Can you really remember...What you saw on Tele or in a Magazine?

Unfortunately i was not able to attend this lecture, but form what i have gathered from the lecture notes and from a few Blogs i have read by other people on the course is that "Women are actually going to inherit the earth!" advertisers seem to want to focus most advertisements at the female population,just open a magazine,news paper or turn on the television and there will be adverts for ladies things. Have all male products just disappeared?

The fact that women seem to have a higher awareness about whats actually going on around them possibly helps hence the phrase "multi-tasking" women seem to have more detailed and structured adverts aimed at them, there always seems to be so much more going on in the fore,middle and back ground to all the feminine adverts even down to the colours used,where as the more masculine advert targeted at men is often bold and has the product in an "in your face" placement,no messing around. The colours have an effect on peoples reaction to things there are a few links below and some adverts to the right, if you want to view a few of them, and let me know what you think of them and which one stands out for you the most,it would be most appreciated as i have an assignment due in for Ruth,and i think i can use these results for the assignment,cheeky i know but hey if you dont try... you will never know right?

The issue of male and female differences "is much more fundamental than the usual myopic

media one about where the ads appear: it's about recognizing women {and men's} different approach" (Financial Times, June 29, 2001)

In the class this week the group looked at advertisements and were asked the question i put to you which advert stands out for you more than most? From reading what my fellow student friends have written, there was a general consensus about the first set of adverts between the male and female populations in the group,I am lead to believe they did this a total of 3 times but by the third time of doing this according to Kara " We had now started to get worn out and the results were beginning to deteriorate as people lost concentration" (Understanding the Customer, November 7,2008) 

From what information i could find i gathered that we are looking at the perceptiveness of the sexes:

• Men,prefer simple adverts that are visual with a 'rougher' touch and darker colours.
  
• Women, however prefer softer adverts and lots of colour, a softer touch like silks and passionate colours like " Russian Velvet " - to the male population it means "RED" ( Russian Velvet is an actual name from Dulux) 
• Women also like as much information in "adverts" as possible.
• (now i know why women always nag!)

Also what i would like to know is do celebrities make you want the product more or make you remember the advert? Were you happy or disappointed with the product?

One example of this for me is the Mini Magnum advert with Eva Longoria, in which after watching this i said "we can give them a go!" but the grave disappointment on my face when i opened one was horror! This was due to the fact that they looked so big in her hand, and when i opened it,it was so small.Ms Longoria must be the size of a Hobbit! Hot, but a Hobbit! 

Below is a link to the advert that has caused some long sleepless nights....

Eva Longoria Advert

So what does make an advert memorable? Is it the use of celebrities like Kerry Katona, the gimmicks like the Cadbury's gorrila, the humour WKD offers environmental or economic messages like what Tesco use?

The use of gimmicks like the 'Cadbury's Gorrila' is not always profitable, the advert was memorable but the sales went down.

The fact is that everyone is different (segmentation) and that adverts are now becoming harder to ignore they are everywhere you look,from the second you turn on your phone to when you turn of your television at night. There is just no escape!

Links

Mr Muscle

Beckham

Apple Mac

Yorkie

Chanel

Breitling

Learning Direct

Barclays Bank

Mercedez Benz

Tesco

Can they persuade you?

We were asked two questions in this weeks lecture firstly " does a knowledge of personality type predict purchase behaviour?"
Secondly " is self concept a better determinant of purchase intent?"

My answer to the first question is no! Simply because it all depends on individual feelings, people may find for example the WKD adverts funny one day and not very amusing the next, this is all about personalities and taste. (Solomon 1999) states

"Personality: a persons unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment"

Emotions play a massive a part of advertising the UNICEF adverts the RSPCA adverts are all filmed and put in a manor that is supposed to pluck the heart strings, where as i am sure alot of people are emotionally struck by the images and words i am sure that a lot of the people do not actually donate to which foundation advert is on.
Also for marketeers to understand the personalities of an entire nation would be near to impossible purely because everybody feels differently about different things,everyday!
I guess the best thing that they can do is to attempt to look at demographics in certain areas and what would perhaps be an appropriate advert for the correct time, the "Jeremy kyle,housewives" may be hit with an advert for Iceland with every bodies favourite Atomic Kitten star Kerry Katona!!! I find it hard to believe that products can be sold to a persons personality, its like saying my personality wants to buy comical products!! Clearly because i am a clown! This is not true i am just like everyone else i differ from day today some days i will buy The Guardian and some days it will be The Sun (slightly ironic,how the UK has a newspaper called The Sun,don't you think?)

The second question about self concept is yet again a difficult thing to measure but slightly easier to come to a conclusion, "self concept" is a massive part of everyday life "people see themselves as they imagine others see them" Solomon (2001) this is true purely because in such a world we are in now it is all about branding! " 20 years ago it was not cool to have your label on the outside of your clothes,where as now have the label on the outside is trendy and cool" Ruth (2008) this is a bold statement but it is also very true,people want other to realise and notice what they are wearing and where they get their clothes from it has become a status symbol, to be seen in the latest trends,fashions labels your Gucci's,Lactose's and Sergio Techini gives a person a certain wow factor,not to mention massive amounts of attention from the opposite sex, but that is another story... it is social recognition.

William James (1890) argued that self-concept derives from social comparisons with others - peers,family,reference groups.

This is true as i am lead to believe the people and groups used in socialising and work have influences over people the clothes they wear,the thought processes and even the way that people speak can be affected by the social groups.
Have a look at the clips below to see how brands are marketed to the consuming public.
Till next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BDazlHxKwo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWPf4dP0pcw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRGZ30-KfIs

Terry's Chocolate Orange...

Terry's Chocolate Orange? I hear you say? Well yes i did say it this week we learnt about segmentation and how people have been targeted and put into groups by marketeers and companies.

The idea behind my chocolate orange theory is that if you were to crack one open and separate it around a table it would look like all the demographics i.e. age,income and in some cases the size of your shoes as Ruth stated "size does not matter". Enough of that, people are segmenting themselves everyday without even realising it, they do it from when they buy a news paper in the morning to when they buy a sandwich at lunch,these little things put you in the same groups with millions of other people.

If  I were to give you a shopping list from someone you did not know would you be able to tell m about that person? what they did for a job? how old they were? married or single? maybe even if they were swinger? 

This was a task set to us in the lecture the picture beow of the lady depicts what we were lead to perceive the person to be like. We were told to use words to create our image anything you cannot read would possibly be a good thing.

It just goes to show how people are quick to make judgements,and marketeers have used this to full effect y producing different packaging,new advertising techniques all catered to the mass markets or to just certain types of people (Segmentation)

Kotler says " authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers"

In the next blog we will begin to discuss how companies are starting to identify and understand the consumer.

What We See Or What We Smell...

The idea of being attracted to something because of the way it looks is often how we make a purchase.


Branding has become a massive part of everyday integral life from the shoes we wear to the coffee blend we drink each morning!! Today i would like to talk about how we use our senses to recognise what we percieve as "cheap or expensive".


Tests were set up the lecture to see how people would react to what they saw,smelt,tasted and touched. My amazing group consisted of Sean, Sam and myself (Sheer Class!) we produced a test on aftershaves which actually had an outcome that we did not see, with the experiment we took three bottles of after shave covered them up with paper and labelled them A,B and C we then asked women only to come and smell them feel the bottles and smell the fragrance to see what they thought of them the questions asked were:

1: Which smelt the nicest?
2: Can you put them in price order by smell?


The results were some what surprising to us,people opted for the cheapest one to be the nicest smelling and the most expensive one o be the worst! Shock horror (Where has all the class gone in society?). The mid ranged priced fragrance was chosen by the group as being the most expensive. Ruth who has impeccable tastes even opted to purchase the Paul Smith scent which was the preferred fragrance for a Christmas present for me!


Marketeers have got it right as far as consumer perception goes they have realised that shocking adverts have got the attention to either create a buzz around them or to create contraversy which in a round about way the term "any publicity is good publicity"


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LM9rA4LbOMc


The time old test of Pepsi over Coke,what do you prefer? The link above is from a banned advert from the south americas but it just goes to show that people are willing to get their brands out by any means necassary and that competition is vital to keep companies in business.

Take the poll and tell me if its Coca Cola or Pepsi or that "Gets your taste buds going"

What Do You Feel,See Or Want It To Be?!

When you look at adverts what do you see? What do you feel? Or even what do you want it to be?

This week we can take a certain aspect of the last post and say yet again that everyone is different and how people perceive things that are in their specific environment. 

If i were to say to watch an advert on your television and write down how it makes you feel and what its for,the next time you see the same advert do the same thing but close your eyes and listen to the music. Different answer? Good,if not do it again! If you did get a different answer it shows that our senses can tell our brains to react differently in certain situations.

I have also come to the terrible conclusion that women have a better mind set when it comes to concentrating I suppose its true with what was said in Jurassic Park " God creates man,God creates dinosaurs,God kills dinosaurs,Man creates dinosaurs,dinosaurs eat man and Women inherit the earth"

By this I mean that marketers and advertisers have catered and have seen that women will pay strict instruction to adverts they have noted that women spend larger volumes of cash on products from clothing to paint! Yes! Paint but that comes into my Blog later on.

Adverts are now put on the television at certain times of the day to get the right consumer whether it be a house wife sat at home watching Jeremy Kyle at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning or a business lady from the city watching Coronation Street on a Tuesday, the adverts are tailored to attract the eyes of ladies,the idea of the fact lets pack the background with detail and luxurious colors just seem to send out all the right signals and the marketing is bang on.

Where as the male adverts of this world if i may call them that are what it says on the can (please excuse the pun) but Ronsill the wood staining agent,have it just right it's a very "blokey" add and gets straight to the point, as do car adverts there is no messing about its just what you see is what you get.

( Wilkie, 1994 ) defines perception as "being the process of sensing, selecting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world"

This is a great quote as it compacts all the things advertisers are looking for into one sentence,they way in which we perceive people around us in everyday life is not always taken into consideration but we do and that is just a fact,everyone takes first impressions into consideration people say they do not do it but they do,everyone is slightly shallow from the shoes somebody is wearing to the way they do their hair,people are always trying to make that massive first impression of being a somebody!

Now to my point of paint,Paint is something that no man really cares about does he?Lets face it attention to detail is not something that is really in the mind of males when it comes to painting a house...i am sure that "blue" is blue not "aqua marine" please answer the poll question to see if the masses agree or disagree with me on this point.

Smashed Egg!?!

The idea of filling out a picture of an egg with certain facts about ones self seems slightly weird,as we are products of eggs, which are filled with all the things that are intended to help us in life but whilst filling out an egg just look at the things that are not in your gene pool! 

Things like who knew you were going to be a good god parent,uncle or aunt and who would be able to tell you,that you would be able to go traveling around the world on your own or with a group of friends?

The egg made me realise that there are certain things in life like when?where? and who? are questions that do not always have an answer,for example i have been to different places around the world and i like different things compared to people in my lecture group, i may like Cadbury's chocolate whilst a class mate would enjoy the guilty pleasures of a Galaxy bar! Upon reflection i guess that the egg just shows us how different we all really are?! From possessions

to our behaviour and what we want as consumers.

(Russell W Belk) says...

 

"...Its a simple concept, and a basic premise of consumer behaviour. But, it has boggled the minds of the best psychologists, sociologists, consumer behaviorists, advertisers and marketers for half a century at the least. For, as it turns out now, this simple concept is really combination of two others. Not only are we what we are seen to be (the 'me' concept), we are also what is seen to be ours (the 'mine' concept). It seems we, as human beings,create our identities using both these - the 'me' and 'mine' - concepts..."

If you want to fill out your own egg like my lovely one as you can see, then here are some questions for you to get started:

Name?

Age?

Where are you from?

What languages do you speak?

What you do?

Your top 5 friends?

Your hobbies?

Your favourite quote?

Basically just fill it out with facts about you and see what you come up with,if you want to share it with the world post it on here! 

Heres hoping you enjoy filling out your egg and remember:

"Life is not about the amount of breaths you take,it's about the moments that take your breath away"