and negative consequences (that one wants to avoid). For example, eating a large banana split is an enjoyable experience ("approach"), but is contains a lot of calories ("avoidance") and may make one feel ill later (another avoidance).
• Approach-approach. A consumer wants to do two incompatible things at the same time. A classic example is "Rainman’s" desire both to stay with his brother and stay at the institution. Another example is a consumer who only has one week’s vacation but wants equally to go to Hawaii and Greenland, but has time and money only for one of the two.
• Avoidance-avoidance. A consumer does not want to go for either of two alternatives, but must choose the lesser of two evils. For example, the consumer does not want to pay for car insurance, but does not want to get into an accident or get caught by the police without it. A "work ethic disadvantaged" student does not want to study, but does not want to fail his or her courses, either.
The Means-End chain. Consumers often buy products not because of their attributes per se but rather because of the ultimate benefits that these attributes provide, in turn leading to the satisfaction of ultimate values. For example, a consumer may not be particularly interested in the chemistry of plastic roses, but might reason as follows:
Highly reliable synthetic content of roses --->
Roses will stay in original condition for a long time --->
Significant other will appreciate the roses longer --->
Significant other will continue to love one ---> Self esteem.
The important thing in a means-end chain is to start with an attribute, a concrete characteristic of the product, and then logically progress to a series of consequences (which tend to become progressively more abstract) that end with a value being satisfied. Thus, each chain must start with an attribute and end with a value.
An important implication of means-end chains is that it is usually most effective in advertising to focus on higher level items. For example, in the flower example above, an individual giving the flowers to the significant other might better be portrayed than the flowers alone.
Personality and consumer behavior. Traditional research in marketing has not been particularly successful in finding a link between personality and consumer behavior. Part of the problem here is that much of the theory has been developed by clinical psychologists who have tended to work with maladjusted people. Not surprisingly, research that sought to predict, based on standard personality inventories, which kinds of consumers would buy Chevrolets as opposed to Fords was not successful.
Emotion. Emotion impacts marketing efforts in several ways. One purpose is to get attention to a stimulus (since emotionally charged individuals tend to be less predictable than calmer ones, there has been an evolutionary advantage in paying attention to emotion). Secondly, emotion influences information processing. In general, happy people tend to scrutinize arguments given (e.g., purported benefits of using a product) somewhat less, since they do not want to lose their happy moods by doing too much thinking. In general, happy ads are somewhat better liked, and may be better remembered. Empathy may also increase liking for the ad and the sponsoring product.
Consumer Decision Making:
Definitions. Consumer decision making comes about as an attempt to solve consumer problems. A problem refers to "a discrepancy between a desired state and an ideal state which is sufficient to arouse and activate a decision process." Thus, problems can be major (e.g., a consumer has been fired and is without a job) or minor (e.g., the consumer lacks an eraser necessary to take an exam the next day), and the broader and more ambiguous a problem is, the more potential solutions are generally available (see class slides for examples).
Consumer Problem Recognition. Consumers often note problems by comparing current, or actual, situation, explicitly or implicitly, to some desired situation. In terms of the "big picture," what is compared may be the totality of one’s lifestyle. Once a discrepancy is found, a determination is found as to whether this is large enough to warrant action, in which case a search for solutions is initiated.
come in several different types. A problem may be an active one (e.g., you have a headache and would like as quick a solution as possible) or inactive-- you are not aware that your situation is a problem (e.g., a consumer is not aware that he or she could have more energy with a new vitamin). Problems may be acknowledged (e.g., a consumer is aware that his or her car does not accelerate well enough or
unacknowledged (e.g., a consumer will not acknowledge that he or she consumes too much alcohol). Finally, needs can be relatively specific (generic), as in the need for enjoyment (which can be satisfied many different ways), or specific, as in the need for professional attire to wear at a new job.
Several different methods can be used to detect consumer problems, which are discussed on pp. 508-509 in the text.
Creating problems for consumers is a way to increase sales, albeit a questionably ethical one. One way to create new problems, and resultant needs, is to create a new ideal state. This is often done quite arbitrarily in the fashion industry, as skirt lengths and the appropriate number of buttons on a suit often change arbitrarily up and down. It may also be possible to create dissatisfaction with current states. e.g., a firm may publicize current crime statistics to increase the sales of handguns and alarms. Many vocational training schools advertise that better careers than the consumer’s current one are available upon graduation (a promise on which, by the way, they may not deliver in the end).
There are two main approaches to search. Internal searches are based on what consumers already know. Thus, it may be important for certain firms to advertise to consumers before they actually need the product. For example, one bail bond company advertised its existence to people "in case you ever find yourself in jail." As another example, if you decide to go out for fast food, you may not consult any directories, but instead search your memory for fast food restaurants conveniently located. A problem is that some excellent ones which are not remembered, or have never been heard of, are not considered. External searches get people to either speak to others (getting information by word of mouth) or use other sources (such as advertisements now sought out or yellow page listings). Because the yellow pages are often the first place to which people turn, this medium is able to charge very large advertising rates.
Consumers often do not consider all alternatives. Some are not known (the "unawareness" set), some were once known but are not readily accessible in memory (the "inert" set), others are ruled out as unsatisfactory (the "inept" set--e.g., Glad bags attempts to get "bargain bags" into that set), and those that are considered represent the "evoked" set, from which one alternative is likely to be purchased.
The amount of effort a consumer puts into searching depends on a number of factors such as the market (how many competitors are there, and how great are differences between brands expected to be?), product characteristics (how important is this product? How complex is the product? How obvious are indications of quality?), consumer characteristics (how interested is a consumer,
generally, in analyzing product characteristics and making the best possible deal?), and situational characteristics (as previously discussed).
Two interesting issues in decisions are variety seeking (where consumers seek to try new brands not because these brands are expected to be "better" in any way, but rather because the consumer wants a "change of pace," and "impulse" purchases. Impulse purchases are, generally speaking, unplanned, but represent a somewhat fuzzy group. For example, a shopper may plan to buy vegetables but only decide in the store to actually buy broccoli and corn. Alternatively, a person may buy an item which is currently on sale, or one that he or she remembers that is needed only once inside the store (remember the Wal-Mart article).
Consumerism:
Consumerism is defined as the organised movement of the citizens and the government to enhance the rights and power of consumerism relation to the sellers.
All products and services are created to enhance the quality of lie for the members of a society. All marketing transactions should be beneficial to the society. Very often firms are seen engaging themselves in questionable marketing practices and transactions that have a profound impact on the society at a large. With the changes in the socio economic environment, very often market place abuses are brought to the notice of the policy decision makers either through the media, consumer awareness groups, consumer themselves.
The basis of consumerism is to protect the consumers from the immoral practices conducted by the marketers. Such practices may be high prices, high-pressure selling, unsafe products, planned obsolescence and poor services. Marketers have been using deceptive advertisements to influence people. Such advertisement is often against the morals and decency standards of the society. For example, the recent ads of ‘Fair & Lovely’ where a father says “Kash mujhe ladka hota”, which makes sex discrimination.
In other words of Peter Drucker, “Consumerism is the shame of the total marketing concept”. Every organisation should take marketing decisions keeping in mind the organisation’s long-term interests. It would be preferable if companies recognize societal problems as presenting opportunities. As stated by Drucker “Consumerism actually should be, must be, and I hope will be the opportunity of marketing. This is what we in marketing are waiting for”.
In India, Consumerism is still in the infancy stage. In pre-liberalization era, consumers in India had hardly any voice as regards to their rights in relation to the sellers. The inadequate competition and the absolute monopolies created by the
protection provided by the Government only increased consumer’s problems. Since the mid 80’s, there have been rapid changes taking place in the socio-economical environments. The market has been flooded with goods and services and it has become difficult for the consumers to ascertain the quality or utility of these goods and services.
• Consumerism in India has not progressed because of various reasons, which is as under :
• Vastness of the country, imbalance in distribution of wealth, backwardness.
• The high rate of illiteracy and ignorance.
• Traditional outlook of the people to suffer in silence, lack of information and education.
• Inability to understand the technical complexity completely of the goods and accepting manufacturer’s at face value.
• Consumer’s tendency to get carried away by clever advertising and promotional tactics.
• Consumerism is still in its infancy stage and hence is not developed and organised. The existing laws are incapable of effectively implementing and enforcing the objectives.
The Government of India has been instrumental in creating an environment through legislation to give a protection to the consumers. There have been various measures taken by the Government in this regard, which are :
• Statutory regulation.
• Development and expansion of the public sector.
Social Responsibility :
Traditionally, business organisations were involved in commercial activities aimed at making a profit. However, today business is considered to be social institution forming an integral part of the social system. Because of the social resposisblity of the business, it is moral responsibility of the businessmen to be bound by certain ethical principals and rules of conduct, which reflects its responsibility, authority, and dignity.
Few of the important ethical principles are as under:
• Do not deceive or cheat customers by selling sub-standard or defective products by under measurement or by any other means.
• Do not resort to black marketing or profiteering.
• Do not destroy or distort competition.
• Do not tarnish the image of competition by unfair practices.
• Be precise, accurate and sincere in the advertising labelling and packaging of goods and services.
A growing number of organisations are looking beyond profits and trying to achieve improvement in lives of the poorer sections of the society. There are companies that are finding out new ways of protecting the environment. A large number of companies have been striving to achieve international standards like ISO 14000. In India, groups like the Tata’s have been striving to achieve social responsibilities right from their inception.
Reasons Behind The Rise Of Consumerism:
• Make the business community more honest, efficient, responsive and responsible. The manufacturers and sellers will be compelled to adopt fair practises, when consumers learn to exercise their rights and are not taken for granted.
• Consumerism can also be viewed as an opportunity for business community to serve the consumers in a better and more efficient manner. It will prove to e weapon for marketers to effectively implement the societal concept of marketing.
• In case of imperfections in the demand and supply situation in the market, concerned marketers can help the consumers to get rid of the traders who resort to practices such as hoarding, black marketing etc.
• Consumerism will also ensure tat the Government takes the necessary measures to protect consumer’s interest by guarantying their legitimate rights.
Contents
1. Nature, Scope and Importance of consumer behaviour.
2. Consumer Research.
3. Consumer Learning
4. Consumer Perception
5. Consumer Involvement
6. Attitude, Culture, Lifestyle and Socialism
7. Consumer Motivation
8. Consumer Decision Making
9. Consumerism
1. Nature Scope and Importance of Consumer behaviour. :
Consumer behaviour is defined as “The dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behaviour and the environment b which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of lives”. IT means that the buying habits of the consumer are greatly affected by their thought process and their feelings experienced. Human beings are greatly influenced in their buying actions by various factors like opinion of others, marketing stimuli like product, advertising, packaging and product appearance.
Importance of Consumer behaviour:
• Ever increasing intensifying competition.
• More aggressive competitors emerging with greater frequency.
• Changes basis of competition.
• Geographic sources of competition are becoming wider.
• Niche attacks are becoming frequent.
• Pace of innovation is rapid.
• Price competition becoming more aggressive
• Product differentiation is declining.
As a principal, the marketing concept involves understanding the needs of the consumers and translating these needs into products or services to satisfy these needs. The basic objective in marketing is to achieve the goal of profit making through customer satisfaction. To do this, an organization should understand the consumer and be as close to them as possible.
Consumer behaviour is Dynamic:
The feelings, thinking, perceptions and actions of the customer and the society at large keep changing frequently. For example number of working women is on rise and this has changed the concept of shopping. The dynamic nature of the consumer behaviour offers challenges to marketers and the task of creating marketing strategies becomes complex, and exciting. Strategies that work today may not work tomorrow. Strategies adopted in one market ma not work in another. The product life cycle are becoming shorter and create additional pressures on marketers to bring innovative products and concepts. The concept ‘value’ changes from time to time. Mahindra and mahindra had to come out with ‘Scorpio’ within launch of ‘Bolero’.
Consumer behaviour involves interactions:
Consumer behaviour involves interactions among peoples thinking, feelings, and actions and the environment. This forces marketers to understand three things:
• What products and services mean to customers.
• What influences shopping, purchase, and consumption.
• What consumers nee to do to purchase and consume products and services.
Consumer behaviour involves exchange:
Consumer behaviour involves exchanges between human beings. People give up something of value to others and receive something in return. Much of consumer behaviour involves people giving up money to obtain product and services, that is, exchanges consumers and sellers. The role of marketing in society is to help create exchange by formulating and implementing marketing strategies.
2. Consumer Research :
Consumer research is the systematic collection and analysis of consumer information for the purpose of important decision making for marketing. Consumer research plays an important role in marketing process, helps in consumer measurement, market potential, sales forecast, each element like product mis, distribution mix, price, effectiveness of and advertisement campaign, consumer acceptance of a product. In fiercely competitive situation, it is extremely critical for and organization to monitor the customer relationship on a regular basis.
Consumer research is used for two purposes:
• Routine problem analysis .i.e. product potential, sales forecasting.
• Non-routing problem analysis .i.e. new product launch, success of promotional schemes.
Needs for Consumer Research:
• How do consumers interpret information about marketing stimuli such as products, stores, and advertising?
• How do consumers choose from among alternative product classes, products, and brands?
• How do consumers form evaluation of products and brands?
• How does consumer interpret the benefits of market offerings?
• How do behaviour and environment affect consumer beliefs and attitudes?
• Why consumers are more interested or involved in some products or brands than others?
• How d marketing strategies influence consumer’s beliefs and attitudes?
Answers to such questions can only be obtained through consumer feedback and for this it is imperative to study Consumer Research and integrate it into the overall marketing function.
Approaches to Consumer Research:
There are two main categories of research methods. Secondary research uses research that has already been done by someone else. For example, marketers often find information compiled by the U.S. Census very useful. However, in some cases, information specific enough to satisfy a firm’s needs is not publicly available. For example, a firm will have to run its own research to find out whether consumers would prefer that more vanilla taste be added to its soft drink brand. Original research that a firm does for itself is known as primary research.
There is no one perfect primary research method. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and thus the appropriate method must be selected based on research needs.
Surveys are useful for getting a great deal of specific information. Surveys can contain open-ended questions (e.g., "In which city and state were you born? ____________") or closed-ended, where the respondent is asked to select answers from a brief list (e.g., "__Male ___ Female." Open ended questions have the advantage that the respondent is not limited to the options listed, and that the respondent is not being influenced by seeing a list of responses. However, open-ended questions are often skipped by respondents, and coding them can be quite a challenge. In general, for surveys to yield meaningful responses, sample sizes of over 100 are usually required because precision is essential. For example, if a market share of twenty percent would result in a loss while thirty percent would be profitable, a confidence interval of 20-35% is too wide to be useful.
Surveys come in several different forms. Mail surveys are relatively inexpensive, but response rates are typically quite low—typically from 5-20%. Phone-surveys get somewhat higher response rates, but not many questions can be asked because many answer options have to be repeated and few people are willing to stay on the phone for more than five minutes. Mall intercepts are a convenient way to reach consumers, but respondents may be reluctant to discuss anything sensitive face-to-face with an interviewer.
A survey, as any kind of research, is vulnerable to bias. The wording of a question can influence the outcome a great deal. For example, more people answered no to the question "Should speeches against democracy be allowed?" than answered yes to "Should speeches against democracy be forbidden?" For face-to-face interviews, interviewer bias is a danger, too. Interviewer bias occurs when the interviewer influences the way the respondent answers. For example, unconsciously an interviewer that works for the firm manufacturing the product in question may smile a little when something good is being said about the product and frown a little when something negative is being said. The respondent may catch on and say something more positive than his or her real opinion. Finally, a response bias may occur—if only part of the sample responds to a survey, the respondents’ answers may not be representative of the population.
The case of "The Pentagon Declares War on Rush Limbaugh" illustrated that biased surveys are often taken at face value. It was reported in the national media, without question of the validity of the research, that only 3.8% of listeners to the Armed Forces Network wanted to listen to Rush Limbaugh. It turned out, however, that this inference was based on the question "What single thing can we do to improve programming?" Only if a respondent wrote in an answer mentioning Rush Limbaugh were he or she counted as wanting to listen to Rush.
Experiments are used when the researcher wants to rule out all but one explanation for a particular observation. Suppose, for example, that we observe that sales of our brand increase when we send out coupons. However, retailers may also give us better shelf space when the coupon is out; thus, we can’t tell if it was the coupon or the shelf-placement that caused sales to increase—the two variables are confounded. In an experiment, we carefully control what varies. In this case, we invite in one hundred people and ask them to shop in a simulated store. Half of the respondents are randomly selected and get a coupon; the others do not. Since the only difference here was whether the subjects got a coupon or
not, we can be more confident that differences in brand choice were due to the coupon. Experiments do, however, have a serious drawback in that the consumer is removed from his or her natural surroundings. For example, if we pay some consumers to come into a lab and watch TV "as you normally would," these consumers, figuring that they are being paid, may give more attention to the advertisements than they would at home.
Focus groups involve getting a group of 6-12 consumers together to discuss product usage. Focus groups are especially useful if we do not have specific questions to ask yet, since we don’t know what consumers’ concerns might be. We start out talking broadly about the need that a product might serve, and only gradually move toward the product itself. For example, a firm considering the marketing of sugar free cookies might start out its group talking about snacks—why people consume them and the benefits they expect. Gradually, we then move toward concerns people have about snacks. Eventually, we address sugar content and concerns that consumers have about that. Only toward the end of the session do we show consumers the actual product we are considering and ask for feedback. We postpone our consideration of the actual product toward the end because we want to be sure that we find out about the consumer’s needs and desires rather than what he or she thinks about the specific product we have on the drawing board right now (that product can be changed, and it can be repositioned). Drawbacks of focus groups include high costs and the fact that generalization toward the entire population is difficult for such small sample sizes. The fact that focus groups involve social interaction also means that participants may say what they think will make themselves look good rather than what they really believe (the social desirability bias).
Personal interviews involve in-depth questioning of an individual about his or her interest in or experiences with a product. The benefit here is that we can get really into depth (when the respondent says something interesting, we can ask him or her to elaborate), but this method of research is costly and can be extremely vulnerable to interviewer bias.
Projective techniques are used when a consumer may feel embarrassed to admit to certain opinions, feelings, or preferences. For example, many older executives may not be comfortable admitting to being intimidated by computers. It has been found that in such cases, people will tend to respond more openly about "someone else." Thus, we may ask them to explain reasons why a friend has not yet bought a computer, or to tell a story about a person in a picture who is or is not using a product. The main problem with this method is that it is difficult to analyze responses.
Observation of consumers is often a powerful tool. Looking at how consumers select products may yield insights into how they make decisions and what they look for. For example, some American manufacturers were concerned about low sales of their products in Japan. Observing Japanese consumers, it was found that many of these Japanese consumers scrutinized packages looking for a name of a major manufacturer—the product specific-brands that are common in the U.S.
(e.g., Tide) were not impressive to the Japanese, who wanted a name of a major firm like Mitsubishi or Proctor & Gamble. Observation may help us determine how much time consumers spend comparing prices, or whether nutritional labels are being consulted. Physiological measures are occasionally used to examine consumer response. For example, advertisers may want to measure a consumer’s level of arousal during various parts of an advertisement.
Types of Data:
Primary Data: Data collected at first hand either by the researcher or by someone especially for the purpose of the study are known as primary data.
Secondary Data: Data which have been collected earlier for some other purpose are secondary data in hands of marketing researcher.
3. Consumer Learning :
Learning is defined as a permanent change in the behaviour of a consumer as a result of past experience.
The characteristic features of learning are as under:
• Learning involves a change in behaviour. This change may or may not be an important over previous behaviour.
• Learning is a process, which continuously evolves and changes as a result of newly acquired knowledge.
• Learning can occur by increase in knowledge through reading books, articles, observation, thinking, and through discussions.
• The behaviour change is based on some form of practice or exception.
Thus we see that learning is based on two vital aspects that are behaviour and experience. Learning can be either intentional or incidental. Intentional learning occurs when the individual is deliberately searching for the information on the feature, benefits etc of the product before a purchase. Incidental learning occurs when the information comes to him on its own either through the print or electronic media, exhibitions etc.
4. Consumer Perception :
It is selection, organisation, and interpretation of marketing and environmental stimuli into a cohesive picture. Following are the some feature of perception, which are as under:
• Perception is a mental process, whereby an individual selects data or information from the environment, organizes it and draws significance or meaning from it.
• Perception is a basically a cognitive or thinking process and an individual’s activities, emotions, feelings etc. are based on his perception of his perception of his surroundings or environment.
• Perception being an intellectual and cognitive process will be subjective in nature. This means that different people may perceive the same environment differently based on the effect of the environment.
Characteristics Affecting Perception:
Characteristic effecting perception can be divided into sensory elements and structural elements.
Colour: Colour has important sensory connotations. Evidence suggests that red is regarded as warm, sensual and not intimidating. Blue is seen as conforming and is regarded to be colour that attempts to convey friendlier image. Pepsi attempt to cash on the blue colour of the Indian cricket team during the recent World Cup cricket matches has received a similar response. Many retailers in Mumbai call it ‘Ghaslet Pepsi’. This is because Indians are more used to identify blue with kerosene and their long term association with blue colour of kerosene led to call blue Pepsi as Ghaslet Pepsi.
Taste: Taste is another sensory factor that will condition consumers brand perceptions. The importance of taste is illustrated by P&G blunder when it first introduced Pringles potato chips. The chips were packed in an easy-to-stack cylindrical can to avoid breakage of chips. The consumers responded by saying that the packaging resembles a tennis ball can. Further consumers felt that the chips tasted like tennis ball.
Smell: Smell is important for food products and cosmetics products. In one study, two fragrances were added to the same facial tissue. Consumers perceived one facial issue as elegant and expensive and the other as a product to use in the kitchen.
Sound: Sound is another important sensory stimulus. Advertisers have traditionally used accent to convey status and authority. Even in case of serials, voice is being used to create an impact on the masses. The ‘Binaca geetmala’ was characterised by the voice of Amin Sayani.s
Feel: The feel of certain products will also influence consumer’s perceptions. Softness is considered a desirable attribute in many paper products. Feel is also a means of determining quality. Consumer often use of a textile fabric, clothing, carpeting, or furniture to evaluate quality. For example, a smooth, velvety feel in textile fabrics is considered an indication of quality.
Structural Elements:
Intensity and Size: The brighter and advertisement and larger the size, more it is able to attract the attention of potential consumers. Such large advertisements can be in the form of full page advertisements in newspapers or in the form of large hoardings on the road.
Position: Attraction towards and advertisement depends largely on the place where it is positioned. Positioning includes the page of a newspaper. Similarly, the placement of product for display on shelves at the retail outlet plays an important role in attracting the attention of the consumers.
Contrast: A black and white advertisement with a small spot used by Jet Airways is likely to attract attention. A quite commercial after a loud program can attract attention like the advertisement of ‘De Beers’ diamond after listening to a frantic rock show.
Novelty: It is observed that anything which is different from what is normally expected tends to attract attention like an unusual bottle shape or different packaging material. For e.g. ‘Frooti’ was the first to introduce the soft drink in tetra pack or when Pepsi and Coke were launched in small cans.
Repetition: Advertisements are repeated often to enable consumers to brand recall as well as stimulate them and create a strong desire for interest in the purchase of the product. Repetition is particularly important in case of low involvement convenience goods like soaps, toothpastes.
Consumer Characteristics Affecting Perception:
Stimulus Discrimination: One of the basic questions regarding the effect of marketing stimuli. The ability to discriminate among stimuli is learned. Generally, frequent users of a product are better able to notice small difference in product characteristic between brands.
Threshold levels: The ability of consumer to detect the various in sensory elements is determined by their threshold level. Some consumers are more sensitive to these stimuli than others. This will be quite clear from the fact tea and coffee companies employ persons called tea or coffee ‘tasters’.
Just Noticeable difference: It is based on the differential threshold of a consumer. A consumer will not be able to detect any change in stimulus below his threshold. For e.g. If an unbranded detergent cost 5 percent less that consumer is regular brand, the consumer ma not notice the difference. However, if the same unbranded product costs less than 30 percent less than he is definitely going to notice the difference.
Weber’s Law: It states that the stronger the stimulus, the greater the change required for the stimulus to be seen as different. The most important application of this law is in price. One critical implication is that the higher the original price of an item, the greater the markdown required to increase sales. For e.g. If price of a Mercedes Benz S class is reduced by 25000/-, it will not have any impact on sales because the basic price is in several Lakhs that a difference of Rs25000/- may not be noticeable for consumers. On the other hand a price reduction of even Rs5000/- for a maruti 800 is seen to push sales substantially because of its low original price.
Absolute Threshold: It is stimulus below which consumers cannot detect the stimulus at all. It is also referred to as subliminal perception .i.e. perception of stimulus below the conscious level. One of the major controversies regarding consumer perceptions is whether consumers can actually perceive marketing stimuli below their absolute level.
Adaptation law: It is the level at which consumer’s no longer notice a frequently repeated stimulus. An individual walking into an air-conditioned room, kitchen full of fragrance, or a noisy party will notice these stimuli after a period of time. Consumer differs in their level of adaptation. Some tune out more quickly then others. Novelty, humour, contrast, and movement are all stimulus effects that may gain consumer’s attention and reduce their attention and reduce their adaptation.
Price and Quality Perceptions: Price perceptions directly influence consumer’s perceptions of brand quality and determine their purchasing behaviour. For e.g. Parker pens were positioned as expensive, hand finished pens. In order to achieve large volume of growth and to share a pie of the explosive growing ballpoints, Parker entered this market for cheap pens moving away from its traditional positioning. The results were disastrous because company’s image was not consistent with its price. In the late eighties, it moved back to its strength, high priced fountain pens, with an ad campaign featuring style and luxury. This shift made the company profitable again.
5. Consumer Involvement:
Involvement: A consumer is said to have a high involvement in purchase, when he considers the product be important and strongly identifies with it.
Conditions for involvement:
A consumer is likely to be more involved with a product when:
• The consumer’s self image is tied to the product e.g. aggressive youth craving for power identify themselves with the Enfield Bullet. Khadi is preferred by politicians and budding politicians. Similarly, we find politician preferring a multi-utility vehicle like Scorpio or Tata Safari.
• Product has a symbolic meaning tied to consumer values e.g. ownership of a BMW car, a cross pen, Rolex watches have s symbolic value of the affluent class.
• Product is expensive .e.g. Jewellery, real estate etc.
• It has some important functional value e.g. fuel efficiency of a vehicle, cricket gear for a cricketer.
• Product has an emotional appeal e.g. buying of a gift article, buying of articles for religious purpose.
• Product is continually of interest to the consumer .e.g. fashion-conscious customer has continuous appeal in clothing and apparel.
• Product entails significant risk e.g. buying a technology complex product, buying a house.
• Product is identified with the norms of the group. E.g. School children buying ‘Pokemans’ articles.
Type of Involvement:
Situational Involvement:
It is one that occurs only in specific situations and is temporary. For e.g. a person buying suit for marriage. Formal dressing for the marriage is a necessary and
hence a person not very fashion-conscious about clothes gets involved temporary for his marriage in a piece of suit.
Enduring Involvement: It indicates an ongoing interest in the product category. For example,
Attitudes:
Definition. Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumer’s (1) beliefs about, (2) feelings about, (3) and behavioral intentions toward some object--within the context of marketing, usually a brand or retail store. These components are viewed together since they are highly interdependent and together represent forces that influence how the consumer will react to the object.
Beliefs. The first component is beliefs. A consumer may hold both positive beliefs toward an object (e.g., coffee tastes good) as well as negative beliefs (e.g., coffee is easily spilled and stains papers). In addition, some beliefs may be neutral (coffee is black), and some may be differ in valance depending on the person or the situation (e.g., coffee is hot and stimulates--good on a cold morning, but not good on a hot summer evening when one wants to sleep). Note also that the beliefs that consumers hold need not be accurate (e.g., that pork contains little fat), and some beliefs may, upon closer examination, be contradictory (e.g., that a historical figure was a good person but also owned slaves).
Since a consumer holds many beliefs, it may often be difficult to get down to a "bottom line" overall belief about whether an object such as McDonald’s is overall good or bad. The Multi-attribute (also sometimes known as the Fishbein) Model attempts to summarize overall attitudes into one score using the equation:
That is, for each belief, we take the weight or importance (Wi) of that belief and multiply it with its evaluation (Xib). For example, a consumer believes that the taste of a beverage is moderately important, or a 4 on a scale from 1 to 7. He or she believes that coffee tastes very good, or a 6 on a scale from 1 to 7. Thus, the product here is 4(6) =24. On the other hand, he or she believes that the potential of a drink to stain is extremely important (7), and coffee fares moderately badly, at a score -4, on this attribute (since this is a negative belief, we now take negative numbers from -1 to -7, with -7 being worst). Thus, we now have 7(-4) =-28. Had these two beliefs been the only beliefs the consumer held, his or her total, or aggregated, attitude would have been 24+ (-28) =-4. In practice, of course, consumers tend to have many more beliefs that must each be added to obtain an accurate measurement.
Affect. Consumers also hold certain feelings toward brands or other objects. Sometimes these feelings are based on the beliefs (e.g., a person feels nauseated when thinking about a hamburger because of the tremendous amount of fat it contains), but there may also be feelings which are relatively independent of beliefs. For example, an extreme environmentalist may believe that cutting down trees is morally wrong, but may have positive affect toward Christmas trees because he or she unconsciously associates these trees with the experience that he or she had at Christmas as a child.
Behavioral intention. The behavioral intention is what the consumer plans to do with respect to the object (e.g., buy or not buy the brand). As with affect, this is sometimes a logical consequence of beliefs (or affect), but may sometimes reflect other circumstances--e.g., although a consumer does not really like a restaurant, he or she will go there because it is a hangout for his or her friends.
Attitude-Behavior Consistency. Consumers often do not behave consistently with their attitudes for several reasons:
o Ability. He or she may be unable to do so. Although junior high school student likes pick-up trucks and would like to buy one, she may lack a driver’s license.
o Competing demands for resources. Although the above student would like to buy a pickup truck on her sixteenth birthday, she would rather have a computer, and has money for only one of the two.
o Social influence. A student thinks that smoking is really cool, but since his friends think it’s disgusting, he does not smoke.
o Measurement problems. Measuring attitudes is difficult. In many situations, consumers do not consciously set out to enumerate how positively or negatively they feel about mopeds, and when a market researcher asks them about their beliefs about mopeds, how important these beliefs are, and their evaluation of the performance of mopeds with respect to these beliefs, consumers often do not give very reliable answers. Thus, the consumers may act consistently with their true attitudes, which were never uncovered because an erroneous measurement was made.
Attitude Change Strategies. Changing attitudes is generally very difficult, particularly when consumers suspect that the marketer has a self-serving agenda in bringing about this change (e.g., to get the consumer to buy more or to switch brands).
Changing affect. One approach is to try to change affect, which may or may not involve getting consumers to change their beliefs. One strategy uses the approach of classical conditioning try to "pair" the product with a liked stimulus. For example, we "pair" a car with a beautiful woman. Alternatively, we can try to get
people to like the advertisement and hope that this liking will "spill over" into the purchase of a product. For example, the Pillsbury Doughboy does not really emphasize the conveyance of much information to the consumer; instead, it attempts to create a warm, fuzzy image. Although Energizer Bunny ads try to get people to believe that their batteries last longer, the main emphasis is on the likeable bunny. Finally, products which are better known, through the mere exposure effect, tend to be better liked--that is, the more a product is advertised and seen in stores, the more it will generally be liked, even if consumers to do not develop any specific beliefs about the product.
Changing behavior. People like to believe that their behavior is rational; thus, once they use our products, chances are that they will continue unless someone is able to get them to switch. One way to get people to switch to our brand is to use temporary price discounts and coupons; however, when consumers buy a product on deal, they may justify the purchase based on that deal (i.e., the low price) and may then switch to other brands on deal later. A better way to get people to switch to our brand is to at least temporarily obtain better shelf space so that the product is more convenient. Consumers are less likely to use this availability as a rationale for their purchase and may continue to buy the product even when the product is less conveniently located. (Notice, by the way, that this represents a case of shaping).
Changing beliefs. Although attempting to change beliefs is the obvious way to attempt attitude change, particularly when consumers hold unfavorable or inaccurate ones, this is often difficult to achieve because consumers tend to resist. Several approaches to belief change exist:
o Change currently held beliefs. It is generally very difficult to attempt to change beliefs that people hold, particularly those that are strongly held, even if they are inaccurate. For example, the petroleum industry advertised for a long time that its profits were lower than were commonly believed, and provided extensive factual evidence in its advertising to support this reality. Consumers were suspicious and rejected this information, however.
o Change the importance of beliefs. Although the sugar manufacturers would undoubtedly like to decrease the importance of healthy teeth, it is usually not feasible to make beliefs less important--consumers are likely to reason, why, then, would you bother bringing them up in the first place? However, it may be possible to strengthen beliefs that favour us--e.g., a vitamin supplement manufacturer may advertise that it is extremely important for women to replace iron lost through menstruation. Most consumers already agree with this, but the belief can be made stronger.
o Add beliefs. Consumers are less likely to resist the addition of beliefs so long as they do not conflict with existing beliefs. Thus, the beef industry
has added beliefs that beef (1) is convenient and (2) can be used to make a number of creative dishes. Vitamin manufacturers attempt to add the belief that stress causes vitamin depletion, which sounds quite plausible to most people.
o Change ideal. It usually difficult, and very risky, to attempt to change ideals, and only few firms succeed. For example, Hard Candy may have attempted to change the ideal away from traditional beauty toward more unique self expression.
One-sided vs. two-sided appeals. Attitude research has shown that consumers often tend to react more favorably to advertisements which either (1) admit something negative about the sponsoring brand (e.g., the Volvo is a clumsy car, but very safe) or (2) admits something positive about a competing brand (e.g., a competing supermarket has slightly lower prices, but offers less service and selection). Two-sided appeals must, contain overriding arguments why the sponsoring brand is ultimately superior--that is, in the above examples, the "but" part must be emphasized.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Celebrity Endorsements. The ELM suggests that consumers will scrutinize claims more in important situations than in unimportant ones. For example, we found that in the study of people trying to get ahead of others in a line to use photo copiers, the compliance rate was about fifty percent when people just asked to get ahead. However, when the justification "... because I have to make copies" was added, compliance increased to 80%. Since the reason offered really did not add substantive information, we conclude that it was not extensively analyzed--in the jargon of the theory, "elaboration" was low.
The ELM suggests that for "unimportant" products, elaboration will be low, and thus Bill Cosby is able to endorse Coke and Jell-O without having any special credentials to do so. However, for products which are either expensive or important for some other reason (e.g., a pain reliever given to a child that could be harmed by using dangerous substances), elaboration is likely to be more extensive, and the endorser is expected to be "congruent," or compatible, with the product. For example, a basket ball player is likely to be effective in endorsing athletic shoes, but not in endorsing automobiles. On the other hand, a nationally syndicated auto columnist would be successful in endorsing cars, but not athletic shoes. All of them, however, could endorse fast food restaurants effectively.
Appeal approaches. Several approaches to appeal may be used. The use of affect to induce empathy with advertising characters may increase attraction to a product, but may backfire if consumers believe that people’s feelings are being exploited. Fear appeals appear to work only if (1) an optimal level of fear is
evoked--not so much that people tune it out, but enough to scare people into action and (2) a way to avoid the feared stimulus is explicitly indicated--e.g., gingivitis and tooth loss can be avoided by using this mouth wash. Humor appears to be effective in gaining attention, but does not appear to increase persuasion in practice. In addition, a more favorable attitude toward the advertisement may be created by humorous advertising, which may in turn result in increased sales. Comparative advertising, which is illegal in many countries, often increases sales for the sponsoring brand, but may backfire in certain cultures.
Culture:
Culture is part of the external influences that impact the consumer. That is, culture represents influences that are imposed on the consumer by other individuals.
The definition of culture offered in the text is "That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society." From this definition, we make the following observations:
• Culture, as a "complex whole," is a system of interdependent components.
• Knowledge and beliefs are important parts. In the U.S., we know and believe that a person who is skilled and works hard will get ahead. In other countries, it may be believed that differences in outcome result more from luck. "Chunking," the name for China in Chinese literally means "The Middle Kingdom." The belief among ancient Chinese that they were in the centre of the universe greatly influenced their thinking.
• Other issues are relevant. Art, for example, may be reflected in the rather arbitrary practice of wearing ties in some countries and wearing turbans in others. Morality may be exhibited in the view in the United States that one should not be naked in public. In Japan, on the other hand, groups of men and women may take steam baths together without perceived as improper. On the other extreme, women in some Arab countries are not even allowed to reveal their faces. Notice, by the way, that what at least some countries view as moral may in fact be highly immoral by the standards of another country. For example, the law that once banned interracial marriages in South Africa was named the "Immorality Act," even though in most civilized countries this law, and any degree of explicit racial prejudice, would itself be considered highly immoral.
Culture has several important characteristics: (1) Culture is comprehensive. This means that all parts must fit together in some logical fashion. For example, bowing and a strong desire to avoid the loss of face are unified in their
manifestation of the importance of respect. (2) Culture is learned rather than being something we are born with. We will consider the mechanics of learning later in the course. (3) Culture is manifested within boundaries of acceptable behavior. For example, in American society, one cannot show up to class naked, but wearing anything from a suit and tie to shorts and a T-shirt would usually be acceptable. Failure to behave within the prescribed norms may lead to sanctions, ranging from being hauled off by the police for indecent exposure to being laughed at by others for wearing a suit at the beach. (4) Conscious awareness of cultural standards is limited. One American spy was intercepted by the Germans during World War II simply because of the way he held his knife and fork while eating. (5) Cultures fall somewhere on a continuum between static and dynamic depending on how quickly they accept change. For example, American culture has changed a great deal since the 1950s, while the culture of Saudi Arabia has changed much less.
It should be noted that there is a tendency of outsiders to a culture to overstate the similarity of members of that culture to each other. In the United States, we are well aware that there is a great deal of heterogeneity within our culture; however, we often underestimate the diversity within other cultures. For example, in Latin America, there are great differences between people who live in coastal and mountainous areas; there are also great differences between social classes.
Cultural rules can be categorized into three types. Formal rules carry relatively explicit standards as to how one should behave, and violations often carry severe sanctions. For example, in many countries, two forms of the second pronoun (you) exist, with different levels of deference associated with each (e.g., tú and usted in Spanish and tu and vous in Spanish—German even has three levels!) In Japan, senior executives will enter and leave a meeting room before subordinates in a very deliberate manner. Informal rules, on the other hand, are less explicit and may not carry sanctions for violation. For example, in the U.S., most people would consider eating dinner at 10:00 p.m. weird, while this is perfectly normal in parts of Latin American and Southern Europe. Finally, technical cultural rules involve implicit standards as to what constitutes a good product. For example, in India, a movie must have at least seven songs to be successful; in the U.S., preempting the soundtrack for that amount of time would not be desirable.
Language is an important element of culture. It should be realized that regional differences may be subtle. For example, one word may mean one thing in one Latin American country, but something off-color in another. It should also be kept in mind that much information is carried in non-verbal communication. In some cultures, we nod to signify "yes" and shake our heads to signify "no;" in other cultures, the practice is reversed.
Different perspectives exist in different cultures on several issues; e.g.:
• Monochronic cultures tend to value precise scheduling and doing one thing at a time; in polychronic cultures, in contrast, promptness is valued less, and multiple tasks may be performed simultaneously. (See text for more detail).
• Space is perceived differently. Americans will feel crowded where people from more densely populated countries will be comfortable.
• Symbols differ in meaning. For example, while white symbols purity in the U.S., it is a symbol of death in China. Colours that are considered masculine and feminine also differ by culture.
• Americans have a lot of quite shallow friends toward whom little obligation is felt; people in European and some Asian cultures have fewer, but more significant friends. For example, one Ph.D. student from India, with limited income, felt obligated to try buy an airline ticket for a friend to go back to India when a relative had died.
• In the U.S. and much of Europe, agreements are typically rather precise and contractual in nature; in Asia, there is a greater tendency to settle issues as they come up. As a result, building a relationship of trust is more important in Asia, since you must be able to count on your partner being reasonable.
• In terms of etiquette, some cultures have more rigid procedures than others. In some countries, for example, there are explicit standards as to how a gift should be presented. In some cultures, gifts should be presented in private to avoid embarrassing the recipient; in others, the gift should be made publicly to ensure that no perception of secret bribery could be made.
The United States has undergone some changes in its predominant culture over the last several decades. Again, however, it should be kept in mind that there are great variations within the culture. For example, on the average, Americans have become less materialistic and have sought more leisure; on the other hand, the percentage of people working extremely long hours has also increased. The text discusses changes in values in more detail.
Significant changes have occurred in gender roles in American society. One of the reasons for this is that more women work outside the home than before. However, women still perform a disproportionate amount of housework, and men who participate in this activity tend to do so reluctantly. In general, commercials tend to lag somewhat behind reality—e.g., few men are seen doing housework, and few women are seen as buyers and decision makers on automobile purchases.
Subculture refers to a culture within a culture. For example, African Americans are, as indicated in the group name, Americans; however, a special influence of
the African American community is often also present. For example, although this does not apply to everyone, African Americans tend to worship in churches that have predominantly African American membership, and church is often a significant part of family life.
Different perspectives on the diversity in U.S. culture exist. The "melting pot" metaphor suggests that immigrants gradually assimilate after they arrive. Therefore, in the long run, there will be few differences between ethnic groups and instead, one mainstream culture that incorporates elements from each will result. The "salad bowl" metaphor, in contrast, suggests that although ethnic groups will interact as a whole (through the whole mix of salad) and contain some elements of the whole (through the dressing), each group will maintain its own significant traits (each vegetable is different from the others). The "melting pot" view suggests that one should run integrated promotions aimed at all groups; the "salad bowl" approach suggests that each group should be approached separately.
Subculture is often categorized on the basis of demographics. Thus, for example, we have the "teenage" subculture and the "Cuban-American" subculture. While part of the overall culture, these groups often have distinguishing characteristics. An important consequence is that a person who is part of two subcultures may experience some conflict. For example, teenage native Americans experience a conflict between the mainstream teenage culture and traditional Indian ways.
Values are often greatly associated with age groups because people within an age-group have shared experiences. For example, it is believed that people old enough to have experienced the American Depression are more frugal because of that experience.
Regional influence, both in the United States and other areas, is significant. Many food manufacturers offer different product variations for different regions. Joel Garreau, in his book The Nine Nations of North America, proposed nine distinct regional subcultures that cut across state lines. Although significant regional differences undoubtedly exist, research has failed to support Garreau’s specific characterizations
Demographics and Social Stratification
Demographics are clearly tied to subculture and segmentation. Here, however, we shift our focus from analyzing specific subcultures to trying to understand the implications for an entire population of its makeup.
Several issues are useful in the structure of a population. For example, in some rapidly growing countries, a large percentage of the population is concentrated among younger generations. In countries such as Korea, China, and Taiwan, this
has helped stimulate economic growth, while in certain poorer countries, it puts pressures on society to accommodate an increasing number of people on a fixed amount of land. Other countries such as Japan and Germany, in contrast, experience problems with a "graying" society, where fewer non-retired people are around to support an increasing number of aging seniors. Because Germany actually hovers around negative population growth, the German government has issued large financial incentives, in the forms of subsidies, for women who have children. In the United States, population growth occurs both through births and immigration. Since the number of births is not growing, problems occur for firms that are dependent on population growth (e.g., Gerber, a manufacturer of baby food). Social class is a somewhat nebulous subject that involves stratifying people into groups with various amounts of prestige, power, and privilege. In part because of the pioneering influence in American history, status differentiations here are quite vague. We cannot, for example, associate social class with income, because a traditionally low status job as a plumber may today come with as much income as a traditionally more prestigious job as a school teacher. In certain other cultures, however, stratification is more clear-cut. Although the caste system in India is now illegal, it still maintains a tremendous influence on that society. While some mobility exists today, social class awareness is also somewhat greater in Britain, where social status is in part reinforced by the class connotations of the accent with which one speaks.
The text speaks of several indices that have been used to "compute" social class in the United States, weighing factors such as income, the nature of one’s employment, and level of education. Taken too literally, these indices are not very meaningful; more broadly speaking, they illustrate the reality that social status is a complex variable that is determined, not always with consensus among observers, by several different variables.
Motivation, Personality, and Emotion:
Perspectives on Consumer Behavior and Motivation. We considered several perspectives on behavior as a way to understand what motivates the consumer. Each of these perspectives suggests different things as to what the marketer should do and what can (and cannot) be controlled. Note that each perspective tends to contain a "grain" oftruth and that one should not be too dogmatic in emphasizing one over the others.
• The Hard Core Behavioral perspective is based on learning theories such as operant and classical conditioning. These theories suggest that consumers must learn from their own experiences--i.e., in order to avoid getting sick from overeating, a consumer must experience the stomach and other ailments resulting from gluttony rather than merely observing other people who overeat
and get sick. This suggests, then, that it is important to reward good behavior (e.g., buying our brand) to the extent possible. Money spent on advertising is seen as less useful. Hard core behaviorists tend to look at observable behaviour.
• (e.g., buying our brand or buying another) rather than trying to find out what is going on inside the heads of consumers--i.e., hard core behaviorists do not like to mess with "mushy" things like attitudes.
• The Social Learning Perspective, in contrast, allows for vicarious learning--i.e., learning obtained by watching others getting good or bad consequences for behavior. The models that may be observed and imitated include peers and family members as well as relevant others that may be observed in
• advertising. From our study of social influences, we know that certain people are more likely to be imitated than others--e.g., those that are more similar to ourselves based on relevant factors such as age, social status, or ethnic group. Consider, for example, the poor man who is rejected by women because of his dandruff until he gets "with it" and uses Head ‘n’ Shoulders shampoo. Other dandruff sufferers are likely to learn from the model’s experience. Generally, observations are made of overt behavior, but some room is made for individual reasoning in learning from others. This perspective is clearly more realistic than that of the "Hard Core" view, but it should be noted that the strength of learning tends to be greater for that gained from own experience.
• The Cognitive approach emphasizes consumer thinking rather than mere behavior--we will encounter this to a great extent when we study decision making and attitudes. Here, the emphasis is on how people reason themselves to the consequences of their behavior. Note that it is often somewhat more difficult to attempt to "get into" a consumer’s head than it is to merely observe his or her behavior, and what we "observe" is somewhat more subjective. Note also that a wealth of different factors influence people’s thinking, and some expectations and assumptions that we hold tend to be culturally influenced (e.g., an American assumes that hard work will tend to lead to a promotion, while members of certain other cultures believe that personal relationships, and perhaps even luck, tend to be more important).
• The Biological approach suggests that most behavior is determined by genetics or other biological bases. By this perspective, it is suggested that consumers eat the foods they eat in large part because the body craves these foods. Note that although craving for fatty foods seems quite maladaptive in today’s society, it could have been very adaptive earlier in human history where food was scarce and obtaining as many calories as possible helped ensure survival. Clearly, this perspective is very misleading when one takes it as the only explanation of behavior--for example, people in different cultures learn to enjoy various kinds of foods. The main implication of biological determinism is that the marketer must adapt--for example, food advertisements are more likely to be effective when people are hungry, and thus they might better be run in the late afternoon rather than in the late morning.
• The Rational Expectations perspective is based on an economic way of looking at the World. Economists assume that people think rationally and have perfect information, even though they know very well that these assumptions are often unrealistic. However, despite the unrealistic assumptions made, economists often make relatively accurate predictions of human behavior. (The Cognitive perspective, however, is able to identify certain significant exceptions to rational behavior, however).
• The Psychoanalytic perspective is based on the work of historical psychologists such as Sigmund Freud who suggest that (1) much behavior has a biological basis which is (2) often sexual in nature, and (3) that early experiences in childhood will have a profound, but unconscious effect on later life--e.g., people who are rejected in an early, "oral" phase of development may become "oral retentive" and end up as wine connoisseurs later in life. Because of societal injunctions against explicit discussion of sexuality in Western society at Freud’s time [late 1800s to mid 1900s], many objects were thought to take on seemingly unrelated symbolic meanings--e.g., a tie might become a symbol of a male reproductive organ. Although modern psychologists certainly recognize that early experiences may influence later psychological well being, the psychoanalytic view has largely been discredited today as being much too centered on the issue of sex. However, this perspective enjoys a great deal of popularity among many advertising executives. It should be noted that Freudian psychology tends to violate the
cherished scientific ideal of parsimony, where a scientist is expected to propose the simplest theory that will account for observed phenomena.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The late Abraham Maslow suggested the intuitively appealing notion that humans must satisfy the most basic objectives before they can move onto "higher level" ones. Thus, an individual must satisfy physiological needs (such as food and liquid) before he or she will be able to expend energy on less fundamental objectives such as safety. Only when basic objectives have been met will a person move on to seek such objectives as love and belonging, and only a small minority of people make it as far as seeking self-actualization.
Maslow’s Hierarchy is useful in understanding different needs of consumers across the World. However, one must be careful not to take it too literally, since people may occasionally "swing" between needs. For example, a homeless person who currently does not have shelter may seek that out even though he or she is hungry.
Properties of motivation. Motivation is described through several properties:
• Motivation is composed of energy and direction. A person may or may not have enough motivation to engage in a given activity. For example, a person may be motivated enough to go and shop for food, but not enough to engage in a comprehensive exercise program.
• Motives may be overt, hidden, and multiple. Some motivations are publicly expressed (e.g., the desire to buy an energy efficient house), while others (e.g., the desire to look wealthy by buying a fancy car) are not. Individuals may also hold multiple motivations (e.g., buy a car and save money for retirement) which may conflict.
• Many motivations are driven by the desire for tension reduction (e.g., eliminate thirst or hunger).
• Motivations can be driven by both internal and external factors. That is, a person may want a painting either because he or she likes it (internal motivation) or because this will give her status among the artistic elite (external).
• Motivations may have either a positive or negative valence--people may either be motivated to achieve something (e.g., get a promotion at work) or avoid something (e.g., being hospitalized without having adequate insurance).
• Consumers are motivated to achieve goals. Achieving these goals may require sustained activity over time (e.g., exercising every day for months or years) as opposed to just taking some action once.
• Consumers maintain a balance between the desires for stability and variety. Most consumers want some variety (e.g., they do not want to eat the same meal every day), but also want a certain stability (they do not want to try an entirely new food every day).
• Motivation reflects individual differences. Different consumers are motivated to achieve different things, and it may be difficult to infer motivations from
• looking at actual behavior without understanding these differences in desired outcomes.
The reality that consumers are frequently motivated by multiple motives suggests a possibility that motives may conflict. Three main types of conflict exists:
• Approach-avoidance. One alternative has both positive consequences (that one wishes to seek out) and negative consequences (that one wants to avoid). For example, eating a large banana split is an enjoyable experience ("approach"), but is contains a lot of calories ("avoidance") and may make one feel ill later (another avoidance).
• Approach-approach. A consumer wants to do two incompatible things at the same time. A classic example is "Rainman’s" desire both to stay with his brother and stay at the institution. Another example is a consumer who only has one week’s vacation but wants equally to go to Hawaii and Greenland, but has time and money only for one of the two.
• Avoidance-avoidance. A consumer does not want to go for either of two alternatives, but must choose the lesser of two evils. For example, the consumer does not want to pay for car insurance, but does not want to get into an accident or get caught by the police without it. A "work ethic disadvantaged" student does not want to study, but does not want to fail his or her courses, either.
The Means-End chain. Consumers often buy products not because of their attributes per se but rather because of the ultimate benefits that these attributes provide, in turn leading to the satisfaction of ultimate values. For example, a consumer may not be particularly interested in the chemistry of plastic roses, but might reason as follows:
Highly reliable synthetic content of roses --->
Roses will stay in original condition for a long time --->
Significant other will appreciate the roses longer --->
Significant other will continue to love one ---> Self esteem.
The important thing in a means-end chain is to start with an attribute, a concrete characteristic of the product, and then logically progress to a series of consequences (which tend to become progressively more abstract) that end with a value being satisfied. Thus, each chain must start with an attribute and end with a value.
An important implication of means-end chains is that it is usually most effective in advertising to focus on higher level items. For example, in the flower example above, an individual giving the flowers to the significant other might better be portrayed than the flowers alone.
Personality and consumer behavior. Traditional research in marketing has not been particularly successful in finding a link between personality and consumer behavior. Part of the problem here is that much of the theory has been developed by clinical psychologists who have tended to work with maladjusted people. Not surprisingly, research that sought to predict, based on standard personality inventories, which kinds of consumers would buy Chevrolets as opposed to Fords was not successful.
Emotion. Emotion impacts marketing efforts in several ways. One purpose is to get attention to a stimulus (since emotionally charged individuals tend to be less predictable than calmer ones, there has been an evolutionary advantage in paying attention to emotion). Secondly, emotion influences information processing. In general, happy people tend to scrutinize arguments given (e.g., purported benefits of using a product) somewhat less, since they do not want to lose their happy moods by doing too much thinking. In general, happy ads are somewhat better liked, and may be better remembered. Empathy may also increase liking for the ad and the sponsoring product.
Consumer Decision Making:
Definitions. Consumer decision making comes about as an attempt to solve consumer problems. A problem refers to "a discrepancy between a desired state and an ideal state which is sufficient to arouse and activate a decision process." Thus, problems can be major (e.g., a consumer has been fired and is without a job) or minor (e.g., the consumer lacks an eraser necessary to take an exam the next day), and the broader and more ambiguous a problem is, the more potential solutions are generally available (see class slides for examples).
Consumer Problem Recognition. Consumers often note problems by comparing current, or actual, situation, explicitly or implicitly, to some desired situation. In terms of the "big picture," what is compared may be the totality of one’s lifestyle. Once a discrepancy is found, a determination is found as to whether this is large enough to warrant action, in which case a search for solutions is initiated.
come in several different types. A problem may be an active one (e.g., you have a headache and would like as quick a solution as possible) or inactive-- you are not aware that your situation is a problem (e.g., a consumer is not aware that he or she could have more energy with a new vitamin). Problems may be acknowledged (e.g., a consumer is aware that his or her car does not accelerate well enough or
unacknowledged (e.g., a consumer will not acknowledge that he or she consumes too much alcohol). Finally, needs can be relatively specific (generic), as in the need for enjoyment (which can be satisfied many different ways), or specific, as in the need for professional attire to wear at a new job.
Several different methods can be used to detect consumer problems, which are discussed on pp. 508-509 in the text.
Creating problems for consumers is a way to increase sales, albeit a questionably ethical one. One way to create new problems, and resultant needs, is to create a new ideal state. This is often done quite arbitrarily in the fashion industry, as skirt lengths and the appropriate number of buttons on a suit often change arbitrarily up and down. It may also be possible to create dissatisfaction with current states. e.g., a firm may publicize current crime statistics to increase the sales of handguns and alarms. Many vocational training schools advertise that better careers than the consumer’s current one are available upon graduation (a promise on which, by the way, they may not deliver in the end).
There are two main approaches to search. Internal searches are based on what consumers already know. Thus, it may be important for certain firms to advertise to consumers before they actually need the product. For example, one bail bond company advertised its existence to people "in case you ever find yourself in jail." As another example, if you decide to go out for fast food, you may not consult any directories, but instead search your memory for fast food restaurants conveniently located. A problem is that some excellent ones which are not remembered, or have never been heard of, are not considered. External searches get people to either speak to others (getting information by word of mouth) or use other sources (such as advertisements now sought out or yellow page listings). Because the yellow pages are often the first place to which people turn, this medium is able to charge very large advertising rates.
Consumers often do not consider all alternatives. Some are not known (the "unawareness" set), some were once known but are not readily accessible in memory (the "inert" set), others are ruled out as unsatisfactory (the "inept" set--e.g., Glad bags attempts to get "bargain bags" into that set), and those that are considered represent the "evoked" set, from which one alternative is likely to be purchased.
The amount of effort a consumer puts into searching depends on a number of factors such as the market (how many competitors are there, and how great are differences between brands expected to be?), product characteristics (how important is this product? How complex is the product? How obvious are indications of quality?), consumer characteristics (how interested is a consumer,
generally, in analyzing product characteristics and making the best possible deal?), and situational characteristics (as previously discussed).
Two interesting issues in decisions are variety seeking (where consumers seek to try new brands not because these brands are expected to be "better" in any way, but rather because the consumer wants a "change of pace," and "impulse" purchases. Impulse purchases are, generally speaking, unplanned, but represent a somewhat fuzzy group. For example, a shopper may plan to buy vegetables but only decide in the store to actually buy broccoli and corn. Alternatively, a person may buy an item which is currently on sale, or one that he or she remembers that is needed only once inside the store (remember the Wal-Mart article).
Consumerism:
Consumerism is defined as the organised movement of the citizens and the government to enhance the rights and power of consumerism relation to the sellers.
All products and services are created to enhance the quality of lie for the members of a society. All marketing transactions should be beneficial to the society. Very often firms are seen engaging themselves in questionable marketing practices and transactions that have a profound impact on the society at a large. With the changes in the socio economic environment, very often market place abuses are brought to the notice of the policy decision makers either through the media, consumer awareness groups, consumer themselves.
The basis of consumerism is to protect the consumers from the immoral practices conducted by the marketers. Such practices may be high prices, high-pressure selling, unsafe products, planned obsolescence and poor services. Marketers have been using deceptive advertisements to influence people. Such advertisement is often against the morals and decency standards of the society. For example, the recent ads of ‘Fair & Lovely’ where a father says “Kash mujhe ladka hota”, which makes sex discrimination.
In other words of Peter Drucker, “Consumerism is the shame of the total marketing concept”. Every organisation should take marketing decisions keeping in mind the organisation’s long-term interests. It would be preferable if companies recognize societal problems as presenting opportunities. As stated by Drucker “Consumerism actually should be, must be, and I hope will be the opportunity of marketing. This is what we in marketing are waiting for”.
In India, Consumerism is still in the infancy stage. In pre-liberalization era, consumers in India had hardly any voice as regards to their rights in relation to the sellers. The inadequate competition and the absolute monopolies created by the
protection provided by the Government only increased consumer’s problems. Since the mid 80’s, there have been rapid changes taking place in the socio-economical environments. The market has been flooded with goods and services and it has become difficult for the consumers to ascertain the quality or utility of these goods and services.
• Consumerism in India has not progressed because of various reasons, which is as under :
• Vastness of the country, imbalance in distribution of wealth, backwardness.
• The high rate of illiteracy and ignorance.
• Traditional outlook of the people to suffer in silence, lack of information and education.
• Inability to understand the technical complexity completely of the goods and accepting manufacturer’s at face value.
• Consumer’s tendency to get carried away by clever advertising and promotional tactics.
• Consumerism is still in its infancy stage and hence is not developed and organised. The existing laws are incapable of effectively implementing and enforcing the objectives.
The Government of India has been instrumental in creating an environment through legislation to give a protection to the consumers. There have been various measures taken by the Government in this regard, which are :
• Statutory regulation.
• Development and expansion of the public sector.
Social Responsibility :
Traditionally, business organisations were involved in commercial activities aimed at making a profit. However, today business is considered to be social institution forming an integral part of the social system. Because of the social resposisblity of the business, it is moral responsibility of the businessmen to be bound by certain ethical principals and rules of conduct, which reflects its responsibility, authority, and dignity.
Few of the important ethical principles are as under:
• Do not deceive or cheat customers by selling sub-standard or defective products by under measurement or by any other means.
• Do not resort to black marketing or profiteering.
• Do not destroy or distort competition.
• Do not tarnish the image of competition by unfair practices.
• Be precise, accurate and sincere in the advertising labelling and packaging of goods and services.
A growing number of organisations are looking beyond profits and trying to achieve improvement in lives of the poorer sections of the society. There are companies that are finding out new ways of protecting the environment. A large number of companies have been striving to achieve international standards like ISO 14000. In India, groups like the Tata’s have been striving to achieve social responsibilities right from their inception.
Reasons Behind The Rise Of Consumerism:
• Make the business community more honest, efficient, responsive and responsible. The manufacturers and sellers will be compelled to adopt fair practises, when consumers learn to exercise their rights and are not taken for granted.
• Consumerism can also be viewed as an opportunity for business community to serve the consumers in a better and more efficient manner. It will prove to e weapon for marketers to effectively implement the societal concept of marketing.
• In case of imperfections in the demand and supply situation in the market, concerned marketers can help the consumers to get rid of the traders who resort to practices such as hoarding, black marketing etc.
• Consumerism will also ensure tat the Government takes the necessary measures to protect consumer’s interest by guarantying their legitimate rights.
