This weeks lecture was aimed at looking how the family structure can effect the consumer's buying behaviour. The family is a group that we are always in contact with and because of this constant contact we generally adopt the same style of living as everyone else in the family. This makes family one of the most influential factors in the consumer's decision making. Now depending on your culture or where you are from there are different definitions of family structure:
- Nuclear Family: Seen as the most traditional of all the families it consists of Mother, Father and 1 or more children living under the same roof.
- Extended Family: Consists of the Nuclear Family plus other members such as Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles. However the extended family once used to be closely tied and the extra members would be there to help out with taking care of the children etc. The Modern Extended Family is made up of family members that are all spread apart across the country or countries.
- Family of Orientation: The Family of Orientation is the family that you are born into.
- Family of Procreation: The Family of Procreation is the family that is founded through Marriage.
However you can not go on the above definitions alone, this is because in recent times there has been significant changes in the types of family situations. For example:
- In the 2001 census for the UK there was 16,545,777 families of which 2,342,966 were single mother families. (www.statistics.gov.uk)
- In 1970 around 6% of births were within unmarried couples but in 2002 this grew to around 40% and has continued to increase in the last 7 years.
(Solomon et al. (2006) Consumer Behaviour, 3rd ed.)
Changes like this have opened up more markets for marketers and advertisers to venture into as each of the new types of families come with there own styles of living with specific wants and needs.
These wants and needs are all affected by the amount of people within the family, how many people earn within the family and what type of lifestyle they have. To better understand this we can look at Gruber and Wells 1960 Family Life Cycle:
Bachelor: A young and single person with very few commitments which means they have more disposable income.
Newly married: Still young, no children but increased commitments such as a mortgage. Usually 2 incomes.
Full Nest 1: Youngest child is under 6 meaning one has to care an only one income which means there is less disposable income.
Full Nest 2: Youngest child is over 6 meaning there can be 2 incomes again. However childcare and other debts mean that there is still not a lot of disposable income.
Full Nest 3: Older and married with dependant children but do not require child care, reduced debts. More disposable income.
Empty Nest 1: Older and married with no children and still 2 incomes, increased disposable income.
Empty Nest 2: Married and retired means reduced income as pension is only income source.
Solitary Survivor 1: In labour force and on there own, little disposable income.
Solitary Survivor 2: Retired and on there own with little disposable income.
So how do these 'stages' effect the Consumer's buying habits??
Well as you would expect and backed up by Solomon the different stages show "marked differences in consumption patterns." (Solomon et al. 2006) because of the different lifestyles each stage posses. For example; Bachelors and Newly Married stages will consist of people that, because they are young, will exercise regularly, go to pubs and clubs (spending more on alcohol than the other stages.), go out to the cinema and restaurants regularly. Compare this with say Full Nest 3 where the dependants are adolescent, this will mean that more junk food is consumed etc.
Below is a flowchart diagram of the Family Life Cycle to make it easier to understand.
Family Decision Making
The Family Decision Making process could be seen as a business-like understanding where, depending on the type of purchase, people put forward there reasons for/against the decision and there is a struggle for the power of making everyone agree with your decision and from this you have 2 types of decisions within the family unit that can be made, they are:
- Consensual Purchase Decision: This type of decision is where all the people within the unit agree on the purchase but they all differ on how to make it.... for example, the family is buying a car; they all agree on what car but then differ on how to pay for it.
- Accommodative Purchase Decision: This type of decision is the more common of the 2 as you will probably recognise as it is where the unit can not agree on a purchase that will satisfy the basic needs of all the people within the unit. This is where the power struggle is most apparent and contains a lot of compromising and bargaining.
The Accommodative Purchase Decision will always include some kind of conflict because as I have said, the unit cannot agree on a purchase decision. Now the factors below are what determine the degree of conflict within the decision process.
Interpersonal Need - This basically is how the level of involvement within the unit affects the decision. For example a child living at home will be more concerned about the type of wallpaper chosen compared to a child living in halls at uni.
Product Involvement & Utility - This is how/if the product will affect the member of the unit. For example one member is a heavy coffee drinker; they will care more about getting a new coffee machine than say a toaster.
Responsibility - Thinking about how the purchase will need to be maintained, paid for etc. For example the unit gets a dog.Who is going too feed it, walk it etc.
Power - This applies to how much influence on member within the unit has on the rest. Oldest child vs. Youngest or Husband vs. Wife.
Along with both the types of decisions and the factors influencing them each member within the Family Decision Making unit will have their own role. Identified by Field (1969) These roles consist of:
Discernment - This person has the technical know how about the purchase. For example when buying a new computer, the child may be more useful with selecting the appropriate specification to suit the families needs as they have grown up with the technology.
Price - The person who is going to pay for the purchase. For example Mom wont pay £110 for footie boots when you can get some for £29.99.
The User - Who will be the end user.
Below is a diagram of how the different members of the unit influence different types of decisions.
As you can see the Husband will be the influencer in decisions of mechanical and technical purchases where as the wife will look after the finances and all the general purchases (Household products, clothes etc).
The next image below shows a more interesting view as it includes the child as an equal decision maker. This is a very interesting subject and will be covered in a later blog but for now look at this.
Here Taylor Nelson Sofres understands that the child is also a very strong influential power within decisions. A lot of this is because they are more susceptible to advertising as they would watch more TV than their parents so have more knowledge of old, current and new products.
Another thing to understand is the way the roles change within Kotler's Decision Making Process. If marketers understand this they can then decide which person will overall be the most influential. Generally the Problem Recognition stage would be made jointly, then depending on what type of purchase it is the Information Search would then be done by any one of the member of the unit but ultimately the Final Decision stage will be completed jointly; however if you can influence the person who completed the information search and make then think that your product is the only way forward then you have a very good chance of influencing the final decision.