AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:
1. Know that marketing managers, as well as those who regulate marketing activities, can and do use consumer behavior concepts and ideas in marketing decisions. Students must begin to appreciate that all marketing decisions are based on assumptions about consumer behavior.
2. Understand the nature of customer value, the importance of providing superior customer value, and the role that knowledge of consumer behavior plays in designing strategies to create customer value.
3. Understand the overall relationship between marketing strategy and consumer behavior.
4. Know how knowledge about and research on consumer behavior is used in market analysis and market segmentation (a thorough understanding of the segmentation process is critical).
5. Understand that marketing activities and consumer responses to those activities have important consequences for the consumer and society as well as for the firm. This imposes ethical responsibilities on both marketing managers and consumers.
6. Be able to describe the consumer decision process.
7. Understand that a knowledge of consumer behavior provides the manager with a set of appropriate questions and a guideline to action, not a blueprint or prescription for success.