Consumer Behavior & Its Role in Marketing
Consumer behavior is a multidisciplinary field informed by psychology, anthropology and sociology, and is concerned with the activities related to acquisition, consumption and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behavior is of particular interest to marketers because it provides insight on how to meet the needs of the customer as well as on how to motivate and persuade them. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the field, several approaches can be used to explore the relationship between behavior and consumption.
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Drives and Motivation
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Drives are the basic forces, sometimes instinctual and sometimes learned, that impel people to action. The intensity of the drive is determined by the magnitude of the difference between the actual state and the desired state. Advertising can be seen as the effort to intensify the drives of the consumer by introducing a new desired state. A definite target must exist in order for a drive to transform into motivation. Thus advertising is often delivered as a one-two punch in which a drive -- say, the drive to be healthy -- is intensified before the target -- say, a 100 percent natural breakfast cereal -- is provided.
Personality and Self-concept
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The likes, dislikes and potential actions of a person are defined by the various traits that make the personality. Marketing seeks to understand those traits in order to create products that will satisfy the stated and unstated needs of every kind of customer. The self-concept, closely related to personality, is the image that every person has about herself. Some possessions like clothes and cars can be come part of a lifestyle and become integrated into the self-concept, and marketers that understand how to make products fit different lifestyles can foster previously nonexistent needs.
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Perception
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Every person has a different way of making sense of the world. Some information will be salient to some people and will be filtered out as irrelevant by others. Some people will have a good visual memory, and some will be more auditive. Some scenes will be perceived as memorable by nearly everyone, while some others will be nearly universally forgotten. By understanding the relationship between perception and behavior, marketers can create packaging that is more attractive, ads that are more persuasive and messages that are more memorable.
Attitudes and Norms
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Attitude is the predisposition to act in a consistent manner when faced with a given stimulus. Consumers can have particular attitudes toward some products or technologies, feeling predisposed toward fast cars, for example, or having a negative attitude toward formal clothing. Attitudes are often moderated by social norms, or people's perception on how they are expected to behave and what they are expected to consume. Marketers with an understanding of how attitudes and norms are formed can encourage positive attitudes toward brands and products.
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References
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