THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

THE INFLUENCE OF
CULTURE ON CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR

Culture
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We define culture as a sum total of learned beliefs, values and customs that serve to direct the consumer behavior of members of a particular society.

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Culture is a society’s personality.

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Both values and beliefs are mental images that effect a wide range of specific attitudes that, in turn, influence the way a person uses to evaluate alternative brands in a product category.

Values
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Important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Beliefs
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is a state of the mind, treated in various academic disciplines, especially philosophy and psychology, as well as traditional culture, in which a subject roughly regards a thing to be true.

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In contrast to beliefs and values, customs are usual and acceptable ways of behaving.
E.g. – Consumer’s routine behavior, such as adding a diet sweetener to a coffee, putting ketchup on a scrambled egg etc….

THREE LEVELS OF
SUBJECTIVE CULTURE

LEVEL 1: SUPRANATIONAL
- Present in more than one country
LEVEL 2: NATIONAL
 Specifically about one country
LEVEL 3: GROUP
- Collection of individual

Culture satisfies needs
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Culture exists to satisfy the needs of the people within a society. It offers order, direction and guidance, in all phases of human problem solving by providing “tried and true” methods of satisfying physiological, personal and social needs.
E.g. – Culture provides standards and rules about when to eat, where to eat, what is appropriate to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner etc…. Culture is learned
Formal learning
- Which adults and older siblings teach a young family member “how to behave”.
 Informal learning
- Which a child learns primarily by imitating the behavior of selected others such as TV heroes, families, or parents;
 Technical learning
- Which teachers construct the child in an educational environment, what should be and not be done.
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Enculturation
- The learning of one’s own culture.
 Acculturation
- The learning of a new or foreign culture.
 Language and Symbols
* Verbal symbols: include a television announcement or an advertisement in a magazine. * Non-Verbal communication: includes the use of such symbols as figures, colors, shapes, and even textures and to packaging or product design.
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Rituals
- A type of symbolic activity consisting of a series of steps occurring in a fixed sequence and repeated overtime.

THE MEASUREMENT OF
CULTURE

Content Analysis
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A method for systematically analyzing the content of verbal and/ or pictorial communication. The method is frequently used to determine prevailing social values of a society

Consumer fieldwork
- field observation
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A cultural measurement technique that takes place within a natural environment that focuses on observing behavior
(sometimes without the subject awareness) Participant Observers
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Researchers who participate in the environment that they are studying without notifying those who are being observed. VALUE MEASUREMENT
SURVEY INSTRUMENTS

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ROKEACH VALUE SURVEY (rvs)
A self administered inventory consisting of
18 terminal values(personal goal) and instrumental values. (ways of reaching personal goals)
LIST OF VALUES (lov)
A value instrument that asks consumers to identify their two most important values from a 9 value list based on rokeach value survey.

VALUES AND LIFESTYLES (vals)
- A value measurement based on two categories: self definiton and resources.
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