International Consumer Behavior mental processes that affect consumers across cultures

1. CORPISM-08/02
International Consumer
Behavior
Week 6: Mental
Processes
Professor Ethan Chazin
1

2. Cool Stuff

8. How people see,
think, learn, and
communicate all
apply to consumer
behavior.

9. Cognition

11. • Covers the psychological processes
involved in making sense of the
environment around us, and deciding
what actions are appropriate.
• Entails thinking, reasoning,
understanding/interpreting stimuli
and events, attention, perception,
learning, memory, language and
problem-solving.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupCognition

12. • Chinese people are situation-centered;
they are sensitive to their environment.
• Americans are individual centered, and
expect their environment to be sensitive
to them.
• The West is object-focused, the East is
context-focused.
• Different cultures have different thinking
styles (abstract vs. concrete)
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupCultural Differences

15. • Most human behavior is learned.
• Describes changes in behavior as a
result of our experiences.
• Culture is behavior that we learn
unconsciously, through socialization.
• We learn values, ideas, practices and
roles played within a society.
• Memory involves acquiring information
and storing it for later. Info MUST be
categorized.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupLearning

17. Associate Network
Memory Model

21. K
What do you think?

22. • Culture influences how consumers group
products.
• Americans group products based on
category membership, Chinese group
people or objects on the basis of
relational contextual criteria. (ex. If see
father, mother, daughter, they group
mother and daughter together)
• When shopping for cars Germans want
detailed product specs, Italians want car
images.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupCulture Differences

23. • Brand name, brand visual images
(logo, pckg, brand properties, and
other recognizable aspects.
• Product(s) linked with the name.
• Product attributes.
• Benefits/rewards for the buyer/user.
• Places, occasions, people, moments,
moods when using the product.
• Users; Values.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupMarketing Info We Gather

24. Cognition & Affect

25. • Emotions, feelings, and moods are
affective responses to stimuli, but
meanings knowledge and beliefs are
cognitive responses to stimuli.
• An example of a product category
that in the West involves a different
interaction of cognition and affect
than in the East is food.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group

26. • Examples of affective components of
food are hedonism, pleasure, and
sharing with family & friends. Examples
of cognitive components are nutrition,
health consequences, and convenience.
• FRENCH value the pleasure of food, but
are also conscious of possible negative
affects on their health.
• French look for purity in their food,
while Americans combine bad eating
with fitness culture.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupFOOD (East vs. West)

34. Cognitive Dissonance

36. • People have a need for order in their
lives.
• Tension is created when beliefs or
behaviors conflict with one another.
• Dissonance occurs when there is
psychological inconsistency between
two or more beliefs/behaviors.
• Typical in individualistic cultures.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupCognitive Dissonance

37. Buyer’s Remorse

38. K
What do you think?

40. • Abstract rules are translated into a
channel (spoken, written, sign
language) to create messages. When
the channel involves the spoken word,
speech is involved.
• Language is a “product” of culture.
• Children don’t “learn” language, but the
patterns and styles of language
interactions.
• Paralanguage (body language, kinesics)
is culture-driven.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupLanguage

41. • An expression of who we are as individuals,
communities, and nations.
• Includes sounds, symbols, and gestures.
• The power of language to reflect culture and
influence thinking first proposed by American
linguist and anthropologist, Edward Sapir and
student Benjamin Whorf.
• Sapir–Whorf hypothesis states the way we
think and view the world is determined by
our language.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupLanguage
Source: www.education.com/reference/article/culture-language/

47. • He’s a team player.
• The sweet spot.
• Drives me up a wall.
• Ballpark estimate.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupLanguage reflects culture

48. Language in
Advertising

49. “Translating advertising copy is like
painting the tip of an iceberg and hoping
the whole thing will turn red. What makes
copy work is not the words themselves,
but subtle combinations of those words ,
and most of all the echoes and
repercussions of those words within the
mind of the reader. Advertising is not
made of words, but made of culture.”
- Simon Anholt
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group

51. Perception

52. • Gives us knowledge of the surrounding
world.
• In traditional perception research the
focus is on what people observe/see.
• Selective perception entails seeing what
we want to see and avoiding what we
don’t.
• Weber’s Law suggests that consumers’
ability to detect changes in stimulus
intensity appear to be strongly related to
the intensity of that stimulus to begin
with.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupPerception

55. Aesthetic Experience

56. • Experiencing pleasure/displeasure,
due to stimuli perceived as being
beautiful/not beautiful,
attractive/unattractive, and/or
rewarding/unrewarding.
• Visual language is culturally specific.
• Differences in composition are
greatest between East & West…
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupAesthetic Experience

60. Example:
The Japanese…

63. Creative Process

64. • Artistic creativity refers to creativity
expressed in any aspect of the arts
including visual, art, music, literature,
dance, theater.
• Intelligence, knowledge, thinking
style, personality, motivation and
social environment all contribute to
creativity.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupCreative Process

65. Cross-Cultural
Analysis of
Advertising

66. • Influence of Western information
processing theory results in a biased way
to how advertising is analyzed across
countries and cultures.
• Many cross-cultural advertising studies
focus on the information content.
• Use the Resnik & Stern approach to check
for 14 possible info cues.
• Such a Western approach fails to effect-
ively measure info conveyed through
advtsg in Eastern (Asian) societies.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupWestern Bias

67. Involvement
Theory

68. • People process information (advtsg)
in a learning hierarchy.
• Western approach is to sell or change
consumer opinions/attitudes.
• People are motivated to seek a lot of
information, carefully weigh
alternatives, and come to a thoughtful
decision (High involvement model.)
• Learn @ a Product->Form Opinion
->Take Action. (Learn-Feel-Do.)
Involvement Theory

69. • Petty & Cacioppo’s ELM info processing
follows a central/peripheral route
depending on the level of involvement in
the msg.
• In central route a consumer engages in
thoughtful consideration of the issue-
relevant info within a msg.
• If personal lacks the motivation or ability
to take a central route, processing follows
a peripheral route. Peripheral includes
using visual cues, pckg, pictures.
Elaboration Likelihood Model

70. Consumer Decision-
Making Styles

71. Decision “Illusions”

72. • In Western theory, decisions never
just “happen.” Someone “makes
them.” A-I-D-A.
• In Japanese society, events shape
whatever actions are required, so
consumers stand back from an event
rather than attempt to control it thru
decision-making.
• X.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupDecision-Making Styles

73. 4 Stages of the
Customer
Relationship
Model

74. Moving Through the Relationship

75. • Strive always to reduce consumer risks in
their purchase decisions:
– Functional risk: product doesn’t perform up to
expectations.
– Financial risk: Product’s not worth the price paid.
– Physical risk: product poses a physical threat.
– Social risk: Product results in embarrassment from
others.
– Psychological risk: Product affects mental well-
being of the user.
– Time risk: A product’s failure costs the consumer a
chance of finding another acceptable product.
Customer Risks

76. Five Customer Needs.
What Are They?

77. HINT: Think cars
• STATED Inexpensive car.
• REAL Car with LOW operating cost.
• UNSTATED Good service.
• DELIGHT Cool navigation system.
• SECRET Friends see you as a cool &
savvy.
FIVE Customer NEEDS

78. • Customers can define unmet needs.
• Use relationships with them to
interact and query what they want.
• Problem research identifies
opportunities.
• Lead users: innovator clients facing
problems in your market well before
others.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupUnmet Needs