moving from environmental analysis to the

topic of research and consumer behavior.

specifically will be discussing consumer behavior

as part of that the purchase decision process

and problem-solving behavior topics of consumer behavior.

let's start by defining what we mean

by consumer behavior. there we're talking about the action

a buyer takes in purchasing

a product, using a product

and disposing of a product. so when we're talking about consumer behavior

we're talking about all the actions

before, after and during product

use. I want to show you a couple illustrations of

consumer behavior. let's look at the differences of

and how men and women view

purchasing greeting cards by looking at this

Budweiser commercial

it's perfect. so I think that that particular

YouTube video illustrates perfectly

the differences between most men and women when they're buying

a greeting card like a Valentine's Day card or something like that.

so those describe consumer behavior

from the perspective of what they did before

and during product use.

let's look how marketers have changed tuna salad based

on the study consumer behavior.

let's look here at

starkist tuna and if will look

at the reasons people don't eat more tuna

on the go or to take it to lunch -- it deals a lot with

smell. and everything you have to take with you to use

tuna at work. sound to

to handle this problem for consumers

their package includes

ready-made tuna salad you don't even have to mix

the tuna with any mayonaise

and relish anymore. it's already made for you. there are six crackers,

a serving spoon to put the salad on the crackers,

a napkin, a mint afterwards so that you don't have bad breath.

I would challenge you to see what missing.

what still don't they understand about why more people don't

eat tuna for lunch? what happens after

they eat this tuna pack? did they have to dispose of the product?

and when they do dispose of the product,

is there a problems that's solved? do they put it in the trash can and

you still continue to get that tuna smell?

I would like to suggest that way a

better way to meet consumer need and better

understand consumer behavior would be to perhaps included a ziplock type

bag in that packet so that would be easy to

dispose of everything when you are done. so

how do people go about buying, using

and consuming products. what I'd like to introduce now

is the consumer decision-making process. and people who don't understand

marketing tend to focus on how can we get

people to buy. and while that's

a long-term goal for marketers, marketers realize that

individual consumers go through a process

where before they can buy

or purchase, they first have to recognize

they have a problem or need. We would

define that as the difference between what they

actually have and what they desire.

as so when a person has a difference between what they have

what they desire, they then recognized that they have a problem

or a need and will begin to search

for alternatives to help them solve that problem. so we define

problem recognition as the difference between

actual and desired. information searched then is when they would look to some

internal sources, basically what they might remember

about different ways to solve this problem or

different brands, but they also would look to

some external source like

personal sources -- being their friends, their family, their coworkers.

they might also look to public sources --

things that they see in news publications or consumer reports or on social media

by people who aren't necessarily their friends or family and are not

the marketer of the products or services.

and they also use many external source

that are developed by marketers -- advertisements, web page,

personal salespeople,

all external support sources. so i'd

like to ask you right now what

external source do you think people

trust the least? personal sources --

their friends and family? public sources --

things they might see in the media that not paid

advertising or promotion? or marketer sources --

information about a product from the marketer?

they probably trust marketers

sources least and personal sources

the most. that's why it's so important for marketers to have satisfied

customers

so that the word of mouth generated by personal sources is

more positive influence

on people. so again we're talking about when

consumers make a decision to buy the first thing they have to do

is recognize they have a need or problem.

they then use internal and external sources

to search for information. they then

begin to evaluate various alternatives.

and when they evaluate alternative one thing

they'll do in their mind or perhaps even on paper is

come up with some of the evaluative criteria

that they would use. keep in mind

these evaluative criteria may not all have

equal weight. for example perhaps the most important thing to someone choosing

a college

is price and class size.

to another person the most important criteria

might be majors offered and location.

regardless consumers have some sort of evaluative criteria that they

use when they are evaluating different

brands in their consideration set.

the consideration set would be the list

of acceptable brands that they would consider.

so if it's a very important purchase a consumer might actually

write down a pro and con list or a little chart.

but if it's not very important or purchase

or a purchase in which they have a high level of involvement,

they may simply do this in their head.

for example you can see how this consumer

thinks about brand A B and

C. and it might be in this case

because what is most important is price

and class size, they would choose brand

A. so this explains how consumers go about

evaluating alternatives.

so again, as we talk about the

consumer problem-solving process, we've talked about

problem recognition, information search

Evaluation of alternates and then

purchase. by the way not all

not all time when we go through this process

do we end up purchasing. it might be that we go through this process and say

what I have is adequate. I don't need to purchase a new car

or I don't need to go back to college.

but at some point, if they do decide to purchase,

they will select an outlet --

and a number of factors can have huge

impact here. for example type of financing,

delivery or just plain availability of the product

might make them to choose another alternative

than they had selected.

oftentimes after person purchases

they experience what is called post

purchased satisfaction or dis-satisfaction.

and if it's dis-satisfaction we call

that cognitive dissonance

or buyers remorse. when we say cognitive

it means thinking and when we say dissonance

in it means unbalanced. so if you have

unbalanced thinking about a purchase,

you question whether or not you made the right decision.

something I'd like to point out here is

that all of a marketers efforts are not necessarily directed

just at problem recognition, information search,

evaluation of alternative and purchase.

many times seeing an advertisement or promotion

about something that you recently purchased

helps you to eliminate cognitive dissonance

and in your mind solidify

that you didn't make a good purchase.

one thing I want emphasized is

you don't go through this process

with same level of intensity or concern

for all products you buy. in other words --

depending upon your level of involvement

with a particular product or product category --

you might go through this process very very quickly

and doing so you would use what's called

routine problem-solving behavior.

so typically when you want to buy a bottle of ketchup,

you don't spend much time going through this process.

and in fact you probably don't do any

post purchase evaluation

unless product doesn't perform

as expected. if this

product you're buying is very important to you

and you have a high-level involvement

here because it's very expensive or there's a lot of

risk involved or it's going to reflect

significantly on your personal image,

you might take a lot of time going through this process.

in this case you will be using what's called extended

problem solving. a girl buying her wedding

dress probably uses extended problem-solving.

very rarely would they buy the first one they tried on

even if they liked it best with out

first trying other alternatives.

and products that are purchased with some level of involvement

between these two levels

would use what is called

called limited problem solving. so you're going to buy a

blender for example or a new

outfit or something like that, you would probably use

limited problem solving. so I just wanted

to illustrate here for you the beginning of the the concept

consumer behavior and the consumer

buying decision process.