Question

After reviewing Chapter 6 on Consumer Behavior you should realize that consumers do indeed go through a series of steps when they buy something, and marketers try to take advantage of that knowledge. So you should be ready for our fourth discussion topic:

Two very common influences with consumers are social factors and situational factors. What I would like you to do is to give and example of each and suggest how a marketer might take advantage of this.

Examples of what I am looking for:

A mother with a new born child, may look to her mother for advice,

so the Pampers brand make sure that a newborns’ grand mother is always shown in an advertisement to provide a subtle message of ‘family influence’ …get it?

or

when driving to work in the morning, you may hear a radio commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee or breakfast sandwiches, another subtle way to influence the consumer because you are familiar with the situation of the driver, just waking up and maybe looking for a quick breakfast.

Answer 1

Social factors which influence consumer behaviour are family, friends, role and social status. Depending on the product, marketers create messages, which consumers or potential buyers can relate and purchase. For example, products such as health drinks are targeted to mothers of young children. Those ads show concerned mothers and also highlights problems in children growth, when they are not healthy.

When marketers use situational factors, they think of common situations, consider the problems and then seek to provide solutions to it, via their ad messages. For example, perfumes and sprays are targeted to single bachelors. The ad is created in a way, which allures them saying that smelling good makes them attractive to girls.