Recap of Session 3 (by Professor Dhume)

In this class 5 major issues were addressed.

·         What is Consumer Behaviour?

·         Applications of Consumer Behaviour

·         Approaches to Consumer Behaviour

·         Modelling

·         Buying Behaviour

 1.       WHAT IS CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR?

Behaviour is the response of a person to a particular situation. Consumer Behaviour is defined as Human behaviour in the context of consumption. Consumer Behaviour is influenced by Economics, Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology. 

Consumer behaviour may be considered to be the response to a particular stimulus, under the influence of a FILTER/ Organization. The Filter for each individual is generally unique, which explains why identical twins do not exhibit identical behaviour in all situations. In most cases, their life experiences are different.

The stimulus may be:

·         Uncontrolled: Macroeconomic / Environmental factors

·         Controlled : Marketing Mix

The responses may be:

·         Product Choice,

·         Brand Choice

·          Vendor Choice

·          Purchase Timing and Volume etc.

Differences between human and animal behaviour can be drawn on the basis of the following factors:

Animal Behaviour	Human Behaviour
Guided mostly by instinct. Influenced by learning to a small extent.	Most part of human behaviour is a result of learning. Instinct plays a small role.
Accumulated knowledge of present generations is not passed on to the future generations.	Accumulated knowledge of present generations is passed on to the future generations.

2.       APPLICATIONS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

a)      Philosophy of Marketing:  A study on consumer behaviour enables a marketer to understand the actual needs of customers. These needs may not be apparent otherwise, as customers are often unaware of their needs. They may also not want to reveal their needs or may be unable to articulate them well.

b)      Marketer’s Job:

The desired responses of any stimulus (marketing activity) are:

·         Attention of the customer

·         To Convince the customer

·         Purchase

·         Repurchase

·         Positive Word of Mouth

c)       Facilitate Marketing Decisions:

The quality/performance of a product is a decision taken by the top-level management. If performance exceeds expectations, customers are delighted and if performance equals expectations, customers are satisfied. However, performance below expectations results in dissatisfied customers.

d)      Branding: Branding is essential to prevent commoditization and to differentiate the product of one company from that of the others. Brands have an objective component that is associated with the product. On the other hand, its subjective attitude is linked with the equity of the brand.

3.       APPROACHES TO CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:

·         Introspective

·         Retrospective

·         Prospective

·         Prescriptive

4.       MODELLING

Modelling approaches are used to appreciate a phenomenon. It performs the following functions:

·         Describes the phenomenon of buying

·         Explains the phenomenon of buying

·         Predicts what is likely

·         Control

5.       BUYING BEHAVIOUR:

 Deals with understanding the following aspects:

a)      Perception: Process of giving meaning to stimuli

b)      Motivation: Driving force which makes an individual act in a way that reduces the gap between what is prevailing and what is desired

c)       Personality: Sum total of all psychological characteristics that determine behaviour

d)      Attitude: Predisposition learnt over a period of time towards certain objects. The tri-component attitude model contains three dimensions: Knowledge, Feeling and Behavioural tendency.

e)      Learning