Reference Groups
Marketing and Reference Groups
All the groups that contribute to the buying behavior of a consumer are known as reference groups. (Bhasin 2010) Consumers may use products or brands to associate with or try to become part of a group e.g. people may feel they need to wear Nike or Adidas to feel part of a fitness group or the gym demonstrated by Vroom with behavior modification. They look at what people in the particular reference group look at and consume and conform to the criteria to make their own consumer decisions, this is demonstrated in the auto kinetic effect theory (Apollo 2012) when he found that if one person says something different to what another thinks, the second person will conform to the first persons way of thinking (instead of thoughts the use of a product is relevant to the theory from a marketing perspective). Most people are members of several reference groups all of which influence the individual in different ways.
“Reference groups are categorized as direct or indirect.
The direct reference groups are face to face interaction which directly affects an individual’s life and can be primary or secondary; they also usually have goals or objectives.” (Babin, Harris 2011)
For example, some of the well known US billionaires have come together to give away some of their fortune with face to face meetings and is changing lives for numerous amounts of people. (Clark 2010)
Primary is when the groups interact a lot of the time and informally (no particular objective other than social interaction) like family and friends whereas secondary groups are not as frequent and more impersonal communication wise for example: clubs, professional and religious groups. (Anon. 2012)
There are also indirect groups which consumers are not part of (Lamb, Hair, McDaniel 2010) e.g. aspirational groups they do not, but want to belong to e.g. celebrity or elite sports players groups. However to be involved in those groups a consumer would have to conform to
All the groups that contribute to the buying behavior of a consumer are known as reference groups. (Bhasin 2010) Consumers may use products or brands to associate with or try to become part of a group e.g. people may feel they need to wear Nike or Adidas to feel part of a fitness group or the gym demonstrated by Vroom with behavior modification. They look at what people in the particular reference group look at and consume and conform to the criteria to make their own consumer decisions, this is demonstrated in the auto kinetic effect theory (Apollo 2012) when he found that if one person says something different to what another thinks, the second person will conform to the first persons way of thinking (instead of thoughts the use of a product is relevant to the theory from a marketing perspective). Most people are members of several reference groups all of which influence the individual in different ways.
“Reference groups are categorized as direct or indirect.
The direct reference groups are face to face interaction which directly affects an individual’s life and can be primary or secondary; they also usually have goals or objectives.” (Babin, Harris 2011)
For example, some of the well known US billionaires have come together to give away some of their fortune with face to face meetings and is changing lives for numerous amounts of people. (Clark 2010)
Primary is when the groups interact a lot of the time and informally (no particular objective other than social interaction) like family and friends whereas secondary groups are not as frequent and more impersonal communication wise for example: clubs, professional and religious groups. (Anon. 2012)
There are also indirect groups which consumers are not part of (Lamb, Hair, McDaniel 2010) e.g. aspirational groups they do not, but want to belong to e.g. celebrity or elite sports players groups. However to be involved in those groups a consumer would have to conform to
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