Consumer Behavior is everywhere

After attending my Marketing 343: Consumer Behavior for this past semester, I have come to realize that consumer behavior is everywhere.  Whether Im out deciding what brand of soda to buy or Im doing research on

It all seems to start with some sort of motivation or need when you are consuming any type of product or service.  From there you can look at yourself and your consciousness  of why exactly you make some decisions.  This ended up being a big one for me because I soon realized that I make some purchasing decisions based off of my past experiences while growing up.  And for me once I realized what I am motivated by, I almost challenged myself to try a new brand or switch things up a bit.  This was hard to me and I ended up resorting back to my original consuming pattern (this particular example was me purchasing a laundry detergent that my mother had always used while I was growing up).

I also found the subcultures and group influences very interesting.  These were two other influences that I wasnt necessarily aware of and once I realized I was making certain decisions in order to comply with a certain group or subculture, I attempted to change my ways and "do my own thing". Try to be my own person, but once I realized this is pretty much impossible because almost every decision we make was influenced by someone or something else, I just continued to make decisions based off of my own satisfaction and I quickly learned not to care what others thought.

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Product Placement

               

After class on Monday, I really started to think about how much effect product placement actually had on me.  At first I think everyone feels like they are very resistant towards being influenced to chose a certain brand after seeing it in a movie or show.  But the more I think about my own experience and how easily I can relate a brand to a certain movie, it seems more obvious that it does work.

Product placement works in the sense that it gets me thinking about their particular product over the competitors.  It doesn't necessarily make me want to go out and purchase a product right after I see it in the movie or show.

I think it has a lot more to do with your subliminal awareness.  This can have a huge influence on you in the long run because when it comes time to buy a product and when you are choosing which brand to get, that image in the back of your mind reminds you that youve seen it before and for whatever reason it is superior to other brands.


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Myths and Moral guidlines

At first when I tried to think of some "myths" that I heard growing up I couldnt really think of any but now that I think of specific personal things my mom used to tell me rather than general ones that we all might have heard from comic books or children books, there is one that I think I heard more than once.

When my brother and I were young I guess you could say we went through a "phase" of calling for help with something or asking for something then just laughing it off by saying "oh nothing" or "nevermind".

My mom soon became sick of this little game and she told us the myth of "the boy who called wolf". From what I remember this story referred to a little boy who would constantly act like he was being chased by or saw a wolf and would yell out "WOLF!!" and of course anyone in the nearby area would come running to his aide.  Turns out he just liked to play this little joke on people, whether it was for attention or for whatever reason.  

After a few times of this people stopped coming to his "rescue" and the one time when he actually encountered a wolf and needed help nobody came to his aide when he yelled wolf. The boy was seen as a lier and people stopped believing him.

For me this meant to not joke around with serious problems and only ask for some one's help if you actually need it.  So if it was for something that I could easily deal with on my own then I shouldnt ask for someone else's help. And also I didnt want to be seen as liar or else no body would ever believe anything I had to say.

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Acceptance

After listening to the Rights of Passage Wiki today in class, I continued to think about any time in my life where i was tested or required to perform a certain act in order to be "accepted" or just looked at as a different person.

Since I didnt grow up in a religious household, I was never under any pressure to believe in any certain way of living. For example a jewish family celebrates a bar mitsvah for a boy on his fifteenth birthday. This is there way of "entering manhood" and starting to change from a boy to man.

But there is one way that I can think of where I was required to perform a task as a sort of right of passage.  That is back when I used to play team oriented sports.  For example, in order to play on the varsity team, I would be in a stage of liminality because I would have to leave the junior varsity team and try to make the varsity team. During this time I would be be performing certain tasks and tests that demonstrated my skills and showed that I was ready to play at a higher level.

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The differences in growing up

After watching the babies movie in class on wednesday, the one thing that really stood out to me was the amount of freedom the babies in Mongolia and Namibia had compared to the babies from San Francisco and Tokyo.

When I say "freedom" I am specifically looking at how each one of these babies were pretty much on their own as far as entertaining themselves and playing with others.  They could walk (or crawl) as far as they wanted outside and they didnt have special toys that were necessarily bought from a store.  The baby in Mongolia was always crawling around with the farm animals and playing with buckets of water.  And the baby in Namibia was playing with sticks in the dirt and splashing in the puddles and streams.

As for the babies in San Francisco and Tokyo, they were much more pampered and catered to as far as being entertained.  They were given toys to play with, they had books read to them, and their parents even took them to several really weird "mom-sibling" yoga type classes where they would sing and dance together with other mothers and their babies.

These to very different ways of growing up really shocked me.  It seemed to me that the two babies from Mongolia and Namibia were almost always having much more fun and laughing while they were playing. As the babies from San Francisco and Tokyo were always upset about something or bored with the stupid classes they were at (I specifically remember one baby trying to open the door and escape).

To me I would much rather be outside roaming around and playing in the mud and dirt with no worries.

Decision making

After listening to the decision making wikis last week, I have realized what type of decision maker I am when it comes to purchasing products.  I tend to make different decisions based on different products.

For most products that I purchase (the less expensive and not as drastic ones) my problem recognition is usually based off of my actual state being moved down.  I realize I need something when I am running out of it or I realize I dont have any left of a certain product.

My information search for these products is mostly an ongoing search.  I dont need to do research on the best type of peanut butter before I go to buy more.  But on the other hand, a more expensive buy such as a car or a nice pair of skis or even a snowmobile, I tend to do a large amount of prepurchase searching.  I put a lot more time into making sure I know what I want and I am buying the right one for the price.

When I have to decide between alternative brands I tend to go the cheaper route when it comes to small purchases such as food and stuff.  Although there are a few products out there that I am brand loyal to because of what my mom usually bought and I am used to them.  I always buy Tide laundry detergent for example.  Even though there are much cheaper generic brands out there.  As for being biased towards or against certain brands that are more expensive purchases, I have certain brands that I naturally gravitate towards due to past experience and also their good durable image.

conformity and norms

Along with fitting in with certain subcultures, I have found that my behaviors have had to change in order to just hang out with different groups of people.

Sometimes I have caught myself acting differently around certain people attempting to fit in to that particular subculture's "norms".

For me, it could have a lot to do with age cohorts but I have found myself acting differently when I am hanging out with groups of older people.  These older people arent just a few years older, Im talking like around the age of my parents.  I find myself being more mature, a lot quieter, and not as outgoing around this group. But of course this is more common when I first meet them or arent familiar with them.

After I get to know them I tend to warm up towards them and I can act as I normally would around some of my best friends who are closer to the same age as me.