The behavioral economics of consumer brand choice: patterns of reinforcement and utility maximization

Foxall, Gordon Robert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3572-6456, Oliveira-Castro, Jorge M. and Schrezenmaier, Teresa Caroline 2004. The behavioral economics of consumer brand choice: patterns of reinforcement and utility maximization. Behavioural processes 66 (3) , pp. 235-260. 10.1016/j.beproc.2004.03.007

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Purchasers of fast-moving consumer goods generally exhibit multi-brand choice, selecting apparently randomly among a small subset or “repertoire� of tried and trusted brands. Their behavior shows both matching and maximization, though it is not clear just what the majority of buyers are maximizing. Each brand attracts, however, a small percentage of consumers who are 100%-loyal to it during the period of observation. Some of these are exclusively buyers of premium-priced brands who are presumably maximizing informational reinforcement because their demand for the brand is relatively price-insensitive or inelastic. Others buy exclusively the cheapest brands available and can be assumed to maximize utilitarian reinforcement since their behavior is particularly price-sensitive or elastic. Between them are the majority of consumers whose multi-brand buying takes the form of selecting a mixture of economy- and premium-priced brands. Based on the analysis of buying patterns of 80 consumers for 9 product categories, the paper examines the continuum of consumers so defined and seeks to relate their buying behavior to the question of how and what consumers maximize.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	03766357
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2022 09:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/2692

Citation Data

Cited 88 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item