Marketing

Possibly the most challenging concept in marketing deals with understanding why buyers do what they do (or don’t do). But such knowledge is critical for marketers since having a strong understanding of buyer behavior will help shed light on what is important to the customer and also suggest the important influences on customer decision-making. Using this information, marketers can create marketing programs that they believe will be of interest to customers.

As you might guess, factors affecting how customers make decisions are extremely complex. Buyer behavior is deeply rooted in psychology with dashes of sociology thrown in just to make things more interesting. Since every person in the world is different, it is impossible to have simple rules that explain how buying decisions are made.

Black or African-American Subculture

• A common heritage

• More than 36 million consumers in US

• Younger with very high numbers living in cities

• 1999 earnings: $491 billion

• 1999 purchases: $207 billion (ninth largest economy in the world)

• Approximately 28% of families had an annual income of $50,000 or more in 1999

• The group is very diverse

 Marketing to African-Americans

African-American consumers expect respect within the marketplace and must feel a sense of acceptance, BUT

• Under-representation and token appearances in advertising

• Inappropriate product development:  e.g. lag in toys, dolls, other role model icons, cosmetics

How to identify genuine needs and wants? Go back to cultural universals

Foods - based on learned cultural norms

Clothing - styles and colors that are preferred

Physiologically-relevant:  cosmetics

Black Subculture

A high proportion of families are headed by women

Black women influence many purchases that might otherwise be purchased by men

Advertising often appeals to the strength black women portray in life

Often unavailability of shopping areas in neighborhoods causes great...