501140

Consumer and Business Buyer Behavior

 Key Contacts
• Dr Nilanthi Ratnayake (Module Leader)
Email : [email protected]

• Brian Eaton (Hull Module Tutor)

Email : [email protected]

• Samantha Chow (HKU Module Tutor)

Email : [email protected]
 501140 Consumer Behavior

Lecture 1
1.Module Introduction

2.Overview of Consumer Behaviour

3.Consumer Research Paradigms

 1. Module Introduction
Teaching & Learning Strategy (20-21)

Hull University Business School| 4

 Teaching & Learning Strategy
• Lectures/Tutorials
– 18 hours in 4 days
– HKU led sessions
• Online Webinar (Talks, discussions
via Mentimeter)
• This will be recorded and made available
on Canvas after the session
• Participation
– Research shows that you learn more
when you actively respond
• Multi-learning style delivery
– Verbal, Visual & Kinesthetic (listening, watching
& doing)
Hull University Business School| 5
 Support Materials
• Canvas site set up
o Please check regularly for updates, tutorial
o Information & materials
o Check email
o Lecture slides
• Solomon, Michael, (2020), Consumer Behavior:
Global Edition, (13th Ed). Pearson: Prentice Hall
Or
• Solomon, Michael, (2018), Consumer Behavior:
Global Edition, (12th Ed). Pearson: Prentice Hall

• Recommended reading will be given for each session.

• Make use of other reading materials, Reading Lists

and databases etc
Hull University Business School| 6
 Assessment
1. Individual Digital Poster
– (weighted at 50% of the overall grade for the
module).

2. Individual Essay
2000 words essay on a given topic
– (weighted at 50% of the overall grade of the module).

Full details will be discussed in the assessment

briefings session on the 10th Jan/17th Jan. 2021
Expectations
• On-time
• Engaged & prepared
• Reading competed
• A challenging,
questioning
environment
• Interactive
Question?

What things do you

think marketing
professionals do?
Question?
• What is consumer
behaviour about?
Question?
• What do you want
to learn?
Consumers’ Impact on Marketing
• Understanding consumer
behaviour is good business
• Understanding
people/organisations
to satisfy consumers’ needs
• Knowledge and data
about customers:
– Help to define the market
– Identify threats/opportunities
to a brand
What have you bought in the last week?
• Maybe something you
have with you?
• What is it?
• Why did you buy it?
• Did someone recommend it?
• Does it fulfill a need or
did you want it?
• How did you make your
decision?
2. An Introduction to
Consumer Behaviour
 Aims and Objectives
• Theoretical foundations of Consumer
Behaviour
• Consumer behavior is a process.
• Marketers need to understand the wants
and needs of different consumer segments.
• Our choices as consumers relate in
powerful ways to the rest of our lives.
• Our motivations to consume are complex
and varied.
• Technology and culture create a new
‘always-on’ consumer.
• Major perspectives guiding our study of
consumer behavior.
What is Consumer Behaviour?
• Marketing Definitions – Holistic Marketing
“The management process responsible for identifying,
anticipating and satisfying customer requirements
profitably. “

“Marketing is the process of planning and executing the

conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of
ideas, goods and services to create exchange and
satisfy individual and organisation objectives whilst
balancing the needs of society and the environment.”
What is Consumer Behaviour?
• The study of the
processes involved
when individuals or
groups select,
purchase, use, or
dispose of products,
services, ideas, or
experiences to satisfy
needs and desires
Consumer behavior is a process
.• Ongoing process

• Not fixed

• Changes over time

• Consumers & groups

and how they interact

• Exchange
Stages in the Consumption Process
.
Marketers need to understand different
consumer segments
1. How do you decide that you
need (chose one):
A. A pair of jeans
B. A sandwich

2. What about a purchase makes

it pleasant or stressful for you?

3. When using the product, what

determines if the experience is
pleasant?
Marketers need to understand different
consumer segments
Segmenting Consumers: Demographics
Demographics:
• Age
• Gender
• Family structure
• Social class/income
• Race/ethnicity
• Geography
• Lifestyles
Big Data

• Database Marketing

• Relationship Marketing
Our choices as consumers relate in powerful ways
to the rest of our lives.
Popular Culture

• Music • Marketers influence

• Movies preferences for movie
• Sports and music heroes,
• Books fashions, food, and
decorating choices.
• Celebrities
• Entertainment
Consumer-Brand Relationships
• What kind of relationship
do you have with your
favourite brand?
• How do these relationships
affect your behaviour?
Consumer-Brand Relationships
• People often buy products not for what they do,
but for what they mean
• Consumers can develop relationships with brands:

• Role Theory
• Self-concept attachment
• Nostalgic attachment
• Interdependence
• Love
Consumer-Brand Relationships

Role Theory
Consumer-Brand Relationships

• Self-concept
attachment
Consumer-Brand Relationships

Interdependence
Consumer-Brand Relationships

• Nostalgic
attachment
Consumer-Brand Relationships

• Love
Our motivations to consume are
complex and varied
What do we need…really?
The Global “Always on” Consumer

The Digital Native: Living a

Social [Media] Life

•B2C e-commerce
•C2C e-commerce
•Digital Native
•Synchronous interactions
•Asynchronous interactions
 Two major perspectives on
consumer behavior:
–Positivist approach
–Interpretivist approach
Understanding Consumers

• Positivist perspective emphasises the

objectivity of science and the
consumer as a rational decision
maker
Understanding Consumers
• The interpretivist
perspective, stresses the
subjective meaning of the
consumer’s individual
experience and the idea
that any behavior is subject
to multiple interpretations
rather than to one single
explanation
Positivist versus Interpretivist Approaches

Assumptions Positivist Approach Interpretivist Approach

Nature of Objective, tangible Socially constructed

reality Single Multiple

Goal Prediction Understanding

Knowledge Time free Time-bound

generated Context-independent Context dependent

View of Existence of real causes Multiple, simultaneous

causality shaping events

Research Separation between Interactive, cooperative

relationship researcher and subject with researcher being
part of phenomenon
under study
Black Box Theories

Stimulus Response
Possible Influences on Consumer Behaviour
 Paradigms for interpreting buyer
behaviour

• Positivist
• The cognitive paradigm
• The economic paradigm

• Interpretivist
• The behavioural paradigm
Consumer Decision making process

Need Recognition

Information Search
Cultural, Social,
Individual and
Psychological Evaluation
Factors of Alternatives
affect
all steps Purchase

Postpurchase
Behavior
1. Need/Problem Recognition

• Imbalance between actual and desired

states
Recognition of Unfulfilled Wants

• When a current product isn't performing

properly
• When the consumer is running out of a
product
• When another product seems superior to
the one currently used
• When a new need situation occurs
Problem Recognition

“I have a date and want to take them to a restaurant”

2. Information Search
Internal Vs External Search
Type of search
• On-going
– hobbies, interests, always
discussing and keeping up to
date
• Incidental
– retrieved from memory, by-
product of everyday activities
• Specific
– recognise an information
‘gap’ and exert effort to find
out
3. Evaluate Alternatives

“I have a date and want to take them to a restaurant”

• Evoked set

• Consideration Set
•Analyse product attributes
•Rank attributes by importance
•Use cut off criteria

• Purchase
Level of Search/Evaluation
• Extensive

• Routine

• Limited
Give some examples of:
• High effort problem solving in decision
making
• Low effort problem solving in decision
making
 External Information Searches - Risk
• Financial Risk
• Performance/Functional Risk
• Social Risk
• Time Risk
• Physical Risk
• Psychological risk
Reducing Risk

• Product cue helps with risk

• A product cue is a piece of information
used to approximate missing information
– price
– country of origin
– brand name
4. Purchase Decision

“I have a date and want to take them to a restaurant”

5. Post Purchase
 Satisfaction V Dissatisfaction
– Comparison of product performance against
absolute performance and relative
performance
– Deliver benefits promised or expected
– Likelihood of repeat purchase
– Likelihood of recommendation
– Feedback
– May evoke cognitive dissonance (buyers
remorse)
Post Purchase Evaluation – Cognitive Dissonance
• Inner tension that a consumer feels after
recognising an inconsistency between
behaviour and values or opinions
– Did I buy the right thing?
– Did I pay the right price?
– Is it cool?
– Is it out of date?
– Did I get good value?
– Should I have waited?
 Cognitive Dissonance
• Overcome with:
– Effective communication
– Warrantees
– Reviews
–WOM
– Follow up
Response to satisfaction

• Repeat purchase

• Store information
in memory

• Word of mouth
recommendation
Paradigms for interpreting buyer
behaviour
• Positivist
• The cognitive paradigm
• The economic paradigm

• Interpretivist
• The behavioural paradigm
Economic paradigm
–Man as being rational seeks to
maximise utilities

– Costs versus benefits analysis

– Preference ordering
 Paradigms for interpreting buyer
behaviour
• Positivist
• The cognitive paradigm
• The economic paradigm

• Interpretivist
• The behavioural paradigm
Hedonic consumption

•Fun
•Pleasure
•Comfort
•Relaxation
•Touch
Understanding Consumers
Simplifying the decision making process
Heuristics
• ‘Rules of thumb’ reasoning
• Brand
• Educated guess
Reading
For this Lecture:

Solomon - Chapters 1 & 2

Other buyer behaviour text

books introduction chapter

Check Canvas for additional

reading list

Hull University Business School| 67

Hull University Business School| 68