TITLE - CONSUMER BEHAVIOR & LIFE STYLE MARKETING WITH PURCHASE PROCESS & POST PURCHASE BEHAVIOR

TITLE - CONSUMER BEHAVIOR & LIFE STYLE MARKETING WITH PURCHASE PROCESS & POST PURCHASE BEHAVIOR

1. Introduction

The Indian marketing scenario, especially for consumer durables, is becoming fiercely competitive. Hence companies are realizing that merely highlighting the attributes of their product or of the company in terms of demographic or geographic dimensions is not enough to be successful in the market place. Marketers have come to appreciate that buying behaviour is influenced by the consumer's lifestyle. Companies dealing in cosmetics, apparel, packaged food etc. are seeking opportunities in lifestyle segmentation. Stores, especially those dealing in apparel, have started keeping merchandise which goes with a particular lifestyle. The Bata-North star advertisement aiming at the “Young, western oriented, fun loving crowd” is an example of this approach. Further, the fact that Bata Ltd. has expanded its product range to and also a full range of active sportswear under "Power", bring out their attempt at lifestyle marketing. The growing westernization of youth in our country and the resulting change in lifestyle is responsible for the ever increasing demand for jeans in the country. Denim as a lifestyle-fabric is fast gaining acceptance in the country, transcending demographic segments and marketers are making use of this phenomenon.

Harold W. Berkman and Christopher Gilson define lifestyle as "unified" patterns of behaviour that both determine and are determined by consumption. The term "unified patterns of behaviour" refers to behaviour in its broadest sense. Attitude formation and such internal subjective activities may not be observable, but they are behaviour nonetheless. Lifestyle is an integrated system of a person's attitudes, values, interests, opinions and his over behaviour.

Demographic variables help marketers locate their target market and psychographic variables provide the marketer with more insight about the segment. Psychographics is, in common parlance, lifestyle analysis becomes oriented towards a particular product, the consumers have to respond to statements which are selected for the purpose i.e. on products, brands, services, competitive situations etc. The demographic and psychographic lifestyle approaches are highly complementary and work best together. People hailing from the same sub-culture, social class and even occupation follow quite different lifestyles. If we can create a fictitious Mrs. Mathur to look at possibly it may be like this: She may choose to live a "belonging" lifestyle which will be reflected in her wearing conservative clothes, spending considerable time with her family and participating in social activities. Or she can be an "achiever^" marked by an active personal life and playing hard when it comes to travel and sports. It can be seen that lifestyle depicts the whole person in active interaction with his environment. Lifestyles vary according to sociologically relevant variables .The rate of social change in a society has a great deal to do with variations in lifestyles. So do age, sex, religion, ethnicity and social class. The increase in the number of double income families and that of working women has resulted in completely different lifestyles.

Lifestyle marketing is the science of meeting the needs of a customer by providing valuable products to customers by utilizing the expertise of the organization, at same time, to archive organizational goals. According to The American Lifestyle marketing Association [1]:

Lifestyle marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

With this definition, it is important to realize that the customer can be an individual user, a company, or several people who contribute to the purchasing decision. The product can be a hard good, a service, or even an idea – anything that would provide some value to the person who provides an exchange. An exchange is most often thought of as money, but could also be a donation of time or effort, or even a specific action. A producer is often a company, but could be an individual or non-profit organization.

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