BRAC University 

Marketing Term Paper 

On 

“Consumer Behavior Change”  

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Consumer Behavior Term Paper 

On 

“Consumer Behavior Change” 

 

Submitted to: Mr. Tahsan Rahman Khan 

Senior Lecturer 

BRAC Business School 

BRAC University 

 

 

Submitted by: Raisa Tabassum  

#13104124 

Nadia Rahman 

# 16104167 

Rahul Sen 

# 13104104 

Sajid Ishtiaque 

# 13104139 

Date of Submission:  3rd April, 2016 

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

On the very first note we will like to thank the Almighty to help us in completion of this paper.

It has been an honor to work with all those wonderful people who have contributed something of

theirs to this paper. There are certainly some special ones who cannot go without mention.

At first we express our gratitude and indebtedness to our respected faculty, Mr. Tahsan Rahman

Khan for his continuous guidance, important advice, encouragement and suggestion during the

preparation of this paper. Starting from deciding which company to consider for our paper till

evolving the contents to cover, he has been very encouraging of our creativity and always pushed

our thinking one step forward telling us always “I want to see how you all do it”. We also thank

her in advance for sparing her valuable time to read our paper.

 

  

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL April 3, 2016 Tahsan Rahman Khan Senior Lecturer BRAC Business School BRAC University. Subject: Submission of term paper for completion of course. Dear Sir, With high reverence we want to state that we have finished our term paper on Consumer Behavior and through the paper we analyzed how consumer behavior changes. While working with the term paper, we gathered some valuable knowledge regarding how people behave and how that can be related to marketing. It helped us in gaining a new point of view on the thought process of people in practical life and how significantly it’s applied in the field. We did some elaborate research and came up with sufficient resources to compile our term paper in a comprehensive manner. This term paper is valuable and a necessity to complete our course MKT421. In this term paper, all the team members contributed equally with sheer hard work. We faced some challenges in working as a team and to construct such a vast open end research to compile this term paper but due to everyone's collective efforts we overcame them and tried to produce this paper for you. It was a great opportunity given to us to experience the vibe of the marketing world, and we will like to take this platform to thank you. To end, we would like you to kindly accept our term paper and to acknowledge our devotion and efforts. Thanking you in anticipation. Yours Sincerely, ________________ ________________ Raisa Tabassum Nadia Rahman

_______________ _______________

Rahul Sen Sajid Ishtiaque

  

Executive Summary

This paper is constructed on the basis of core consumer behavior aspects and analyzes how

consumer behavior changes over time. It focuses on the behavioral changes of the people of

Bangladesh in recent times and further examines how it can be related to the marketing process.

After conducting this study, we concluded that the main behaviors that are changing in present

time are the dependency on technology, preference in different occupations or occupational

changes, people becoming more health conscious and brand conscious, the people of our

country are easily targeted by emotions, the act of enjoying a buzz and lifestyle changes due to

acculturation. All these changes are very much significant in the marketing process, as

marketers can response to those changes and tailor the market according to the consumers’

updated needs to establish a successful marketing campaign.

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Table of Content

Chapter 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 2 

1.1 Origin of the Paper ........................................................................................................................... 2 

1.2 Objective of the Paper ...................................................................................................................... 2 

1.3 Scope of the Paper ............................................................................................................................. 2 

1.4 Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 3 

1.5 Secondary sources ............................................................................................................................. 3 

1.6 Limitations ......................................................................................................................................... 3 

Chapter 2.0 The Significant Behavior Changes in Our Country ............................................................... 4 

2.1 Technology Dependency ................................................................................................................... 4 

2.2 Occupational Changes ...................................................................................................................... 5 

2.3 Emotional Appeal .............................................................................................................................. 6 

2.4 Health Consciousness ........................................................................................................................ 7 

2.5 Brand Consciousness ........................................................................................................................ 8 

2.6 Buzz Marketing ............................................................................................................................... 10 

2.7 Acculturation ................................................................................................................................... 11 

Chapter 3.0 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 13 

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Chapter 1.0 Introduction  

Bangladesh now is not like what it used to be a few decades ago. A lot of things have changed.

Along with that the attitudes and behavior of the people has changed as well. As the world is

becoming more globalized, people are being exposed to new things every day. They are learning

continuously and overtime that learning is bringing a change in their behavior and value system.

It is very crucial to understand those changes that are taking place in the society. This paper detects

some of the core changes that are occurring in the behavior of the people of our country and relates

it to the marketing concept and process.

1.1 Origin of the Paper The report is originated to study and analyze the changes of consumer behavior and the response

in return. As part of BRAC University curriculum, this term paper was assigned by course

instructor Mr. Tahsan Khan, Senior Lecturer, BRAC University. The proposed report will be based

on this entity in terms of the above mentioned topic.

1.2 Objective of the Paper

The major objective of this report is to represent the views on changing behavior of the people of

our country. The following has been highlighted in the report:

The behaviors that are changing in people in recent times

How those changes are occurring

How the changes can be related to the marketing process

1.3 Scope of the Paper

This report will provide detailed information on the process of consumer behavior and how it is

changing in Bangladesh. Descriptions based on the focus group surveys has been used to enrich

this report. It can be useful for explaining the consumer behavior process of a certain area.

 

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1.4 Methodology

The following methodology was followed throughout the study .The study is mostly based on

Secondary data sources and the analysis and opinions of the group members.

1.5 Secondary sources

Unofficial survey

Online information

Other accredited relevant written materials in BRAC University Library

1.6 Limitations

The research that we conducted was a moderately complex project. We collected many

Secondary data and evaluated our own opinions. After all the compilation and evaluation we

concluded the results. However, while conducting the research we faced some difficulties and this

end report is subjected to some limitations. These are:

Limited access to extensive information.

Restricted from obtaining information on people outside our current city.

No scientific or measurable proof of the results.

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Chapter 2.0 The Significant Behavior Changes in Our Country

2.1 Technology Dependency

As a human being, we always try to keep ourselves updated to the new world. We all know that

technology can keep us updated. As technology helped us to be advanced, we always tried to

attach with it. However, we are fully depended on technology because we spent most of our time

with mobile phones. Recent days, youths are not watching TV or reading newspaper. So what are

they doing? They basically depended on their hand devices like cell phone, Tab, iPod etc. To them

browsing on websites, using Facebook and YouTube is more convenient than watching TV. As a

result, people are losing interest on TV or Radio and focuses on Mobile phone. Five to eight years

back, watching TV shows together with the family was a practice. Now, this scenario is very rare

in every family. Researcher found that, worldwide 84% peoples say that they couldn’t go a single

day without their mobile phones in hand. We are addicted to mobile phones. Sometimes, mobile

phone is still in our hand for browsing while we are having our lunch or dinner. So, it creates sort

of addiction in our behavior.

In social bakers, we found that almost 87% people worldwide use Facebook through mobile

device. How this mobile addiction is changing our behavior? It makes us lazy because people do

not want to go outside for shopping, buying products when you have online delivery. People do

not want to meet each other when you have video call on your mobile. People do not talk with

each other that much because they are busy with their mobile phones. Nowadays, we do not need

any companion as we have cell phones to pass our times. Consequently, mobile phones are

consuming most of our valuable time by keeping us busy with browsing, gaming and YouTube.

The number of Facebook users and YouTube subscribers are also growing with the number of

online users. Recently, we want to create social awareness and protest against crime through

Facebook pages and YouTube channels. Youths are very much involves with these type of activity.

This is ultimately changing the behavior of the youth. Youths are tried to do social work and make

public to understand the recent issues of society. So, it brings some positive attitude among our

young generation.

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People considered mobile phone as a part of their body. If something wrong happened with their

mobile phones, they felt like they aren’t well. This is called extended self in marketing. So, people

consider it as an extended self because they believe this external objective as a part of their body.

That is why people are so attached with hand device and devoted in it.

Another thing is, whenever we are playing games on mobile, we concentrated on it and also it

increases our involvement with the game. After that, it takes us to flow state because of

involvement. We are so much involved that we don’t even notice surrounding things while playing.

People get the updated news and trolls on Facebook. They love to keep updated with the news

and also need a source of entertainment. Moreover, we often react through Facebook status or

sharing if something wrong happened to our society. So, if we think deeply, all the Facebook users

act like a member of normative group in Facebook and that’s why everyone always engage them

in Facebook. Everyone has a fear of deviance from this group and because of this they are very

much secured about their account.

In future, I think there will be no TVC because everyone has their eyeballs on social websites.

People will be more involved with mobile phones. Digital marketing have a huge scope in the

coming days. People will use Facebook or other social media as their media channel because

everyone has the power to write their opinion and corporate sector will use peoples profile as their

resume.

2.2 Occupational Changes

There was a time; whenever you ask someone what will you do in our life? People will come up

with three mainstream answers like Doctor, Engineer or Businessman because these are the most

prestigious occupation in our society. People do not like or respect other occupation. They believed

that if you choose anything unique, you wouldn’t be successful. Now, things are changing with

the mentality of peoples mind. Peoples are not care about what society would think or say.

Everyone has their own ideas now and everyone wants to execute it with their own style. For

instance, now someone wants to be fashion designer, graphics designer, photographer, YouTuber

etc. Peoples are changing their thought about occupation since they are independent enough to

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think their life. Now-a-days, many peoples are doing great in these sector and others are motivated

enough to do new things. As a result, students are more focused on brainstorming for new ideas

regarding occupation and our society also appreciated these ventures. It builds a positive attitude

in our behavior and parents also encouraged us in this. Few years ago, we were not getting the

support from the family to do new things because everyone involved in criticizing. Moreover,

Youths was not able to develop their critical thinking ability as they have a fear of what society

would say. However, peoples are now try to adept the new ideas to change the traditional thought

about occupation and create more scope for the youth. People started to response in new ventures.

This creates the positivity in our behavior. We are now listening new ideas and helping each other

to make it successful. Recently, young students are lagging behind. They are doing many things

like Online Business, Digital Marketing, online media, Media buying agency, production House

etc. These things make us confident about our career. We thought out of the box for our life.

In our society, there are created different types of needs like biogenic needs, psychogenic needs,

utilitarian needs and hedonic needs. So, whoever find out this needs which is not fulfilled by

anyone they try to solve it with a new ideas and that makes a new venture. It’s like more needs in

the market more ventures are waited to come in the market. In this way people started to think

about new occupation and it’s also changing our behavior.

We also do observational learning. When we found something new, we used them as a model and

try to observe them for learning. Suppose, someone is doing photography and others find interest

on it. So, they learned from them and established this occupation among us. In this way, new

occupation is grab the attention of opportunity seekers and they will apply it.

This change care about people’s value. It cares about what think, what they believe and what they

are trying to do. For example, someone wants to be a physician because he or she cares or

passionate about it. This change helped them to shaped their value or thoughts into reality.

2.3 Emotional Appeal Consumers of Bangladesh response to emotional appeal positively. It has been seen that in past all

advertisement were using humor appeal to attract there target consumers. Now most of all

company is using emotional appeal mostly and little rational appeal.

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When consumer makes any decision they consider previous/related experience and values, these

emotions create preference that leads to the decision. Emotions are the primary reason why

consumer prefer brand name product. There are many products which are available in the market

with same ingredients with same or cheaper price but still consumer decide to pay more branded

product because these product repents emotion in consumer’s mind

People suffer from time poverty. They are so busy that they have little time for emotion. In past,

families used to be extended and the interaction between family members was frequent and they

had stronger emotional attachment. Nowadays nuclear family is more common and so interaction

has decreases along with emotional attach men.

Technology is a huge part of people’s life nowadays, they spend more time in social media. In past

people used spend free time with family and friend but now they keep busy in virtual interaction.

The element of emotion is missing from their life and that is why they are touched and empathize

with emotional appeal

For example we can see most of the advertisements are nowadays attracting there customers by

showing advertisement or doing campaign which are catching customers emotionally like

Grameen phone “Maa” commercial. GP associated their brand with mother. Mother has a special

place in everyone’s life and it’s connected to basic emotion. That commercial was very successful

because people were touched with the emotional appeal

GP “Alor Jatra” where they did the campaign on the memory of martyrs. People are emotionally

bonded with the liberation war. GP used that bondage to build brand loyalty and trust.

2.4 Health Consciousness A decade ago consumer in Bangladesh used think that it’s good to live healthy but no they are

actually living healthy. Consumers are constantly looking for healthy food options which is why

a lot of consumer go to Agora, Meena Bazar, Shopno to get formalin free food. A few of them

who can afford it are bringing their groceries from foreign countries like Malaysia and Singapore

to have healthy food.

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Health consciousness has also caused a raise in the numbers of gyms and health centers in

Bangladesh. A decade ago there were a very few Gyms but now they are everywhere due to the

increasing number of people going to gyms for health purpose. Increasing number of people are

going for morning/evening walk.

People have been suffering from diabetes, heart diseases, kidney and liver diseases due to

cholesterol which is causes by eating unhealthy and junk food and so they have to have a healthy

lifestyle to survive these diseases. People around them want to avoid these diseases and in order

to do so they are becoming health conscious. This is duo to negative reinforcement; it means ding

something to avoid something. People are living healthy to avoid diseases.

For the last few years, the contamination of foods with formalin is a burning issue; gradually

people are coming to know how formalin is injurious to our health. The ingestion of formaldehyde

over a prolonged period can develop respiratory, digestive, cardiac and neurological problems,

along with cancer. People are looking for shops where they can buy formalin free foods. That’s

why increasing number of people are doing grocery shopping from superstore.

Marketers are coming up with diet food and diabetes food which has lesser calories. For example

Pran diet fat free milk.

We believe the people will continue this trend due to the fact that people are getting positive result.

As long as they there is positive result this health conscious trend will stay. It will cause increase

the number of superstore and low fat, low calories food brands.

2.5 Brand Consciousness

Brand is a phenomenon that becomes a part of our behavior now-a-days. To pace with this updated

world we tend to look forward to things that ranked high in social structure. Brand is one of the

major elements. Consumers are now seeking to have brands in every single way that is possible.

Five to ten years back, we cannot have this tendency towards brand as of now. People are now

more concern about brands. Specially, youths are the group of people that creates this brand

consciousness thing dynamic. With rapid growing technology and free trade helps lots of foreign

companies to enter into our market with their varieties of products which we desire to have.

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Bangladesh is emerging as one of the world’s great growth opportunities for companies with a

understanding of the country’s rising consumer class.

Youths are the large portion where the brands exhibit the most. They often tend to look towards

brands rather than the domestic alliances. For example: to buy a cell phone most of the consumers

tend to have the branded phone in our hand. Though, some of the domestic brands have made their

mark in the market. Still we want to have products which are globally appreciated. Similarly, in

case of fashion apparels brands do have the touch on our consumers mind. It is getting higher and

higher in our society. Now-a-days whenever we want to consume buy products we don’t just went

to the market and buy. We talk with our related group of people about the product, then compare

with the alternatives and finally buy the product. But most of the times references that comes from

the group that we have shared or from our researches it leads towards brands. Consumers are highly

loyal towards brands but they are also budget and quality conscious. More than 80 percent of our

consumers dictate brands as a top factor that influences their buying decisions. Price is often cited

as a second priority over quality. People are becoming greedy as this brand consciousness is rising.

More and more demand is making our lives product based and we tend to compare with others

about what we have and what don’t? However, brands are grabbing the consumers mind

intentionally or some are unintentionally.

People considered brand as their one of the major factor that indicates their social lifestyle. It is

the brands that differentiate them one from another. Brands have created a strong position inside

consumer’s mind which affects their buying behavior significantly. For example: photographers

are always looking forward to have either Nikon or Canon cameras for their professional work.

Even though there are brands beside these. Still they went for either Nikon or Canon because these

brands have already created a position in the consumers mind.

Another thing that can be related with the brand consciousness factor that is it arises from

observational learning of the certain changes in our society. Previously, we don’t have the

tendency to consider brands as a significant factor. But as we are moving and growing fast,

adopting the foreign culture we do take brand seriously. This change has not occurred over night.

We saw how others to maintain this change and then we accustomed it. With the increasing

technological advancement we are getting the opportunity to acculturate with the global world.

Facebook is one of the biggest sources from where we can get to know about lots of brands global

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as well as domestic. We share, comment, like and suggest people to have the better knowledge

about different brands. Most of our consumers develop their idea of brand consciousness through

Facebook. Social media impacts a lot in building a strong brand conscious market in our country.

In future, we assume there will be increasing brand consciousness among people. More of brands

will entering the market and competition will be high. People will be much more knowledgeable

towards brands and it will affect in their buying behavior a lot.

2.6 Buzz Marketing

Commercial/Buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique that is focused on maximizing the word

of mouth potential of a particular campaign or product, whether that is through conversations

among consumer’s family or friends or larger scale discussions on social media platforms. Now-

a-days people are more interested to give their responses to buzz marketing. From the early days

new firms without large marketing budgets have relied on buzz marketing techniques as it is

inexpensive. Buzz marketing is become a popular way to do marketing in our country.

Internet plays a big role in terms of making viral marketing more successful in our country. Most

of our consumers in our country have internet access. Specially, younger generations are the vast

users of internet. And other important thing to add which they are always tends to give responses

toward any negative events they watch over the internet mostly. Social media: Facebook is the

popular way of showing the interest or giving comment on something, sharing with the others is

becoming a regular day to day life routine. For example: recently we have seen the viral of

“Xunaeid” all over the internet. We do not know whether he did it intentionally or just to make

some fun out of it but his negative approach of marketing makes him popular overnight. Negative

marketing is always a better way to attract consumers in our country. It’s not that we do not seek

positivity but we are more interested towards negative surroundings. Another example can be add

like: Recent past there was a marketing campaign which has also gone viral. It was held in Jamuna

Future Park, where Salman Muqtadir one of the popular personality proposed an actor Sabila Noor

in front of everyone inside the mall. People perceive this event dramatically, later found out it was

a marketing campaign of the co. named WEDO. This campaign was also gone viral as expected.

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Negative word of mouth is the real play here in our Bangladeshi consumers mind. If firms can

create some kinds of buzz around these consumers, there is higher possibility to grab their attention

towards the firms.

We believe that this type of buzz marketing will be increasing as days passes. People love to watch

something that they can laugh at, share and comment and finally drive them to become end user

of that certain product. More of firms will be entering from globally and they will use this viral

marketing technique to create a mark on our consumers mind.

2.7 Acculturation

The behavior of the people of our country is changing gradually due to acculturation. Acculturation

means learning the value system and the behaviors of another culture. In this era of globalization,

and with the advancement of media and communication technology, the people of the world are

being exposed to the elements of different cultures. So, eventually they learn some of the elements

and the behavior pattern changes overtime. Now, Bangladesh is a country that is influenced by

many different cultures. Being a Muslim nation itself, the country follows most of the Islamic

norms and values which, to some extent, matches with the Middle East culture. Then, as our

country was a part of Pakistan before liberation, our culture holds some essence of that. Bangladesh

is hugely influenced by neighboring country India, with easy communication channel like trade

and media. Lastly, like every other country, our country is influenced by the dominating part of

the world, the western culture. These influences show up in various cultural aspects like fashion,

food, festivals etc.

The behavior changes can easily be observed through the fashion. In recent times there is a trend

of wearing hijabs. Especially in the urban areas, we see that females are shifting to wearing hijabs,

many doing so as a fashion statement. On the other hand, people are also getting more accustomed

to wearing western clothes. Casual wears like jeans, t-shirts were not this much prominent a few

decades ago, more in case of women. In the suburbs and rural sides of the country Indian and West

Bengal fashion takes over. For instance, special Indian kamizes named ‘Masakkali’, ‘Pakhi dress’

etc. were a big thing in the last few years.

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In case of food, various international cuisines are taking over the taste of regular, traditional food.

In the cities food like burger, pizza, pasta are pretty common. People are developing taste for

completely different types of food, like Japanese sushi, Mexican nachos, authentic Thai or

Chinese. In small town or suburbs popularity of fast food and Indian varieties are seen as well.

Peoples’ behavior is changing regarding the celebration of festivals. In recent times people are

more enthusiastic about celebrating festivals. Like, our own festival Pohela Boishakh or Bengali

New Year is now more vibrantly celebrated than it used to be quite some years back. Foreign

festivals like Halloween is now being celebrated in the urban areas of our country. Occasions like

Valentine’s Day or Mother’s day are also celebrated ostentatiously.

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Chapter 3.0 Conclusion

So throughout the paper we discussed about consumer behavior and pin pointed some of the main

behavior patterns that are changing in the present time in Bangladesh. We also focused on why

these changes are taking place and what impact it is having, and can have in the future in our

community. Further, we talked about how these changes can be evaluated and incorporated in the

marketing process and how the marketing concepts can be applied in this case to satisfy the

consumers. Focusing on these factors we, as marketers can understand the changing needs of our

consumers and tailor the marketing activities through new innovations to cater to those specific

needs.