Test

1. MNM1505
Introduction to
Consumer
Behaviour
Mrs. Claudette Rabie

2. STUDY UNIT 1 – Nature of
consumer behaviour
 What is consumer behaviour?
 The study of individuals, groups or organisations and their
respective patterns of processing, selecting, securing, using
and ultimately disposing of products, services, ideas or
experiences
 Satisfy need of consumers = success of a business

3. STUDY UNIT 1 – Nature of
consumer behaviour
Three basic reasons for understanding consumer behaviour
Customer satisfaction Customer retention
The marketing concept Focus on needs Long-term
survival
Customer focus Serve needs of society
 Why is important for marketers to understand consumer
behaviour:

4. STUDY UNIT 2 – Consumer research
 Consumer research enables marketers to identify
consumers’ needs, preferences and buying patterns
 Steps in the consumer research process:
1. Developing research objectives
2. Collecting secondary data
3. Designing primary research
4. Designing a questionnaire
5. Selecting a sample
6. Managing fieldwork
7. Conducting the fieldwork
8. Preparing and analysing data
9. Preparing the report

5. INDIVIDUAL
FACTORS
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Attitude
Personality
Lifestyle
GROUP
FACTORS
Family
Culture
Social class
Reference groups
Opinions
BUYING DECISION
PROCESS
Problem recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Buying
Post-purchase behaviour
FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
EXTERNAL
FACTORS
Demographic
Technology
Social
Physical
Economical
Government

6. STUDY UNIT 3: External factors
influencing consumer behaviour
 Demographic characteristics
 Demographic characteristics are people’s vital statistics such as age,
race, ethnicity, gender and location
 Characteristics of the South African population
 Economic factors
 Factors that affect customer purchasing power and drive business cycles
include economic growth rate, consumer income, inflation and monetary
and fiscal policy
 Governmental factors
 Laws promulgated by government – for both businesses and individuals
 Physical factors
 Climate – influence on food consumption, clothing and housing
 Geographical landscape

7. STUDY UNIT 3: External factors
influencing consumer behaviour
 Social factors
 Family and friends
 Shape the way you perceive yourself and your identity
 Technological factors
 By altering the flow of and access to information on
marketplace alternatives
 By making available newer generations of products and
services
 By automating processes that give customers greater flexibility
and control and improve quality
 By making customised products economically feasible

8. INDIVIDUAL
FACTORS
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Attitude
Personality
Lifestyle
GROUP
FACTORS
Family
Culture
Social class
Reference groups
Opinions
BUYING DECISION
PROCESS
Problem recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Buying
Post-purchase behaviour
FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
EXTERNAL
FACTORS
Demographic
Technology
Social
Physical
Economical
Government

9. STUDY UNIT 4: Influence of the family on
consumer behaviour
 The family as a primary reference group
 Multiple household: consists of one or more families, or a group of two
or more persons, dependent on common or pooled income, and
usually living in the same house
 Single household: consists of one person who is financially
independent of any person or household group, although he or she
may be supporting people elsewhere
 Consumer unit: marketers can avoid the problem of whether to study
families or households by using the term consumer unit (CU)
 Types of families
 Married couple: husband and wife
 Nuclear family: husband, wife and one or more children
 Extended family: nuclear family plus other relatives
 Single-parent family: one parent and at least one child

10. STUDY UNIT 4: Influence of the family
on consumer behaviour
Family decision making
 Influencers: provide information to other members about a
product/service
 Gatekeepers: control the flow of information about a product or
service into the family
 Deciders: decide whether to buy, use, consume or dispose of a
product or service
 Buyers: do the actual buying of the product or service
 Preparers: transform the product into a form suitable for
consumption
 Users: use or consume the product or service
 Maintainers: service or repair products so that they will provide
continued satisfaction
 Disposers: decide on or carry out the disposal or discontinuation of
the product or service

11. Bachelorhood Honeymooners Parenthood Post
parenthood
Dissolution
Single men and
women who
established
households
apart from their
parents
Starts
immediately
after marriage
and continues
until arrival of
first child
Also called ‘full
nest stage’ and
usually lasts
longer than 20
years; shorter
phases
When all the
children have
left home;
traumatic or
liberating;
‘empty nest
stage’
Occurs with the
death of a
spouse;
surviving
spouse seeks
companion-ship
STUDY UNIT 4: Influence of the family on
consumer behaviour
Basic stages in the traditional family- family life cycle:

12. STUDY UNIT 5: Cultural influence on
consumer behaviour
 Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,
attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations,
concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a
group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving
 Elements of culture:
Culture
Norms & value
systems
Religion
Education
Language
Social structure
Economic philosophy
Political philosophy

13. STUDY UNIT 5: Cultural influence on
consumer behaviour
 A significant portion of society must share the same
values, beliefs or practices through various social
institutions that make the sharing of culture a reality,
including:
 Family: primary agent for enculturation, and from a marketer’s point of
view it teaches the consumer related values and skills
 Educational institutions: impact basic learning skills, history, patriotism,
citizenship and technical training
 Houses of worship: provide religious consciousness, spiritual guidance
and moral training
 Mass media: are the often overlooked transmitters of culture. They
disseminate information about products, ideas and causes. We have
daily exposure to advertising, and through advertisements we receive
cultural information

14. STUDY UNIT 6: Influence of reference groups
and social class on consumer behaviour
Reference groups
 People or institutions whose opinions are valued and to whom a
person looks for guidance in his or her own behaviour, values and
conduct, such as family, friends or celebrities
 Strong influence by a group requires:
 The purchased product must be one that others can see and identify
 The purchased item must be conspicuous and must be something unusual, not something everybody
owns
Social class
 Members share similar values, interests and behaviour

15. STUDY UNIT 6: Influence of reference groups
and social class on consumer behaviour
 Types of reference groups
 Membership groups: groups that have a direct influence and to
which a person belongs to - friends/church
 Aspirational groups: groups to which the individual wishes they
belong to
 Dissociative / negative groups: groups whose values and
behaviour an individual rejects
 Formal and informal groups: formal groups have a clearly defined
structure and membership - colleagues and informal groups have
no formal rules - families / friends
 Primary and secondary groups: primary groups include family,
friends and colleagues that one interacts with regularly while
secondary groups such as professional and religious groups that
one belongs to tend to be more formal and require less
interaction

16. INDIVIDUAL
FACTORS
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Attitude
Personality
Lifestyle
GROUP
FACTORS
Family
Culture
Social class
Reference groups
Opinions
BUYING DECISION
PROCESS
Problem recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Buying
Post-purchase behaviour
FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
EXTERNAL
FACTORS
Demographic
Technology
Social
Physical
Economical
Government

17. STUDY UNIT 7: Personal characteristics
of the consumer
 Criteria that are inherent within a group or population
and are the basic criteria for demographic
segmentation.
 Age, gender, race provide marketers with the basic
profiles on which to segment and target their
marketing strategies to relevant consumers.

18. STUDY UNIT 8: Consumer perception
and learning
 Perception
 Subjective process by which people select, organise and
interpret stimuli of the five senses of smell, sight, taste, touch
and sound
 Important i.t.o perception
 Perception is selective: we are exposed to a huge quantity of
information but attend only to a relatively small percentage
(perceptual defence)
 Perception is subjective: we see and hear what we are interested
in because of what we are, what we believe in and what our
values are etc.
 Perception is based on a frame of reference: the individual’s act
of perceiving is based on his or her experience

19. STUDY UNIT 8: Consumer perception
and learning
 Perceptual process
Exposure Attention Interpretation Memory

20. STUDY UNIT 8: Consumer perception and
learning
 Learning
 The process of learning continually evolves and changes as a result of newly acquired
knowledge or experience.
 Elements of learning
 Theories of learning
 Classical conditioning: refers to the phenomenon whereby a person tends to relate two
stimuli to each other if the association between them is shown continuously (Pavlov’s
experiment with dogs)
 Instrumental conditioning: learning will take place if the consumer is conditioned to believe
that a specific response to a stimulus will lead to a positive reward (Skinner’s experiment
with pigeons)
 Cognitive theory: acquiring information (passively or actively), interpreting and evaluating
it, and then taking action on the basis of the acquired knowledge
Stimulus Response Reinforcement

21. STUDY UNIT 9: Consumer motivation

22. STUDY UNIT 10: Consumer
attitudes
 Attitudes
 An attitude describes a person’s relatively consistent evaluations, feelings and
tendencies towards an object or an idea
 Attitudes are learned: we form attitudes relevant to buying behaviour as a result of
direct experience with the product, information required from others and exposure
to mass media
 Attitudes tend to be consistent: an important property of an attitude is that it is
relatively consistent with the behaviour it reflects
 ABC model of attitude

23. STUDY UNIT 10: Consumer
attitudes
 Functions of attitudes
◦ Utilitarian function: the concept that people express feelings to
maximise the rewards and minimise the punishment they receive from
others (I like this pub because my friends go there and the beer is
good)
◦ Ego-defensive function: protects people from basic truths of
themselves or from the real live realities in the external world (I don’t
like French restaurants, period. Real reason: not being able to
pronounce menu items threatens self-esteem)
◦ Value-expressive function: how people express their core values to
others (I like the body shop as they do not use animal testing, a cause I
support)
◦ Knowledge function: attitudes serve as the basic standards by which
people understand their environment (I love people magazine because
it keeps me updated about all the stars)

24. STUDY UNIT 11: Consumer personality
and self concept
Personality
 Personality refers to a persons psychological makeup that
engenders characteristic responses to the environment in
which he/she lives.
Characteristics of personality
 Personality reflects individual differences
 Personality is consistent and enduring
 Personality is conceived as a whole actualising itself in an
environment
 Personality can change

25. STUDY UNIT 11: Consumer personality
and self concept
 The self and the self-concept
◦ The self-concept is how an individual views or perceives him or
herself
◦ Consumers can and will act differently in different situations –
the customer is viewed as a ‘multiple self’ and not a single self
◦ The extended self: what customers possess or own can be seen
as confirming or extending their self image
◦ Altering the self: customers all over are constantly changing or
altering themselves using clothing, accessories or property

26. STUDY UNIT 12: Consumer decision
making
 Problem recognition
 Recognises a need that you want to satisfy.
 Information search
 Look for information about possible solutions in the external
environment, or use info that they have stored in their memory.
 Evaluation of alternatives
 Evaluate the various alternatives.
 Buying
 Buy item they have chosen
 Post-purchase behaviour
 Satisfied/dissatisfied

27. Remember to follow the page
reference guide and also see the
additional information to be
studied!!!