Term Paper on "Family Decision-Making"

Quoted Instructions for "Family Decision-Making" Assignment:

suggest how marketers can use the results that you obtained to target consumer segments that share behavior traits with the two families you selected. Include examples, citations, and references to support your conclusions in the report. Be sure to format your report as per the current edition of the APA style manual.

Below is the research that I have done.

Family plays an integral role in influencing our purchasing behavior, as a child the choices are determined by parents based upon safety and need of child considerations. Similarly the child influences the decision making process related to whole family like color of family car etc.

The family purchasing decisions can be examined from four perspectives - Role Structure, Power Structure, Decision Making Stage and Family culture.

Role Structure

Like societies, families are also structured of roles and each family member occupied his or her role. For ex Gender role preferences reflect culturally determined attitudes toward the role of husband and wife, mother and father in the household. Perception of these roles based on gender affects the decision making process and household decision process.

Power Structure

There are various power structure which accordingly affect the decision making process in the family, for example in patriarchal societies man is the head of the family and makes most of the major decision while in the matriarchal society woman is the head of the family and makes all the major decision. While in equalitarian society both share equal decision making powers.

Decision Making Stage

Marketers today focused on understanding the whole buying stage rather than the final purchasing act. Each family member affects the purchasing behavior at different stages. For example when a family decides to buy a car, the women usually specify the needs accordingly man usually decides upon the model of the car based on technological competence while children play a very important role in deciding the color of the car.

Family Culture

Each family has different internal culture which influences its purchasing decision. These differences could be due to cultural background, social upbringing and family values. Most marketers today try to focus on few prominent cultures to segment the market.

Family 1

Single - Parent Family - one parent (most often the mother because in divorces they usually receive custody) and a child or children. The mother in this case is 46 with two children, one is 20 and the other is 16. The mother is a real-estate agent, the older child is in college and the other is a junior in high school.

How does the family make big-ticket purchases?

The family in this case makes the big ticket purchasing decisions based

entirely on what the mother feels is best for the family.

*****¢ Which products are bought solely based on individual decisions?

Products based solely on individual decisions would be personal items such as

toiletries and clothing.

*****¢ Which products are bought based only on group decisions?

The family makes group decisions on groceries, vacation times, dining out, and

movies.

*****¢ How, if at all, do children influence the purchase of products for family use?

The children have their own say in which products they use for personal effects

because they have an allowance for such expenses. As long as they do not

go over the allotted budget.

*****¢ How much control do parents have on the products bought for children*****s consumption?

The control the mother has over the products bought for consumption would

be based on the budget that she has given and trust in the fact that the kids are going to choose the products that are best for them. She is encouraging individuality.

Family 2

Adoptive Family - May be nuclear, single - parent, or blended. The child is not blood related to the parent, but has been adopted legally. In this case it is a mother 48, father 51, and an adopted 15 year old son. The mother works as a clinical psychologist and the father is an out of work electrician.

How does the family make big-ticket purchases?

For the main part the mother makes the decisions because she is the sole

bread winner. She has say in cars and other big ticket items. The father

always has the say in vacations.

*****¢ Which products are bought solely based on individual decisions?

Food products and toiletries. Seeing that the mother works, there

it not much time for cooking so each person usually fins for themselves

when it comes to food unless they are dining as a group.

*****¢ Which products are bought based only on group decisions?

Purchases that would be group decisions would be where to dine and

Items like televisions and stereo*****s.

*****¢ How, if at all, do children influence the purchase of products for family use?

The child would be an influence in the fact that he would be able to do

the research on products and provide the mother with the valuable information

on them therefore influencing the purchasing decision.

*****¢ How much control do parents have on the products bought for children*****s consumption?

There is really no control over what items are bought for the childs consumption.

One area where the mother had the say was on the video games for the Nintendo

that the family purchased.

What should be the strategy for consumer goods marketers? I would recommend the following.

Step I: Invest heavily (in terms of time, and some money) in getting a deeper understanding of the fundamental shifts in the economy (age- and income-profile of consumers across regions), and in consumers (demographic, social, educational, lifestyle, aspirational).

An understanding of the causes of the shifts (such as education, work profile, access to information, national and international exposure) is also essential.

Step II: Use this newly acquired knowledge to spot current (latent or overt) and emerging consumer needs, wants, and desires and then have a team (internal/external) brainstorm to put some estimates on the volume and value of potential spending from various sub-segments of consumers for these current or emerging business opportunities.

Step III: Go back to the drawing board to make a serious effort to come out with products or services that are "custom" designed for these specific sub/micro consumer segments with an objective to provide a cost- and time-effective solution for these unmet needs.

Adapting existing products may not yield the desired results, and just replacing one advertising film with another or tinkering with pricing may yield only temporary results.

Step IV: Devise the appropriate strategy to deliver highly personalised messages to small customer groups (or even individual customers, if so needed).

In the current context, multiple channels have to be used for communicating, including the print and electronic media, Internet, demonstration/user trials in high-target customer traffic areas, direct mailers, etc.

Marketing organizations must build internal competencies to understand the role technology can play in identifying such micro customer segments and the needs of these customers, as well as in communicating the marketers' message to the targeted segments.

Unfortunately, so far, most marketers have chosen highly intrusive and largely ineffective carpet-bombing tools such as the obnoxious cell phone-based tele-marketing, or paper/e-mail-based spamming.

It seems that very few companies realize the full potential of the Internet as an effective medium to build one-to-one relationships with potential and existing customers.

Much more can be done using this powerful channel, provided companies spend enough time to think through this innovatively and meticulously.

Works Cited

http://ezinearticles.com/?Consumer-Behavior-Family-Purchasing-Decisions-Making-Process&id=307532

http://www.hhs.wash.k12.ut.us/department/health/masters/ch5l1/type.htm

http://imdownloads.rediff.com/money/2004/oct/28guest2.htm

The paper should be written with these points in mind.

Described how the selected families make big-ticket purchases.

Identified the products that the families purchase based on individual decisions.

Identified the products that the families purchase based on group decisions.

Described how children affect the purchase of products in the two families.

Described the extent to which parents controlled the purchase of children*****s products.

Analyzed and presented the findings from the interviews as a report.

Described ways in which marketers can use the results obtained to target products to consumer segments that are similar to the two families.