1. An Introduction to Psychology
Chapter 1
An Introduction to
Psychology

3. “Remember Me?”
I'm the fellow who goes into a restaurant, sits down and patiently waits while the waitresses do everything but take my order.
I'm the fellow who goes into a department store and stands quietly while the sales clerks finish their little chitchat.
I'm the man who drives into a petrol station and never blows his horn, but waits patiently while the attendant finishes reading his comic book.
"Yes, you might say, I'm a good guy. But do you know who else I am? I am the fellow who never comes back, and it amuses me to see you spending thousands of dollars every year to get me back into your store, when I was there in the first place, and all you had to do to keep me was to give me a little service; show me a little courtesy."
Source: From a Better Business Bureau bulletin submitted by An Arkansas Reader to Dear Abby

4. Defining Consumer Psychology
Consumer Psychology is about understanding why and how individuals engage in consumer activities, as well as how they are affected by them.
Much of the discipline is focused on cognitive processes and behaviour involved when people purchase and use products and services.

5. Consumer Psychology Cont.
It is interdisciplinary in nature and combines research methods, marketing, advertising, economics, sociology and anthropology.
Its not only about the desire to increase sales or brand visibility.
When learning consumer psychology, it is important to establish a wide understanding of why consumers behave and think the way they do. The more you know, the easier it is to explain and predict buying and use patterns.

6. Issues During Stages in the Consumption Process

7. Consumers’ Impact on Marketing Strategy
Understanding consumer psychology is good business.
Firms exist to satisfy consumers’ needs, so
Firms must understand consumers needs to satisfy them.
The Process of Marketing Segmentation:
- Consumers are different and have different backgrounds, education, experiences.
Devises Marketing Strategies that Appeal to One or More of These Groups.
Market segmentation, strategic targeting and product positioning are the key elements of marketing most consumer goods.
Through research, a marketer uncovers specific market segments with distinct needs.
After evaluating each segment, using a predefined criteria, Products are developed, and the Price, Promotion, and Distribution strategies are devised.
As a marketer, segmentation is used to identify the most appropriate media for placing advertisements in.
However not every segment can be viable or profitable. To be effective, a segment should be identifiable, sizeable, stable and growing, accessible and in line with the marketer’s objectives and resources.

8. Segmenting Consumers by Demographic Dimensions
Demographics are Statistics That Measure Observable Aspects of a Population Such As:
Geography
Age
Race and
Ethnicity
Gender
Social Class
and Income
Family Structure

9. Consumers’ Impact On Marketing Strategy: Building Bonds With Consumers
Relationship Marketing occurs when a company makes an effort to interact with customers on a regular basis, and gives them reasons to maintain a bond with the company over time.
Database Marketing involves tracking consumers’ buying habits very closely, and crafting products and messages tailored precisely to people’s wants and needs based on this information.

10. Marketing’s Impact on Consumers: The Meaning of Consumption
Self-Concept Attachment
Helps to Establish the User’s Identity
Nostalgic Attachment
Serves as a Link With a Past Self
Interdependence
Part of the User’s Daily Routine
Love
Elicits Bonds of Warmth, Passion, or Other
Strong Emotion
Types of Relationships a Person May Have With a Product:

11. Marketing’s Impact on Consumers:
Consumption Typology Explores the Different Ways That Products and Experiences Can Provide Meaning to People.
There Are 4 Distinct Types of Consumption Activities:
Consuming as Experience
Consuming as Integration
Consuming as Classification
Consuming as Play
An Emotional or Aesthetic
Reaction to Consumption Objects
Express Aspects of Self or
Society
Communicate Their Association
With Objects, Both to Self/ Others
Participate in a Mutual Experience
and Merge Self With Group

12. Marketing’s Impact on Consumers
Marketing and Culture
Popular Culture
Intangible and Tangible Objects
The Global Consumer
Global Consumer Culture
Virtual Consumption
Business to Consumer Selling (B2C Commerce)
Consumer to Consumer Selling (B2B Commerce)
Virtual Brand Communities
Blurred Boundaries: Marketing and Reality

13. Marketing Ethics
Business Ethics are Rules of Conduct That Guide Actions in the Marketplace - the Standards Against Which Most People in a Culture Judge What is Right and What is Wrong, Good or Bad.

14. Other Marketing Ethics Issues
Do Marketers Create Artificial Needs?
Response: Marketing attempts to create awareness that these needs do exist, rather than to create them.
Are Advertising and Marketing Necessary?
Response: Yes, if approached from an information dissemination perspective.
Do Marketers Promise Miracles?
Not if they are honest; they do not have the ability to create miracles.

15. The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior
Compulsive Consumption
Behavior is Not Done by Choice
Gratification is Short-Lived
Strong Feelings of Regret or Guilt Afterwards
Illegal Activities
Consumer Theft (Shrinkage)
Anti-consumption
Culture Jamming
Cultural Resistance
Consumed Consumers
People Who Are Exploited for
Commercial Gain in the
Marketplace.
Addictive Consumption
Gambling

16. Interdisciplinary Influences
Individual Focus
Interdisciplinary Influences
Experimental Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Human Ecology
Microeconomics
Social Psychology
Sociology
Macroeconomics
Semiotics/Literary Criticism
Demography
History
Cultural Anthropology
Social Focus

17. Two Perspective on Consumer Research
Positivist
Approach
Objective
Prediction
Independent
Real Cause
Separation
Interpretivist
Socially
Constructed
Understanding
Contextual
Simultaneous
Shaping
Interaction

18. Taking it From Here: The Plan of the Book
Section II: Consumers As Individuals
Section III: Consumers As Decision Makers
Section IV: Consumers and Subcultures
Section V: Consumers and Culture

19. The Wheel of Consumer Behavior