Essay About Overview Of Consumer Decision Making And Aspects Of The History Of Consumer Research

Marketing Strategy
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mix. This entry primarily seeks to give an overview of consumer decision making
and show how those concepts listed above may be integrated to give an understanding
of the role they play in explaining decision processes of consumers.However,
before considering that material in detail, it is useful to reflect on some
aspects of the history of consumer research in marketing in order to appreciate the
variety of approaches and the overall complexity of the subject. This historical review
is not intended as a comprehensive treatise on the development of consumer
behaviour but rather a framework to understand how the subject has arrived at its
current status and content. It also helps to provide a platform from which to consider
future developments in consumer behaviour later in the entry.
1 The development of consumer behaviour research
Reflecting on the literature in consumer behaviour allied closely to marketing, it
is possible to discern three approximate phases of development:
* a segmentation era, primarily associated with work before the mid-1960s;
* a period from the mid-1960s through to the end of the 1970s which was dominated
by the development of knowledge on consumer decision making;
* a period of diversification and enrichment in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1950s and through to the mid-1960s much of consumer behaviour research
involved the evaluation of consumer characteristics for market segmentation. It
was at this time that consumer behaviour researchers investigated the application
of personality theories and classifications of motives taken from psychology,
and the family life-cycle and social class taken from sociology. These were
applied with very different degrees of success in cross-sectional studies of markets
in order to explain variations in consumer demand for many different classes
of products, and also for different choices of brands. Important contributions
from this period, which are illustrative of some of the research and are still commonly
referred