Consumer Behavior - The Changing Household
What does it mean to my business?

How do Households Influence Your Company’s Consumers?
Could your company be affected by any stereotypes about households?
  Women shop for food, take care of children, …
`  Men fix things, buy hardware supplies, buy cars. . . .
  Are these assumptions true?

Who makes decisions about the products you sell?
Who makes decisions about remodeling? Home repair?

How do changes in households affect your business?  How would it affect the way people buy furniture?  Computers?  Televisions?
 

What is the Difference Between Families and Households?
A family is a group of two or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption who reside together.
Family of Orientation or Nuclear – family in which you were born
Extended Family – relatives who do not live with you
Conjugal or family of procreation – family you form
A household consists of all persons, related and unrelated, who occupy a housing unit.
Some definitions include household pets
 

Which TV shows reflect today’s households?

What else?
 

Demographers note:
Changing household demographics (trends) influence consumption patterns:
Lower birth rates have led to smaller families
People are marrying later or are not marrying at all
Many people are deferring childbirth
Many couples decide not to have children
High first marriage and even higher second marriage divorce rates
 

Economic Impact on Households
Two-income families
In 1999, 65 million women were in the work force
Career women and “just-a-job” women
Which businesses does this affect?
Prepared meals, childcare, leisure time, …

Single women heading families
In 1998, 13 million single-parent families in the U.S. headed by women
Which businesses does this affect?
 

Roles must be considered
Initiator: who recognizes the problem?
Influencer:  individual whose opinions are sought about purchase criteria and which brands fit those criteria
Decider: person with financial authority to choose how family money is spent
Buyer: person who actually buys goods
User: person(s) who uses the product
Gatekeeper:  control of info
Preparer: who actually gets the product ready to use
Disposer: who throws away what’s left
 

Cycle Dog Food Example – these roles were studied in developing the product
Initiator – who sees that we are out of dog food!
Gatekeeper – female household head – consid. set
Influencer – veterinarian – dog must lose weight
Decider – actual owner in household
Buyer – send teenager to the store
Preparer – teenager must feed dog as chore
User – dog, will the dog eat it? Get sick?
Disposer – who cleans up uneaten dog food, messy?
 

Family Lifecycle and Consumption Patterns
Young singles
Newlyweds
Young couples without children
Married couples with children
Households with teenagers
Mature couples
 

Who is missing in this typology?
 

Family (Household) Life Cycle

Changes in Household Composition
Household head - who is it??? Is there just one???

Sandwich generation - emerging unmet needs- e.g. need for care for elderly – impact on housing market and remodeling

Boomerang kids – adult children living at home

Are traditional marital roles a wise assumption within the US market today?
 

Gender Role Impact

How are Buying Roles Changing in Households

Changing intergenerational influence
Purchasing power of younger children

Changing gender roles - what do men do today that was traditionally “women’s work”?  What do women do today that was “men’s work”?
What new roles are children taking on?
 

How Does the Changing US Household Impact marketing?
 

Who controls household decisions?
Issues on which spouse has influence”  Autonomic (either), husband dominant, wife dominant, joint (syncratic)

This analysis is from a set of diagrams that depict how the influence changes as the household moves through steps in the decision process
This shows that the person who initiates the search may or may not be the final decision maker

Who recognized the problem?
Who searched for alternatives?
Who made the actual purchase?
 

Now consider your business. . .
Which part of the decisions to patronize your firm involve husbands, wives, or both?

E.g. who selects which Cable programs to buy? Which cell provider to use?

How do roles vary in buying homes?
 

Sources of Power in Household Marketplace Decisions
The power to make decisions in a household may come in a number of ways:
Power may be earned
A person may take the power
Power is simply given to one of the members
Society says so
Marketplace value (the person who brings in the dough!) can be the source of power.

Decisions Influenced by Children
Children influence family decision to an alarming degree
Children between the ages of 4 and 12 influence buying decisions to the tune of $70 billion a year ($6 billion in allowances per year)
Children plead, whine, and bargain with their parents to get what they want