Chapter 11
Consumers in Situations
WHAT DO YOU THINK Polling Question
I never let anything get in the way of preparing for my consumer behavior class.
Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly agree
Have students access www.cengagebrain.com to answer the polling questions for each chapter of CB. Ask them to take the online poll to see how their answers compare with other students taking a consumer behavior course across the country. Then turn to the last page of the chapter to find the What Others Have Thought box feature. This graph is a snapshot of how other consumer behavior students have answered this polling question thus far.
Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, the student should be able to:
L01 Understand how value varies with situations.
L02 Know the different ways that time affects consumer behavior.
L03 Analyze shopping as a consumer activity using the different categories of shopping activities.
L04 Distinguish the concepts of unplanned, impulse, and compulsive consumer behavior.
L05 Use the concept of atmospherics to create consumer value.
L06 Understand what is meant by antecedent conditions.
Suggested Lecture Opener
Using coupons to encourage consumer purchasing is nothing new. Using a cell phone to deliver and personalize those coupons is definitely new. This application allows marketers to instantly provide targeted incentives to consumers. Consumers benefit by receiving deals on items they are potentially already out shopping for, and the coupons are instantly redeemable. [Source: Sarah Haughey, “Coupons? There’s an App for That,” The San Francisco Examiner, August 15, 2010, http://www.sfexaminer.com.]
Lecture Outline with PowerPoint® Slides
Slide 1 / Slide 2LO1. Understand how value varies with situations.
Value in Situations?
Slide 3Q: By a show of hands, ask students who likes to shop. What was their most unique shopping experience? Do they prefer to shop in stores or online?
A: Students might state that a regular shopping experience is buying groceries or shopping for clothes for a night out, while shopping at the Mall of America or at Harrods is an example of a unique shopping experience. Answers will vary about online versus in-store preferences.
Situations and Value
Situational influences are factors that cause the value that a consumer obtains from a purchase or consumption act to vary based on the context in which the act takes place. Situational influences are classified into three categories:
1. Time – Time can influence the way information is processed depending on how much time the consumer has to make the purchase.
2. Place – Place can frame any purchase. When at the movies, popcorn becomes more valuable.
3. Conditions – Weather and social situations can influence a person’s choice for a product.
Slide 4 / Slide 5 / Slide 6LO2. Know the different ways that time affects consumer behavior.
Time and Consumer Behavior
Slide 7Time is a critical factor and necessary for consumption to occur. Time can affect consumption in any of the following forms:
· Time pressure
· Time of year
· Time of day/circadian cycles
Time Pressure
Time pressure is an urgency to act based on some real or self-imposed deadline. Time pressure affects consumers in several ways:
· Consumers process less information when time is scarce.
· Consumers are more likely to rely on simple choice heuristics.
· Consumers may only rely on price and quality instead of other attributes.
Thus, brands that position themselves as high quality might benefit from situations in which consumers are characterized by time pressure, even if the price is high.
Time of Year
Seasonality refers to regularly occurring conditions that vary with the time of year. Fireworks are not worth as much to consumers in the middle of February. Other not so obvious effects of seasonality include the time of day that consumers shop in the winter months as well as their spending habits.
Time of Day/Circadian Cycles
What’s the most popular drink of the Danes, Italians, and French in the morning? Coffee! What’s the most popular drink of the United Kingdom and many parts of Asia? Tea! Whether it’s beverage consumption, attire, or choice of entertainment, the time of day affects the value of products and activities.
The circadian cycle refers to the rhythm within our bodies that varies with the time of day. A circadian cycle determines our body’s natural rhythm. The daily ups and downs that accompany natural circadian rhythms can be annoying and interfere with normal activities. Thus, when consumers find a product that helps them cope with the down times associated with circadian rhythms, that product is likely to offer value.
Slide 8Ask which of your students are morning persons and which are night persons. Have their online social networking habits changed whether they are morning or night people?
Advertiming
Advertiming is an advertising schedule that primarily runs an advertisement at times when customers will be most receptive to the message. It can also be based on seasonal patterns or day-to-day changes in the weather. Swimming pool marketers know that consumers are more receptive to their ads in the spring or summer.
Slide 9LO3. Analyze shopping as a consumer activity using the different categories
of shopping activities.
Place Shapes Shopping Activities
Slide 10Introduction
Shopping is not only an activity but an important component of the U.S. economy. Many activities in the CVF and consumer behavior theory in general take place in the shopping process. What exactly is shopping? The following questions can help put shopping in perspective.
1. Do consumers have to buy to shop?
2. Is a store necessary for shopping?
3. What motivates consumer shopping?
A physical location is no longer required for shopping to take place.
Married consumers report that one of the main reasons for not shopping with a spouse is time pressure. Men see an advantage to shopping together to reduce the financial risk by making joint decisions. Consumers appear to have more pleasure when shopping alone or with a friend as opposed to shopping with a family member.
Slide 11Q: Ask students where they like to shop and to describe their shopping activities. Who do they usually shop with?
A: Answers may include catalogs, online, or in stores. Answers will vary about who they shop with.
What Is Shopping?
The shopping activity ranges from surfing the Internet for a song to download or visiting the mall for a new item. Shopping can be looked at as the inverse of marketing. Shopping is the set of value-producing consumer activities that directly change the likelihood that something will be purchased.
Shopping Activities
Shopping activities take place over time in specific places under specific conditions or contexts. They can be divided into four different types. Any given shopping experience is characterized by at least one of these types. They are:
1. Acquisitional Shopping – Activities oriented toward a specific, intended purchase or purchases.
2. Epistemic Shopping – Activities oriented toward learning about products.
3. Experiential Shopping – Recreational-oriented activities designed to provide interest, excitement, relaxation, fun, or some other desired feeling. Outshopping is a term used to refer to consumers who are shopping in a city or town that they must travel to rather than in their own hometown. Outshopping is often motivated simply by the desire for the experience.
4. Impulsive Shopping – Spontaneous activities characterized by a diminished regard for consequences and a desire for immediate self-fulfillment.
Exhibit 11.2 provides an example of each type of shopping activity and ties the activities to the types of value to which they are most associated.
Slide 12 / Slide 13Shopping Value
All shopping activities are aimed at one key result: value. Personal shopping value (PSV) is the overall subjective worth of a shopping activity when considering all associated costs and benefits. PSV can be divided into two types: utilitarian shopping value is a value that pertains to the worth obtained because some shopping task or job is completed. Hedonic shopping value is the value that pertains to the worth of an activity because the time spent doing the activity itself is personally gratifying.
Slide 14Retail Personality
The definition of a retail personality is the way in which a retail store is defined in the mind of a shopper based on the combination of functional and affective qualities. The two retail personality dimensions are extremely useful when viewed as a perceptual map.
1. Affective quality – This quality refers to positioning a unique environment, an impressive décor, friendly employees, and pleasant emotions that can provide relatively high hedonic shopping value.
2. Functional quality – This quality refers to positioning a store by using things such as a wide selection of goods, low prices, guarantees, and knowledgeable employees that can provide a high proportion of utilitarian shopping value.
Slide 15Q: Ask students which quality has an impact on their shopping experiences: the functional or the affective quality. Why?
A: Student answers will vary.
LO4. Distinguish the concepts of unplanned, impulse, and compulsive consumer behavior.
Impulsive Shopping and Consumption
Slide 16So, just what is a compulsive consumption act? As the definition implies, impulsive consumption involves consumption acts that are characterized by the following three components:
1. They are spontaneous and involve at least short-term feelings of liberation.
2. They are associated with a diminished regard for any costs or consequences.
3. They are motivated by a need for immediate self-fulfillment and are thus usually highly involving emotionally.
The more any activity contains relatively high amounts of these characteristics, the more likely that act is impulsive. For example, a consumer might have a bad morning at work and decide to cancel a business lunch to take a shopping break for self-gifts or “happies” via the Internet. The behavior can be broken down as follows to demonstrate the impulsiveness involved:
1. The act involves willingly deviating from previous plans and thus shows spontaneity and feelings of liberation from the negative events of the day.
2. The act shows diminished regard for the consequences of missing the business lunch or for any expense incurred.
3. The act fulfills the need to maintain a positive outlook on the self and thus provides hedonic value.
Impulsive versus Unplanned Consumer Behavior
Use Exhibit 11.4 to discuss the relationship between impulsive and unplanned consumer activity. The right side of the Exhibit illustrates that unplanned consumer acts, such as shopping, are characterized by the following factors:
· Situational memory – Situational memory characterizes unplanned acts because something in the store (e.g., a display) triggers the need for the item, such as a pack of gum.
· Utilitarian orientation – A utilitarian orientation fulfills the need to replenish the supply of a product.
· Spontaneity – Spontaneity implies “without forethought.”
Slide 17Distinguishing Impulsive and Unplanned Consumer Behavior
The line between impulse and unplanned is not always clear. Some unplanned acts are impulsive, and many impulsive acts are unplanned. For years, Las Vegas tourism has used a tagline that states: “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” The tagline emphasizes the impulsive nature of consumer behavior in Las Vegas. Certainly, the campaign highlights the heightened hedonic value that can be obtained and encourages consumers not to worry about the consequences.
Go to YouTube (www.youtube.com), and show students some of the Las Vegas TV spots. Students generally like these commercials and can relate well to them.
Susceptibility to Situational Effects
All consumers are susceptible to unplanned and impulsive behavior, but not all equally. Impulsivity is a personality trait that represents how sensitive a consumer is to immediate rewards. For example, consumers with attention deficit disorder typically have high degrees of impulsivity, which makes them more prone to impulsive acts.
Consumer Self-Regulation
A key personality trait that affects a consumer’s tendency to do things that are unplanned or impulsive is self-regulatory capacity. Consumer self-regulation is a tendency for consumers to inhibit outside, or situational, influences from interfering with shopping intentions. Consumers tend to be referred to as either of the following:
1. Action-oriented consumers – These consumers have a high capacity to self-regulate their behavior and are not affected by feelings of dominance in the environment.
2. State-oriented consumers – These consumers have a low capacity to self-regulate their behavior and are affected by feelings of dominance in the environment. This type of consumer is more apt to buy a product in an upbeat electronics store.
Exhibit 11.6 lists questions that can distinguish consumers based on self-regulatory capacity.
Slide 18 / Slide 19Impulsive versus Compulsive Behavior
Although impulsive and compulsive behaviors share many of the same characteristics, there are differences between the two. Compulsive consumer behavior:
1. Is harmful.
2. Seems to be uncontrollable.
3. Is driven by chronic depression.
Slide 20LO5. Use the concept of atmospherics to create consumer value.
Places Have Atmospheres
Slide 21Retail and Service Atmospherics
The term atmospherics pertains to the emotional nature of an environment or, more precisely, to the feelings created by the total aura of physical attributes that comprise the physical environment. View Exhibit 11.7 for a partial list of atmospherics and the qualities of an environment. Atmospherics can be affected by both the functional and affective qualities.
Servicescape is a term used to refer to the physical environment in which consumer services are performed. Each servicescape has its own unique environment.
Slide 22 / Slide 23Functional Quality
The functional quality of an environment describes the meaning created by the total result of the attributes that facilitate the function and make it perform efficiently. In a shopping environment, this includes convenience in all of its forms: price levels, number and helpfulness of employees, breadth and depth of merchandise, and other characteristics that facilitate the shopping task.
Affective Quality
The affective quality represents the emotional meaning of an environment, which results from the sum effect of all ambient attributes that affect the way a consumer feels in that place. It appears that female shoppers are more demanding and react more negatively when this element is missing.