Marketing communication: principles and practice

THEORIES OF PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR
Why are we taking the trouble to examine some aspects of consumer
behaviour in a textbook on marketing communication? Essentially, we need
to consider how people react to marketing communication actions. Although,
at this point, we are mostly looking at marketing relationships from the
perspective of the provider, we should not forget that both marketers – the
provider and the buyer/consumer – may initiate communication situations.
At certain points in this book we will reflect on how the provider may react
to marketing communication actions.
A critical survey of the consumer behaviour literature will show that a
number of theories have become established as the usual frameworks for
explaining consumer behaviour. However, as is the case with communication
theory in marketing, there are weaknesses and alternatives perspectives that
can be of value. Three approaches to consumer action are considered here,
and summarized in Table 3.2.
C O N S U M E R B E H A V I O U R A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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C O N S U M E R B E H A V I O U R A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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Table 3.1
Images of consumers
Consumer concept
Characterization
Explorer
Thirsting after new experiences and meanings to discover, in search
of goods, marketplaces, and signs. Insatiable curiosity is manifest in
shopping
Chooser
Focuses on the consumer as a decision-maker, with choice as the
central feature of consumerism. Choice is good and consumers want
more choice – the decision is not whether to consume, but what to
consume
Identity-seeker
Consumers try to find a real self in the objects he/she consumes – a
life project in exercising freedom in search of satisfactions. Brands
are seen as the emblems of the self
Hedonist or artist
Concerned above all with personal pleasure. Consumption liberates
the person who has a right and obligation to seek pleasure – to 
enjoy life
Victim
The consumer hopes for a better future from consumption of
commodities – and this can never come to fruition – there is endless
dissatisfaction, promoted by the want-creating machinery of mass
marketing. Further, the consumer is powerless in the face of the
might and sophistication of vast corporations whose resources and
techniques they cannot match. Consumers are passive objects of
manipulation – seducible and manageable
Rebel
Commodities are used as symbols of rebellion – functioning as icons
of disaffection and defiance. Consumers rebel against producers,
advertisers, and merchandisers by discovering uses (meanings)
distinctly different from those intended – commodities are redefined,
reclaimed, and re-appropriated. The ultimate consumer rebel simply
consumes less and is unmanageable! Or is rebellion another form of
consumption?
Activist
Consumers as morally driven people seeking collectively to improve
their positions relative to markets and marketers
Citizen
The consumer acts beyond his or her own interests as a consumer,
and takes responsibility for the future
Communicator
Using objects as bridges to relate to fellow humans, the consumer is a
communicator of meanings with others and with the self.
Consumption defines social status, establishing differences and
similarities. Thus material objects are not simply connected with
physical and social needs, but are carriers of meaning
Source
: Summarized from Gabriel and Lang, 1995

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Textbooks from US authors tend to favour and emphasize the cognitive
approach (see Engel 
et al
., 1995, as a classic example), while British authors
mostly favour the reinforcement approach. A smaller number of critical
authors have challenged both of these approaches as being unsupported by
empirical data, and have forwarded the habit approach as being a more
realistic explanation of actual consumer behaviour (see the work of Andrew
Ehrenberg, for example).