Areas to be covered on exam # 1
(Primarily short essay)
A. Consumer Behavior - Definition & key components/elements
* Consumer Behavior - the study of how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants.
* An analysis of Consumer Behavior requires you to examine consumer’s motivations, thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, desires and actions.
* Consumers are multi-dimensional and their behavior is shaped by cultural, personal, social and personality factors with culture having the deepest influence and being the fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. * Cultural refers to social class, which in the U.S. can mean upper class, middle class, etc. and subculture - nationalities, religions, racial groups, and geographic regions. * Personal refers to factors such as age, stage in life cycle and occupation. * Social refers to family roles, reference groups, and status. * Personality refers to lifecycle and values.
* Be able to describe in your own words, the challenge facing marketers and the steps related to consumer behavior that marketers have to take to convince consumers to buy their brands (Source: second page bottom “attention…action”
* Challenge facing Marketers: * Finding new and unique ways to attract customers and distinguish a product in today’s fast paced world where traditional channels such as television and billboards are not as effective as they once were. * Mainly due to the consumers short attention spans and a shift in media consumption habits to online formats where many elements such as social networks are playing a larger role in consumer’s lives.
* Steps to Convince consumers to buy brands * Attention (a.k.a. awareness) - attract the attention of the customer. * Interest- raise customer