Week 10
Consumer Behavior · Davood Wadi, PhD
Consumers rarely choose alone. Other people, and now AI assistants, shape what they buy.
Consumers look to other people for information, approval, and a sense of identity.
A teenager chooses sneakers that friends will admire.
A new parent asks other parents which stroller to buy.
Social influence is strongest for products that others can see, such as clothing, cars, and phones.
Social influence is weaker for private products, such as toothpaste or a mattress.
Marketers use social influence when they show real customers, popular choices, and recommendations from trusted people.
A reference group is a person or group whose values and behavior a consumer uses as a guide.
A membership group is a group the consumer already belongs to, such as family, classmates, or a sports team.
An aspirational group is a group the consumer wants to join, such as successful professionals or elite athletes.
A dissociative group is a group the consumer wants to avoid being associated with.
Consumers buy products that signal membership in the groups they value and avoid products linked with groups they reject.
For each consumer, which kind of reference group is guiding the choice? Sort the cards.
Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.
Reference groups influence consumers in three ways (Park & Lessig, 1977).
Informational influence occurs when a consumer seeks advice from people with expertise, such as asking a friend who works in IT which laptop to buy.
Utilitarian influence occurs when a consumer conforms to gain rewards or avoid disapproval, such as dressing to meet the expectations of coworkers.
Value-expressive influence occurs when a consumer buys a product to express a desired identity, such as buying the brand that athletes wear.
Each consumer is influenced by a reference group. Name the type of influence.
She seeks advice from someone with expertise.
He conforms to avoid the guests' disapproval.
The product expresses an identity she desires.
He relies on the knowledge of an expert.
She conforms to gain approval at work.
He buys the brand to express the identity he wants.
Which concept does this case show?
Conformity is a change in beliefs or behavior in response to real or imagined group pressure.
In classic experiments, many people gave an obviously wrong answer when everyone else in the room gave it first (Asch, 1956).
Consumers conform to norms, the informal rules about what is appropriate in a group.
Conformity is stronger when the group is cohesive, when the consumer is uncertain, and when the choice is public.
Labels such as "bestseller" and "most popular" use conformity by showing what other consumers chose.
Social power is the capacity to change the actions of others (French & Raven, 1959).
Referent power comes from admiration. Consumers imitate people they like and identify with, such as a favorite athlete.
Legitimate power comes from a recognized position or role, such as a police officer or a teacher.
Expert power comes from knowledge or skill, such as a dermatologist recommending a sunscreen.
Reward power comes from the ability to give something valued, such as praise, a discount, or a prize.
Coercive power comes from the ability to punish, such as social exclusion or a fine.
Match each base of social power with the source that uses it.
Base of power
Source
Tap a term, then the example it goes with.
Consumers now ask AI assistants which product to buy, much as they would ask a knowledgeable friend.
Many consumers attribute expert power to these assistants, because the answers are fluent, detailed, and fast.
This attributed expertise gives the assistant influence over the consideration set and the final choice.
Expert power depends on actual knowledge. An AI assistant can state wrong facts with the same confidence as correct ones.
Expert power also depends on independence. Consumers trust a human expert less when the expert is paid to recommend a product. The same question applies to an AI assistant: consumers need to know whether the platform that runs it profits from what it recommends.
Jade asks a shopping site's AI assistant which blender to buy. It answers quickly, in fluent detail, and recommends three models sold on that site. What should Jade check before she treats it as an expert?
Word of mouth (WOM) is product information passed from one consumer to another. WOM is more credible than advertising, because the speaker usually has no financial interest in the sale.
Negative WOM carries more weight than positive WOM. Consumers pay more attention to a complaint than to praise.
Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) includes online reviews, ratings, forum posts, and social media comments.
An opinion leader is a person who frequently influences the attitudes and behavior of others in a product category. Opinion leaders are knowledgeable, involved in the category, and socially active. Their influence is usually limited to one category, such as fashion or technology.
A market maven has broad information about many kinds of products and places to shop, and likes to share it (Feick & Price, 1987).
Each person passes on product information to others. Is the person an opinion leader or a market maven?
His influence is limited to one category he is involved in.
She has broad information about many products and places to shop, and likes to share it.
She frequently influences others in one product category.
His knowledge spans many kinds of products and places to shop.
His influence stays within one category, technology for gaming.
She shares broad information about many products.
Which concept does this case show?
Many shopping sites now show a short summary of a product's reviews, written by AI.
Consumers may read the summary instead of the reviews themselves. The summary then becomes a new source of word of mouth.
A summary reflects the reviews it draws on. If many of those reviews were written in return for a reward, the summary carries the same influence.
AI also makes it easy to write synthetic reviews: reviews that look genuine but were not written by real customers. Synthetic reviews weaken the credibility that makes word of mouth powerful.
In 2024, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission adopted a rule that bans fake reviews, including reviews attributed to people who do not exist, such as reviews generated by AI.
AI agents that shop for consumers also read reviews. A fake review can therefore mislead the consumer and the agent at the same time.
A seller offers buyers a free gift for every five-star review, and the site's AI summary now reads "Customers love it." A shopper and her AI agent both rely on that summary. What follows?
An influencer is a person who has built an audience on social media and promotes products to it.
Macro-influencers have large audiences. Micro-influencers have smaller audiences but often higher engagement and trust.
Followers can form a parasocial relationship with an influencer: a one-sided feeling of friendship with someone they have never met.
A virtual influencer is a computer-generated character that posts and promotes products like a human influencer, such as Lil Miquela. A virtual influencer has no lived experience of the product it promotes, which raises questions about its credibility and honesty.
Online communities, such as brand forums and fan groups, act as social proof. Members see how others use a product and adopt the group's norms.
Paid endorsements must be disclosed, so that followers can judge the message as advertising.
Name the idea each situation shows.
A smaller audience, but high engagement and trust.
A very large audience.
A computer-generated character that promotes products like a human influencer.
A one-sided feeling of friendship with someone she has never met.
Members see how others use the product and adopt the group's norms: social proof.
A small audience with high engagement and trust.
An online community acting as social proof.
Which concept does this case show?
Think of a recent purchase. Which person, group, influencer, or AI assistant influenced it? Which base of social power did that source have over you?