Consumers make many buying decisions every day, and the buying decision is the focal
point of the marketer’s effort. Most large companies research consumer buying decisions in
great detail to answer questions about what consumers buy, where they buy, how and how
much they buy, when they buy, and why they buy. Marketers can study actual consumer
purchases to find out what they buy, where, and how much. But learning about the whys of
consumer buying behavior is not so easy—the answers are often locked deep within the con-
sumer’s mind.
Often, consumers themselves don’t know exactly what influences their purchases. “The
human mind doesn’t work in a linear way,” says one marketing expert. “The idea that the
mind is a computer with storage compartments where brands or logos or recognizable pack-
ages are stored in clearly marked folders that can be accessed by cleverly written ads or com-
mercials simply doesn’t exist. Instead, the mind is a whirling, swirling, jumbled mass of
neurons bouncing around, colliding and continuously creating new concepts and thoughts
and relationships inside every single person’s brain all over the world.”3
The central question for marketers is as follows: How do consumers respond to various
marketing efforts the company might use? The starting point is the stimulus-response
model of buyer behavior shown in Figure 5.1. This figure shows that marketing and
other stimuli enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain responses. Marketers
must figure out what is in the buyer’s black box.
Marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. Other
stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s environment: economic, technologi-
cal, political, and cultural. All these inputs enter the buyer’s black box, where they are
turned into a set of buyer responses: the buyer’s brand and company relationship behavior
and what he or she buys, when, where, and how often.