Integrated Business Functions - Lecture 3: Consumer Markets and Buying Behaviour

Vocabulary flashcards covering the consumer market, cultural, social, personal, and psychological influences on consumer behaviour, types of buying decision behaviour, and the buyer decision process from Lecture 3.

Culture

The broadest influence on consumer behaviour, consisting of the learned basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviours acquired from family and other key institutions.

Cultural Shifts

Changes in societal values and trends that marketers track to identify opportunities for new products, such as the shift toward health and fitness or sustainable living.

Subculture

A group of people within a society who share common value systems based on shared life experiences and situations, such as religions, racial groups, or interest groups.

Reference Groups

Groups that serve as direct or indirect points of comparison or reference when a consumer forms attitudes and makes purchase decisions.

Membership Groups

Social groups to which a consumer officially belongs and that exert a direct influence on the individual, such as friends and colleagues.

Aspirational Groups

Groups of which a consumer is not a member, but which influence the person's attitudes, self-concept, and create pressure to conform.

Key Opinion Leaders (KOL)

Individuals possessing special skills, knowledge, personality, or other characteristics that enable them to exert social influence over others.

Micro KOL

A social media opinion leader who has between 1,000 to 100,000 followers.

Word-of-Mouth (WOM) Influence

The personal recommendations and communications of trusted friends, family, and other consumers regarding products and brands.

Influencer Marketing

The practice of partnering with established or emerging influencers to spread the word about a company's brand and products.

Role

The specific activities and behaviours a person is expected to perform in relation to the people around them.

Lifestyle

A person's pattern of living as expressed through their psychographics, reflecting the activities, values, and identity they choose to express through purchases.

Personality

The unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and lasting responses to one's own environment.

Self-Concept

An individual's self-image, grounded in the premise that people's possessions contribute to and reflect their personal identities ('we are what we have').

Motive (Drive)

A need that is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity to direct a person to seek satisfaction.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A psychological framework arranging human needs hierarchically from most pressing at the base to least pressing at the top: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization.

Esteem Needs

Needs related to internal self-respect and achievement as well as external recognition, status, and respect from others.

Self-Actualization Needs

The highest level of human needs in Maslow's hierarchy, involving self-development, personal growth, and fulfilling one's unique potential.

Perception

The process through which people select, organize, and interpret information to create a meaningful, subjective picture of the world.

Selective Attention

The tendency for consumers to screen out the vast majority of marketing stimuli and information to which they are exposed.

Selective Distortion

The tendency of individuals to interpret new information in a manner that aligns with and confirms their pre-existing beliefs and attitudes.

Selective Retention

The tendency of consumers to remember the positive points of brands they favor while forgetting the attributes or arguments of competing brands.

Belief

A descriptive thought or conviction that an individual holds about a specific topic, product, or idea.

Attitude

A person's consistently favorable or unfavorable evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward an object, brand, or idea.

Complex Buying Behaviour

Buying behaviour observed when consumers are highly involved in a purchase (due to high expense, risk, or infrequency) and perceive significant differences among brands.

Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behaviour

Buying behaviour observed when consumers are highly involved in an expensive, risky, or infrequent purchase, but perceive little difference among available brands.

Habitual Buying Behaviour

Buying behaviour characterized by low consumer involvement and little perceived brand differentiation, commonly seen in low-cost, frequently bought everyday products.

Variety-Seeking Buying Behaviour

Buying behaviour occurring in low-involvement situations where significant perceived differences between brands cause consumers to frequently switch brands out of boredom or curiosity.

Four Types of Buying Decision Behavior

A classification matrix categorizing consumer buying decisions based on the degree of buyer involvement (high vs. low) and the degree of differences between brands (significant vs. few).

Need Recognition

The initial stage of the buyer decision process, where a consumer senses a difference between their actual state and a desired state, triggered by internal or external stimuli.

Information Search

The second stage of the buyer decision process, where the consumer gathers information from personal, commercial, public, or experiential sources to address an identified need.

Evaluation of Alternatives

The third stage of the buyer decision process, in which the consumer analyzes alternative brands and product options to arrive at a preference.

Purchase Decision

The fourth stage of the buyer decision process, where the consumer decides to purchase the most preferred brand, subject to influence by the attitudes of others and unexpected situational factors.

The Buyer Decision Process

The five-step sequence consumers go through when making purchases: Need recognition, Information search, Evaluation of alternatives, Purchase decision, and Post-purchase behavior.

Cognitive Dissonance

Psychological discomfort or after-sale tension experienced by a consumer after making a purchase decision, caused by the drawbacks of the chosen brand and the benefits forgone from rejected brands.