What Are Cultural Factors Affecting Consumer Behaviour

Cultural Factors

Cultural factors exert a broad and deep influence on consumer behaviour. Marketers must to understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture and social class.

i. Culture

A person’s culture is represented by a large group of people with a similar heritage. The American culture, which is a subset of the Western culture, is of primary interest here. Traditional American culture values include achievement, hard work, security, hard work, thrift and the like. Marketing strategies targeted to those with such a cultural heritage should show the service and product as reinforcing these traditional values. The three components of culture are included values, beliefts and customs-are each somewhat different. Values are general

The best-known classification system includes upper-upper, lower-upper, upper-middle, lower-middle, upper-lower, and lower-lower class. Lower-middle and upper-lower classes comprise the mass market. The upper-upper class and lower-upper class consist of people from wealthy families who are locally prominent. They tend to live in large homes furnished with art and antiques. They are the primary market for rare jewelry and designer originals, tending to shop at exclusive retails. The upper-middle class is made up of professionals, managers, and business owners. The are ambitious, future-oriented people who have succeeded economically and now seek to enhance their quality of life. Material goods often take on major symbolic meaning for this group. They also tend to be very civic-minded and are involved in many worthy causes. The lower-middle class consists of mid-level white-collar workers. These are teachers, officer, small business people and the like who typically hold strong American values. They are hard-working individuals and family-oriented. The upper lower class is made up of blue-collar workers such as service people and production line workers. Many have incomes that exceed those of the lower-middle class, but their value is often very different. They tend to adopt a short-run,

A consumer may use, purchase and dispose of product. Nevertheless, different people may perform these functions. Also, consumers may be thought of as role platers who need different products to help them play their various parts.

Finally, consumers may take the form of groups. One or several persons may make the decisions involved in purchasing products that will be used by many, as when an individual buys a plasma television set that is watched by all household member. The family is an important group, and different family members play pivotal roles in marketing decisions about services and products used by