Chapter 5

Understanding Buyer

Behavior and the

Communication Process

5-1

1. Describe the four stages of consumer decision

making.

2. Explain how consumers adapt their decision-

making processes based on involvement and

experience.

3. Discuss how brand communication influences

consumers’ psychological states and behavior.

4. Describe the interaction of culture and

advertising.

5. Explain how sociological factors affect consumer

behavior.

6. Discuss how advertising transmits sociocultural

meaning in order to sell things.

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Consumers as Decision Makers

• Marketers need a keen understanding of their consumers as a basis for

effective brand communication.

• This understanding begins with a view of consumers as systematic

decision makers who follow a predictable process in making choices

among products and brands.

• Stage 1—The process begins when consumers perceive a need

(functional or emotional).

• Stage 2—It proceeds with a search for information (internal or

external) that will help in making an informed choice through

alternative evaluation (structured by the consideration set and by

applying evaluative criteria).

• Stage 3—The search-and-evaluation stage is followed by

purchase.

• Stage 4—Then, in postpurchase use and evaluation, cognitive

dissonance can be encountered and customer satisfaction is

ultimately determined.

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Consumers as Decision Makers, Continued

5-4

Exhibit 5.1 Consumer Decision Making

Consumers as Decision Makers, Continued

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Modes of Decision Making

• Some purchases are more important to people than others, a fact that adds

complexity to consumer behavior.

• To accommodate this complexity, marketers think about the level of involvement

that attends any given purchase.

• High or low involvement and experience with a product or service category

determine the mode of consumer decision making:

• Extended problem solving—high involvement, low experience

• Limited problem solving—low involvement, low experience

• Habit or variety seeking—low involvement, high experience

• Brand loyalty—high involvement, high experience

• Experience refers to a consumer’s familiarity with a product of service.

• Involvement refers to the personal importance placed on the choice of product or

service.

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Modes of Decision Making, Continued

Exhibit 5.2 Modes of Decision Making

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Key Psychological Processes

• Brand messages are developed to influence the way people think about products and brands,

specifically their beliefs and brand attitudes.

• Marketers use multi-attribute attitude models (MAAMs) to help them ascertain the beliefs and

attitudes of target consumers. A MAAMs analysis has four main components; the evaluative criteria,

importance weights, consideration set, and beliefs.

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Exhibit 5.3 Beliefs Shape Attitudes

Exhibit 5.4

Using MAAMs Analysis

Key Psychological Processes, Continued

• Consumers in-turn employ perceptual defenses (cognitive consistency

impetus, selective attention) to ignore or distort most of the commercial

messages (advertising clutter) to which they are exposed.

• In order for a brand’s message to be received exactly the way it is intended,

consumers must go through a series of communication processing steps:

1. Pay attention to the message

2. Comprehend the message correctly

3. Accept the message exactly as it was intended

4. Retain the message until it is needed for a purchase decision

• In the real world problems interrupt any or all of these stages making it very

difficult for a brand to control its message

• When consumers are not motivated to process an advertiser’s message

thoughtfully, the marketer may need to feature peripheral cues as part of the

message (Elaboration Likelihood Model or ELM).

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Key Psychological Processes, Continued

Exhibit 5.5 Routes to Attitude Change

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Consuming in the Real World

• Advertisements are cultural products, and culture provides the context in

which an ad will be interpreted.

• Marketers who overlook the influence of culture are bound to struggle in

their attempt to communicate with the target audience.

• Culture is based on values, which are enduring beliefs that shape more-

transitory psychological states, such as brand attitudes. Within a culture,

individuals share patterns of behavior, or rituals. Violating cultural values

and rituals is a sure way to squander advertising dollars.

• Advertising and other elements of the promotional mix turn products into

brands when they wrap brands with cultural meaning.

• Brands with high cultural capital are worth more. In these ways, brands

are co-created by consumers and marketers.

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Consuming in the Real World, Continued

Exhibit 5.6 Culture Shapes Consumer Behavior

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Consuming in the Real World, Continued

• Consumer behavior is an activity that each person undertakes

before a broad audience of other consumers.

• Families (intergenerational effect, life stage), race and ethnicity,

geopolitics, gender, and community (brand communities) are

important influences on consumption.

• Who consumers are—their identity—is changeable; through what

they buy and use, consumers can rapidly and frequently change

aspects of who they are.

• Celebrities influencers are particularly important in this regard.

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Consuming in the Real World, Continued

5-14

Exhibit 5.7 Diversity in the United States

Advertising, Social Rift, and

“Revolution”

• Consumers sometimes use their consumption choices to stake

out a position in a “revolution” of some sort, such as youth

culture or political-social movements.

• Marketers should remember that anytime there is a time of great

change, many new opportunities are opened up.

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How Ads Transmit Meaning

• Advertising transfers a desired meaning to the brand by placing the brand within a

carefully constructed social world represented in an ad, or “slice of life.”

• Marketers paint a picture of the ideal social world, with all the meanings they want to

impart to their brand.

• The brand is carefully placed in that picture, and the two (the constructed social

world and the brand) rub off on each other, becoming a part of each other.

• Meaning is thus transferred from the ad’s constructed social world to the brand.

• Anthropologist Grant McCracken refers to this as the “movement of meaning” and

created a model to illustrate the process.

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Exhibit 5.8 The Movement of Meaning