SOCIOLOGICAL

INFLUENCES
THE FAMILY
• The family is the primary reference group for many attitudes and behaviours. The
family is also the prime target market for most products and product category. As
the most basic membership group, a family us defined as two or more persons
related by blood, marriage, adoption who reside together.

• In the context marketing, the most important role of the family is the socialization of
family members, ranging from young children to adults . The process includes
imparting to young children the basic values and modes of behaviour consistent
with their culture, including moral principles, interpersonal skills, acceptable dress
and grooming standards, appropriate manners and speech, and the selection of
suitable educational and occupational or career goals.

• To understand family decision making and its members consumption related roles.
Marketers recognize that families operate as units in terms of consumption
behaviour. Specifically, marketers focus on husband-wife decision making, the
relative influence each family member has regarding consumption, children’s role in
family decision making and the multiple roles family members can assume in
buying, using and maintaining their possessions. Studies classify family
consumption decisions as husband-dominated, wife-dominated, joint or autonomic
decisions. Depending mainly only the product or service category
FAMILY LIFE CYCLE
• Represents the life stages of a typical family. It is a composite variable that combines marital status, size of
family, age of family members, and employment status of the head of household, and then classifies the
family into “typical stage”. The ages of the parents and the relative amount of disposable income are
inferred from the family’s stage in the cycle. The family cycle starts with bachelorhood and then moves on
to marriage (and creation of the family unit). Marriage usually leads to a growing family (with the birth of
children) and later to family contraction( as grown children leave the household). The cycle ends with the
dissolution of the family unit (due to the death of one spouse)

• There are living arrangements that are not typical. Families that do not readily fit into the family life cycle
include childless couples, people who marry late in life, young people who continue to live with their
parents or return after having moved out and divorced couples. Living situations that re not legally defined
as family. These also includes unmarried couple, single parents. This arrangement has been on a steep rise.
Marketers of many products must now acknowledge the existence of non-traditional household segments,
but must do so without offending members of traditional families who might react negatively to portrayals
of non-traditional household, because of religion and beliefs as to what is or is not ‘right’.
Social CLASS

• Social stratification or social class is the division of members of a society is not a hierarchy of distinct
status classes so that members of each class have relatively the same status and members of all other
classes have either more or less status.

• Some of the social stratification has existed in all societies throughout history. In contemporary
societies, people who are better educated or have prestigious occupations have more status relative to
other members of the same society. Belonging to a given social class is also reflected in differences in
the values, attitudes and behaviours among members of different social classes.

• There are two basic methods for measuring social class: Subjective and objective. Subjective measure
rely on an individuals self perception whereas objective measure use specific socioeconomic measure
either alone or in combination with others.
CULTURE’S INFLUENCE ON CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR
• Culture is the collective values, customs, norms, arts, social institutions and intellectual achievements
of a particular society. Cultural values express the collective principles, standards, and priorities of a
community. Most of the promotional messages across the world reflect to some degree the cultural
values of the TA. Culture always evolve, so marketers must monitor the sociocultural environment so
as to market existing products more effectively and develop new products that are congruent with
changing cultural trends. Understanding cultural changes is an easy task, because many factors
produce cultural changes within a given society, including new technologies, population shifts,
resource shortages and customs from other cultures.
• To be considered a cultural value, a belief or custom must be shared by significant portion of the society,
because culture is essentially a series of norms that guide personal and group conduct and link together
individuals into a largely cohesive group. Generally, a society’s members share their values and customs
through a common language, although some cultures include more than one language. We learn cultural
norms and customs mostly from family and peers, and begin at a very young age to understand that some
behaviours are appropriate and others are not. Anthropologist have identified three forms of cultural
learning; Formal Learning, Informal Learning and Technical Learning. Our ethical value also formed during
childhood , as we learn from parents, teachers and other significant adults. Anthropologists distinguish
between enculturation (learning one’s own culture) and acculturation (learning a new or foreign culture).
The contents of media, advertising. And marketing reflect cultural values and convey them to all members of
society very effectively.

• Cultural values are reflected in societies languages, symbols, communication and artifacts. A symbol is
anything that represents something else, symbols can either be verbal or nonverbal. Words are verbal
symbol and the text of any ad is a composition of symbols. In addition to language and symbols, cultures
include ritualized behaviours. A ritual is a type of symbolic activity consisting of a series of steps occurring in
a fixed sequence and repeated periodically.
CROSS-
CULTURAL
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR
• Within the scope of Consumer Behaviour, cross cultural analysis is defined as determining to what extent the
consumers of two or more nations are similar or different. Such analyses provides marketers with an
understanding of the psychological, social and cultural characteristics of the foreign consumers they wish to
target, so that they can design effective marketing strategies for the specific national markets involved. An
understanding of the similarities and differences that exist between nations is critical to the multinational
marketer who must devise appropriate strategies to reach consumers in specific foreign markets. Some of the
problems involved in cross-cultural analysis include differences in language, consumption pattern, needs,
product usage, economic and social conditions, marketing conditions and market research opportunities,
Acculturation is the process by which marketers learn- via cross cultural analysis, about the values, beliefs,
and customs of other cultures and apply this knowledge to marketing products internationally.

• The greater the similarity between nations, the more feasible, it is to use relatively similar marketing
strategies in each nation. When the cultural beliefs, values and customs of specific target countries are found
to differ widely, then a highly individualised marketing strategy is indicated for each country. In deciding
whether or not to customize products to local cultures, marketers must consider local values, limguistic
barriers and legal issues.
REFERENCE
GROUPS
• Within any setting including consumer behaviour, people are strongly influenced by how others think and
behave. Reference groups are groups that serve as sources of comparison, influence and norms for people’s
opinions, values and behaviours.

• The perceived honesty, objectivity, expertise and trustworthiness of reference groups make them highly
credible sources. Consumers perceive people whom they know personally as more credible than paid-for
promotional messages. People learn norms and values mostly from families and peers. They also imitate and
adopt the values and habits of persons whom they respect and admire.

• The perceived credibility of spokespersons, endorsers and other sources that companies use in their
advertising is the key to ads effectiveness. The spokesperson can be an actual customer, a company employee,
a celebrity, or a model. Companies also convey their credibility through solid past performance, good
reputation, high product quality and good service. Their perceived credibility is also a function of the image
and reputation of the retailers that carry their offerings and the media where they advertise. Marketers employ
celebrities for product testimonials and endorsements as well as spokespersons and actors in commercials.

• Over time, consumers disassociate messages from their sources, they tend to remember only the messages
contents but not their sources. Therefore, marketers must regularly repeat messages that feature high-
credibility spokespersons in order to maintain the messages persuasiveness.
OPINION
LEADERSHI
P
• Opinion leadership is the process by which one person-the opinion leader- informally influences
others, who might be either opinion seekers or recipients. This influence occurs between two or more
people, neither of whom represents a commercial seller nor would gain directly from providing advice
or information. Opinion leaders who have expertise in a given product category provide advice and
influence the consumption of others within the same category. They also follow any new items
introduce closely and are the first to buy new items, they tend to be self-confident, outgoing and
sociable, Several research methods are aimed at identifying opinion leaders.
MEASURING OPINION LEADERSHIP

• Self-Designation Method- employs a self-administered questionnaire that requires respondent to

evaluate the extent to which they have provided others with information about product category or
specific brand or have otherwise influence the purchase decisions of others.

• Sociometric Method- measures the person-to-person communications about a product or brand

among members of a community where most people know each other by name.

• Key Informant Method-that is person who is keenly knowledgeable about the nature of social
communications among members of a specific group

• Klout Scores- measure people’s influence online based on their ability to generate engagement and
feedback to what they post. It has become increasingly popular among businesses trying to identift
and reach OL online.