1. Consumers and the Internet
Describing consumers
Understanding online consumption
Recognizing marketing opportunities
Coupey

2. Perspectives in Perspective: A Consumer Focus
Need to understand how consumers obtain resources in the Internet environment
Who uses the Internet to get resources?
What do they get?
How do they get it?
Need to leverage this knowledge to create and implement marketing strategy
Coupey

3. Why Are We Doing This??? This is not “traditional” consumer behavior
New ways to consume online
New things to consume online
New types of consumers? (Accountability, addressability)
Transaction-related activities are important
Psychology is relevant, but it’s not everything
Need to focus on exchanges
Can’t just condense a CB text and expect it to make sense...
Coupey

4. Who Are The Online Consumers?
Two types of research provide insights
Descriptive research (who, what, where, when)
Crown American data
Inferential research (why???)
Demographics and psychographics
Who they are...
A profile of the typical user
Some characteristics of online consumers
VALS
What they do…behavioral measures
Efluentials (10% of online population)
Coupey

5. Defining Online Segments
What is a segment?
Identifiability
Sufficiency
Addressibility
Key Demographic Segments Online
Older Americans
Younger Americans
Newer Americans
Coupey

6. Selling to Seniors
Coupey

7. Seniors, Again Behavioral Data Demographic Data Psychographic data
22% online (22 million) by 12/02
76% online daily
Demographic Data
Pretty old (limited mobility)
Have money (control 77% of US assets)
Psychographic data
Surf with purpose (healthcare, leisure)
Concerned about security issues
senior.com
Coupey

8. Younger Americans Behavioral Data Demographic Data Psychographic Data
91% of teens have Internet access
Average 12 hrs/wk online
Not much shopping, though, so why do marketers care?
Demographic Data
Big spenders, in the future
($483M in 2000, est. $10.6B in 2005 – US and Europe)
Use pre-paid cards
Psychographic Data
Provides insight for developing brand awareness and loyalty
Coupey

9. Spending Time…
Coupey

10. Spending Money
Coupey

11. Newer Americans: Hispanics
Behavioral Data
55% access content in Spanish uniquely accessible group
Enables targeted marketing
Demographic Data
Fastest growing minority group online (in 2002, growth in general online pop +3%, Hispanic +13%)
Psychographic Data
Like technology, esp. home media devices
Emphasis on quality-of-life issues
Coupey

12. Why Segmentation Matters
Coupey

13. A Psychographic Approach: All Segments
Coupey

14. Understanding Behavior with Inferential Research
Some caveats…
For every resource, there is a theory
The environment wreaks havoc on theories
The role of resources
Look at nature of each resource
Understand what motivates people’s behaviors with it
Understand how Internet fits in
Identify/develop marketing opportunities
Coupey

15. Back to Resource Exchange: Money
What is it?
The meaning of money
Does it change on the Internet?
Change of form (e.g., cash and poker chips)
Loss of tangibility effects
Do consumers’ money behaviors change?
Different types of money for different goals
E.g., cash (tangible) for gifts, cybercash for bad things
Patterns of discounting: intertemporal choice
Coupey

16. Playing with Money Facilitating effects of the Internet
New ways to get it
Surf for cash
chain letters (network patterns)
New ways to transfer it
New ways to use it (online gambling, auctions)
Inhibiting effects of the Internet
Show me the money
Security fears
Coupey

17. The Internet and Information
What is it?
Earliest benefit of the Internet
From data communications
To information repository
Information as information
E.g., News, communication
Information as product
E.g., Entertainment
Information as service
E.g., tax, medical information
Coupey

18. Information For It’s Own Sake
Coupey

19. More Information… Using information as a resource
E.g., Decision making: search, evaluation, choice
Facilitating and inhibiting effects of the Internet
Search: lots of information/too much information
How much to get? (Economics of information)
What is the quality of the information?
Evaluation: how to structure the information
Effort/accuracy (cost/benefit) approaches
Heuristics
Choice: confidence and satisfaction
Coupey

20. More Resources, More Theories
Goods (aka “products,” in marketing)
Type and quality assessment
Search, Experience, Credence
Form
Physical v. digital
Internet effects
Coupey

21. Still more resources Services, status, and emotion Services
Less well understood
Less often leveraged
More highly personalized
Services
Characteristics
Intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, perishability
Internet effects (e.g., aggregators)
Coupey

22. The Last Two Resources Status Love
Impression management
Scarcity theory (exclusivity)
Internet effects
Love
Characteristics (“Putting a price on love – it’s a great deal.Contact 1000 potential soul mates for less than the price of a couple of theater tickets!”)
Internet effects
Coupey

23. Looking Ahead Marketers and the Internet Environment
Constraints and opportunities
Need to understand what consumers are doing
To develop “products” that meet needs
To leverage their interactions (even with third parties) to meet marketing objectives
Focus on changes to company structure and function, given the Internet
Implications for marketing action
Coupey