Family and social class

Consumer Behavior

The changing family

Nuclear family
Extended family
Increase in the large number of working
women in India.
Fewer children or no child in a family
Husbands of working wives made fewer
decisions or a joint decisions

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THE CHANGING FAMILY

Married couple, the nuclear family and the
extended family.
There are many factors associated with how
family lifestyles are changing that impact on
family consumer behavior.
E.g about 55 % of career women who are 35 yrs
old are childless.
The Indian family or household has been
changing in size and composition especially in
urban areas, where the family is growing smaller
in size, with fewer children per family.
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Households
Family Households:
Married couple,
Nuclear family,
Extended family
Households
Nonfamily Households:
Unmarried couples,
Friends/ Roommates,
Boarders

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Socialization & related roles

of family members
Socialization of family members, ranging from
young children to adults is central family
function. In case of young children, this process
includes imparting to children the basic values
and modes of behavior consistent with culture.
This generally includes moral and religious
principles, interpersonal skills, dress, grooming
standards, appropriate manners and speech,
and the selection of suitable educational and
occupational career goals.
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 Parental socialization responsibility seems to be

constantly expanding, parents are anxious to
see their young children possess all qualities,
constant pressure to help their children secure
an advantage or keep ahead are demanding
daily schedules that rule the lives of many
children,
Such hectic schedules foster a concentration on
competition.
With the structured activities of today and with
the child constantly surrounded by media, there
is little opportunity for the child to explore his
world
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Contd..
Marketers are sensitive to the fact that the
socialization of young children provides
opportunity to establish a foundation on
which later experiences continue to build
throughout life.
These experiences are reinforced and
modified as the child grows into
adolescence, the teenage years and
eventually into childhood.
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Consumer
Socialization
of Children

The process by which

children acquire the
skills, knowledge, and
attitudes and
experience necessary
to function as
consumers.

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Consumer Socialization of
Children
Many children acquire their consumer behavior
norms through observation of their parents. Coshopping is when mother and child shop
together
Preadolescent children rely on their parents,
adolescents and teenagers are likely to look at
their friends for models of accepted behavior
Children perceive their families as a close and
reliable sources of information.

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Consumer Socialization of
Children
Shared shopping experiences also give
children the opportunity to acquire in-store
shopping skills. Co-shopping is when
mother and child shop together.
Consumer socialization of children has
other aspects when parents use promise
or reward as a device to modify or control
a childs behavior (Promise to buy
something or rewarding with chocolate /
gift)
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 A socialization agent is a person involved in the

socialization process. Mothers are considered to
be stronger consumer socialization agents than
their husbands, because they tend to be more
involved with their children and are more likely to
mediate their children's exposure to commercial
messages.
Mothers play important role.
Married daughters tend to follow the rituals and
buy the brands that their mothers used to do
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 Mother-daughter association in the

advertisement or mother-son association
impacts the buying behavior.
Brands that have used these linkages in the
Indian context are vicks, bournvita, complan,
dettol, knorr soups, pears soap, kent water
filter, clinic plus, Horlicks, Johnson & johnson,
pepsodent toothpaste.
The lady of the house is also seen to provide
care and comfort to her family e.g. suffola oil,
wheel detergent, Quaker Oats, Kellogs
Cornflakes
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Children growing up in the materialistic world

Children learn to attach importance to worldly
possession at an early age.
School age is when they become aware about
fashion and brand conscious and they incline
towards shopping.
Ridicule is a mechanism used by adolescents to
exchange information about what should and should
not be consumed. Ridicule is used to criticize the
peers who violate consumption norm.

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INTERGENERATIONAL SOCIALIZATION
Brand preferences are transferred from
one generation to another. It is a
intergenerational brand transfer.
Grandparents are influencers sometimes
for the choices
The preferences of a married daughter are
from her mother.

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A Simple Model of the Socialization Process

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Dynamics of Husband-Wife
Decision Making
Marketers are interested in the relative amount
of influence that a husband and a wife have
when it comes to family consumption choices.
The relative influence of husbands and wives
can be classified as
Husband dominated
wife dominated
Joint
autonomic
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Dynamics of Husband-Wife
Decision Making
The relative influence of a husband and
wife on a particular consumer decision
depends in part on the product category.
E.g automobile : HD
Financial decision making : WD or Joint
Household purchases : WD

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Eight Roles in the Family Decision-Making

Process
ROLE
Influencers

Gatekeepers
Deciders

Buyers

Preparers
Users

DESCRIPTION
Family member(s) who provide information to other members about a
product or service
Family member(s) who control the flow of information about a
product or service into the family
Family member(s) with the power to determine unilaterally or jointly
whether to shop for, purchase, use, consume, or dispose of a specific
product or service
Family member(s) who make the actual purchase of a particular
product or service
Family member(s) who transform the product into a form suitable for
consumption by other family members
Family member(s) who use or consume a particular product or service

Maintainers

Family member(s) who service or repair the product so that it will

provide continued satisfaction.

Disposers

Family member(s) who initiate or carry out the disposal or

discontinuation of a particular product or service
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The expanding role of children in family

decision making
Over the past several decades, there has been a trend
toward children playing a more active role in what the
family buys as well as in the family decision-making
process.
This shift in influence has occurred as a result of families
having fewer children, more dual-income couples who
permit their children to make a greater number of
choices, and encouragement of media to allow children
to express themselves.
Children are participating the buying for the products
generally which are a low involvement products
Single-parent child is pushed by parent to be self-reliant.
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 Research indicate that kids in

supermarkets with a parent make an
average of 15 requests, of which about
half are granted.
They take decisions for their clothes,
shoes, cinemas, CDs, soft drinks, holiday
trip, family car etc.

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Tactics used by children to Influence

their Parents
Pressure Tactics

The child makes demands, uses threats to persuade

you to comply with his/her request

Upward appeal

The child seeks to persuade, saying that the request was

approved or supported by an older member of the family

Exchange Tactics

The child makes an explicit or implicit promise to give you

some sort of service in turn of favor

Coalition Tactics

The child seeks the aid of other to persuade to comply with

his request or uses the support of others

Ingratiating Tactics The child seeks to get you in a good mood

Rational
Persuasion

The child uses logical arguments and factual evidence to

persuade to agree with his request

Inspirational
Appeals

The child makes an emotional appeal

Consultation
Tactics

The child seeks your involvement in making decision

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PESTER POWER
Advertisers have recognized the
importance of childrens pester power
and therefore encourage children to
pester their parents to purchase what
they see in ads.

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Family communications
impact
Research supported that the extent to which children
influence a familys purchase is related to the family
communication patterns.
Pluralistic parents (parents who encourage children to
speak up and express their preferences on purchase)
Consensual parents (parents who encourage to seek
harmony but not open their childrens viewpoint on
purchases.
Protective parents (parents who stress that children
should not stress their own preferences, but rather go
along parents judgment.
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The Family Life Cycle ( FLC)

FLC analysis enables marketers to
segment families in terms of a series of
stages spanning the life course of a family
unit.
FLC is composite variable created by
systematically combining such commonly
used demographic variables such as
marital status, size of family, age of family
members, and employment status of the
head of household.
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Traditional FLC
Stage I: Bachelorhood
Stage II: Honeymooners
Stage III: Parenthood / full-nest stage
Stage IV: Post parenthood or empty-nest
stage
Stage V: Dissolution

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Modification to FLC
Non- Traditional Family Life Cycle Stages
Family Households

Childless couples ( DINK)

Couples who married late
Couples who have first child at later stages
Single Parent
Extended Family

Non-Family Households

Unmarried couples
Divorced Persons
Single Persons
Widowed Persons
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Social Class

The division of
members of a society
into a hierarchy of
distinct status classes,
so that members of
each class have either
higher or lower status
than members of other
classes.

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Social class and social status

The social class is measured in terms of social
status.
Social status is the amount of status the members of
that class have in comparison with members of
other social classes.
In social-class research (also called social
stratification) status is frequently thought of as the
relative rankings of members of each social class in
terms of specific status factors.
While estimating the social class mainly relative
wealth, power and prestige factors are used for
while estimating social class.
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Social comparison theory

To secure an understanding of how status
operates within minds of consumers,
researchers have explored the idea of social
comparison theory.
According to this social psychological concept,
individuals quite normally compare their own
material possessions with those owned by
others in order to determine their relative social
standing.
Status is often associated with consumers
purchasing power
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 Researchers most often approach the actual

study of status in terms of one or more of the
following convenient demographic ( socioeconomic) variables
family income
Occupational status
Educational attainment
The socioeconomic variables, as expressions of
status are used by marketing practioners to
measure social class.

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Status Consumption
Consumers endeavor to increase their social standing
through consumption
Very important for luxury goods
Five question status consumption scale
1) I would buy a product just because it has status
2) I am interested in new products with status
3) I would pay more for a product of it had status
4) The status of a product is irrelevant to me
5) A product is more valuable to me if its giving value for
money.
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Social class is hierarchical and a form of

segmentation
Social-class categories are usually ranked in a
hierarchy, ranging from high to low status.
Thus members of specific social class perceive
members of other social classes as having either
more or less status than they do
Therefore social-class categories suggest that
others are either equal to them, superior to
them, or inferior to them.

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Contd..
The hierarchical aspect of social class is
important to marketers.
Consumers may purchase certain products
because these products are favored by
members of either their own or a higher social
class, & consumers may avoid other products
because they perceive the products to be
lower-class
Thus the various social-class strata provide a
natural basis for market segmentation for many
products and services.
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Social Class Measurement

Subjective and objective measures
1. Subjective measure
In individuals are asked to estimate their own
social-class positions
Which one of the following four categories best
describes your social status.
1)Lower class
2)Lower-middle class
3)Upper-middle class
4)Upper class
5)Do not know
It is based on the participants self-perceptions or
self-images.
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Objective measures
In contrast to the subjective methods, which
require people to envision their own standing or
that of other community members, objective
measure consist of selected demographic or
socioeconomic variables.
These variables are measured through
questionnaires that ask respondents several
factual questions about themselves, their
families, or their place of residence, occupation,
income education.
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Objective Measures
Single-variable
indexes

Occupation
Education
Income
Other Variables

Composite-variable
indexes
Index of Status
Characteristics
Socioeconomic
Status Score

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Index of Status
Characteristics
(ISC)

A composite
measure of social
class that combines
occupation, source
of income (not
amount), house
type/dwelling area
into a single
weighted index of
social class
standing.
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Socioeconomic
Status Score
(SES)

A multivariable social
class measure used by
the United States
Bureau of the Census
that combines
occupational status,
family income, and
educational attainment
into a single measure of
social class standing.

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Geodemographic
Clusters

A composite
segmentation
strategy that uses
both geographic
variables (zip codes,
neighborhoods) and
demographic
variables (e.g.,
income, occupation)
to identify target
markets.
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The Affluent Consumer

Especially attractive target to marketers
Growing number of households can be
classified as mass affluent with incomes
of at least $75,000
Some researchers are defining affluent to
include lifestyle and psychographic factors
in addition to income
Have different media habits than the
general population
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Most large
banks offer
private
banking
services to
their most
affluent
customers.
weblink

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Consumer behavior applications of

social class
Clothing, fashion and shopping
Saving, spending and credit
Social class and communication

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