How and Why Consumers Buy 91
Another shift in buying patterns is an increase in the amount of money spent
and influence wielded by children and teens.^8 Children age 4 to 12 spend an esti-
mated $24.4 billion annually—three times the value of the ready-to-eat cereal market.
Indirect influence means that parents know the brands, product choices, and prefer-
ences of their children without hints or outright requests; direct influence refers to
children’s hints, requests, and demands.
Because the fastest route to Mom and Dad’s wallets may be through Junior, many
successful companies are showing off their products to children—and soliciting mar-
keting information from them—over the Internet. This has consumer groups and par-
ents up in arms. Many marketers have come under fire for not requiring parental con-
sent when requesting personal information and not clearly differentiating ads from
games or entertainment.
One company that uses ethical tactics to market to children is Disney, which
operates the popular children’s site Disney Online. Disney clearly states its on-line
policies on its home page and on the home pages of its other sites, including Disney’s
Daily Blast, a subscription-based Internet service geared to children age 3 to 12.
Disney’s on-line practices include alerting parents through e-mail when a child has
submitted personal information to a Web site, whether it be to enter a contest, cast a
vote, or register at a site. Whereas many sites and advertisers use “cookies,” tiny bits of
data that a Web site puts on a user’s computer to enhance his or her visit, Disney does
not use cookies for promotional or marketing purposes and does not share them with
third parties.^9
Roles and Statuses
A person participates in many groups, such as family, clubs, or organizations. The per-
son’s position in each group can be defined in terms of role and status. A role consists
of the activities that a person is expected to perform. Each role carries a status.A
Supreme Court justice has more status than a sales manager, and a sales manager has
more status than an administrative assistant. In general, people choose products that
communicate their role and status in society. Thus, company presidents often drive
Mercedes, wear expensive suits, and drink Chivas Regal scotch. Savvy marketers are
aware of the status symbolpotential of products and brands.
Personal Factors Influencing Buyer Behavior
Cultural and social factors are just two of the four major factors that influence con-
sumer buying behavior. The third factor is personal characteristics, including the
buyer’s age, stage in the life cycle, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, per-
sonality, and self-concept.
Age and Stage in the Life Cycle
People buy different goods and services over a lifetime. They eat baby food in the early
years, most foods in the growing and mature years, and special diets in the later years.
Taste in clothes, furniture, and recreation is also age-related, which is why smart mar-
keters are attentive to the influence of age.
Similarly, consumption is shaped by the family life cycle.The traditional family life
cycle covers stages in adult lives, starting with independence from parents and contin-
uing into marriage, child-rearing, empty-nest years, retirement, and later life.
Marketers often choose a specific group from this traditional life-cycle as their target
market. Yet target households are not always family based: There are also single
households, gay households, and cohabitor households.
Some recent research has identified psychological life-cycle stages.Adults experi-
ence certain “passages” or “transformations” as they go through life.^10 Leading mar-