Lecture 6 (February 24th, 2021)

Chapter 4: b2c
CONSUMER MARKETS AND CONSUMER BUYER BEHAVIOR
1. Consumer markets and model of consumer behavior:
1.1 Consumer markets
-Consumer buyer behavior: buying behavior of final consumers – individuals & households
buying goods & services for personal consumption
-Consumer market: all of the personal consumption of final consumers
1.2 Model of consumer behavior

The environment Buyer's black Buyer responses

box

Marketing stimuli Buyer's characteristics Buying attitudes and

Buyer's decision preferences
process Purchase behavior: what
to buy, when, where,
how much
Brand & company rela
behavior

-Central question: How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the company might
use?
Buyer’s characteristics: influence how the consumers react
Buyer’s decision process: to know if consumers are satisfied or not
 Marketers can study actual consumer purchases to find out what they buy, where and
how much. But learning about the ‘whys’ behind consumer buying behaviour is not so
easy – the answers are often locked deep within the consumer’s mind. Often, consumers
themselves don’t know exactlywhat influences their purchases.
 Marketers want to understand how the stimuli are changed into responses inside the
consumer’s black box, which has 02 parts:  The buyer’s characteristics influence how
 the consumer perceives and reacts to the stimuli, including a variety of cultural, social,
personal and psychological factors.
-The buyer’s decision process itself affects the consumer’s behavior. This decision
process which begins long before the actual purchase decision and continues long after..

2. Types of buying decision behavior

Buying behavior differs greatly for a tube of toothpaste, smartphone, financial services and a ner
car.
-More complex decisions involve more buying participants and more buyer deliberation.
-4 type based on degree of buyer involvement & the difference among brands:

Complex buying behavior Variety-seeking buying behavior

-High consumer involvement
-Customers perceive significant
differences among brands
Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
-High consumer involvement
-Customers see few differences among
brands
-Low consumer involvement
-Customers perceive significant
differences among brands
Habitual buying behavior
-Low consumer involvement
-Customers see few differences among
brands

2.1 Complex buying behavior (hanh vi mua phuc tap)

-Product: Expensive; Purchased infrequently; Risky; Significant differences among brands
perceived by customers
Eg: Buying a house/ a new car -> A lot of significant differences among brands -> The
consumers have much to learn about different brands
-Marketers should:
.Understand the information-gathering & evaluation behavior of consumers
.Help buyers learn about products’ attributes and their relative importance
.Describe & illustrate the brands’ benefits through printed promotional materials (can read and
consider thoroughly)/ in depth online information and videos
-Motivate store salespeople and the buyer’s acquaintances to influence the final brand choice.
2.2 Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
-Product: Expensive; Purchased infrequently; Risky; Few differences among brands perceived
by customers
-Because perceived brand differences are not large; buyers may shop around to learn what is
available but buy relatively quickly. After that, they might experience post purchase dissonance
(after sale discomfort) when noticing certain disadvantages of the purchased products/ hearing
favorable things about brands not purchased
-Marketer should: provide after-sale communication with evidences & support to help
consumers feel good about their brand choices.
2.3 Habitual buying behavior (hanh vi mua theo thoi quen)
-Product: Low cost; Frequently purchased; Few differences among brands perceived by
customers
-Consumers simply go to store & search for a brand. If they keep reaching for the same brand,
it’s out of habit rather than strong brand loyalty.
-Marketer should:
.Use price & sales promotions to stimulate product trial
.Ad campaigns should include high repetition of short-duration messages. TV is more effective
than print media because it’s suitable for passive learning
.Add product features/ enhancements to differentiate their brands from the rest of the pack and
raise involvement
2.4 Variety-seeking buying behavior (hanh vi mua tim kiem su da dang)
-Product: Low cost; Frequently purchased; Significant differences among brands perceived by
customers
Eg: Instant noodles, Beverages
-Consumers do a lot of brand switching, which occurs for the sake of variety rather than bc of
dissatisfaction
-Marketing strategy may differ for the market leader and minor brands
-Market leader: Try to encourage habitual buying behavior by dominating shelf, keep shelves
fully stocked and running frequent reminder advertising
-Minor brands: Try to encourage variety seeking by offering lower prices, special deals,
coupons, free samples, advertising that presents reasons for trying something new.
3. Characteristics affecting consumer behavior
3.1 Cultural factors
-Culture: set of basic values, wants and behaviors learned by a member of society from family
and other important institutions
Eg: A European child is normally exposed to the following values: achievement & success,
freedom, individualism, hard word, activity and involvement,…
-> Marketers: trying to spot cultural shifts so as to discover new products that might be wanted
-Subculture (nhanh van hoa): Group of people with shared value systems based on common life
experiences and situations; including nationalities, religions, racial groups & geographic
regions.
Eg: Saigonese earn 10 Dong and spend 11 while Hanoians ear 10 Dong and spen 10, save the
rest.
-Social class: relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share
similar values, interests and behaviors
Eg: American class: Upper class -> Middle class -> Working class -> Lower class
There is no real social class in Vietnam.
-Social class is not determined by a single factor. A number of classification schemes have been
developed, ranging from those using occupation and education to those based on a combination
of occupation, income, education, wealth and other variables.
3.2 Social factors
-Group and social networks: can have direct/ indirect influence on a consumer’s decision. A
group is made of two/ more people interacting to accomplish individual or mutual goals. Social
networks are where people socialize or exchange information and opinions
Membership Groups Aspirational Groups Reference Groups

*Word-of-mouth influence and buzz marketing:

-Can have a powerful impact on consumer buying behavior. Personal words and
recommendations of trusted friends, associates, and other consumers tend to be more credible
than those coming from commercial sources, such as advertisements/ salespeople
-Opinion leader: A person within a reference group who, bc of special skills, knowledge,
personality, or other characteristics, exerts social influence on others
-Buzz marketing: involves enlisting or even creating opinion leaders to serve as “brand
ambassadors” who spread the word about a company’s products. Some experts call this group
the influential or leading adopters
-Family: whose role can be spouse or kin, can strongly influence a consumer’s purchase of
different products and services.
Marketers are interested in the roles & influence of the husband, wife and children on the
purchase of different products and services
+Marketers in industries that have traditionally sold their products to only women or only
men – from groceries and personal care products to cars and consumer electronics – are now
carefully targeting the opposite sex.
Eg: Today women account for 50% of all technology purchases -> Consumer electronics
companies are increasingly designing products that are easier to use and more appealing to
female buyers.
+Children may also have a strong influence on family buying decisions. Children – from
babies to teens – have influence over their parents’ decisions regarding how money & free time
are spent, where to go on vacation, how often to go out to ear and where to live
Eg: To encourage parents to take holidays with their children, Forte Village in Sardinia
even offer a dedicated children’s restaurant, children’s pool, complimentary kids clubs for
children of all ages, a Chelsea Football Club Academy, rugby coaching, numerous water sports
and even a special pool …
-Social roles and status: is the image of a consumer maintains within Groups, Social Networks,
and among Family by buying certain products and services.
3.3 Personal factors
-Age and life stage: People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Tastes
in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related.
Eg: One of the leading life-stage segmentation system is the Nielsen PRIZM Lifestage Groups
system. PRIZM classifies every American household into one of 66 distinct lifestage segments,
which are organized into 11 major life-stage groups based on affluence, age, family
characteristics
-Occupation: Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have an above-average
interest in their products and services
Eg: A company can even special in making products needed by a given occupation group.
CAT, the world’s leading manufacturer of construction machinery, offers rugged mobile
phones…
-Economic situation: A person’s economic situation will affect his or her store and product
choices.
Eg: In today’s more value-conscious time, most
-Life style: A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and
opinions.
Eg: It profiles a person’s whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world. Consumers don’t
just buy products, they buy the values and lifestyles those products represent.
The Body Shop markets much more than just…
-Personality and self-concept: Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics
that distinguish a person or group. Self-concept is the idea that possessions contribute to and
reflect a person’s identity.
Eg: The idea is that brands also have personalities, and consumers are likely to choose brands
with personalities that match their own.
A brand personality is the specific mix of human traits that may be attributed to a particular
brand.
Most well-known brands are strongly …
3.4 Psychological factors
-Motivation: is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction of the
need
Abraham Maslow:
-Perception: is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information to form a
meaningful picture of the world from three perceptual processes which are selective attention,
selective distortion and selective retention
People can form different perceptions of the same stimulus because of three perceptual
processes: selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention.
.Selective attention is the tendency for people to screen out most of the information to
which they are exposed
.Selective distortion is the tendency for people to interpret information in a way that will
support what they already believe
.Selective retention is the tendency to remember good points made about a brand they
favor and forget good points about competing brands
-Learning: is the change in an individual’s behavior arising from experience
-Belief and attitude: Belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds about something.
Attitudes describe a person’s relatively consistent evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward
an object or idea.

4. The buyer decision process (midterm)

-It’s not for every purchase
4.1 Need recognition
-first stage of the buyer decision process: the consumer recognizes a problem/ need
-The need can be triggered by internal stimuli when one of the person’s normal needs rises to
level high enough to become a drive; can also be triggered by external stimuli
4.2 Information search
-The stage of the buyer decision process: the consumer is motivated to search for more
information
-4 sources of information:
Experiential sources: handling, examining, using the product
Personal sources: from family, friends,…
Public source: mass media, consumer rating organizations, Internet…
Commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, dealer Web site, packaging, display, etc…
 ảnh hưởng tương đối của các nguồn thông tin là khác nhau
receive a lot of info from commercial sources.
4.3 Evaluation of alternatives
-Consumer uses info to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
-Consumers don’t use a simple & single evaluation process in all buying situations, depending
on the individual consumer and the specific buying situation
-> Marketers study the consumers
4.4 Purchase decision
-attitudes of others:
-unexpected situational factors
4.5 Post-purchase behavior (loyalty/…)
-Consumers take further action after purchase, based on their satisfaction/ dissatisfaction
-