Chapter 6

Question 1

Personal Characteristics

Answer 1

Race, Gender, Age

Question 2

Race

Answer 2

Products and services are targeted at different races.

Most companies that manufacture hair, skin and other beauty care products, such as Revlon and Amka, group market their products by focusing on the differences between the needs and wants of different racial groups instead of using race as a discriminating factor.

The SAARF Universal LSM has developed a tool called the Living Standards Measurement (LSM) for assisting marketers in South Africa to deal with the issue of race.

Question 3

Gender

Answer 3

The terms gender and sex are used interchangeably to refer to whether a person is biologically male or female.

This is a very important trait to marketers, since there are significant differences between men and women and their consumption patterns.

There are two major factors that impact on products and that marketers must take into consideration when selling their products.

• The first is the impact of gender on the products
• The second is the changing roles of men and women in the use of various products and services.

Question 4

Age

Answer 4

Our taste in food, clothes, furniture and recreation is often related to our age. Adults experience certain transformations as they go through life and their behaviour changes as they mature. Marketers should consider critical life events or transitions, such as marriage, child birth, illness, relocation, divorce, career change, and death of a spouse or partner, as these circumstances give rise to new needs. The key point that you need to understand in this section is that marketers must understand exactly what they refer to when they discuss the concept of age. The definition of age has to take chronological age, biological age and psychological age into consideration. The impact of generation X and generation Y on marketing is also significant and the differences between these generations should be studied.

Question 5

Age sub cultures:

Answer 5

• Seniors: (new age vs traditional)
• Baby Boomers : The generation born after WW2
• Generation X: Born between the 60’’s and 70’s
• Generation Y: Born between 70’s and 90’s

Question 6

Many segmentation strategies can be grouped into these four categories:

Answer 6

• Geographic and geo-demographic.
• Demographic.
• Behavioural attitudes.
• Psychographic.

Question 7

• Geographic and geo-demographic.

Answer 7

Region, climate and population density

• for example, SABMiller can decide to segment its market by using a combination of variables, such as region (Mpumalanga and Gauteng), for its main distribution areas, while using age to classify and segment its market (no under 18s allowed to consume their product).

Question 8

• Demographic.

Answer 8

Age, sex, education, occupation, religion, race, nationality, family size and family cycle

Question 9

• Behavioural attitudes.

Answer 9

Knowledge benefits the use of status, usage rates, loyalty status, readiness to buy and occasions.

Question 10

• Psychographic.

Answer 10

Personality and lifestyle

• Clover-Danone, for example, segment its market by aiming its yoghurt at health-conscious consumers.

Question 11

Nature of Personality

Answer 11

The varying elements of personality can be easily used or controlled to present radically different products.

Marketers can use each of the responses to position their products strategically, as well as to differentiate between them so that they appeal to different personalities.

Personality comprises those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect the way a person responds to his or her environment.

It is also described as an individual’s consistency in coping with his or her environment. It;s the consistant pattern of responses to stimmuli from internal and external sources.

• Examples of personality traits include confidence, dominance, autonomy, deference, sociability, defensiveness, and adaptability. After studying this part of the work you should be able to give a detailed definition of the concept of personality.

Question 12

How can Personality Traits be classified?

Provide examples of personality traits.

Answer 12

Personality traits are classified as a psychographic segmentation strategy and this factor is explored in the remainder of this section.

• Examples: confidence, dominance, autonomy, deference, sociability, defensiveness, adaptability

Question 13

When studying personality, four characteristics are of vital importance:

Answer 13

• Personality reflects individual differences. • Personality is consistent and enduring. • Personality is conceived as a complete actualisation of oneself in an environment. • Personality can change.

Question 14

• Personality reflects individual differences.

Answer 14

• Due to early childhood experiences, cultural exposure and personal motivation there are difference in each persons heredity.
• Eventhough no one is a like, we are similiar in many ways in terms of a single characteristic.
• The value of personality lies in the fact that marketers can categorise people in different groups based on a few traits.

Question 15

• Personality is consistent and enduring.

Answer 15

An individuals personality is characterised by stability during change.

Consistency gives direction to a persons behaviour and sustains them in the face of experience that changes all the time.

Consistency refers to enduring, not unchanging, qualities of personality.

It also gives the behaviour of a person a measure of predictability.

It’s unreasonable for marketers to try and change a personality ,at best they can learn wich personality characteristics influence a particular customer responses, and attempt to appeal to a relevant personality.

Personality is only one of a combination of factors that influence how a customer behaves.

Question 16

Tradition- directed behaviour segmentation

Answer 16

Marketing segmentation that is based on the assumption that a customers personality and behaviour changes little over time is called tradition-directed behaviour segmentation.

Thisis a form of psycographic and lifestyle segmentation

Question 17

• Personality is conceived as a complete actualisation of oneself in an environment.

Answer 17

• An individuals seperate acts cannot be understood apart from the whole person; neither can a person be understood apart from it’s environment.
• Some of the most important characteristics of the whole individual are derived from their environment, especially from the socio culture environment with all it’s customs.
• Differece in personility are expressions not only of inherent tendencies, but even more of events in the social environment.

Question 18

• Personality can change.

Answer 18

Eventhough personality tends to be consistent and enduring it may change under certain circumstances.

This could be due to

• major life events: car accident, high jacking, death of a loved one, carreer promotion etc.
• Could be part of a gradual maturing and growth process that all individuals go through.

Based on these conflicting characteristics, different theories have been developed and subsequently used in marketing and consumer behaviour research.

These theories provide the structure for a review of a large body of evidence, all of which has implications for the analysis of customer behaviour.

Question 19

Personality Theories

Answer 19

• Freud’s psycho- analytic theory
• Neo-Freudian theory
• Trait theory
• Gestalt theory

Question 20

Freud’s psycho- analytic theory

Answer 20

Unconscious motives and repressed needs resulting in a non-empirical approach to personality.

The foundation of motivational research is that it operates on the premise that human drives are largely unconscious in nature and serve to motivate many customer actions.

Emphises in motivational research studies is on discovering the underlying motivations for specific consumer behaviour.

The motivational researcher, focusses on what the customer buy, and treat the purchase as a reflection and an extension of the customers personality.

• For example: The clothes that we wear or the images that we display reflects our personality. It suggests that using a particular produsct such as expensive jewellery, enhances our self confidence.

Question 21

Neo-Freudian theory

Answer 21

Social relationships are fundamental to the formation of personality

It emphasise the fundamental role of social relationships, in the formation and developement of personality.

For example: A marketer who positions a product as being unique and non-conformists seem to be guided by the neo-fredian theory’s characterisations of “detached individual”- a person seeking independence and individuality

Question 22

Trait theory

Answer 22

Personality is composed of a set of traits described by the general response to predispositions

A trait is any distinguishing, ralatively enduring way in which one individual differs from another.

The theory states that individuals posses innate psycological traits: self-confidence, aggresion, responsibility to a greater or lesser degree.

These traits can be measured by specially designed scales.

Trait theorists are concerned with the construction of personality tests to pinpoint individual differences in terms of specific personality traits.

• For Example: Individuals may distinguish other people as reserved or outgoing and then lable them intuitivly in terms of their traits.

Question 23

Gestalt theory

Answer 23

Personality is an outcome of introducing a person to a total environment

People do not experience the numerous stimuli they select from the environment as seperate and discrete sensasions; rather they tend to organise them into groups and perceive them as unified wholes.

The perceived characteristics of even the simplest stimulus are veiwed as a function of the whole to which the stimulus appears to belong.

Attitudes, perceptions, aspirations, self-concept, sattisfaction, frustration and motivation are all necessary to explain and understand human personality and, therfore, a customer’s behaviour.

• For exmaple: The use of ordinary people in advertisemnets as the advertisments assume that customers better identify with people like themselves or personal selling and advertisements that emphasise social acceptance, or show people having fun.

Question 24

Influence of Personality on Lifestyle

Answer 24

Marketers have found it difficult to segment the market using personality, which is why the focus has now shifted to lifestyle.

Lifestyle is defined as the way people live and interact within the environment or simply a person’s way of being and living in the world.

It is also described as a person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed through activities, interests and opinions.

• For example, if a consumer purchases a BMW car, it implies that the lifestyle of the particular consumer will automatically change in terms of self-confidence and the manner in which he conducts him- or herself in relation to colleagues and friends.

Question 25

Value of Personality to Marketers

Answer 25

Marketers are of the opinion that personalities do influence the types and brands of purchased goods and services consumers select.

However, marketers face various challenges when trying to segment the market based on these factors, hence the need to overcome these challenges.

The identification of personality variables, which appear to be linked logically to product usage, is likely to improve the marketer’s ability to segment the markets.

It will subsequently enable them to design promotional strategies that will appeal to the personality characteristics of existing target markets.

Understand inner- and outer-directed personality appeals.

Question 26

Inner- and outer-directed personality

Answer 26

Other directedness is the term used to describe and individuals attempt to fit in with and adapt to the behaviour of his or her peer group.

• Other directed customers who tend to look to others for direction to their actions, may be more easily influenced because of their natural inclination to go beyond the contentof an adevertisements and think in terms of social approval for the potention purchase.

Inner Directedness refers to individuals who are seemingly indeffernent to the behaviour of others.

• Inner directed customers who use their values and standards in evaluating products, prefer advertisements that stresses product features and personal benefits

Question 27

Self Concept and Self Image

Answer 27

• Self-concept deals with the individual’s perception of him- or herself and is associated with image or personality. Therefore, a consumer has an image of him- or herself, which refers to the consumer’s attitude towards him- or herself.
• Self-concept can be regarded as the totality of the thoughts and feelings of an individual about him- or herself.
• The self-concept is a highly complex structure compared to other attitudes. It composes of many attributes like attractive appearance vs mental aptitude, stability over time, self esteem, negative or positive attitude towards self.
• Self Concept developes over time, it’s not innate. It’s learned.
• It has the purpose of protecting and enhancing the ego, it is unique and includes self-related knowledge and beliefs that are stored in the memory.

Question 28

Extended Self

Answer 28

The relationship between a customers’ self images and their posessions.

A customers posessions can be seen to confirm or extend their self-images by:

1. Actually, by allowing the person to do things that otherwise would be difficult to accomplish.
2. Symbolically, by making aperson feel better or bigger. (recieving an award)
3. By conferring status or rank. (status among art collectors for owning a masterpiece.)
4. By conferring feelings of immortality, by leaving valued posessions to young family members.
5. By conferring magical powers.(a ring inherited may be perceived as a magic amulet bestowing good luck)

Question 29

Alternative Self

Answer 29

Customers are constantly trying to change themselves by using avariety of products and accesories, to modify their appearance and so alter their self-image.

In using self altering products, customers are trying to express uniqueness or individualism by:

• creating a new self
• maintaining the existing self
• extending the self.

We can alter ourselves, particularly our appearance or body parts, using cosmetics, hair styling and coloring, glasses to contact lenses or evne surgery.