Consumer Behavior

Consumer Behavior

Introduction

Consumer behavior defines the characteristics of customers, their purchase behavior, needs and wants of consumers and how to meet their needs through different attributes of products. The major job of a marketer is not to sell a product to end consumers but to analyze different segments, the target market, marketing strategies and how to attract the selected target market.

The topics I have chosen for discussion include Hofstede's cultural dimensions, behavioral learning theories and psychographic segmentation. These three aspects are very important to be taken into consideration by marketers in order to select the appropriate market for the product and to reach the selected target market effectively.

Hofstede's cultural dimensions

Many international firms have to study culture of different countries while entering in the new market and market the product accordingly. In this consideration, Professor Hofstede presented four cultural dimensions that are very important for marketers in order to know the consumers living in different cultures and subcultures.

Power Distance

The society that defines the degree of equality or inequality between people is power distance. A culture with high power distance tends to accept more inequality among people. The differences in people can be based on the wealth, power/authority, position, or any particular expertise that separate them from others in the society. Countries with high population have high power distance on the basis of power and wealth. From marketing perspective, branded products that define status symbol and expensive are considered as more successful in high power distance culture such as Mercedes and Ford are highly sold and accepted in Middle East countries like Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc.

Whereas low power distance culture is the in which inequality among people is low. Many developed countries like Japan comes under low power distance culture. Countries where national wealth is very strong are also considered as low power distance. Many local brands and seasonal sales and discounts on products are high preferred by consumers living in low power distance countries. They are more friendly and adaptable to the attributes of products.

Individualism

This dimension emphasized on the degree to which people in a society live individually or collectively. In countries where individualism is encouraged, like US, people are independent and tend to have fewer friends and are not strongly connected with their families. In developing countries like India, people are family oriented and have strong ties with other people like friends, neighbors, parents etc. Products with family pack are not successful in individualist society but are highly preferred by consumers with collectivist perspective.

Uncertainty Avoidance

This dimension is concerned with the level of acceptance for ambiguity and uncertainty within a specific culture or society. A society with high uncertainty avoidance tends to follow rigid rules and regulations are compared to low uncertainty avoidance. For example, Saudis preferred products that are simple and understand those ads that convey simple messages and do not encourage subliminal messages. Whereas countries UK, people encourage those products that are complicated and convey subliminal ...