Presentation of material on PERSONALITY AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, this presentation is suitable for students and lecturers majoring in production management and marketing, industrial engineering etc.

1. PERSONALITY
AND
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR
JERI OKTARI

2. —WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
“personality be defined as
those inner psychological
characteristics that both
determine and reflect how a
person responds to his or
her environment”

3. THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY
In the study of personality, three distinct properties are of central
importance:

4. PERSONALITY
REFLECTS
INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES
The inner characteristics that constitute
an individual’s personality are a unique
combination of factors, no two
individuals are exactly alike.
Nevertheless, many individuals may be
similar in terms of a single personality
characteristic but not in terms of others.
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5. Personality is a useful concept because it enables us to
categorise consumers into different groups on the basis of one
or even several traits. If each person were different in terms of
all personality traits, it would be impossible to group
consumers into segments, and there would be little reason for
marketers to develop products and promotional campaigns
targeted to particular segments.

6. PERSONALITY
IS CONSISTENT
AND ENDURING
An individual’s personality tends to be both
consistent and enduring. Indeed, the mother
who comments that her child ‘has been
impulsive from the day he was born’ is
supporting the contention that personality
has both consistency and endurance.
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7. Both qualities are essential if marketers are to explain or
predict consumer behaviour in terms of personality. Although
marketers cannot change consumers’ personalities to conform
to their products, if they know which personality characteristics
influence specific consumer responses they can attempt to
appeal to the relevant traits inherent in their target group of
consumers.

8. PERSONALITY
CAN CHANGE
Under certain circumstances
personalities change. For instance, an
individual’s personality may be altered by
major life events, such as the birth of a
child, the death of a loved one, a divorce
or a significant career promotion.
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9. PERSONALITY AND UNDERSTANDING
CONSUMER DIVERSITY
Marketers are interested in understanding how personality
influences consumption behaviour because such knowledge enables
them to understand consumers better and to segment and target
those consumers who are likely to respond positively to their
product or service communications.

10. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Marketing practitioners try to learn all they can about
consumer innovators – those who are likely to be the
first to try new products, services or practices – for
the market response of such innovators is often a
critical indication of the eventual success or failure of
a new product or service.

11. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Consumer Innovativeness
Consumer researchers have endeavoured to develop
measurement instruments to gauge the level of consumer
innovativeness, because such personality trait measures provide
important insights into the nature and boundaries of a consumer’s
willingness to innovate.

12. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Presents two alternative scales for measuring consumer innovativeness

13. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Dogmatism
Dogmatism is a personality trait that measures the degree of
rigidity (versus openness) that individuals display towards the
unfamiliar and towards information that is contrary to their own
established beliefs.

14. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Dogmatism
Highly dogmatic consumers tend to be more receptive to
advertisements for new products or services that contain an
appeal from an authoritative figure. To this end, marketers have
used celebrities and experts in their new-product advertising to
make it easier for potentially reluctant consumers (non-
innovators) to accept the innovation.

15. Consumer innovativeness and related personality traits
Social Character
The personality trait known as social character has its origins in
sociological research, which focuses on the identification and
classification of individuals into distinct sociocultural types. As
used in consumer psychology, social character is a personality
trait that ranges on a continuum from inner-directedness to other-
directedness.

16. Cognitive personality factors
Consumer researchers have been increasingly interested in
how cognitive personality factors influence various aspects of
consumer behaviour. In particular, two cognitive personality
traits – need for cognition and visualisers versus verbalisers –
have been useful in understanding selected aspects of
consumer behaviour.

17. Cognitive personality factors
Need for Cognition
Highly dogmatic consumers tend to be more receptive to
advertisements for new products or services that contain an
appeal from an authoritative figure. To this end, marketers have
used celebrities and experts in their new-product advertising to
make it easier for potentially reluctant consumers (non-
innovators) to accept the innovation.

18. Cognitive personality factors
Visualisers versus Verbalisers
Consistent with such individual differences, cognitive personality
research classifies consumers into two groups: visualisers
(consumers who prefer visual information and products that
stress the visual, such as membership in a video club) or
verbalisers (consumers who prefer written or verbal information
and products, such as membership in book clubs).

19. BRAND PERSONALITY
Marketers are interested in understanding how personality
influences consumption behaviour because such knowledge enables
them to understand consumers better and to segment and target
those consumers who are likely to respond positively to their
product or service communications.

20. EXAMPLE
McDonald
The McDonald’s brand personality, through
Ronald McDonald and other cartoon characters,
has always been associated with fun.

22. Thank You