Decision Making and Brand Choice by Older Consumers

Market Lett DOI 10.1007/s11002-008-9058-x

Decision making and brand choice by older consumers

Catherine Cole & Gilles Laurent & Aimee Drolet & Jane Ebert & Angela Gutchess & Raphaëlle Lambert-Pandraud & Etienne Mullet & Michael I. Norton & Ellen Peters

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract Older adults constitute a rapidly growing demographic segment, but stereotypes persist about their consumer behavior. The goal of this review was to develop a more considered understanding of age-associated changes in consumer decision making. Our theoretical model suggests that age-associated changes in cognition, affect, and goals interact to make older consumers’ decision-making processes, brand choices, and habits different from those of younger adults. We first review literature on stereotypes about the elderly and then turn to an analysis of age

C. Cole (*) Department of Marketing (Henry B. Tippie College of Business), University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA e-mail: cathy-cole@uiowa.edu G. Laurent Department of Marketing, HEC Paris, Paris, France A. Drolet Department of Marketing, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA J. Ebert Department of Marketing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA A. Gutchess Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA R. Lambert-Pandraud Department of Marketing, ESCP-EAP Paris, Paris, France E. Mullet Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France M. I. Norton Department of Marketing, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA E. Peters Decision Research, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Market Lett

differences in the inputs (cognition, affect, and goals) and the outcomes (decisions, brand choices, and habits) of decision processes. Keywords Older consumers . Decision making . Choice Older consumers represent an increasingly large and financially powerful part of the population worldwide. We propose that age-associated changes in cognition, affect, and...