Social class - Università degli Studi di Bari

UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI BARI
FACOLTA’ DI ECONOMIA
CdLM in Marketing
Bari
Corso di
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Family
Luca Petruzzellis
lu.petruzzellis@disag.uniba.it
The Family
• Defining the Modern Family
– Extended Family: Consists of three generations living
together and often includes grandparents, aunts, uncles,
and cousins.
– Nuclear Family: A mother and a father and one or more
children
• Just What Is A Household?
– Family Household: Contains at least two people who are
related by blood or marriage.
• Family Size
– Fertility rate: Determined by the number of births per year
per 1,000 women of childbearing age.
Family Structures
• Family structures continue to evolve, but some basic conflicts remain
the same. This Italian ad for an antacid product says, “Certain things are
hard to swallow.”
Meeting Family Size Needs
• Folger’s Coffee addresses
an important need by
allowing single people to
brew one cup of coffee
at a time.
The “Sandwich Generation”
• This insurance ad reminds us that people in the “sandwich
generation” often must care for their parents in addition to
their children.
Nontraditional Family Structures
• POSSLQ
– Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters
• Voluntarily Childless:
– Women of childbearing age who choose to have no
children
• Who’s Living at Home?
– Boomerang Kids: Children between the ages of 18 and 34
that return home to live with their parents.
• Animals Are People Too! Nonhuman Family Members
Dog Condoms?
• This Spanish public
service ad promotes pet
sterilization via a fake ad
for dog condoms.
The Family Life Cycle
• Family Life Cycle (FLC)
– Concept that combines trends in income and family
composition with the changes in demands placed upon
this income to segment households.
• FLC Models
– Focuses on longitudinal changes in priorities which is
valuable in predicting demand for specific product
categories over time.
– Four variables are necessary:
•
•
•
•
(1) Age
(2) Marital Status
(3) Absence or Presence of Children
(4) Ages of Children
• Life-Cycle Effects on Buying
Ethan Allen
• This ad by a furniture
manufacturer specifically
refers to stages in the
family life cycle.
Family Life Cycle
Figure 12.1
The Intimate Corporation:
Family Decision Making
• Household Decisions
– Consensual Purchase Decision: Members agree on
desired purchase
– Accommodative Purchase Decision: Members
have different preferences or priorities and cannot
agree on a purchase
– Factors determining the degree of family decision
conflict:
•
•
•
•
Interpersonal need
Product involvement and utility
Responsibility
Power
Discussion Question
• This Kudos
advertisement tries to
explain that the product
will satisfy two members
of the household for
different reasons.
• What type of family
decision have the
mother and son made?
Sex Roles and Decision-Making
Responsibilities
• Autonomic Decision
– When one family member chooses a product
• Syncratic Decision
– When the family jointly makes a decision
• There is a shift in decision making toward
more compromise and turn-taking.
• Spouses typically exert significant influence on
decision making.
Identifying the Decision Maker
• Family Financial Officer (FFO):
– The individual who keeps track of the family’s bills
and decides how much surplus funds will be
spent.
• Four Mother Types (LeoShe):
– June Cleaver, the Sequel
– Tug of War
– Strong Shoulders
– Mothers of Invention
Who Buys the Pants?
• Although many men still wear the pants in the family, it’s
women who buy them.
Leo Mother Types
Figure 12.2
Identifying the Decision Maker
• Four Factors Determine the Degree to Which
Decisions will be Made Jointly by One or the
Other Spouse
– Sex-role stereotypes
– Spousal resources
– Experience
– Socioeconomic Status
• Kin-Network System:
– Ties among family members, both immediate and
extended.
Women Manage Many Tasks
• Women often manage
many tasks within the
family that pull them in
many directions.
Heuristics in Joint Decision Making
• Synoptic Ideal:
– Calls for the husband and wife to take a common view
and act as joint decision makers
• Frequently observed decision-making pattern:
– (1) Areas of common preference based on salient,
objective dimensions rather than subtler, hard-todefine cues.
– (2) Couple agrees on a system of task specialization.
– (3) Concessions are based on the intensity of each
spouse’s preferences.
Children As Decision Makers:
Consumers-In-Training
• Primary Market:
– Kids spending their own allowance on their
own wants and needs.
• Influence Market:
– Parental Yielding: Occurs when a parental
decision maker is influenced by a child’s
request and “surrenders.”
• Future Market:
– Kids eventually grow up to be adults.
Kids’ Influence on Household Purchases
Kids.us
Consumer Socialization
• Consumer Socialization
– The process “by which young people acquire skills,
knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their
functioning in the marketplace.”
• Influence of Parents:
– Parents’ influences in consumer socialization are
both direct and indirect.
• Television: “The Electric Babysitter”:
– The more children are exposed to television, the
more they will accept images depicted as real.
Five Stages of Consumer Development
Figure 12.3
Consumer Socialization (cont.)
• Sex Role Socialization:
– Children pick up on the concept of gender identity as early as
age one or two.
• Cognitive Development
– Stage of Cognitive Development: The ability to comprehend
concepts of increasing complexity
– Preoperational Stage of Development: A stage of cognitive
development
• Alternative three-segment approach:
– (1) Limited
– (2) Cued
– (3) Strategic
Marketing Research and Children
• Product Testing:
– A particularly helpful type of research with children.
– Involves watching kids play with toys or involving
them in focus groups
• Message Comprehension:
– Children differ in their ability to process productrelated information
– Ethical issues must be considered when directing
advertising appeals at children
Product Testing
• Lego did research to learn how boys and girls play with their
building toys.
Discussion Question
• Ads that directly target
children must deal with a
number of ethical issues. This
ad solicits children to directly
contact the organization.
• The girl in the picture is
captioned as saying, “My
name is Nina, I am 4 years old
and I have three close friends
and live in a house with 6
rooms.”
• How does this ad target the
weaknesses of the cognitive
capabilities of children in this
age range?
UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI BARI
FACOLTA’ DI ECONOMIA
CdLM in Marketing
Bari
Corso di
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Income and social class
Luca Petruzzellis
lu.petruzzellis@disag.uniba.it
Consumer Spending
and Economic Behavior
• Status Symbols:
– Products that serve as markers of social class
• Income Patterns
– Woman’s Work
• More people participating in the labor force
• Mothers with children are the fastest growing segment
of working people
– Yes, It Pays to Go to School!
• Education is expensive but pays off in the long run
Luxury Items as Status Symbols
• Luxury items like
diamond engagement
rings are valued as status
symbols the world over,
as this Brazilian ad for a
jeweler reminds us.
Education = A Higher Living Standard
• Education is strongly linked to a higher standard of living.
People who earn a college degree are likely to earn much
more during their lives than those who do not.
To Spend or Not to Spend,
That is the Question
• Discretionary Spending
– Discretionary income: The money available to a
household over and above that required for a
comfortable standard of living
– Individual Attitudes Toward Money:
•
•
•
•
Atephobia: Fear of being ruined
Harpaxophobia: Fear of being robbed
Peniaphobia: Fear of poverty
Aurophobia: Fear of gold
Consumer Confidence
• Behavioral Economics (a.k.a. economic psychology):
– Concerned with the “human side” of economic decisions
• Consumer Confidence:
– Consumers’ beliefs about what the future holds
• Overall savings rate influenced by:
– (1) Individual consumers’ pessimism or optimism about
their personal circumstances
– (2) World events
– (3) Cultural differences in attitudes toward saving
Social Class
• A Universal Pecking Order
– Dominance-submission hierarchy: Each individual in the
hierarchy is submissive to those higher in the hierarchy
and is dominant to those below them in the hierarchy
• Social Class Affects Access to Resources:
– Marx believed that position in society was determined by
one’s relationship to the means of production.
– Weber believed that rankings of people depended on
prestige (status groups), power (party) and wealth (class)
• Social Class Affects Taste and Lifestyles:
– Social class: The overall rank of people in a society
– Homogamy: Tendency to marry into a similar social class
Social Class Affects Leisure
• This ad implies that there are social class differences in leisure
activities and preferred beverages.
Social Class Affects Lifestyle
Social Stratification
• Social Stratification:
– Creation of artificial divisions in a society
• Achieved Versus Ascribed Status:
– Achieved status: Status earned through hard work
or diligent study
– Ascribed status: Status one is born with
– Status hierarchy: Structure in a social group in
which some members are better off than others
Achieved versus Ascribed Wealth
• In our society, wealth is more likely to be earned than
inherited.
Social Mobility
• Social Mobility:
– The passage of individuals from one social class to another
• Horizontal Mobility:
– Movement from one position to another roughly
equivalent in social status
• Downward Mobility:
– Movement from one position to another position that is
lower in social status
• Upward Mobility:
– Movement from one position to another position that is
higher in social status
– Differential fertility: Middle class reproduce fewer children
than lower class
Components of Social Class
• Occupational Prestige:
– The “worth” of people based on what they do for a living
• Income:
– Distribution of wealth is important to marketers because it
determines buying power and market potential
• The Relationship Between Income and Social Class:
– Social class is a better predictor of purchases that have symbolic
aspects but low to moderate price
– Income is a better predictor of major expenditures that do not
have status or symbolic aspects
– Social class and income are both needed to predict purchases of
expensive, symbolic products
Discussion Question
• Certain occupations
hold prestige because
of their worth to
society. Others are
prestigious because of
power or income.
• Can you think of
professions that are
prestigious but not
necessarily high in
income?
Measuring Social Class
• Problems with Measures of Social Class:
– Dated measures which are no longer valid
– Increasing anonymity of society
• Reputational method: Extensive interviews within a community to
determine reputations of individuals
– Status crystallization: Assesses the impact of inconsistency
on the self and social behavior
• Overprivileged: Income is 25 to 30 percent greater than one’s social
class median
• Underprivileged: Income is 15 percent less than one’s social class
median
– Hierogamy: Physically attractive women tend to “marry up”
in social class
Adapting to Social Status
• Lottery winners who
experience sudden
wealth may have trouble
adapting to their new
social status.
Measuring Social Class (cont.)
• Problems with Social Class Segmentation: A
Summary:
– They have ignored status inconsistency.
– They have ignored intergenerational mobility.
– They have ignored subjective social class.
– They have ignored consumers’ aspirations to change
their class standing.
– The have ignored the social status of working wives.
How Social Class
Affects Purchase Decisions
• Class Differences in Worldview
– A major social class difference involves the worldview
of consumers
• Working class:
– More focused on immediate needs than long-term goals
– Depend more heavily on relatives for emotional support
– Orient themselves toward community rather than the world
– More likely to be conservative and family oriented
– Affluenza: Many well-off consumers seem to be
stressed or unhappy despite their wealth
Taste Cultures and Codes
• Taste Culture:
– Differentiates people in terms of aesthetic and intellectual
preferences
• Codes:
– The ways meanings are expressed and interpreted by
consumers
– Restricted codes: Focus on the content of objects, not the
relationship between objects (dominant among working
class)
– Elaborated codes: More complex and depend on a
sophisticated world view (used by middle and upper class)
• Economic Capital: Financial Resources
• Social Capital: Organizational affiliations and networks
Taste Cultures
• People in the upper classes are more likely to share tastes in the arts as
well. They spend relatively more of their leisure time attending the
symphony, museums, the theatre, and so on.
Cultural Capital
• Cultural Capital:
– A set of distinctive and socially rare tastes and
practices
• Habitus:
– The way we classify experiences as a result of our
socialization processes
• Grid-group Theory:
– Model developed by anthropologist, Mary Douglas,
that distinguishes between a person’s relationship to
his or her own social group and to the general social
system
Theoretically Based Lifestyle Model
Figure 13.4
Targeting the Poor and Rich
• Targeting the Poor:
– Most marketers ignore this segment
• Targeting the Rich:
– Segmenting consumers based on their attitudes
toward luxury:
• (1) Luxury is functional
• (2) Luxury is a reward
• (3) Luxury is indulgence
Old and New Money
• Old Money:
– Families which live primarily on inherited funds
• The Nouveau Riches:
– Consumers who have achieved extreme wealth and
are relatively recent members of upper class
– Status anxiety: Concern that one is being consistent
with the cultural environment of being wealthy
– Symbolic self-completion: Excessive flamboyant
consumption to make up for insecurity
Status Symbols
• Invidious distinction:
– Use of products to inspire envy in others through a display of
wealth or power
• Conspicuous consumption:
– People’s desire to provide prominent visible evidence of their
ability to afford luxury goods
• The Billboard Wife:
– The decorative role women play when showered with
expensive clothes
– Leisure class: People for whom productive work is taboo
– Conspicuous waste: Using up resources in nonconstructive
pursuits
Status Symbols are Always in Flux
• At one time, having very pale
skin was the mark of an
upper social class because it
indicated that the person did
not have to work in the
fields. Today, a suntan is
equated with leisure time
and consumers go to great
lengths to get one naturally
or with “help.”
Status Symbols in Brazil
• Armored cars are a status symbol in Brazil. This ad for an
armored-car maker uses an egg carton metaphor to illustrate
the security it offers.
Discussion Question
• The ad to the left insinuates
that because of the status of
a gift from Tiffany and Co., it
really doesn’t matter what is
in the box.
• What other brands can you
think of that have such
status, that the name carries
as much prestige as the
product?
Products as Status Symbols
Status Symbols (cont.)
• Parody Display:
– Sophisticated form of conspicuous consumption to
seek status by deliberately avoiding status symbols
Parody Display
• Ripped jeans (especially the pricey kind that come that way
when you buy them) are an example of a parody display.
UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI BARI
FACOLTA’ DI ECONOMIA
CdLM in Marketing
Bari
Corso di
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Age
Luca Petruzzellis
lu.petruzzellis@disag.uniba.it
Age and Consumer Identity
• Age Cohort:
– Consists of people of similar ages who have undergone
similar experiences.
• The Teen Market: Gen Y Like Totally Rules:
– Generation Y: Those born between 1977 and 1994
• Teen Values, Conflicts, and Desires:
–
–
–
–
Autonomy vs. Belonging
Rebellion vs. Conformity
Idealism vs. Pragmatism
Narcissism vs. Intimacy
Household Income by Age
Figure 15.1
The Nostalgia Scale
The U.S. Teen Population
Figure 15.2
Spring Break
• A growing number of marketers are capitalizing on the ritual
of Spring Break to reach college students.
Discussion Question
• This ad for Prestige car
stereos states, “Research
shows excessively loud car
stereos are the number one
annoyance to people over
40. Whatever.”
• What is the apparent
strategy with this ad? Who
is the target audience?
Appealing to the Youth Market
•
Tweens:
– Children aged 8 to 14
•
Speaking to Teens in Their Language:
– Rule 1: Don’t Talk Down
– Rule 2: Don’t Try to be What You’re Not. Stay
True to Your Brand Image.
– Rule 3: Entertain Them. Make it Interactive and
Keep the Sell Short.
– Rule 4: Show That You Know What They’re
Going Through, but Keep it Light.
Influencing Teens through Ads
• Marketers often
influence public policy by
creating messages to
influence behaviors like
smoking or drug use.
This mosaic was used to
promote Lorillard
Tobacco’s Youth Smoking
Prevention Program.
Youth Tribes
•
Youth Tribes:
– Tribal phenomenon most pronounced among
young consumers
– Products and services reinforce the notion of
belonging
– Tribal phenomenon most pronounced in Japan
– Techno-cultural suppleness: A willingness to grab
something new and use it for their own ends
Researching the Youth Market
• Coolhunters:
– Kids in major markets like New York, LA, or London
who roam the streets to report back on cuttingedge trends.
• Big (Wo)Man on Campus: We’re Talking To You!
– Attractive market because they have yet to form brand
loyalties
– College students are tough to reach via conventional
media
– Wall media: Advertising posters
Japanese Children and Cell Phones
• Hip Japanese kids have
invented a new way to
send cell phone
messages. A graphicsbased language called
emoji uses tiny images
instead of words.
Discussion Question
• Calvin Klein has been criticized for its strategy of adolescent sexuality to
promote its products. Likewise, Abercrombie & Fitch was criticized for a
line of things for preteen girls.
• Why do companies engage in these obviously controversial tactics?
Should there be penalties for engaging in this type of advertising?
Generation X
• Baby Busters: “Generation X”:
– Generation X: The cohort of consumers born
between 1966 and 1976.
– Stereotyped inaccurately as alienated, cynical, and
lazy
– Advertising campaigns that tried to appeal to the
stereotype failed
– Actually an entrepreneurial generation
– Desire stable families after being latchkey children
Baby Boomers
• Baby Boomers:
– People born between 1946 and 1965
– Sheer size of this generation has made it the
source of many cultural and economic changes
– More active and physically fit than previous
generations
– Baby boomlet: The new upsurge in the number of
children born in comparison to that of the original
“baby boom.”
Pepsi
• This 1962 Pepsi ad
highlights the emphasis
on youth power that
began to shape our
culture as baby
boomers came of age in
the 1960’s.
Botox for Boomers
• Many Boomers are
interested in maintaining
a youthful appearance
and will go to great
lengths to preserve it.
Botox injections are the
newest craze.
The Gray Market
• Gray Power: Seniors’ Economic Clout:
– Gray Market: Seniors impact the market place
– Account for more than half of all discretionary
spending in the U.S.
– In many product categories, seniors outspend
other age groups
• Understanding Seniors:
– Autonomy: Leading active lives and being selfsufficient
– Connectedness: Bonds with friends and family
– Altruism: Giving something back to the world
The Gray Market (cont.)
• Perceived Age: You’re Only as Old as You Feel:
– Chronological age: Actual number of years lived
– Perceived Age: How old a person feels
• Feel-age: How old a person feels
• Look-age: How old a person looks
– Many marketers emphasize product benefits
rather than age appropriateness
Segmenting Seniors
• Typical Segmentation Bases:
–
–
–
–
–
Chronological age
Age cohort
Current marital status
Health
Outlook on life
• Social Aging Theories:
– Theories that try to understand how society assigns people
to different roles across the life span.
• Gerontographics:
– Divides the mature market into groups based on both
levels of physical well-being and social conditions, such as
becoming a grandparent or losing a spouse.
Zoomers
• Sony sells about 1/3 of its products to consumers age 50
and older. The company is targeting mature consumers with
ads like this one that celebrate “Zoomers” freedom.
Selling to Seniors
• Product Adaptations:
– Packages sensitive to physical limitations
– Serving sizes
• Mature Marketing Messages:
– Prefer ads that provide abundant information
– Not amused or persuaded by imagery-oriented ads
– Basic guidelines for advertising to the elderly:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Simple language
Clear, bright pictures
Action attracts attention
Speak clearly, low word count
Single sales message emphasizing brand extensions for familiarity
Avoid extraneous stimuli
Jockey Targets Seniors
• Jockey Apparel is one of
many advertisers that is
increasingly featuring
attractive older models
in its ads.