MKT201 Consumer Behavior: Impact of Personality on Buying Behavior

This essay explores the multifaceted influence of consumer personality on buying behavior, examining factors such as age, lifestyle, personality traits, occupation, and income. It delves into how these elements shape consumer preferences and purchasing decisions, providing examples to illustrate the impact. Furthermore, the essay discusses how understanding consumer behavior aids marketers in designing effective marketing mix strategies, focusing on the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). It highlights the importance of aligning product development with consumer needs and preferences, using Nike as a case study to demonstrate how companies can leverage consumer insights to create successful marketing strategies and enhance sales. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide array of study resources for students.

Running Head: Marketing Consumer Behavior
Marketing Consumer Behavior

Marketing Consumer Behavior 1
Contents
Question 1: Consumer personality affecting the buying behavior...............................................................1
Question 2: Consumer behavior and marketing mix strategies...................................................................4
References...................................................................................................................................................6

Marketing Consumer Behavior 2
Question 1: Consumer personality affecting the buying behavior
The buyer behavior of consumer gets affected with many factors present in the environment. One
of them is the personality of person that influences them from purchasing certain products in the
environment. The personality of a person might restrict them or convince them for buying a
particular product in the market. Certain aspects related to personality and how they affect the
buying behavior is discussed below:
 Age: It should be noted that people have their personality changing with their age. For
instance, in childhood all people used to like chocolate and candies but gradually after
getting elder they start not liking the sweet taste of these chocolates. This is a change in
the buying behavior of an individual due to change in their age. Thus, it should be noted
that age of a person is an important aspect influence their behavior to purchase that
product. In addition, the organizations selling their products in the market also targets a
particular segment in the market whom their believe are the actual buyers and will surely
initiate sales for the company (Lu, Chang, and Chang 2015). Like, a chocolate
manufacturing company never targets people of elder age limit as 45-55 as they know
that these people do not prefer buying their products. Instead, they target people of age
group 5-20 years and 25-35 years whom they know will actually initiate sales in the
market. Further, it should be noted that which the change in life cycle the personality of
people also changes which instigate their choice and preference and make them purchase
products that they never liked before (Randhawa, Calantone, and Voorhees 2015).
 Lifestyle: The lifestyle of a person is merely the reflection of their personalities and self-
concept. It is also said that if you want to know about the personality of a person then
look for their lifestyle, you can easily get to know about them. Lifestyle is basically a
person’s model of living as identified by their activities, opinions and interests. There is a
way that determines the lifestyle of a person and their preference towards certain
products. The organization uses the segmentation process to identify the choice of
customers present in the environment (Olsen, Tudoran, Honkanen, and Verplanken
2016). Taking an example of the customer lifestyle, it should be noted that people having
high class lifestyle prefer products that have high prices and are luxurious. They do not

Marketing Consumer Behavior 3
buy products that are present at nominal rates in retail market. They always purchase
products that depicts the type of their lifestyle and give a way in which people can show
off their lifestyle. Like, Audi, Mercedes Benz is some of the products that are offered to
people of high class lifestyle as they will take interest in these products and purchase
them. If, these products are offered to low or middle class people then the organization
will not gain any output as these people do not have a luxurious lifestyle nor they want to
show off it to any other person (Bock, Eastman, and Eastman 2016).
 Personality: The preference of a person depends upon their taste and personality. The
preference of a person to purchase certain products depends on their taste and their
personality traits. Personality is the sum total of an individual’s enduring internal
psychological traits that makes then unique. Autonomy, shy, dominance, self-confidence,
defensive etc. are some of the personality traits present in people. These characteristic
present in a person affect them from taking any buying decision present in the
environment. For instance, there is person who has a personality of getting influence with
the opinion of other people (Hudson, Huang, Roth, and Madden 2016). Once, he saw an
advertisement on television about certain product, knowing the fact that product was not
good for their health that person purchased that product. So, it should be noted that the
personality of a person strongly influence their buying behavior like in the above case, if
that person didn’t had the personality of getting influenced with other people then they
might not purchase that product as well. This is one of the biggest reason due to which
companies hire famous personalities to promote their product in the market because they
know that people will get influenced with them and purchase the products (Fagerstrøm,
et. al., 2017).
 Occupation and income: occupation and income is one strong reason that influence
people from purchasing certain products. Based on the income and occupation only
people purchase the products in the market. Like, a person with low income in hand will
not go on purchasing high range products in the market but they will purchase products
lying in their income level (Banerjee 2016). Further, talking about occupation, it should
be noted that all people like maintain their status in the environment. Based on their
status level they purchase products in the market. Taking an example of an architect, this
person is having high status in the market. Assuming their nature it should be noted that

Marketing Consumer Behavior 4
this person will buy products that make their home look different from others because
they want to maintain their status and do things that reflect their occupation as well
(Tomczak, Reinecke, and Kuss 2018).

Marketing Consumer Behavior 5
Question 2: Consumer behavior and marketing mix strategies
As discussed above, the marketers segment the market and target the customers with the use of
customer behavior information attained with them. Thu, it should be noted that the consumer
behavior strongly helps marketers to design the marketing strategy. The ultimate goal of making
all these marketing strategies is to attract the target customers present in the market and initiate
sales as well, so sales can be only initiated when the company the right type of customer and
provide right specification to them in the market as well. Study of consumer behavior will
adequately help to implement and amend strategies that help the company to succeed in their
objectives as well. The marketing mix strategies gives information about 4P’s of the company
that are product, price, place and promotion (Shank, and Lyberger 2014).
Further, it should be noted that the study of consumer behavior would help the marketers to
analyze the market demand on the basis of which shall initiate the marketing strategies to
influence sales. The strategic decisions get influenced with the changing behavior of consumers
present in the environment. Furthermore, it should be noted that this study would not help the
marketer to analyze attributes and increase sales but also create goodwill of the company in the
target market as well. Relating to single aspect of marketing mix that is ‘product’, it should be
noted that the product is something that is the face of the company that is being offered in the
market (Babin, and Zikmund 2015). On the basis of satisfaction received from the products and
services, the customer creates an image about the company in market. It is an important aspect
that should be aligned with the interest of consumers so as to initiate sales in the market. The
organizations present in the environment should create their products and services in such a way
that maximum level of satisfaction is attained to customers in the target market. Now this
satisfaction can only be increased if the expectation and results of products and services are same
in the market. If the customer will expect something and get something else then the will not
initiate repeated sales of product in the market (Davari, and Strutton 2014).
Relating it to consumer behavior, it should be noted that if the company finds in their analysis
that customer for shoes present in the market are of age group 20-35 years, then they will provide
specifications in the product accordingly. The looking at the personality aspect, if the target
customers likes hiking, trekking etc. activities then the company should use thick sole so that it

Marketing Consumer Behavior 6
becomes easy for them to run and perform other outdoor activities (Schivinski, and Dabrowski
2016).
For instance, taking an example of the company ‘NIKE’, the marketers of the company found
out that the maximum customers present in the market are athletes or loves running. Therefore,
they innovated their products and services accordingly, they designed the products is such a way
that they assist the runners in speeding up their performance and running without feeling burden
of shoes. NIKE also included outer specifications in their product that attracted the customers
who wish to buy sports shoes. Further, the company developed products differently according to
the demand of customers present in the market (Funk, Alexandris, and McDonald 2016). They
created thick as well as thin sole shoes according to their preference. The preference, lifestyle
and occupation of the customer took a major role in determining the type and quality product
served in the market NIKE. The company identified the taste of the customers and lifestyle
through which they got to know about their athletic taste on the basis of which they added
specifications in their products and exceled in the target market (Aguirre, et. al., 2015). Thus, in
this way consumer behavior helps marketers in initiating the marketing mix strategies to increase
sales of the products in the market.

Marketing Consumer Behavior 7
References
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Babin, B.J. and Zikmund, W.G., 2015. Exploring marketing research. Cengage Learning.
Banerjee, S., 2016. Influence of consumer personality, brand personality, and corporate
personality on brand preference: An empirical investigation of interaction effect. Asia Pacific
Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 28(2), pp.198-216.
Bock, D.E., Eastman, J.K. and Eastman, K.L., 2016. Encouraging consumer charitable behavior:
The impact of charitable motivations, gratitude, and materialism. Journal of Business Ethics,
pp.1-16.
Davari, A. and Strutton, D., 2014. Marketing mix strategies for closing the gap between green
consumers' pro-environmental beliefs and behaviors. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 22(7),
pp.563-586.
Fagerstrøm, A., Pawar, S., Sigurdsson, V., Foxall, G.R. and Yani-de-Soriano, M., 2017. That
personal profile image might jeopardize your rental opportunity! On the relative impact of the
seller's facial expressions upon buying behavior on Airbnb™. Computers in Human
Behavior, 72, pp.123-131.
Funk, D., Alexandris, K. and McDonald, H., 2016. Sport consumer behaviour: Marketing
strategies. Routledge.
Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S. and Madden, T.J., 2016. The influence of social media
interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and
marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.
Lu, L.C., Chang, H.H. and Chang, A., 2015. Consumer personality and green buying intention:
The mediate role of consumer ethical beliefs. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(1), pp.205-219.

Marketing Consumer Behavior 8
Olsen, S.O., Tudoran, A.A., Honkanen, P. and Verplanken, B., 2016. Differences and
Similarities between Impulse Buying and Variety Seeking: A Personality‐based
Perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 33(1), pp.36-47.
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Schivinski, B. and Dabrowski, D., 2016. The effect of social media communication on consumer
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Shank, M.D. and Lyberger, M.R., 2014. Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.
Tomczak, T., Reinecke, S. and Kuss, A., 2018. Introduction. In Strategic Marketing (pp. 1-18).
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