Summary Consumer Behavior 6th edition – W.D. Hoyer, D.J. MacInnis & R. Pieters
Consumer behavior covers 4 basic domains:
1. The psychological core
2. The process of making decisions
3. The consumer’s culture
4. Consumer behavior outcomes and issues
Chapter 1 – Understanding consumer behavior
Consumer behavior: The totality of decisions about the consumption of an offering by decision making units over
time.
- Decisions: whether, what, why, how, when, where, how much, how often, how long
- Consumption: acquisition, usage, disposition
o Acquisition: The process by which a consumer comes to own an offering
o Usage: The process by which a consumer uses an offering
o Disposition: The process by which a consumer discards an offering
- Offering: A product, service, activity experience, or idea (offered by a marketing organization to
consumers)
- Decision making units: information gatherer, influencer, decider, purchaser, user
- Time: hours, days, weeks, months, years
8 ways to acquire an offering:
1. Buying
2. Trading(handelen)
3. Renting or leasing
4. Bartering(ruilen)
5. Gifting
6. Finding
7. Stealing
8. Sharing
Ways of disposing an offering: 1. Find a new use for it, 2. Get rid of it temporarily (renting or lending), 3. Get rid of
it permanently (throwing away, trading, giving away, selling)
The psychological core covers:
- Motivation, ability and opportunity
- Exposure, attention, perception and comprehension
- Memory and knowledge
- Attitudes
The process of making decisions involves 4 stages:
1. Problem recognition
2. Information search
3. Decision making
4. Postpurchase evaluation
Culture: the typical or expected behaviors, norms and ideas that characterize a group of people.
Reference group: a group of people consumers compare themselves with, for information regarding behavior,
attitudes or values.
4 groups use consumer research:
- Marketing managers
- Ethicists and advocacy groups
1
, - Public policy makers and regulators
- Consumer and society
- (Academics)
Marketing implications of consumer behavior:
- Developing and implementing customer-oriented strategy (segment markets)
- Selecting the target market
- Developing products (marketingmix)
- Positioning
- Marking promotion and marketing communication decisions (marketingmix)
- Making pricing decisions (marketingmix)
- Making distribution decisions (marketingmix)
Hence: Studying consumer behavior helps marketers understand how to segment markets and how to decide
which to target, how to position an offering and which marketingmix tactics will be most effective.
Symbols: external sighs that consumers use to express their identity.
Marketing: the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging
offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.
Perceptual map: graph with the results of how consumers view competing brands in comparison with each other.
Copy testing/pretesting: testing an ad’s effectiveness before it appears in public.
Endowment effect: Buyers and sellers have differing perceptions of what a product is worth. Sellers should not set
a higher price than buyers are willing to pay.
Chapter 1-Appendix – Developing information about consumer behavior
Primary data: data collected for its own purpose such as surveys, focus groups and experiments
Secondary data: data collected by an entity for one purpose and subsequently used by another entity for a
different purpose.
Consumer behavior research methods (zie ook A.1)
Survey: a method of collecting information form a sample of consumers, usually by asking questions, to
draw quantitative conclusions about a target population. Surveys can be used to:
- Better understand a specific customer segment
- Understand media usage and product purchasing patterns
- To collect sensitive information from consumers
A randomization device determines whether consumers should truthfully respond to a question or
provide an answer given by the device.
Focus groups: form of interview involving a small group of consumers (8 to 10 people) who discuss an
issue or an offering, led by a moderator. Provide qualitative insights into consumer attitudes.
- Computer based focus group: consumers go to a computer lab where their individual comments
are displayed anonymously for sensitive topics
- Customer advisory board: small group of customers that meet with marketing and service
executives once or twice a year to discuss offerings, competitive products, future need,
acquisition and usage problems. It’s also a tool for strengthening customer relations.
Interviews: one-on-one discussion in which an interviewer asks a consumer questions related to
consumption behavior and decisions. Are more appropriate than a focus group when the topic is sensitive.
More in-depth data than surveys.
Storytelling: consumers tell researchers stories about product acquisition, usage of disposition
experiences. These stories help marketers gain insights into consumer needs and identify the product
attributes that meet these needs. Sometimes marketers ask consumers to tell or write stories about
hypothetical situations that the marketer has depicted in a picture or scenario.
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Consumer behavior covers 4 basic domains:
1. The psychological core
2. The process of making decisions
3. The consumer’s culture
4. Consumer behavior outcomes and issues
Chapter 1 – Understanding consumer behavior
Consumer behavior: The totality of decisions about the consumption of an offering by decision making units over
time.
- Decisions: whether, what, why, how, when, where, how much, how often, how long
- Consumption: acquisition, usage, disposition
o Acquisition: The process by which a consumer comes to own an offering
o Usage: The process by which a consumer uses an offering
o Disposition: The process by which a consumer discards an offering
- Offering: A product, service, activity experience, or idea (offered by a marketing organization to
consumers)
- Decision making units: information gatherer, influencer, decider, purchaser, user
- Time: hours, days, weeks, months, years
8 ways to acquire an offering:
1. Buying
2. Trading(handelen)
3. Renting or leasing
4. Bartering(ruilen)
5. Gifting
6. Finding
7. Stealing
8. Sharing
Ways of disposing an offering: 1. Find a new use for it, 2. Get rid of it temporarily (renting or lending), 3. Get rid of
it permanently (throwing away, trading, giving away, selling)
The psychological core covers:
- Motivation, ability and opportunity
- Exposure, attention, perception and comprehension
- Memory and knowledge
- Attitudes
The process of making decisions involves 4 stages:
1. Problem recognition
2. Information search
3. Decision making
4. Postpurchase evaluation
Culture: the typical or expected behaviors, norms and ideas that characterize a group of people.
Reference group: a group of people consumers compare themselves with, for information regarding behavior,
attitudes or values.
4 groups use consumer research:
- Marketing managers
- Ethicists and advocacy groups
1
, - Public policy makers and regulators
- Consumer and society
- (Academics)
Marketing implications of consumer behavior:
- Developing and implementing customer-oriented strategy (segment markets)
- Selecting the target market
- Developing products (marketingmix)
- Positioning
- Marking promotion and marketing communication decisions (marketingmix)
- Making pricing decisions (marketingmix)
- Making distribution decisions (marketingmix)
Hence: Studying consumer behavior helps marketers understand how to segment markets and how to decide
which to target, how to position an offering and which marketingmix tactics will be most effective.
Symbols: external sighs that consumers use to express their identity.
Marketing: the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging
offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.
Perceptual map: graph with the results of how consumers view competing brands in comparison with each other.
Copy testing/pretesting: testing an ad’s effectiveness before it appears in public.
Endowment effect: Buyers and sellers have differing perceptions of what a product is worth. Sellers should not set
a higher price than buyers are willing to pay.
Chapter 1-Appendix – Developing information about consumer behavior
Primary data: data collected for its own purpose such as surveys, focus groups and experiments
Secondary data: data collected by an entity for one purpose and subsequently used by another entity for a
different purpose.
Consumer behavior research methods (zie ook A.1)
Survey: a method of collecting information form a sample of consumers, usually by asking questions, to
draw quantitative conclusions about a target population. Surveys can be used to:
- Better understand a specific customer segment
- Understand media usage and product purchasing patterns
- To collect sensitive information from consumers
A randomization device determines whether consumers should truthfully respond to a question or
provide an answer given by the device.
Focus groups: form of interview involving a small group of consumers (8 to 10 people) who discuss an
issue or an offering, led by a moderator. Provide qualitative insights into consumer attitudes.
- Computer based focus group: consumers go to a computer lab where their individual comments
are displayed anonymously for sensitive topics
- Customer advisory board: small group of customers that meet with marketing and service
executives once or twice a year to discuss offerings, competitive products, future need,
acquisition and usage problems. It’s also a tool for strengthening customer relations.
Interviews: one-on-one discussion in which an interviewer asks a consumer questions related to
consumption behavior and decisions. Are more appropriate than a focus group when the topic is sensitive.
More in-depth data than surveys.
Storytelling: consumers tell researchers stories about product acquisition, usage of disposition
experiences. These stories help marketers gain insights into consumer needs and identify the product
attributes that meet these needs. Sometimes marketers ask consumers to tell or write stories about
hypothetical situations that the marketer has depicted in a picture or scenario.
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