An Empirical Study on Reference Group Influences on Product buying of Youth

An, Kyong-Duck(Department of Management The Graduate School Chong-Ju University)

The under consumption and a trend of luxury are considered to be one of trends which came from egoism and marmonism of tlhe modern age. But this phenomenon is rapidly spread in young people and it prevented young people from growing as a rational consumers because of their llack of discretion.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine reference group which influences purchase decision making of young purchaser, grasp what reference group influences the purchase decision-making of the product and the decision of the product, and analyze the difference of reference group's influences according to demographic characteristics and information source, and use marketers' marketing strategy planning on market of young people, fix the sound consumption life of young people conducing desirable consumption life of reference group, and supply the adequate data educating young people.

The scope of this thesis is as followings.

Chapter 1 describes the purpose, method, scope of this thesis as introduction.

Chapter 2 describes the definition and types of reference group, the definition and characteristics of buying behavior, and the buying decision-making process.

Chapter 3 describes the design of model, the establishment of hypotheses, the making of questionnaire, the selection of sample, and analysis method as the design of study and hypotheses.

Chapter 4 corroborates the hypotheses of the study and general characteristics of the intended people as on-the-spot analysis.

Chapter 5 is composed of the conclusions, limits, and suggestions of this theses.

So, this thesis selects bags, sports shoes, blue jeans, reference book and workman as product of the study and describes that family, friend, and entertainers, sports stars, and teacher influence upon students. As the results of this thesis says, associates of his or her influence greatly and the student of first year and third year tend greatly to depend on reference group and girl-student are more influenced by reference group than boy-student.

In conclusion, young people are greatly influenced by friends when they determine an brand decision and young people's buying. So, Companies which produce the products have to plan strategy which stresses an associates in marketing strategy planning.