Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

children – and more importantly than the individual’s sisters and
mother. These reference groups influenced their subsequent behaviour
in terms of length of stay and treatment (Tinson, 1998). This also
underlines the power of one key reference group, the family.
● Family: The family is a key group not only because it is a primary ref-
erence group but also because it is the group within which individual
purchasing behaviour is socialised. Attitudes and beliefs in general
and patterns of purchasing behaviour in particular are all learnt
initially from the family into which an individual is born and raised
(the family of orientation).

Once individual’s start to have their own children they set up their own
family unit (family of procreation). This developing family group also
exerts an influence on the behaviour of individual’s. There are moreover
purchasing decisions that are taken by the household as a unit which
reinforce the family as a key primary reference group.

Personal influences

An individual’s personal attributes will have an influence on their purchas-
ing behaviour. Factors such as the individual’s age, occupation and financial

Segmentation 53

Japanese model Indian model

US model Scandinavian model

Latin American model

Figure 4.2

Examples of social

class profiles in

different cultures

(Source: De Mooij

and Keegan, 1991)