Models of Consumer Behaviour

Week 2
Consumer Behaviour
and Food Marketing
 Models of Consumer Behaviour
• Types of consumption
• Purchase paradigms
• Modelling food consumption behaviour

“Human responses in a commercial world”

(East, chapter 1)
 What determines food choice?
• Prices + Income + Preferences
• There are three types of influences on
preference and choices for food:
– Characteristics of the product
– Characteristics of the individual
– Characteristics of the environment
 Types of consumption
• Important purchases (relevance)
• Repetitive consumption (frequency)
• Involuntary consumption (freedom)
• Group consumption (susceptibility to social
influence)
 Important purchases
• Product purchased for the first time
• Infrequently purchased products
– Time and effort to choose
– Little experience
– High involvement

Going to a new restaurant

Choosing the menu for an important dinner
 Repetitive consumption
• Frequent purchase
• Low price (or standard quality/variability?)
• Little conscious attention
• Low involvement
• Experience goods

Salt at the supermarket

 Involuntary consumption
• Unavoidable consumption
– Petrol for the car
– Telephone
– Repair of roads (social form, public goods)
– …

• Choice between brands?

Tap water
 Group consumption
• Purchase based on some group influence
process
– Family expenditures
– Company purchases

Mineral water
Purchase paradigms, theories and
models
Paradigm (perspective, framework)

Theory MODEL
Why do we need Consumer Behaviour
theories, paradigms and models?
• To support marketing practices as:
– Use of pricing incentives
• Impact on sales
• Reaction after the end of price cuts
• Understanding reasons behind consumer behaviour
– Advertising
• Impact on sales (or loyalty or brand recognition)
• Duration of effects
• Underlying mechanisms
– Brand extension
• Impact on the new product
• Impact on the old product
• Why?
 Example: price cuts
• During promotion: sales (quantity) up by
50%
• After promotion: sales at same level as
before
• Why?
– % of new purchasers
– Perception low prices as low quality
 Purchase paradigms
• Are not mutually exclusive
• Subjective preferences
• Appropriateness for particular conditions
 Purchase paradigms
1. Cognitive paradigm (US)
– Purchase as the outcome of problem-solving

2. Reinforcement paradigm (UK)

– Purchase as learned behaviour

3. Habit paradigm
– Pre-established pattern of behaviour
 The Cognitive paradigm
• Decision-making as an explanation for
consumer behaviour
“The cognitive consumer is credited with the
capacity to receive and handle considerable
quantities of information, to engage actively in the
comparative evaluation of alternative products and
brands, and to select rationally among them”
[Foxall]
 Cognitive paradigm
• Does it work?
• Typical purchase (especially for food)
– Few alternatives
– Little external search
– Few evaluative criteria
• Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1995)
 Extended Problem Solving
• New and important purchases
Problem/need recognition

Search for information

Evaluation of alternatives

Purchase

Consumption

Post-consumption evaluation
 Limited problem solving
• Even in new purchase there are no time,
resource and motivation to the search
• Search for information and evaluation of
alternatives are limited
 Habitual decision-making
• Loyalty to the brand
• Inertia
– The need is satisfied, but there is no special
interest in the product
• Food products
• “Satisficing behaviour”
Accept the first solution that is good enough to satisfy your
need, even if a better solution may be missed
Satisficing behaviour (Simon,
1957; Klein, 1989)
Need recognition

Evaluation of single Option

NO
Purchase?

YES
END
 The Reinforcement paradigm
(Learning Theory)
• Reinforcer: an experience which raises the
frequency of “responses” associated with it
• Punisher: an experience which reduces the
frequency of such response
[Skinner, 1938; 1953]
 The learned behaviour theory
• Past behaviour teaches us, and after
learning we can modify later behaviour
– Satisfaction/unsatisfaction with a product
– It is a valid theory both under the reinforcement
and habit paradigm
 Some types of learning
• Classic conditioning (Pavlov’s dog)
• Watson and Rayner “Little Albert” (1920): rats, iron bars and
the “generalising effect”
• Learning is generalised
– Brand extension: use of an existing brand for a new product
– Use of stimuli: packaging, brand names, colours, smells, music, context
of purchase/consumption
• Reinforcement learning
– Trial and error learning
– Shaping (behaviour changed by reinforcing the performances that show
change in a desired direction)
 Classical conditioning
• Signs and colour coding (e.g. mailbox)
 The satiation effect
• Heavily used reinforcements lose power
(satiation effect)
– Wearout in advertisement
– Desensitisation: stimulus satiation
 Stimuli and reinforcement
learning
• Continuous and Intermittent learning
– Continuous is quicker
– Intermittent has a larger final effect
– Extinction period after the end of reinforcement
is longer for intermittent learning
• Example of reinforcers: Kinder egg surprise,
“air miles”, Tesco clubcard point, cashback
 Punishment and reinforcement
learning
• Food poisoning consequences
– One failure is enough
– Undiscovered later improvements of the
product
– Effect is long-lasting
 Reinforcement and marketing
strategy
• Control stimuli to “direct” behaviour
• Reinforcers
– Pleasure
– Information
• Degree of “opennes” (range of activities
available to the consumer)
• Environment affects behaviour
 The Habit paradigm
• While the cognitive and reinforcement paradigms
are based on dynamics and change, the habit one
is related to aggregate stable markets, where
behaviour is seen as relatively unchanging.
• The habit paradigm excludes problem-solving or
planning
• Judgment comes after purchase and habits may be
broken
 The involvement factor
• Involvement
– Importance of purchase
– Risks involved
• Potential costs
• Irreversibility of the decision
– Type of cognitive process that is generated

Example: beef consumption after the BSE crisis

 Frustration factor
• Frustration as “blocked motivation”
• No options are available
• Minor frustrations in using products may
lead to change products
• New products should be designed to avoid
frustration
 Managerial control and the
purchase paradigms
• Cognitive paradigm
– Provide information and persuasion
– Suitable for one-off decisions
• Reinforcement paradigm
– Change the environment and stimuli
• Habit paradigm
– Packaging
– Advertising
 Problem/need recognition
• In general, individuals recognise they have
a need for something when there is a
discrepancy between their actual state and
ideal state.
 Need recognition and marketing
strategy
• Advertising
• In-store promotion
• Visibility
Need recognition…