Exam 14: Consumer Decision Making and Diffusion of Innovations

A ________ is the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices.

All consumer decision-making situations require the same degree of information search.

________ begins when a consumer perceives a need that might be satisfied by the purchase and consumption of a product.

In cases of ________, consumers have already established the basic criteria for evaluating the product category and the various brands in the category, but have not fully established preferences concerning a select group of brands.

Within the context of the model of consumer decision making, the marketing mix activities of organizations and non-marketing sociocultural influences are the chief ________ factors.

Within the context of the model of consumer decision making, a firm's ________ activities are a direct attempt to reach, inform, and persuade consumers to buy and use its products.

$\text{GIFT MINI CASE:}$ Winston needs to buy his girlfriend, Vanessa, a gift for her birthday. He knows she will expect the "perfect" gift. He feels like boyfriends are "supposed" to get their girlfriends jewelry or perfume. His older sister recommends a necklace or earrings. While he's at the jewelry store, he also buys a watch for himself, rationalizing that he hardly ever buys stuff for himself and he "deserves it." -In the GIFT MINI CASE, when Winston gives Vanessa a gift for her birthday, this is known as ________.

Past experience is considered an external source of information. The greater the relevant past experience, the less internal information the consumer is likely to need to reach a decision.

Which of the following is NOT a factor that increases prepurchase search?

A product like Advil is usually purchased using an extensive problem-solving decision-making process.

The ________ consists of brands the consumer is indifferent toward because they are perceived as not having any particular advantages.

Digital cameras and digital video recorders were somewhat disruptive to consumers, but did not change the basic behavior patterns established with photography and film. These are best described as ________.

Custom Interiors, an interior design firm, sends a holiday basket of Florida citrus fruit to its accounting firm. This is an example of ________.

$\text{COLLEGE MINI CASE:}$ Evelyn is a high-school senior from Philadelphia looking to apply to colleges. She has decided to apply to the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, and Princeton. She chose not to apply to Brown, Dartmouth, or Yale because she considers them to be too far away from home. A college counselor had suggested to her that Columbia has a comparable reputation to the schools Evelyn was considering, but Evelyn didn't perceive Columbia as having any particular advantage over the schools to which she had already decided to apply. She is eventually accepted to, and decides to attend Cornell University. Upon arriving on campus, Evelyn immediately notices a deliberate effort on the part of the college to make new students not only feel at home, but that they have absolutely made the right decision in attending Cornell. -In the COLLEGE MINI CASE, Columbia is part of Evelyn's ________.

In cases of ________, consumers have experience with the product category and a well-established set of criteria with which to evaluate the brands they are considering.

Barry buys a necklace as a gift for his girlfriend. This is an example of ________.

Consumers often develop shortcut decision rules to facilitate the decision-making process and to cope with ________.

A gift given to a romantic other involves lower emotional expectation than a gift given to a friend.

Karen is buying a new laptop. She is looking for a light-weight computer. The laptop she purchases is a little heavier than she had originally hoped, but she was willing to accept the extra weight for a computer with a bigger, clearer screen. Karen made her purchase decision using a(n)________.

Beth is tired of carrying around a cumbersome CD player and a heavy collection of CDs so she can listen to her music on-the-go, and so has decided to convert her CD music collection to MP3 and buy an iPod. This is an example of ________ need recognition.