Peer influence is how the behaviour of the people around us impacts our own behaviour. Though the influence of peers on our behaviour peaks at age fourteen, people around us continue to impact our behaviour our entire lives. When it comes to marketing, purchasing is the behaviour that marketers try to influence, as well as the actual use of the product. Therefore, peer influence in marketing is how the behaviour of others influences our likelihood to buy and use a product.
Peer influence is what often compels us to copy, comply, and try to impress the people around us, in turn affecting what brands we buy, wear, or use.
Simply put, peer influence is when the behaviour(s) of others in our environment affects our own behaviour. Peer influence can be approached from a variety of broad angles, such as when a peer asks us to do something, when we change our own behaviour to match the behaviour of a peer that is being rewarded (or the opposite), or we can also change our behaviour to impress or distance our peers.
Some of this behaviour change is conscious, like making an active choice to agree to a friend’s request or to buy a product on someone’s recommendation, but most of it is subconscious; our brains are working in the background leading us to act in ways that will preserve or improve our social status with our peers. It is a survival mechanism for social animals like us.
Conformity is how we adjust our behaviour or thinking to match the practices or rules of a group that we belong to. An example of conformity is when we dress, do our makeup, and/or style our hair in a way that is similar to the way others in our peer group are. When we conform, we may also fail to consider other viewpoints leading to the so-called ‘group think.’
Social norms
Social norms are at play when we let behaviour accepted as normal by our culture influence our behaviour. We drive on the right side of the road, have haircuts according to our gender, and carry a smartphone without even thinking about our actions because these are accepted, normal behaviours in our culture.
Peer pressure
Peer pressure happens when those participating in a common behaviour do not accept the different behaviour of someone outside the group and actively tries to get ‘the outsider’ to behave in ways that the main group does. We often hear about the many bullying examples of peer pressure, but even group members urging their friend to buy an iPhone so they can use iMessage is a form of peer pressure.
Peer endorsement
We all tend to do something more when our peers mention that they like it. This is peer endorsement: a behaviour is more likely to happen when our peers praise it.
Our brains get a rewarding hit of dopamine when one of our peers applaud our action(s). Now technology has taken peer endorsements to another level with likes, follows, shares, retweets, and a variety of other endorsements in social media.