Description
There is a species of ant that builds nests made of leaves. To build a nest, some of these ants pull the edges of two leaves together and hold them in place, while others carry larva in their jaws and 'sew' them together with the silk they secrete. This is certainly a complex feat of engineering, but it is not cultural.
Introduction Consumer behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy products. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general..
Here are four typical types of buying behaviour based on the type of products that intends to be purchased. Complex buying behaviour is where the individual purchases a high value brand and seeks a lot of information before the purchase is made. Habitual buying behaviour is where the individual buys a product out of habit e.g. a daily newspaper, sugar or salt. Variety seeking buying behaviour is where the individual likes to shop around and experiment with different products. So an individual may shop around for different breakfast cereals because he/she wants variety in the mornings. Dissonance reducing buying behaviour is when buyer are highly involved with the purchase of the product, because the purchase is expensive or infrequent. There is little difference between existing brands an example would be buying a diamond ring, there is perceived little difference between existing diamond brand manufacturers.
Stages of the Consumer Buying Process
Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity.. The 6 stages are:
Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat. Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information. I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes. Information search 1
Internal search, from memory and previous experiences. External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc. A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set. Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is: chinese food indian food burger king klondike kates etc Evaluation of Alternatives-need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something spicy, indian gets highest rank etc. If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives. Purchase decision-Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc. Purchase-The ultimate state desired. May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability. Post-Purchase Evaluation-outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc. After eating an indian meal, may think that really you wanted a chinese meal instead.
Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour
Culture refers to a set of values, traditions or beliefs, which guide the individual behaviour. In a way culture is normative as it prescribes norms of acceptable human behaviour. In other words culture refers to values, ideas, attitudes and other meaningful symbol created by people to shape human behaviour and the art facts of that behaviour transmitted from one generation to another. For examples, beef is not accepted in the Hindu society and likewise pork in the Muslim society. Values in culture are developed through socialization and 2
acculturation. Refusing beef or mions or garlic by a is a value developed through socialization. the use of a fork or knife to eat food by a Asian family is a value acquired through acculturation. In any culture there are subcultures that exist. these are different nationalities religious and geographic groups. For example in Malaysia there are Hindus,Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs as exciting religious subcultures. A marketer needs to be aware of these factors.cultural and sub cultural influences on consumer preferences. affect his brand, packaging advertising sales promotion and even distribution decision. A culture's values are likely to influence its member’s purchases and consumption pattern. For example, one consumer may place a high value on achievement and may demonstrate success with symbols of luxury and prestige. Culture not only influences consumer behaviour, it reflects it. The preponderance of exercise machines, fitness club, skin care lotions, diet foods, and low fat products reflects the emphasis. Culture is therefore a mirror of both values and possessions of its members.
Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity Culture influences behavior through its manifestations: values, heroes,rituals, and symbols. These are the forms in which culturally-determined knowledge is stored and expressed. Thus, each cultural group possesses different cultural manifestations. We utilize these manifestations, as they encompass most elements of culture described by other authors. We will now describe the four manifestations in detail.
3
Values. The term values Values. The term values rests at the heart of most definitions of culture. In fact, most research seems to agree that values drive an individual's behavior. Historically, consumer researchers have often viewed value as a centrally held, enduring belief which guides actions and judgments across specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate end-states of existence''. Examples of values are ``freedom,'' ``pleasure'', ``inner harmony'', and ``happiness''. Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. Rituals are pervasive in any society . Rituals are important for consumer behavior because they involve the consumption of goods and services. Marketers' actions moderate the reciprocal relationship between rituals and consumer behavior through advertising, which models ritualistic behavior and helps it spread. Consumer products play a significant role in ritualistic behavior. Products can be employed in their symbolic capacity to operationalize the ritual. Products can be considered, therefore, as ritual artifacts and their consumption as part of a ritual. Symbols. Symbols are a broad category of processes and objects that carry a meaning that is unique to a particular group of people. Hence, a society's symbols may not exist in different cultures, or their meaning may be different. Language is a set of symbols, as are different gestures, pictures, or objects. The symbols most frequently studied by consumer researchers are language and consumer products. Several authors have examined the symbolic nature of products and consumption. We can infer from this body of research that product symbolism is generated at the societal level. Cultural values,expressed in society's perceptions of reality and beliefs of what is desirable,seem to be transferred to products through vehicles like advertising. These products then become charged with cultural meaning. For example, a pair of sneakers can be elevated to a cultural symbol for the value``a sense of accomplishment'' by ads that show a celebrity wearing them.Finally, individuals, in their efforts to define their social self, are moved to consume the products which are now charged with symbolic meaning. Heroes. The term heroes refers to ``persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary,who possess characteristics which are highly prized in a culture, and who thus serve as models for behavior he more consumers are aware of their own ethnicity/culture, the more effective will be a spokesperson from the consumers' ethnic/cultural group. Additionally, consumers holding a higher 4
degree of racial stereotypes will tend to employ racially focused heuristics in their product evaluations The effect of values on consumer behavior some studies have explored the effects of culture on cognitive processes like perception of time examined, the effect of cultural orientation, operationalized along the individualism-collectivism dimension, on self-construal. In a controlled experiment, found that both individualist and collectivist consumers use brands for self-expressive purposes. They use brands, however, in different ways: collectivist consumers use brands to reassert their similarity with members of their reference group, while individualist consumers use brands to differentiate themselves from referent others. Consumer ethnocentrism is a construct often studied by cross-cultural researchers. The construct could be viewed as an instrumental value. Consumers' ethnocentrism determines their perceptions of domestic versus foreign products (cognition), as well as their attitudes and behavior. Cultural categories are the fundamental co-ordinates of meaning. They represent the basic distinctions with which a culture divides up the phenomenal world. They help individuals organize and give meaning to the world. There are several types of cultural categories: categories of time, space, nature, and person. One of the most important ways in which categories are substantiated is through the consumption of goods. Cultural categories are formed according to cultural principles, or values.. Thus, the anthropological view of culture also recognizes that cognitive constructs (i.e. categories) are determined by cultural manifestations (i.e. values). Numerous studies have examined the role of cultural values on the attitude formation process. We can distinguish between advertising studies and consumer behavior studies. Affect toward the ad and/or product represents two of the most important gauges of success in advertising. Therefore, a number of advertising researchers have examined affective variables in cross-cultural advertising. In particular, several studies have attempted to ascertain the role of cultural values on ad-elicited attitudes. For example, comparing high and low context cultures (Korea and the USA, respectively). Their results indicated that consumers from low context cultures preferred commercials with high levels of information. ads that depict norms and roles consistent with local cultural values are more effective than ads which do not.
Acculturation The increasing migration of people around the world creates complexity in most markets. As these people are exposed to their host culture they begin to acculturate and may adopt its norms of behavior.Increased migration is one of the forces that are causing ``radical changes'' in consumer behavior. Immigrants not only adapt, or acculturate, to their host culture, but they also change the culture themselves. Because of the mutual influence between immigrants and 5
their host culture, some researchers refer to acculturation as one of the components of a more general construct, cultural interpenetration, which includes the bidirectional links between immigrants and their host culture.
Managerial implications This report can be useful for managers by providing them with a checklist to ensure that all possible sources of variation in consumer behavior due to cultural differences are taken into account. Market comparisons If a firm is considering which foreign markets to enter and with what marketing mix, it may want to evaluate which markets possess similar cultural Crosscultural consumer behavior characteristics. Once this is ascertained, the firm could offer a relatively standardized marketing mix in those cultures possessing high similarity ratings. Cultural similarity ratings could be built by listing a series of issues of importance to the firm under each of the bivariate interactions between cultural manifestations and consumer behavior components. Conclusion This report provides a framework that integrates and reinterprets current research in cross-cultural consumer behavio. Culture is a system of meanings shared by members of a group. It is an important part of marketing and management because it influences the consumers’ wants and needs and because it impacts on the interpretations of products’ communication. This demonstrates that the culture impacts consumer behaviour. The study of the consumer behaviour conducts companies to adapt their products features, their packaging, their symbolic attributes, their service attributes and their promotions.
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doc_404762750.doc
There is a species of ant that builds nests made of leaves. To build a nest, some of these ants pull the edges of two leaves together and hold them in place, while others carry larva in their jaws and 'sew' them together with the silk they secrete. This is certainly a complex feat of engineering, but it is not cultural.
Introduction Consumer behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy products. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general..
Here are four typical types of buying behaviour based on the type of products that intends to be purchased. Complex buying behaviour is where the individual purchases a high value brand and seeks a lot of information before the purchase is made. Habitual buying behaviour is where the individual buys a product out of habit e.g. a daily newspaper, sugar or salt. Variety seeking buying behaviour is where the individual likes to shop around and experiment with different products. So an individual may shop around for different breakfast cereals because he/she wants variety in the mornings. Dissonance reducing buying behaviour is when buyer are highly involved with the purchase of the product, because the purchase is expensive or infrequent. There is little difference between existing brands an example would be buying a diamond ring, there is perceived little difference between existing diamond brand manufacturers.
Stages of the Consumer Buying Process
Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity.. The 6 stages are:
Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat. Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information. I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes. Information search 1
Internal search, from memory and previous experiences. External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc. A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set. Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is: chinese food indian food burger king klondike kates etc Evaluation of Alternatives-need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something spicy, indian gets highest rank etc. If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives. Purchase decision-Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc. Purchase-The ultimate state desired. May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability. Post-Purchase Evaluation-outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc. After eating an indian meal, may think that really you wanted a chinese meal instead.
Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour
Culture refers to a set of values, traditions or beliefs, which guide the individual behaviour. In a way culture is normative as it prescribes norms of acceptable human behaviour. In other words culture refers to values, ideas, attitudes and other meaningful symbol created by people to shape human behaviour and the art facts of that behaviour transmitted from one generation to another. For examples, beef is not accepted in the Hindu society and likewise pork in the Muslim society. Values in culture are developed through socialization and 2
acculturation. Refusing beef or mions or garlic by a is a value developed through socialization. the use of a fork or knife to eat food by a Asian family is a value acquired through acculturation. In any culture there are subcultures that exist. these are different nationalities religious and geographic groups. For example in Malaysia there are Hindus,Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs as exciting religious subcultures. A marketer needs to be aware of these factors.cultural and sub cultural influences on consumer preferences. affect his brand, packaging advertising sales promotion and even distribution decision. A culture's values are likely to influence its member’s purchases and consumption pattern. For example, one consumer may place a high value on achievement and may demonstrate success with symbols of luxury and prestige. Culture not only influences consumer behaviour, it reflects it. The preponderance of exercise machines, fitness club, skin care lotions, diet foods, and low fat products reflects the emphasis. Culture is therefore a mirror of both values and possessions of its members.
Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity Culture influences behavior through its manifestations: values, heroes,rituals, and symbols. These are the forms in which culturally-determined knowledge is stored and expressed. Thus, each cultural group possesses different cultural manifestations. We utilize these manifestations, as they encompass most elements of culture described by other authors. We will now describe the four manifestations in detail.
3
Values. The term values Values. The term values rests at the heart of most definitions of culture. In fact, most research seems to agree that values drive an individual's behavior. Historically, consumer researchers have often viewed value as a centrally held, enduring belief which guides actions and judgments across specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate end-states of existence''. Examples of values are ``freedom,'' ``pleasure'', ``inner harmony'', and ``happiness''. Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. Rituals are pervasive in any society . Rituals are important for consumer behavior because they involve the consumption of goods and services. Marketers' actions moderate the reciprocal relationship between rituals and consumer behavior through advertising, which models ritualistic behavior and helps it spread. Consumer products play a significant role in ritualistic behavior. Products can be employed in their symbolic capacity to operationalize the ritual. Products can be considered, therefore, as ritual artifacts and their consumption as part of a ritual. Symbols. Symbols are a broad category of processes and objects that carry a meaning that is unique to a particular group of people. Hence, a society's symbols may not exist in different cultures, or their meaning may be different. Language is a set of symbols, as are different gestures, pictures, or objects. The symbols most frequently studied by consumer researchers are language and consumer products. Several authors have examined the symbolic nature of products and consumption. We can infer from this body of research that product symbolism is generated at the societal level. Cultural values,expressed in society's perceptions of reality and beliefs of what is desirable,seem to be transferred to products through vehicles like advertising. These products then become charged with cultural meaning. For example, a pair of sneakers can be elevated to a cultural symbol for the value``a sense of accomplishment'' by ads that show a celebrity wearing them.Finally, individuals, in their efforts to define their social self, are moved to consume the products which are now charged with symbolic meaning. Heroes. The term heroes refers to ``persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary,who possess characteristics which are highly prized in a culture, and who thus serve as models for behavior he more consumers are aware of their own ethnicity/culture, the more effective will be a spokesperson from the consumers' ethnic/cultural group. Additionally, consumers holding a higher 4
degree of racial stereotypes will tend to employ racially focused heuristics in their product evaluations The effect of values on consumer behavior some studies have explored the effects of culture on cognitive processes like perception of time examined, the effect of cultural orientation, operationalized along the individualism-collectivism dimension, on self-construal. In a controlled experiment, found that both individualist and collectivist consumers use brands for self-expressive purposes. They use brands, however, in different ways: collectivist consumers use brands to reassert their similarity with members of their reference group, while individualist consumers use brands to differentiate themselves from referent others. Consumer ethnocentrism is a construct often studied by cross-cultural researchers. The construct could be viewed as an instrumental value. Consumers' ethnocentrism determines their perceptions of domestic versus foreign products (cognition), as well as their attitudes and behavior. Cultural categories are the fundamental co-ordinates of meaning. They represent the basic distinctions with which a culture divides up the phenomenal world. They help individuals organize and give meaning to the world. There are several types of cultural categories: categories of time, space, nature, and person. One of the most important ways in which categories are substantiated is through the consumption of goods. Cultural categories are formed according to cultural principles, or values.. Thus, the anthropological view of culture also recognizes that cognitive constructs (i.e. categories) are determined by cultural manifestations (i.e. values). Numerous studies have examined the role of cultural values on the attitude formation process. We can distinguish between advertising studies and consumer behavior studies. Affect toward the ad and/or product represents two of the most important gauges of success in advertising. Therefore, a number of advertising researchers have examined affective variables in cross-cultural advertising. In particular, several studies have attempted to ascertain the role of cultural values on ad-elicited attitudes. For example, comparing high and low context cultures (Korea and the USA, respectively). Their results indicated that consumers from low context cultures preferred commercials with high levels of information. ads that depict norms and roles consistent with local cultural values are more effective than ads which do not.
Acculturation The increasing migration of people around the world creates complexity in most markets. As these people are exposed to their host culture they begin to acculturate and may adopt its norms of behavior.Increased migration is one of the forces that are causing ``radical changes'' in consumer behavior. Immigrants not only adapt, or acculturate, to their host culture, but they also change the culture themselves. Because of the mutual influence between immigrants and 5
their host culture, some researchers refer to acculturation as one of the components of a more general construct, cultural interpenetration, which includes the bidirectional links between immigrants and their host culture.
Managerial implications This report can be useful for managers by providing them with a checklist to ensure that all possible sources of variation in consumer behavior due to cultural differences are taken into account. Market comparisons If a firm is considering which foreign markets to enter and with what marketing mix, it may want to evaluate which markets possess similar cultural Crosscultural consumer behavior characteristics. Once this is ascertained, the firm could offer a relatively standardized marketing mix in those cultures possessing high similarity ratings. Cultural similarity ratings could be built by listing a series of issues of importance to the firm under each of the bivariate interactions between cultural manifestations and consumer behavior components. Conclusion This report provides a framework that integrates and reinterprets current research in cross-cultural consumer behavio. Culture is a system of meanings shared by members of a group. It is an important part of marketing and management because it influences the consumers’ wants and needs and because it impacts on the interpretations of products’ communication. This demonstrates that the culture impacts consumer behaviour. The study of the consumer behaviour conducts companies to adapt their products features, their packaging, their symbolic attributes, their service attributes and their promotions.
6
doc_404762750.doc