UNIVERSITY OF CEBU (UC)

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Sanciangko St., Cebu City

REACTION PAPER IN
MARKETING MANAGEMENT (BM 207)

Masterand: Agnes C. Ampo Course: MBA

Professor: Dr. Eddie E. Llamedo Schedule: BL1 Sat, 12:00nn-4:30pm

Chapter 5 - Consumer Markets and Buyer Behavior

Introduction

Consumers around the world vary tremendously in age, income, education

level, and tastes. They also buy an incredible variety of goods and services. How

these diverse consumers relate with each other and with other elements of the world

around them impact their choices among various products, services, and companies.

Topic Summary

The consumer market consists of all the individuals and households who buy

or acquire goods and services for personal consumption. The simplest model of

consumer buyer behavior is the stimulus-response model. According to this model,

marketing stimuli (the four Ps) and other major forces (economic, technological,

political, cultural) enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain responses.

Once in the black box, these inputs produce observable buyer responses, such as

product choice, brand choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount. Consumer

buyer behavior is influenced by four key sets of buyer characteristics: cultural, social,

personal, and psychological. Although many of these factors cannot be influenced by

the marketer, they can be useful in identifying interested buyers and shaping

products and appeals to serve consumer needs better. Culture is the most basic
determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Subcultures are “cultures within

cultures” that have distinct values and lifestyles and can be based on anything from

age to ethnicity. Many companies focused their marketing programs on the special

needs of certain cultural and subcultural segments. Social factors also influence a

buyer’s behavior. A person’s reference groups—family, friends, social networks,

professional associations—strongly affect product and brand choices. The buyer’s

age, life-cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, personality, and other

personal characteristics influence his or her buying decisions. Consumer lifestyles—

the whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world—are also an important

influence on purchase decisions. Finally, consumer buying behavior is influenced by

four major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and

attitudes. Each of these factors provides a different perspective for understanding

the workings of the buyer’s black box. Buying behavior may vary greatly across

different types of products and buying decisions. Consumers undertake complex

buying behavior when they are highly involved in a purchase and perceive significant

differences among brands. Dissonance-reducing behavior occurs when consumers

are highly involved but see little difference among brands. Habitual buying behavior

occurs under conditions of low involvement and little significant brand difference. In

situations characterized by low involvement but significant perceived brand

differences, consumers engage in variety-seeking buying behavior. When making a

purchase, the buyer goes through a decision process consisting of need recognition,

information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase

behavior. The marketer’s job is to understand the buyer’s behavior at each stage and

the influences that are operating. During need recognition, the consumer recognizes

a problem or need that could be satisfied by a product or service in the market. Once
the need is recognized, the consumer is aroused to seek more information and

moves into the information search stage. With information in hand, the consumer

proceeds to alternative evaluation, during which the information is used to evaluate

brands in the choice set. From there, the consumer makes a purchase decision and

actually buys the product. In the final stage of the buyer decision process,

postpurchase behavior, the consumer takes action based on satisfaction or

dissatisfaction. The product adoption process is made up of five stages: awareness,

interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. New-product marketers must think about how

to help consumers move through these stages. With regard to the diffusion process

for new products, consumers respond at different rates, depending on consumer and

product characteristics. Consumers may be innovators, early adopters, early

majority, late majority, or laggards. Each group may require different marketing

approaches. Marketers often try to bring their new products to the attention of

potential early adopters, especially those who are opinion leaders. Finally, several

characteristics influence the rate of adoption: relative advantage, compatibility,

complexity, divisibility, and communicability.

Recommendation

As far as the presentation of the report is concern, it would help if the

reporters give more examples or situations to help us understand the concept. The

voice modulation was good. It just the pacing of the report is quite fast. There should

also be interaction between the reporter and the co-masterands. It would help to call

out some names and let them participate like read some lines from the presentation.

Conclusion

Thus, understanding consumer behavior is important for any organization

before launching a product. If the organization failed to analyze how a customer will

respond to a particular product, the company will face losses. Consumer behavior is

very complex because each consumer has different mind and attitude towards

purchase, consumption and disposal of product. Understanding the theories and

concepts of consumer behavior helps to market the product or services successfully.

Moreover, studying consumer behavior helps in many aspects. As there is constant

change in the living standards, trend, fashion and change in technology; consumer’s

attitude towards the purchase of product varies. Understanding these factors is of

utmost importance because the marketing of product are largely dependent on these

factors. Thus, consumer behavior serves as a successful tool for marketers in

meeting their sales objectives.