Consumer Behavior Instructor's Manual Patricia Buhler Consumer Behavior Buying, Having, and Being Fourteenth Edition
Michael R. Solomon Cristel Antonia Russell
Chapter 1: Buying, Having, and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
Chapter 1: BUYING, HAVING, AND BEING: AN INTRODUCTION TO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR CHAPTER OBJECTIVES When students finish this chapter, they should be able to: 1-1. Summarize how the consumption of goods, services, experiences, and ideas is a major part of our lives. 1-2. Identify and discuss the technological and sociocultural trends that require constant monitoring to understand consumer behavior. 1-3. Explain how consumption both contributes to the world’s problems and provides solutions. 1-4. Describe how many disciplines and perspectives inform our understanding of consumer behavior. CHAPTER SUMMARY Summarize how the consumption of goods, services, experiences, and ideas is a major part of our lives. Consumer behavior is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires and to define and express their identities. The items we consume include anything from canned peas to a massage, democracy, Juicy jeans, a virtual reality experience, K-pop music, or a celebrity like Taylor Swift. The needs and desires we satisfy range from hunger and thirst to love, status, and even spiritual fulfillment. Consumption refers to all facets of the consumer behavior process, which includes how we observe and make sense of the world around us, how we choose and purchase things, and how we use consumption to communicate our identity and our sense of self in society. One of the fundamental premises of the modern field of consumer behavior is that people buy products not for what they do but for what they mean. This principle does not imply that a product’s basic function is unimportant but rather that the roles products (and services) play in our lives extend well beyond the tasks they perform. Our consumption choices help us define our identity. Identity is a multilayered concept that involves our personal self and our social self. Identify and discuss the technological and sociocultural trends that require constant monitoring to understand consumer behavior. There’s little doubt that the digital revolution is one of the most significant influences on consumer behavior, and the impact of the internet will continue to expand as more and more people around the world log in. Communications no longer just flow top-down from companies and established media to passive recipients (consumers). Today, they also flow across regular users. Social media refers to the online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration, and cultivation among interconnected and interdependent networks of people, communities, and organizations enhanced by technological capabilities and mobility. Every day the influence of social media expands as more people join online communities. As part of our online activity, we are all generating massive amounts of information that hold tremendous value for marketers, especially as our devices . 1-1
Chapter 1: Buying, Having, and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
increasingly connect to one another as part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The collection and analysis of extremely large datasets is called Big Data. This data explosion is profoundly changing the way we think about consumer behavior. Companies, nonprofits, political parties, and even governments sift through massive quantities of information that enable them to make precise predictions about what products we will buy, what charities we will donate to, what candidates we will vote for, and what levers they need to push to make this even more likely to happen. The metaverse describes an environment we will very possibly inhabit in the near future, where activities in the physical and digital worlds are integrated into an immersive user experience. Increasingly the content we encounter is from brands that have become a part of global culture. Understanding consumer behavior means staying on top of consumer trends. Important trends include the sharing economy, diversity and multiculturalism, authenticity, and sustainability. Explain how consumption both contributes to the world’s problems and provides solutions. Many critics argue that consumption is the source of many of the world’s problems: growing mental and physical health problems, climate change, addiction, and other issues that threaten our quality of life as individuals and as a society. They claim that modern marketing practices make these problems worse because they create unhealthy needs that people then try to satisfy. It’s just as easy to argue that consumption can also be the source of solutions to a better world. A greener planet will require that consumers make better, more environmentally sound choices. Solving the housing crisis will likely involve creative solutions to home ownership and a greater variety of housing options. For businesses also, responsible marketing is about merging consumer centricity, a focus on meeting consumers’ needs, with making a positive impact on our communities—both in the small sense (local communities) and in the broad sense (our planet). Describe how many disciplines and perspectives inform our understanding of consumer behavior. Many different perspectives shape the field of consumer research. You can find people with training in a wide range of disciplines—from neuroscience to anthropology—doing consumer research. Universities, manufacturers, museums, advertising agencies, and governments employ consumer researchers. CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Consumer Behavior: People in the Marketplace A. What Is Consumer Behavior? Consumer behavior is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires to define and express their identities. a. Consumption Is a Process. a. Consumer behavior is an ongoing process, not merely what happens at the moment a consumer hands over money or a credit card and in turn receives some good or service. b. Consumption refers to all facets of the consumer behavior process, which include how we observe and make sense of the world around us, how we . 1-2
Chapter 1: Buying, Having, and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
choose and purchase things, and how we use consumption to communicate our identity and our sense of self in society. b. What Does It Mean to Consume? a. People buy products not for what they do, but what they mean. The roles products (and services) play in our lives extend well beyond the tasks they perform. All things being equal, we choose the brand that has an image consistent with our underlying needs and desires and aligned with our identity. b. Identity is a multilayered concept that involves our personal self and our social self. B. A Branded World A brand enables consumers to identify a particular company, product, or individual. It uses identifying markers to tell potential buyers not only what it does but also what it means and perhaps even the cultural values it stands for. C. Understanding Consumers Is Good Business a. The bottom line for managers, advertisers, and other marketing professionals: Understanding consumer behavior is good business. Organizations exist to satisfy needs, and marketers can satisfy these needs only to the extent that they understand the people or organizations that will use the products and services they sell. b. Successful companies understand that needs are a moving target. Use Chapter Objective 1-1 Here Use Key Terms consumer behavior, consumption, identity, and brand Here Use Review Questions 1-1 and 1-5 Here Use Consumer Behavior Challenge 1-12, 1-13, and 1-14 Here
II. Consumers, Society, and Technology: A Moving Target The United Nations defines a megacity as a metropolitan area with a total population of more than 10 million people. It is estimated that by 2030, three out of five people will live in cities. A. Social Media: The Horizontal Revolution a. Word of mouth has always been a major force, but the explosion of social media takes “word of mouth” to a whole new level because it has created a horizontal revolution: Communications no longer just flow top-down from companies and established media to passive recipients (consumers). Today, they also flow across regular users. b. Social media refers to the online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration, and cultivation among interconnected and interdependent networks of people, communities, and organizations enhanced by technological capabilities and mobility. Today, some people wear tiny cameras that allow them to create a lifelog of every event experienced throughout the day. c. The term digital native originated in 2001 to explain a new type of student. These consumers grew up “wired” in a highly networked, always-on world. They did not know a world without digital technology. B. Artificial Intelligence and the Metaverse . 1-3
Chapter 1: Buying, Having, and Being: An Introduction to Consumer Behavior
a. The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the growing network of interconnected devices embedded in objects that speak to one another. b. Autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars) and “smart home” products are examples of IoT. c. We are witnessing a revolution in M2M (machine-to-machine) communication. d. Artificial intelligence (AI) applications continuously improve through machine learning (such as Siri and Alexa). C. “Big Data” and Data Analytics a. We are all generating massive amounts of information that hold tremendous value for marketers. b. The collection and analysis of extremely large datasets is called Big Data. c. In addition to the huge volume of information marketers now must play with, its velocity (speed) also enables companies to make decisions in real-time that used to take months or years. D. Welcome to the Metaverse! a. Most definitions of the metaverse center on these elements: a. It exists in the physical world, but it also involves immersive environments. b. It’s “always on” and operates in real-time. c. It’s built on a virtual economy, including nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which are digital assets with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from one another. d. It allows people to possess virtual identities that don’t necessarily correspond to who they are in real life. E. Globalization of Brands and Cultural Practices a. In this world of increasing global mobility, two countervailing forces drive consumer behavior: the desire to belong and the drive for cultural distinctiveness, the feeling of being different and separated from the surrounding cultural environment. On the one end, consumers have a natural in-group bias: They prefer culturally related brands that meet their desire to connect with “home” and their home culture. But on the other end, consumers can feel a sense of cultural distinctiveness that drives them to seek out brands that represent other cultural groups. F. Proactive Consumers and User-Generated Content Probably the biggest phenomenon of the 21st century is the degree to which consumers want organizations to market with them rather than market to them. 1.UGC Rules! a. User-generated content, where everyday people film commercials, voice their opinions about products, brands, and companies on blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites, is part of the Web 2.0 era, which shifted the Internet from a one-way transmission medium to a social, interactive medium. 2. Consumer Creation in the Transmedia Environment a. An important development in the consumer ecosystem is the shift from traditional media to the more integrated system called transmedia, which refers to the web of media from traditional media platforms, like magazines and television, to more novel and emergent ones, like digital media, video games, and the metaverse. b. Transmedia challenges traditional views of popular culture – the music, movies, sports, books, celebrities, and other forms of entertainment that the mass market .
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