1. An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
Chapter 1
An Introduction to
Consumer Behavior

4. “Remember Me?”
I'm the fellow who goes into a restaurant, sits down and patiently waits while the waitresses do everything but take my order. I'm the fellow who goes into a department store and stands quietly while the sales clerks finish their little chitchat. I'm the man who drives into a gasoline station and never blows his horn, but waits patiently while the attendant finishes reading his comic book.
"Yes, you might say, I'm a good guy. But do you know who else I am? I am the fellow who never comes back, and it amuses me to see you spending thousands of dollars every year to get me back into your store, when I was there in the first place, and all you had to do to keep me was to give me a little service; show me a little courtesy.“
Source: From a Better Business Bureau bulletin submitted by An Arkansas Reader to Dear Abby

6. Defining Consumer Behavior
Consumer Behavior is the Process Involved When Individuals or Groups Select, Use, or Dispose of Products, Services, Ideas or Experiences (Exchange) to Satisfy Needs and Desires.

7. Issues During Stages in the Consumption Process

9. Consumers’ Impact on Marketing Strategy
Understanding consumer behavior is good business.
Firms exist to satisfy consumers’ needs, so
Firms must understand consumers needs to satisfy them.
The Process of Marketing Segmentation:
Identifies Groups of Consumers Who are Similar to One Another in One or More Ways, and
Devises Marketing Strategies that Appeal to One or More of These Groups.

10. Segmenting Consumers by Demographic Dimensions
Demographics are Statistics That Measure Observable Aspects of a Population Such As:
Geography
Age
Race and
Ethnicity
Gender
Social Class
and Income
Family Structure

11. Consumers’ Impact On Marketing Strategy: Building Bonds With Consumers
Relationship Marketing occurs when a company makes an effort to interact with customers on a regular basis, and gives them reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time.
Database Marketing involves tracking consumers’ buying habits very closely, and crafting products and messages tailored precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information.

13. Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: The Meaning of Consumption
Self-Concept Attachment
Helps to Establish the User’s Identity
Nostalgic Attachment
Serves as a Link With a Past Self
Interdependence
Part of the User’s Daily Routine
Love
Elicits Bonds of Warmth, Passion, or Other
Strong Emotion
Types of Relationships a Person May Have With a Product:

14. Marketing’s Impact on Consumers
Marketing and Culture
Popular Culture
Intangible and Tangible Objects
The Global Consumer
Global Consumer Culture
Virtual Consumption
Business to Consumer Selling (B2C Commerce)
Consumer to Consumer Selling (B2B Commerce)
Virtual Brand Communities
Blurred Boundaries: Marketing and Reality

15. Marketing Ethics
Business Ethics are Rules of Conduct That Guide Actions in the Marketplace - the Standards Against Which Most People in a Culture Judge What is Right and What is Wrong, Good or Bad.

16. The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior
Compulsive Consumption
Behavior is Not Done by Choice
Gratification is Short-Lived
Strong Feelings of Regret or Guilt Afterwards
Illegal Activities
Consumer Theft (Shrinkage)
Anti-consumption
Culture Jamming
Cultural Resistance
Consumed Consumers
People Who Are Exploited for
Commercial Gain in the
Marketplace.
Addictive Consumption
Gambling

17. Interdisciplinary Influences
Individual Focus
Interdisciplinary Influences
Experimental Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Human Ecology
Microeconomics
Social Psychology
Sociology
Macroeconomics
Semiotics/Literary Criticism
Demography
History
Cultural Anthropology
Social Focus

18. Two Perspective on Consumer Research
Positivist
Approach
Objective
Prediction
Independent
Real Cause
Separation
Interpretivist
Socially
Constructed
Understanding
Contextual
Simultaneous
Shaping
Interaction

19. The Wheel of Consumer Behavior