The Changing American

Society –Family
Household
Chapter 6
PART II: EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

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Learning Objectives

L01 Explain the concept of household types and their

influence on consumption
Summarize the household life cycle’s various stages
L02 and marketing implications

Understand the family decision process

L03
Describe the role that households play in child
L04 socialization

Explain the sources of ethical concern associated with

L05 marketing to children

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The Nature of Households
The Household Influences Most Consumption Decisions

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The Nature of American Households

Household
Consists of all the people who occupy a housing unit
(a house, apartment, group of rooms, or single room
designed to be occupied as a separate living quarters).
Family Household
One having at least two members related by birth,
marriage, or adoption, one of whom is the householder
(householder owns or rents the residence).
Nonfamily Household
A householder living alone or exclusively with others
to whom he or she is not related.
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 The Nature of Households

The traditional family refers to a

married opposite-sex couple and
their own or adopted children
living at home.
A step family is a married-couple
family household with at least
one child under the age of 18
who is a stepchild (i.e., a son or
daughter through marriage).

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The Nature of Households

A multigenerational family is a
family household containing
(a) At least two adult
generations, or
(b) A grandparent and at least
one other generation

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6-7
The Household Life Cycle
The Traditional view of Family Life Cycle
6. 1.
A few years People married
later the female by their early
would die 20s

5. 2.
The male Couple had
would several
eventually die children

3.
4. Their children
The original grew up and
couple retired started their
own families

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The Household Life Cycle

Each HLC stage presents unique needs and wants as

well as financial conditions and experiences.

HLC provides marketers with relatively homogeneous

household segments that share similar needs with
respect to household-related problems and purchases.

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The Household Life Cycle
Stages of the Household Life Cycle

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The Household Life Cycle

Younger (< 35)

Single I

Young Couples: No Children

Full Nest I

Single Parent I

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The Household Life Cycle

Middle Aged (35 – 64)

Middle-Aged Single

Empty Nest I

Delayed Full Nest I

Full Nest II

Single Parent II

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The Household Life Cycle

Older (> 64)

Empty Nest II

Older Single

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Marketing Strategy Based on the Household
Life Cycle

HLC can be an important segmentation

variable.

The purchase and consumption of many

products are driven by the HLC, with each stage
posing unique problems and opportunities.

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Marketing Strategy Based on the Household
Life Cycle

Factors such as income, occupation, and

education heavily influence how an individual
meets his/her needs.
So, it makes sense to combine stage in the HLC
with one of these variables to aid in market
segmentation and strategy formulation.

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Family Decision Making
Family decision making is the process by which decisions that
directly or indirectly involve two or more family members are
made.

Family purchases are often compared to organizational buying

decisions. However, with family purchasing, there is usually
less explicit criteria, and most family purchases directly affect
the other members of the family.

Most important, many family purchases

are inherently emotional and affect the
relationships between the family
members.

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Family Decision Making

Family Purchase Roles

Determinants of Family Purchase Roles

Conflict Resolution

Marketing Strategy and Family Decision Making

Consumer Socialization and Marketing to Children

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Family Decision Making
The Household Decision-Making Process for Children’s Products

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 Family Decision Making
Determinants of Family Purchase Roles

How families interact in a purchase decision is largely

dependent on the
culture and subculture in which the family exists
the role specialization of different family members
the degree of involvement each has in the product
area of concern, and
the personal characteristics of the family members

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Family Decision Making
Decision-Making Influence and Relative Income
Husband Earns More Wife Earns More

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Family Decision Making
Conflict Resolution
One study revealed six basic approaches that individuals use to
resolve purchase conflicts1.
Approach Description
Bargaining Trying to reach a compromise.
Impression Misrepresenting the facts in order to win.
Management
Use of Authority Claiming superior expertise or role appropriateness (the
husband/wife should make such decisions).
Reasoning Using logical argument to win.
Playing on Using the silent treatment or withdrawing from the
Emotion discussion.
Additional Getting additional data or a third-party opinion.
Information

1C. Kim and H. Lee, “A taxonomy of Couples Based on Influence Strategies,” Journal of Business Research, June 1996, pp. 157-68.

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Consumer Socialization
The family provides the basic framework in which
consumer socialization occurs.
Consumer socialization is the process by which young
people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant
to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace.
Understanding the content and the process of
consumer socialization.
Consumer socialization content refers to what children
learn with respect to consumption.
Consumer socialization process refers to how they learn it.

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 Consumer Socialization
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage Description
Stage 1 The period of sensorimotor intelligence (0-2 yrs.)
- behavior is primarily motor
- the child does not yet “think” conceptually, though
cognitive development is seen

Stage 2 The period of preoperational thoughts (3-7 yrs.)

- Characterized by the development of language and
rapid conceptual development

Stage 3 The period of concrete operations (8-11 yrs.)

- the child develops the ability to apply logical
thought to concrete problems

Stage 4 The period of formed operations (12-15 yrs.)

- the child’s cognitive structures reach their greatest
level of development, and the child becomes able
to apply logic to all classes of problems.

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Consumer Socialization
The Content of Consumer Socialization
Consist of three categories:

1. Consumer skills—are those capabilities necessary for

purchases to occur such as understanding money,
budgeting, product evaluation, etc.
2. Consumption-related preferences—are the knowledge,
attitudes, and values that cause people to attach differential
evaluations to products, brands, and retail outlets.
3. Consumption-related attitudes—are cognitive and affective
orientations toward marketplace stimuli such as
advertisements, salespeople, warranties, etc.

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Consumer Socialization
The Process of Consumer Socialization
Consumer socialization occurs primarily through family, as well as
through a number of avenues including advertising and friends.
Parents socialize their children through the following:
1. Instrumental training—occurs when a parent or sibling
specifically and directly attempts to bring about certain
responses through reasoning or reinforcement.
2. Modeling—occurs when a child learns appropriate, or
inappropriate, consumption behaviors by observing others.
3. Mediation—occurs when a parent alters a child’s initial
interpretation of, or response to, a marketing or other stimulus.

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Marketing to Children

Children are a large and growing market.

However, marketing to children is fraught with ethical
concerns, including:
The limited ability of younger children to process
information and to make informed purchase decisions.
Marketing activities, particularly advertising, can
produce undesirable values in children, resulting in
inappropriate diets, and cause unhealthy levels of family
conflict.

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