1. S O C I A L C L A S S , F E A T U R E S O F S O C I A L C L A S S ,
S O C I A L I M P L I C A T I O N , C U L T U R E , C U L T U R A L
I N F L U E N C E S
Chapter 7
Consumer and Cultural Influences

2. Social Class
 Division of society exists in all societies.
 It is natural segmentation
According to Leon. G. Schiffman
“Social class is division of society into a
hierarchy (Levels) of distinct status classes
so that members of each class have
relatively the same status and members of
all other classes have either more or less”.

3. Social Class
 Social Class is measured in terms of social status
people have in-comparison to others in terms of:
1. Wealth (Amount of economic assets)
2. Power (Degree of influence over others)
3. Prestige (Degree of recognition from others)
 Consumption pattern/ behavior is influenced by the
social class to which people belong

4. Social Class-Features
1. Persons within a given social class tend to behave
more alike.
2. Social class is Hierarchical (Upper, middle, lower)
3. Social class is measured as a weighted function of
ones occupation, income, wealth education, status,
prestige
4. Members within the social class can move into
higher class or come down to lower class

5. Social Impact on Consumer Behavior
 1. Intimate groups
 2. Role of opinion Leaders
 3. Exposure to media
 4. Impact on savings and buying attitudes

6. Social Impact on Consumer Behavior
1. Intimate Groups:
 A. Groups which serve as comparison point.
 B. Groups to which individual aspires to belong.
 C. Groups whose perspectives are assumed
irrespective of whether he aspires to be a member or
not.

7. Social Impact on Consumer Behavior
 2. Role of opinion Leaders:
Opinion leaders are those who informally
influence the actions or attitudes of other
who may be opinion seekers or merely
opinion recipients

8. Features
of Opinion Leader
1. Personality Traits: Self-confident, clear
self concept, professional.
2. Social Traits: interaction with people
regularly and informally.
3. Demographic Traits: They interact
with demographic commonness. Ex
Interacting with more or less same age,
gender etc.

9. Features
of Opinion Leader
4.Great interest and knowledge:
Will show interest and have good
awareness level.
5. Influential: Their Attitude and
Intention influences others.
6. Loyal towards the group
standards: Group norms and
standards.

10. Social Impact on Consumer Behavior
 3. Exposure to Media:
It is one of the important aspects of social class
Consumers are living in information age
Consumers are bombarded with information
Unsolicited information comes to consumers
Media is used to hard sell products
Marketers should draw customers, evoke interest in
the product, gain their acceptance and retain them

11. Social Impact on Consumer Behavior
4.Impact on Savings and Buying Attitudes:
Social class affects savings and buying attitudes
Upper class: Have more income than expenditure,
they plan to save, they can borrow
Lower class: Struggle to equate income with
expenditure, no definite plan for savings, they find it
hard to borrow.
This affects savings and buying attitude

12. Culture
 According to Howard and Seth: Culture is
selective, manmade way of responding to
experience a set of behavior pattern.
 It is a set of learned beliefs, values, attitudes,
habits and forms of behavior that are shared
by society and transmitted from generation
to generation. PTO

13. Culture
 It includes traditional ideas, and values
attached to these ideas.
 It is comprehensive and includes
knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, law,
customs values, attitudes, habits and all
other habits acquired by man as a
member of the society.

14. Culture-Features
1. It is a learned response
2. It includes inculcated values
3. Culture is a social phenomena

15. Sub-Culture
 It is a set of learned beliefs, values,
attitudes, habits, and forms of behavior
that are shared by subsets of a society
and are transmitted from generations
to generations.

16. Sub-Culture
Sl.
No
Sub-Culture
Category
Examples
1 Religion Hindu, Jain, Christian, Muslim etc
2 Location North, South, East, West
3 Gender Male, Female
4 Occupation Business, service, professional
5 Social class Upper, Middle, lower
6 Age Old, young, middle age, children etc