Marketing managers should view the consumer and the
marketing activities designed to affect and influence
that consumer in light of the situations that the
consumer faces. A consumer situation is a set of factors
outside of and removed from stable characteristics of
the individual consumer and focal stimulus. Four categories
of situations are communications, purchase,
usage, and disposition situations.
Situations have been classified into a scheme of five
objectively measured variables. Physical surroundings
include geographical and institutional location, decor,
sound, aromas, lighting, weather, and displays of merchandise
or other material surrounding the product.
Retailers are particularly concerned with the effects of
physical surroundings. The sum of all the physical
features of a retail environment is referred to as the store
atmosphere or environment. Atmospherics is the process
managers use to manipulate the physical retail environment
to create specific mood responses in shoppers. Atmosphere
is referred to as servicescape when describing
a service business such as a hospital, bank, or restaurant.
Social surroundings deal with other persons present
who could have an impact on the individual consumer’s
behavior. The characteristics of the other persons
present, their roles, and their interpersonal interactions
are potentially important social situational influences.
Temporal perspectives relate to the effect of time
on consumer behavior, such as effects of time of day,
time since last purchase, time since or until meals or payday,
and time constraints imposed by commitments.
Convenience stores have evolved and been successful
by taking advantage of the temporal perspective factor.
Task definition reflects the purpose or reason for
engaging in the consumption behavior. The task may
reflect different buyer and user roles anticipated by the
individual. For example, a person shopping for dishes to
be given as a wedding present is in a different situation
from a person buying dishes for personal use.
Antecedent states are features of the individual person
that are not lasting or relatively enduring characteristics.
Moods are temporary states of depression or high excitement,
and so on, which all people experience. Momentary
conditions are such things as being tired, ill, having
a great deal of money (or none at all), and so forth.
A ritual situation can be described as a set of interrelated
behaviors that occur in a structured format, that
have symbolic meaning, and that occur in response to
socially defined occasions. Ritual situations can range
from completely private to completely public. They are
of major importance to marketers because they often
involve prescribed consumption behaviors.
Situational influences may have direct influences,
but they also interact with product and individual characteristics
to influence behavior. In some cases, the
situation will have no influence whatsoever, because the
individual’s characteristics or choices are so intense that
they override everything else. But the situation is always
potentially important and therefore of concern to
marketing managers.
