1. Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior
Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism
Kotler, Bowen, Makens and Baloglu
Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior
Chapter 6

2. Learning Objectives Explain the model of buyer behavior.
Outline the major characteristics affecting consumer behavior, and list some of the specific cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors that influence consumers.
Explain the buyer decision process and discuss need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, the purchase decision, and postpurchase behavior.

3. Consumer Behavior Marketing Stimuli: Product, Price, Place & Promo
Other Stimuli:
Economic, Technological, Political & Cultural
Buyer’s black box: Buyer characteristics & decision process
The company that really understands how consumers will respond to different product features, prices, and advertising appeals has a great advantage over its competitors
Their starting point is the model of buyer behavior
This figure shows that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain responses
Marketers must determine what is in the buyer’s black box
The black box has two parts
First, a buyer’s characteristics influence how he or she perceives and reacts to the stimuli
Second, the buyer’s decision process itself affects outcomes
The marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion
Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s environment: economic, technological, political, and cultural
All these stimuli enter the buyer’s black box, where they are turned into the set of observable buyer responses shown on the right: product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount
Buyer’s responses:
Product Choice, Brand choice, Dealer choice, Purchase timing, Purchase amount

4. Cultural Factors Cultural Factors Values Perceptions Wants Behaviors
Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behavior
The most basic determinant of a person’s wants and behavior
It comprises the basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors that a person learns continuously in a society
Subculture
Each culture contains groups of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations
Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial groups, and geographic regions
Social Class
Social classes are relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors

5. Cross-Cultural Marketing
This is a practice of including ethnic themes and cross-cultural perspectives within the mainstream marketing of the organization.

6. Social Factors Groups Word-of-Mouth Influence and Buzz Marketing
Online Social Networks
Family
Role and Status
Consumer behavior is also influenced by social factors, including the consumers’ groups, family, social roles, and status
Groups
Groups that have a direct influence and to which a person belongs are called membership groups
Reference groups serve as direct (face-to-face) or indirect points of comparison or reference in forming a person’s attitudes or behavior
People often are influenced by reference groups to which they do not belong. For example, an aspirational group is one to which the individual wishes to belong
Word-of-Mouth Influence and Buzz Marketing
Word-of-mouth influence can have a powerful impact on consumer buying behavior
The 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 or salespeople
Buzz marketing involves enlisting or even creating opinion leaders to serve as "brand ambassadors" who spread the word about a company's products
Online Social Networks
Online social networks are online communities where people socialize or exchange information and opinions
Marketers must be careful when tapping into online social networks
Family
Family members have a strong influence on buyer behavior
Roles and Status
A person belongs to many groups: family, clubs, and organizations
An individual’s position in each group can be defined in terms of role and status
A role consists of the activities that a person is expected to perform according to the persons around him or her
Each role carries a status reflecting the general esteem given to it by society
People often choose products that show their status in society

7. Personality & Self-Concept
Personal Factors
Age & Life-Cycle Stage
Occupation
Economic Situation
Lifestyle
Personality & Self-Concept
A buyer’s decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics such as age and life-cycle stage, occupation, economic situation, lifestyle, personality, and self-concept
Age and Life-Cycle Stage
The types of goods and services people buy change during their lifetimes
Preferences for leisure activities, travel destinations, food, and entertainment are often age related
Successful marketing to various age segments may require specialized and targeted strategies
This will almost certainly require segmented target publications and database marketing
Buying behavior is also shaped by the family life-cycle stages
Occupation
A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought
Economic Situation
A person’s economic situation greatly affects product choice and the decision to purchase a particular product
Lifestyle
People coming from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may have quite different lifestyles
A lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions
Personality and Self-Concept
Each person’s personality influences his or her buying behavior
By personality we mean distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and enduring responses to the environment
Many marketers use a concept related to personality: a person’s self-concept (also called self-image)
Each of us has a complex mental self-picture, and our behavior tends to be consistent with that self-image

8. Psychological Characteristics
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Beliefs & Attitudes
A person’s buying choices are also influenced by four major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes
Motivation
A person has many needs at any given time
A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity
Perception
A motivated person is ready to act. How that person acts is influenced by his or her perception of the situation
Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world
Learning
When people act, they learn
Learning describes changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience
Learning theorists say that learning occurs through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses, and reinforcement
When consumers experience a product, they learn about it
Beliefs and Attitudes
Through acting and learning, people acquire beliefs and attitudes, which, in turn, influence their buying behavior
A belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds about something
An attitude describes a person’s relatively consistent evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward an object or an idea
Attitudes put people into a frame of mind for liking or disliking things and moving toward or away from them
Attitudes are very difficult to change

9. Perceptual Processes Selective Attention Selective Retention Selective
Distortion
People can emerge with different perceptions of the same object because of three perceptual processes: selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention
Selective Attention
People are exposed to a tremendous amount of daily stimuli: The average person may be exposed to over 1,500 ads a day
Because a person cannot possibly attend to all of these, most stimuli is screened out—a process called selective attention
Selective attention means that marketers have to work hard to attract consumers’ notice
People are more likely to notice stimuli that relate to a current need
People are more likely to notice stimuli that they anticipate
People are more likely to notice stimuli whose deviations are large in relation to the normal size of the stimuli
Selective Distortion
Selective distortion is the tendency to twist information into personal meanings and interpret information in a way that will fit our preconceptions
Selective Retention
People forget much of what they learn but tend to retain information that supports their attitudes and beliefs
Because of selective retention, we are likely to remember good points mentioned about competing products

10. The Buyer Decision Process
Need Recognition
Information Search
Evaluation of Alternatives
Purchase Decision
Postpurchase Behavior
The buyer decision process consists of five stages: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and postpurchase behavior
This model emphasizes that the buying process starts long before and continues long after the actual purchase
It encourages the marketer to focus on the entire buying process rather than just the purchase decision
In more routine purchases, consumers skip or reverse some of these stages
Need Recognition
The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a problem or need
Marketers must determine the factors and situations that trigger consumer problem recognition
Information Search
How much searching a consumer does will depend on the strength of the drive, the amount of initial information, the ease of obtaining more information, the value placed on additional information, and the satisfaction one gets from searching
Evaluation of Alternatives
Each consumer sees a product as a bundle of product attributes
The consumer attaches different degrees of importance to each attribute
The consumer is likely to develop a set of beliefs about where each brand stands on each attribute
The set of beliefs held about a particular brand is known as the brand image
The consumer is assumed to have a utility function for each attribute
A utility function shows how the consumer expects total product satisfaction to vary with different levels of different attributes
Purchase Decision
In the evaluation stage, the consumer ranks brands in the choice set and forms purchase intentions
Purchase intention is also influenced by unexpected situations
Postpurchase Behavior
If the product matches expectations, the consumer will be satisfied
If it falls short, the consumer will experience dissatisfaction
Almost all major purchases result in cognitive dissonance, or discomfort caused by postpurchase conflict

11. Key Terms
Aspirational group a group to which a person wishes to belong.
Attitude a person’s enduring favorable or unfavorable cognitive evaluations, emotional feelings, and action tendencies toward some object or idea.
Belief a descriptive thought that a person holds about something.
Brand image the set of beliefs consumers hold about a particular brand.
Buzz marketing cultivating opinion leaders and getting them to spread information about a product to others in their com-munity.
Cognitive dissonance buyer discomfort caused by postpurchase conflict.
Culture the set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors learned by a member of society from family and other important institutions.
Family life cycle the stages through which families might pass as they mature.
Group two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals.
Learning changes in a person’s behavior arising from experience.

12. Key Terms (cont.)
Lifestyle a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions.
Membership groups groups that have a direct influence on a person’s behavior and to which a person belongs.
Motive a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct a person to seek satisfaction of that need.
Online social networks online social communities – blogs, social networking, Web sites, or even virtual worlds- where people socialize or exchange information and opinions.
Opinion leaders people within a reference group who, because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or other characteristics, exert influence on others.
Personality a person’s distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and lasting responses to his or her environment.
Reference groups groups that have a direct (face-to-face) or indirect influence on a person’s attitude or behavior.
Role the activities that a person is expected to perform according to the persons around him or her.

13. Key Terms (cont.)
Self-concept self-image, the complex mental pictures people have of themselves.
Social classes relatively permanent and order divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors.
Subculture a group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.