Wednesday 17 December 2008

Heuristics, Memory and Nostalgia - Tricking people out of their buying habits

It is important to understand the key aspects in both the changing and static buying behaviours of the consumer in order to develop effective marketing and advertising campaigns. There is the constant need to promote customer satisfaction during and after a purchase has been made, helping to create a positive image of that brand/product/service etc. In order to do this effectively, it is imperative that the needs and wants of the consumer are addressed at all times, encouraging the consumer to change a want into a need.

Many characteristics and situations (cultural, social, personal and psychological) experienced throughout an individual's life will influence their buying behaviour, for example an older person who has lived through the war, experienced rationing and who was brought up in a completely different society to the youth of today will have their own distinct needs, without having the constant pressure to boost their ego and create a socially acceptable figure of themselves. They are more likely to visit the same shop, purchase the same products and live by the same routine week after week. With this in mind it is clear to understand that each individual has many different requirements which will determine their unique buyer behaviour. Kotler's Black Box Model of Buyer Behaviour looks at a stimulus-response aspect in which the consumer processes certain stimuli, including the four P's and other major forces and events in their environment. The stimuli experienced by the consumer will enter the black box where they will be turned into a set of responses that will be individual to each consumer based on their past experiences/decision making processes and beliefs.

'Heuristics are the mental rules of thumb that lead to a speedy decision' (Solomon et al, 2006), 'making quick decisions when there is a lot of choice' (Williams, 2001). When we see advertisements that present too much information to us at one time, we often take the quickest route to arriving at decisions without considering all of the relevant information. These mental shortcuts which facilitate decision-making are called heuristics. There are four possible heuristics that may be processed by the consumer when making a purchase decision: recognition which focuses mainly on the branding of products, the consumer is more likely to buy the one they know; minimalist, which tends to be aimed at advertising, uses recognition plus one random criteria such as a nice label; take the last uses the last criteria applied to a similar situation (habit); and take the best which assesses the options in order of perceived importance of criteria (branding/USP).










Life's for sharing! (I couldn't resist putting this advert in...I think it is a fantastic example of nostalgia!)
'Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for earlier days when summers were hotter, days were longer, food was tastier and people were friendlier, lends itself to some traditional, long-lasting brands that many consumers remember from childhood' (Wright, 2000).

'Nostalgia has been described as a bitter-sweet emotion, where the past is viewed with both sadness and longing' (Solomon, 2000).

'When a stimulus is capable of recreating a personal event, even after many years, there often follows a bitter-sweet sentiment known as nostalgia' (Dubois, 2000).

Nostalgia has been defined by Solomon et al as a bittersweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing; many 'classic' products appeal to consumers' memories of their younger days. Advertisers use many references to 'the good old days' in their campaigns, nelping to call up memories of distant youth in the hope that these feelings can be translated into the products they are selling today. Stimuli, such as a song or photograph, can provoke nostalgia in the form of an instantaneous reaction in a person's body language whether it be foot tapping, goosebumps, smiling, getting more animated or speaking louder and faster. It is reactions such as these that the marketer and advertiser aim to recreate for the target audience of a product in order for them generate a sense of relationship and a bond with brand/product and also to get them talking about it too.

The picture collage below demonstrates certain stimuli that provoke a nostalgic reaction from my parents. The images are based on their youth in the 1970's when then where newly married and enjoying life to the full - jet setting to Tunisia and Greece, clubbing in Brimpton Grange (now the Oxford Belfry), boat trips and road trips with family and friends, even memories of the types of clothes they used to wear sparked a reaction of hysterical laughter and uncontrollable chatting!

Memory

'Memory involves a process of acquiring information and storing it over time so that it will be available when needed. Contemporary approaches to the study of memory employ an information-processing approach. They assume that the mind is in some ways like a computer: data are input, processed and output for later use in revised form' (Solomon, 2006).

'Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of internal representations of that knowledge' (Blakemore, 1988).

'Without memory we would be servants of the moment...relying on reflexes...Civilisation itself is the distillation of human memory.'

It is a known fact that the more familiar the consumer is with a product, the more likely they are to recall it in the future. This is one of the basic fundamentals of marketing where the advertiser aims to build awareness of a product. Salience is predominantly used in advertising in order to create certain stimuli that are likely to stand out in contrast to their environment to generate more attention. Examples of this could be the use of distinct, contrasting packaging or unusual forms of advertising (such as the Gorilla advert or the more recent eyebrow advert used to promote Cadbury's Dairy Milk). This, in turn, will increase the likelihood that the product will be recalled by the consumer.

'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier: 'If only there could be an invention', i said impulsively, 'that bottled up a memory, like a scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again'.

Saturday 29 November 2008

Gender Differences in Advertising







This lecture identified the differences in the response to advertising by gender. Charity adverts such as Cancer Research UK and Barnado's children’s charitie were used as examples to discover the variation in emotional responses between males and females and ultimately whether the desired effect would occur, in these cases donation to the charities or to create awareness of the specific illness/subject. On viewing and discussing each advert, it was clear that females are more affected and are likely to become far more emotionally involved with the subject than males. This could be due to the fact that males are highly influenced by humour in adverts rather than pure emotion resulting in a loss of interest in the subject. This discovery may change if a male has been personally affected by a certain issue such as illness within their close circle of family and friends. After watching the charity adverts and focusing on their structure and content, many powerful, almost overwhelming, feelings and emotions that may have previously been experienced subconsciously where brought to the surface, particularly after the Cancer Research UK advert due to my recent personal experiences with this illness. In comparison, the male audience did not experience such high involvement and emotion as they were more likely to be encouraged to channel the TV channel or leave the room completely proving that this type of advertising is virtually ineffective for males.

The gender differences used in advertising to create an effective campaign are also visible in everyday life using the example of how to impress a woman in comparison to how you would impress a man. With males it is it clear and to the point: show up naked and bring food! Whereas for a woman there are many ways, both simple and complex, that a good impression can be made: compliment her, protect her, spend money on her, respect her, love her etc. These key points used in order to develop a good relationship are important to consider when planning a campaign, whether it is for a charity organisation or to promote a new product/service, so that the desired effect is achieved successfully.


Information taken from the Journal of Advertising Research into gender differences in advertising persuasion state that the response by an individual may be due to differences in values and processing style. It is clear that involvement conditions and the order in which messages are given play an essential part in understanding the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Females are believed to be more selfless and show a greater concern for others than males do, reinforcing the statement that females are the ‘primary caregivers’ who ‘tend to foster nurturing’ in comparison to the ‘competitive orientation’ of males (Journal of Advertising Research, 2003). As a result of the varying differences in the approach to buying and communication between males and females, there are many implications for advertisers when developing a specific advertising campaign. Women prefer complex adverts that encourage them to process the information and become highly involved in the product/service, whereas males tend to think in a more comprehensive way and need to be shown the bigger picture as they are less likely to process and solve complex metaphors.




Gender has been used in children’s advertising by the use of stereotyping. It has been noticed that many adverts that involve men and women, the male is typically seen as the more authoritative figure whereas the female tends to be used to display a mother-figure in the form of a teacher, nurse, wife or mother. Soloman et al, 2006 states that children are believed to pick up on the concept of gender identity at an earlier age than was previously thought. Research has shown that children as young as 1 or 2 are able to categorise certain activities as being masculine or feminine, such as driving a truck which signifies masculinity or cooking and cleaning which signifies femininity.




Thursday 20 November 2008

Enterprise Week - Women in Business

Sessions on gaining confidence and credibility - how to boost your inner and outer confidence, give great presentations, think creatively and a talk from local award winning entrepreneur about her business and success –a day full of tips to help you have it all!

Today's event was a fantastic experience, allowing me to gain so much valuable information and effective skills that can be put to practice in many aspects of business and general everyday life. Huge variety of people attended the event, ranging from students of Bucks New Uni to women that are already in the workplace but were interested in the topics being covered by the fantastic range of guest speakers. It was a great situation for networking and discovering what others were getting out of the sessions too.



Penny Sloane and Katie Demain - Impact Management

How to project yourself with confidence and credibility. This workshop examines ways to promote and enhance personal credibility through impression and non verbal communication. This session involved theory and group interaction which was a great way to get us all relaxed and help us get to know each other. A challenging task we were asked to complete involved groups of 8 people, and within our own group we were to sum up each person using one word relating to our first impression of that person. I certainly found it amazing that the way people see me as an individual differs greatly from how I see myself. A video included in the presentation really hit home to us all relating to how quickly someone can make a judgement of you within the first 3-5 seconds. The situation involved was a job interview involving three candidates with a completely different image. On a scale we could see how the impressions made during the initial stages of the interview were in fact the final decision and overall impression of that candidate. Although it only takes between 3 and 5 seconds to make a first impression, it takes at least 12 further exposures to that person to alter the first impression.

Susan Lock - Powering Up Your Presentations

The fear of Public Speaking tops the fear of death! Do you dread introducing yourself at meetings? Do you suffer from dry mouth, sweaty palms, palpitations? Does the dentist’s chair suddenly seem an enticing place to be? If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions then Sue Lock’s taster session on how to present yourself and speak with confidence and conviction will help you...and it certainly did!

Susan Lock is the founder of HR and Training Consultancy, Key Consultants, based in Radnage, Buckinghamshire. She has extensive experience in the delivery of presentation skills and she really has changed my view of performing a presentation, from going through each stage of a presentation addressing the key aspects in order to succeed and maintain the engagement of the audience right from the start. By using certain anecdotes, quotations, questions or humour right at the start, as long as they relate to the topic to be discussed.

“A presentation is like a mini-skirt: it has to be short enough to get the attention, but long enough to cover the essentials."

The right body language is key to performing a successful speech. The following statistics show how important body language can be in the overall impact of a presentation: just 7% relates to the words themselves, 38% is in voice projection and tone and 55% comes from messages portrayed through body language and movement and images that you make whether they may be casual, professional or approachable. When planning a speech, it is important to think about the beginning thoroughly as it is the key to a good or bad speech linking back to first impressions. Have an ABCD structure with Attention - making sure it is achieved straight away, Benefits - what is in it for the audience, Credentials - why should they listen to you as the speaker? Why should they believe you? Direction - where will the presentation topic lead? Announce a question and answer section before closure.

Your visual image is increasingly important in creating a professional first impression. Key elements of the image include relaxation, whether this may be achieved through deep breaths or loosening shoulders; upright, position, thinking about he position of the head; movement - avoid pacing as this can detract too much attention away from the presentation; and gesture making sure you make it relevant to you and the image you intend to portray. Finish the presentation in the position and area where you said positive points as the audience are more likely to adopt a positive image of the performance in comparison to standing in a spot where negatives issues were discussed.

The main body of the presentation is where the main ideas come across. As the brain has a preference for working in three's, have three key ideas to build on. Create stories to allow audience to paint a picture, involving audience interaction and visual imagery and communication through the eyes. This will encourage the highest absorption of information making the speech memorable for all involved. Examples in advertising where the use of 3 key points includes Heinz with the slogan "Beanz Meanz Heinz" and "A Mars a Day Helps you Work, Rest and Play."



Believe it or not, the ending is where most presenters fail. Many tend to rush the end in the view that they are finished although they audience are likely to take home the last images. In the preparation, it is important to decide what you want the audience to remember, using a decisive, confident high note to deliver this successfully.

Amanda Graham - Creative Thinking - Beyond the Brainstorm

Many people think that "being creative", having the ability to come up with new ideas and approaches in business is a gift you either have, or don't have. This is a taster session which will give you visibility of two creative thinking techniques which will hopefully convince you that this can be learned and that you will be able to use straight away to "think differently and better."
This session gave me an insight into various methods of creative thinking techniques including: brainstorming, reverse brainstorming, SCAMPER: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, Reverse/Rearrange, and random word processing.

Caroline Kinsey 2008 Bucks Entrepreneur of the Year - Womenomics - The Rise and Rise of the Business Woman
















Women are playing a more active role than ever in the economy, workplace and in political life. How are they achieving their success? By embracing their femininity rather than feeling under pressure to adopt male traits. As 2008 Bucks entrepreneur of the Year, Caroline Kinsey shares her views and personal experience of building an award-winning PR agency, Cirkle PR , and her new business: Trojan Training achieved through more right brain thinking, with which women are associated, such as creativity, collaboration, communication, teamwork and democratisation.

PR is: “Getting the right message to the right market in the right media at the right moment..."

"...with ongoing momentum

I found this talk so inspiring, full of so much useful information. I especially found the information on the office culture and working environment fascintating, with the use of imagery including the Red Bus used as a less formal way of defining an employee's level of work within the business. The emphasis on staff well being is fantastic, it shows that the staff are at the centre of the business because at the end of the day, if the staff are happy more work is liekly to be produced and to a much higher standard.

Caroline explained the key points involved in unlocking a successful business, these include:
  • Recruitment
  • Retention
  • Training
  • Culture
  • Communication
  • Feedback
  • Reputation
  • Finances

A form of training and developing an employees skills has been identified through the use of Insights Colours which is similar to the Myers-Brigg Personality Type Indicator explained below.

"Work on your business, not in your business."

Karen Taylor and Ann Mullard – Improve Your Options Discover Your Natural Skills – a brief interactive session introducing Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

The Myers-Briggs test indicates the differences in people by where they prefer to focus their attention, the way they prefer to take in information, the way they prefer to make decisions and the kind of lifestyle they adopt. It helps to explain why all individuals are interested in different things, why they are good at different kinds of work, why they often find it hard to communicate with each other and how they use these differences constructively.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Enterprise Week


Networking - Get Yourself Connected

This was a talk taken by David McQeen, a professional speaker and also TV presenter in his own shows: "Vocation, Vocation, Vocation" and "It's me you want!". He is a person with bags of enthusiasm and passion for the job he does. He made it so influential and inspiring, combining the talk with humour and facts.



Networking is not selling or smooching, it is a case of building friendships, relationships and referrals without a hidden agenda. It is important throughout life to build a portfolio of contacts in order to build on your reputation by referrals from people saying a good word about you. It is imperative to gain contacts but also keep in touch and make notes against the contacts. Referrals are so important in business and throughout life as very often many business opportunities arise through referrals building a good reputation and increase the value of who you are, rather than through agencies, TV or newspaper.

Speaking in Public

In a social anxiety survey carried out by the New York Times, it was astonishingly discovered that speaking in public topped the ranking of fears - even higher than spiders AND the fear of death!! When required to speak in public, be yourself - don't try to be anyone else as it will not come across as natural to the audience. Make sure you know the type of language you need or want to use in view of the prospective target audience - who do you need to talk to? What do you want to talk about? Concentrate on your style of communication, remember good manners at al times as this will take you very far. Whether you are introvert or extrovert, whatever your style be who you are. Use blogs and social networking sites to communicate with people, what is it that makes you differnt from the rest? What unique qualities do you have that would be attractive to a business?
The World is a Complex Place

The speaker in this event was Tom Vick, Group Business Director of JWT, a leading communications agency in London.

“Anybody who believes that life is going to become simpler in this day and age needs to have their head examined” (Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, WPP Group).

In view of advertising, Tom Vick explains that they “create ideas that people want to spend time with”. Marketing and advertising is now far more complex a process than it ever has been. There is the constant demand for more exposure due to changing technology and consumer priorities such as advertising having less opportunity on TV with the “30 second ad” because of the creation of Sky+ etc. It is fascinating to compare uses of advertising in technology is now to how is was nearly two decades ago. In the 1990’s, there were less TV channels with no Sky or digital TV. Advertising was extremely successful on TV during this time due to the limitations on variety of technology available. People had no other option than to watch the adverts that followed popular soaps during the breaks. Mobile phones were simple and barely mobile due to their size – the majority of people who used a mobile during this time were business people, although they could only phone out, no calls could be made to the phone. No internet was available and the only people who had computers, which were not nearly as advanced as they are today, were secretaries in businesses. This shows that advertising and marketing through media which we now take for granted was completely non-existent only 20 or so years ago. Communication had to be made face to face or through a landline phone, one factor being that there was very limited mobile signal for the mobile phones that were available.

Today times have changed. Technology is buzzing all around us and it will be only the very small minority that do not rely on a mobile phone or laptop in all aspects of their lives. Communication has changed dramatically with most people turning to email or text messaging as acceptable forms of contact. These changes have had a huge impact on the world of advertising by altering the proportions of different media that dominate the most popular or successful forms of communication to consumers. New types of media tend to be shifting towards the use of outdoor advertising such as the digital escalator screens used in the underground as outlined in the event “What Next?”, featuring cross-track projections but no sound. These have proven to be more appealing to the viewer. TV media is getting a lower proportion of the ad spend, with the shift to digital advertising or direct marketing with the use of social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace which can target a specific audience. It is important to remember that no form of advertising has been “killed”; everything has just got more complex. TV is still being used but in a much more targeted way than ever before, “word of mouth” is becoming the new marketing sensation. Advertising is seen as an investment designed to take money and turn it into more money.

Tom Vick explained about a 5-point plan that will help in the building of successful advertising in the future:
  1. Forget above and below the line marketing and advertising ever existed;
    Bring back the true definition of advertising;

  2. Restructure businesses around brands and communication schemes to focus more on the clients’ objectives;

  3. Invest in re-training agency employees as some may only have the knowledge of a small part of advertising and marketing communications, there is the need to understand how a business works;

  4. Learn from youth – use younger staff to train older employees as an advantage to the company due to the fact that the younger emerging generation have grown up with the developing technology.
Advertising has become more complex than a decade ago due to the change in lifestyle of consumers, and the constant changing and emerging technological industry. Some agencies failed to “move with the times” and so as a result, did not survive the huge change. It has been proven that advertising has not been a necessity for some businesses that have grown so successfully through mainly “word of mouth”. These companies include eBay, Amazon, and Google. Innocent, the smoothies drink producer also built a very successful enterprise on “word of mouth” advertising. The only way to communicate a message without it being adapted or diluted is by word of mouth. An example of a company that struggled through lack of advertising is Marks and Spencer. It was flourishing business up until a decade ago surviving with no advertising. Consumers’ lifestyles then changed dramatically with a much higher emphasis on style and fashion especially as a higher percentage of women were emerging into the workplace. M&S became unappealing and regular customers began to shop elsewhere, causing a massive decline in profits. The advertising campaign “Your M&S” was developed and helped turn round the image, being more high profile and more personal to the individual customer making the company the success it is today.
Does advertising have any relevance into the success of a product or a brand? It may be insignificant compared to many life events including world wars, natural disasters, poverty etc, but it does create a huge amount of awareness in a particular product or brand. Advertising is a significant global industry giving figures of £1.5 billion making it second in the world behind the USA. Taking the Cadbury’s Gorilla advert: did it have any impact on the overall performance of the business; were dramatic changes in profit visible? This advert was hugely successful in one sense: it got people talking, having the ability to connect with people emotionally working in a similar way to theatre, dance or art forms.
During the current economic climate, no-one can predict what will happen to advertising in the next year, let alone the next decade. The industry has seen a hugely dramatic change in the past 5 years compared to the previous 150 years. The following points show how the advertising industry may change over the next 5 years:
  1. We may see the return to full-service advertising, both creative and media in a new format. There may be a decline in the clients’ marketing budget in the very near future but this may expand in order to fight off competition and survive the recession to come out the other side stronger than ever. More sophisticated agency techniques may be offered to clients, and it will be only a matter of time before clients are offered more creative solutions by the agencies;

  2. The disciplines of account planning and channel planning will merge;
  3. We will see an increase in global outsourcing, including less expensive labour costs on the production of advertising. Advertising networks may have contacts internationally to create a 24/7 basis of work so when the company in the UK finishes, another company in a different country will take over;

  4. There will be no clear separation between digital agencies and ad agencies as they will all have to do both in order to survive. There are approximately 12,500 agencies in the UK and only the strongest and the fittest will survive. The agencies that get there first and who are seen to be the best will succeed;

  5. The emergence of mobile as a marketing channel will develop as it is one of the most dominant screens in the majority of peoples’ lives, especially the younger generation allowing agencies to target audiences more directly and accurately.

As a result of the credit crunch, there is a greater focus on cost, efficiency and investment over the next 5 years, giving online marketing a boost in increasing popularity between clients’ and consumers’.

The expectation of graduates during the changing times is seen to be getting tougher and increasingly more competitive with the key qualities including a passion for the subject, a bright image, a successful ability to argue their case and selling qualities for use when selling ideas to a client. They should be able to examine their likes and dislikes in advertisements critically.

"What Next?"

A panel of 8 top executives from Marketing, Advertising, PR backgrounds chaired by Don Cowley. The invited industry panel members included: Jayne Barr MD of Creative Consulting Ltd, ex Managing partner of TBWA, Leagas Delaney and Grey; Andrew Canter Founder CEO ‘Contentsworx’, the Brand Content Agency; Steve Cox MD Titan Outdoor Group; Rob Laurence TGI Strategic Director; Jamie Matthews MD of Initials Marketing; Ivor Peters MD Primal PR and Allan Rich Chairman of Cello Group, ex Chairman Mediacom.







In view of the current threat of recession in the UK, Allan Rich of Cello Group stated that “well run businesses will survive through the recession”.The advertising/marketing industry is busier now than it ever has been.



The key to success is to show intense enthusiasm for your chosen industry/career choice. The three key elements in creating a successful business include: measurement – whether a TV, outdoor, radio or internet advertisement is working, is it reaching the target audience successfully? Accountability and innovation/enthusiasm – all linking in with the SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based).


“I know that 50% of my advertising works, I’m just not sure which 50%”. (Lord Leverhulme)

“There are a lot of great technicians in advertising; and unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules...but there’s one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion, and persuasion is not a science but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion”. (William Bernbach)

Ikea is an example of an experiential ad campaign where it is seen that there is now a greater move towards integration and more communicators to promote a product or brand.
It has been noticed that recently there has been a greater change in terms of employment connected to gender, race, age, class etc when recruiting a new employee. Rather than taking a stereotypical image of a middle-upper class, white British male graduate from Oxbridge, companies are now being seen to “step outside the box” to change habits and decrease any visible discrimination.



It has been highly recommended that we take the
IPA diagonal thinking test which is a recognised test within the industry showing prospective employers whether someone is a diagonal thinker or whether they tend to steer more towards logic or creativeness.
In this industry, everything must start with the consumer/customer in terms of demographics – who the target audience will be in relation to the specific product/brand to be promoted.
In recent years, it has been proven that the “30 second ad” no longer has so much impact on the consumer, although it isn’t “dead”, due to many factors including the constant development and change of new technology, for example Sky+ which now has a feature that allows the viewer to

fast-forward through the adverts between TV programmes, making these particular ads effectively useless as there is a much lower proportion of people actually viewing the ads. Changes such as this have resulted in a need to discover and innovate new alternatives. Examples of these are the digital posters visible in the London Underground which also have a Bluetooth capability allowing companies to connect with the consumers, allowing them to visibly see if the product is reaching out to the target audience by enabling them to measure the specific set objectives. Types of advertising such as this must combine contact and context as well as content which will in turn create a highly powerful message. According to Jamie Matthews, MD of Initials Marketing, in the 1970’s, an advertiser could reach 90% of its target audience with 30, 30 second ads. It now takes approximately 170 ads to hit the same spot – this shows that the marketing/advertising industry now has to work so much harder to reach the same volume. It has been noted that sponsorship advertisements are far more powerful and convey an influential message to the consumer. Content is required in an advert to create awareness of a product encouraging the audience to talk about it. Engagement from the consumer is a vital factor in making an advert successful.




Advertising is now moving heavily towards digital media in terms of gaining the highest volume of consumer awareness, the internet being one of the most influential. Outside the internet, the fastest growing form of media is posters. This change in types of media being used is opening a wide door for new and expanding opportunities.



Green marketing is seen to be attractive to consumers due to the many benefits for the environment and the increase in changing behaviour towards recycling products. An example of this new innovative idea is the Marks and Spencer’s “5p per bag” from which all proceeds are donated to charity, although the main purpose of this is to discourage customers from taking new carrier bags each time they shop and encourage them to recycle. Corporate Social Responsibility and ethical trading can be linked in with this as it addresses the company’s role in society and the community and also the running of the businesses successfully. It can be seen as being parallel to changing consumer attitudes towards environmentalism and sustainability, tracing changing attitudes among companies and businesses as they recognise the nature of their customer. Three key points that can determine the success and CSR of a business include the ethics and opportunities used, being incarnate in the development of the product/brand and the outcome – what people are doing with their products in relation to the advertisements. Building a successful relationship with the client is key to maintaining a successful business partnership and a highly respectable reputation in the industry – it is such a small world within this industry that a good reputation can lead you far but a bad reputation can drag you down. Something a previous boss, the MD and founder of The Validium Group, said to me was “always be nice to the people you meet on the way up as you will most definitely meet them on the way back down.” I gained so much respect for him, as well as the Executive Director of his company as I learned about the highs and lows of the building the business and making it what it is today – one of the leading and most reputable companies in its industry of EAP’s (Employee Assistance Programmes) with a substantial portfolio of very well-known UK clients, and are now also expanding internationally. This has always stuck with me and has made me understand how important it is in business or in anything that you do to build yourself a good reputation in order to succeed.


Putting Theory into Practice - A discussion by a panel of past Bucks New University Graduates currently working in the industry.


This session was an extremely valuable source of information for us as present students, allowing us to see how achieving a successful degree can lead into our chosen career path – in my case this is marketing. Through asking many relevant questions to the panel, I gained a valuable insight into many methods that will guide me and allow me to seek more and more knowledge into the subject which I am so passionate about going into. I am 100% for work experience in the chosen vocation for many reasons, one being the fact that you can literally put theory into practice. From linking back to my personal experiences working in many business environments, all very different, over the past four years I am now able to relate to certain things I may have seen or tasks I may have been asked to carry out. It is a fantastic way to experience whether that specific role or career path is right and satisfies your needs and what you aim to get out of the job. A great emphasis was made by all of the graduates to constantly be reading up on the subjects learnt during lectures, reading other relevant materials including publications such as Marketing Week, Marketing and Campaign, case studies for the industry and also Brand Republic. Making sure that preparation is utmost when gearing up for an interview – researching into companies and recent events in the industry, taking note of any images seen whilst travelling to an interview, explaining how relevant the course is and how the knowledge learned would be applied when working in the industry. Once an interview has been successful and a job has been offered it is so important for graduates to make themselves indispensible to the company, constantly thinking creatively “outside the box”, thinking along the lines of accountability, using celebrity endorsements in ad campaigns, creating maximum profit and awareness on a product/brand with minimum amount of spend, time-management, multi-tasking and deadlines.

Great blog by Graeme Crossley, founder member of Brand Reputation Ltd - a communications agency that builds trust in consumer brands by developing & implementing strategies related to corporate social responsibility & sustainability. Take a look at http://www.brandrep.blogspot.com/ it's well worth a look!




Friday 7 November 2008

Targeting Gender in Advertising

Today's session focused on how advertisers target males and females to create a successful and memorable advert. Altogether, there were three experiments that involved us viewing a number of different adverts - the first section not relating to any particular gender, the second focusing on males and the third on females. The first experiment contained a variety of adverts which included cars, perfume, money, alcoholic drinks and flavoured. At this point, we did not know how we would be using the examples and probably did not take too much notice of the specific products being shown. On completion we were asked to write down the advert we remembered most clearly - in my case the Cravendale Strawberry Milk advert stuck in my mind. It was interesting to see, when comparing the results with others in the class that not everyone chose the same advert. In some cases a certain advert will be more memorable to males than females due to content, contrasting in the advert, colour, humour and other specific factors. The key factor involved in advertising is that not everyone remembers the same thing. There are many variables used in advertising to create a memorable image including celebrity endorsement such as the perfume adverts featured below. It may be that an advert may not be so successful if the product is not associated with a celebrity. It has been recognised that men prefer advets that contain some type of humour making the advert more memorable generally following a trent of using more pictures than text and darker colours. Women prefer and are more likely to respond to an advert that allows them to answer a question themselves whereas men prefer to jump to an answer.



"The issue is much more fundamental than the usual myopic media one about where the ads appear: It's about recognising women [and men]'s different appraoch" (Financial Times, June 29 2001)
The article taken from the WARC database: Message order effects and gender differences in advertising persuasion is a valuable source of information showing extensive research into the effectiveness of advertising position with relation to primacy and recency when comparing gender differences in behaviour. The study explains that depending on the type of processing involved, females will exhibit more primacy effects than recency effects, whereas males will exhibit more recency effects than primacy effects. A primacy effect can be defined as "a greater persuasion of the initial communication", implying that it is better to be first in line when putting across an argument. A recency effect occurs "when the final communication has the greater consequence on persuasion", or that it is better to be last when putting an argument across. There are many psychological processes and factors influencing primacy and recency effects including: interest or motivation in the subject, overall involvement and attitude strength. It has been recognised that primacy tends to occur when there is a high level of interest in a product encouraging consumers to process the information effectively. Recency effects can be observed if the end product does not promote interest or create any motivational aids allowing the consumers attention to drift away from the advertisement. It is highly likely that when interest and motivation is shown in a subject, the primacy effect will occur due to the central processing of information, whereas if information is processed peripherally, interest and motivation will be low and so as a consequence, the recency effect will be present.

Sunday 2 November 2008

Personality and Self-Concept

In this weeks session we looked personality and self-concept and how they relate closely to marketers and which one they prefer to target more when promoting a product. Is self-concept a better determinant of purchase intent? Personality can be defined as:

"those relatively stable and enduring aspects of individuals which distinguish them from other people, making them unique but at the same time permit a comparison between individuals." (R. Gross, 1992)

Self-concept differs from personality as it is "the beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes and how he or she evaluates those qualities" (Solomon, 1999). The two definitions show a distinct difference in their meaning which can be appealing to marketers and advertisers as i feel people are more likely to make a purchase in relation to the external views (self-concept) they have about themselves rather than by their internal traits, or personality. There are many theories into personality which have been developed over many years. Hollander defined personality as “the sum total of an individual’s characteristics which make him unique”. He had an interactionist approach to personality and created a model of personality which was seen by other psychologists as providing a more systematic and comprehensive framework for understanding the concept or personality. The model encourages a multi-method approach to the study of personality by encompassing both a trait and social environment perspective. Personality is viewed as being in different layers with the outer layers being more changeable or readily influenced by situation demands and environmental factors.



Cattell (1965) adopted a trait approach to personality where he decided that more than just two or three dimensions were needed in order to create a full picture of a person's personality. To determine a someone's personality, Cattell created a questionnaire named the 16PF Questionnaire after proposing that personality could be reduced to and measured in terms of 16 personality factors. He identified that a person's personality could fluctuate according to situations that they may be in, allowing him to recognise certain common traits that are possessed by all and unique traits only possessed by some people.

Freud recognised the importance of the unconcious mind and identified conflict between pleasure seeking and social responsibility. There are three main factors in his theory: id which maximises pleasure, ego which is known as the mediator and superego that is the underlying conscience. Horney (1945) believed that personality develops from the level of anxiety felt at being a dependant child and he separated this into three variables: compliant - going towards each other (affection/affiliation), aggressive - going against others (power/determination) and detached - turning away from others (isolation/indifference).

As part of this section, we were required to carry out tests to determine our own personality type using Myers Brigg Test and The Simpson's Personality Test, which is based on the Myers Brigg. I first completed The Simpson's Personality test which involved deciding on one letter from each of 4 pairs of opposing personality indicators. On completion I had a four letter code which i then cross-matched to one of 16 Simpson's characters. The indicators i chose are: E - prefer to direct your energy to deal with people, things, situations. S - you prefer to deal with facts, what you know, to have clarity, a realist in the here and now - for you the force is a tool: a fission screwdriver. T - you prefer to decide on the basis of logic, using an analytic and detached approach. P - you prefer to go with the flow, to maintain flexibility and respond to events. The four letter code: ESTP cross-matched with Bart Simpson which is outlined below.

Bart Simpson - ESTP The Persuader
Strengths: They love action and always seem to be doing something. Clear-headed when dealing with emergencies. Enjoy lavishing loved ones with big gifts. Good to have on your side, corporate suit.

Weaknesses: Get bored easily. Enjoys lavishing loved ones with big gifts.

I also completed the Myers Brigg personality test on http://www.mypersonality.info/ which showed different results from the Simpson's test. The four letter code from the Myers Brigg test turned out as ENTJ showing my personality type as a "Chief" which, as suggested from the personality type title, are strategic, organized and possess natural leadership qualities. They are master coordinators that can effectively give direction to groups. They are able to understand complicated organizational situations and quick to develop intelligent solutions. ENTJs are outspoken and will not hesitate to speak of their plans for improvement. They are decisive and value knowledge, efficiency and competence. On another occassion, i decided to carry out this test again which interestingly showed different results from the previous two tests taken. The results for this second test suggested that my personality type is an "Overseer". The four letter code for this personality type is ESTJ which as you can see is different from the previous two tests. ESTJs are seen to be responsible, logical, norm-following hard workers. Their efforts are carried out in a practical, structured manner. ESTJs trust facts and experiences more than theories. They are decisive, loyal, tradition observing individuals. They enjoy being the person in charge and often make good supervisors. After studying the definitions of the three personality types given after completing the tests, i feel that there are asects of my personality in all of them. I think the two tests are generally valid, although there may be some weaknesses in their structure due to the changing part of someone's personality due to environmental factors which may affect a person's mood or actions on a specific day or following a certain situation.

A small test carried out in class during this session involved us drawing a pig using our interpretation and preferences only. On completion of the pig drawing, someone's personality on that day can be determined although it too may be influenced by external environmental aspects. This test is suggested to be able to determine a personality type by the way someone draws their pig. Take a look using the following link:

Friday 24 October 2008

Segmentation and Marketing

Segmentation must be seen as a process that involves marketers in many areas and at many different stages in the marketing process. Marketing research will be used to identify different customer groups with different product needs and these will be translated by product developers into product benefits. There is no single way to segment a market. A marketer has to try different segmentation variables to find the best way to view the market structure.

Segmentation is the process of splitting customers, or potential customers, in a market into different groups, or segments, within which customers share a similar level of interest in the same or comparable set of needs satisfied by a distinct marketing proposition.

This Calvin Klein advert represents several layers of segmentation: youth, gender, wealth and a lifestyle interest in fashion. The brand name keys into the young market using text messaging in shorthand.

"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." Bill Crosby

There are different types of segmentation which further helps marketers target consumers with more specific variables. These include geographical segmentation which divides the market into different geographical units, demographic segmentation which divides the market into groups based on demographic variables such as age, gender, occupation, religion and nationality, life-cycle segmentation which offers products or marketing approaches that recognise the consumer's changing needs at different stages of their life. Psychographic segmentation which divides a market into different groups based on social class, lifestyle of personality characteristics and behavioural segmentation which divides a market into groups based on consumer knowledge, attitude and the use or response to a product.

Adverts will not be successful if they do not bear any relevance to the needs and interests of the target audience. Detailed customer profiles should be developed for all market segments with an exact description of participants. For example, television or magazine adverts would not necessarily catch the eye of an elderly person as their wants and needs are not the same as they would be for a person in their 20's or 30's. This could be due to the upbringing of an elderly person in a different era where they lived through the war and experienced rationing so they are likely to use products that they are familiar with and will not be influenced by wanting to use the highly fashionable porducts on the market. The younger generation would be more attracted to adverts promoting beauty or fashion products as there is always the pressure to follow the latest trends and products that keep you looking younger for longer.

"Segment, segment, segment! Dark and Lovely cuts the market several ways to find their niche: race, age, gender and lifestyle (organics)." The advertising archives.

"The largest, fastest-growing segments are not always the most attractive ones for every company." Principles of Marketing


Friday 17 October 2008

Testing and Identifying Perception

Today's session was based on discovering and interpreting perception using specific tests carried out by groups in the class. The first involved testing three different types of Coca-Cola: normal Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Three people volunteered to test the drinks and they were asked to distinguish each type. They all guessed the normal Coke variety correctly, but the responses given for the other two were mixed. They were then asked to state which one they would normally choose to drink and whether this was the same as the one they preferred in the experiment. In our group we chose chocolate as our product to investigate. We picked 5 different types of chocolate: Waitrose Belgian Chocolate, Asda Milk Chocolate, Tesco-more expensive range, Tesco-middle range and Tesco Value. We asked 5 individuals to test each type of chocolate then state which one they preferred and which one they disliked. We also asked them to decide which one they thought was the most expensive and the cheapest. After gathering the results from the experiment, it was interesting to see that not every person had chosen the same brand of chocolate as their favourite. The most preferred appeared to be the most expensive Waitrose chocoloate and the cheapest Tesco Value chocolate. The type that most people disliked was the more expensive range from Tesco. If we were to carry out this experiment again in the future, we could start by decreasing the total number of brands of chocolate used for testing from five to three. We would also supply some water to help wash down the chocolate. We could then have two different tests, one where the volunteers know which type of chocolate they are testing and another one where they are blind-folded. We could then compare the results to see if their opinions and perceptions of the different brands and packaging changes.

A test was carried out using the sense of smell. This involved different types of men's aftershave and women's perfume. Four people, 2 boys and 2 girls, were chosen to carry this experiment which aimed to see if people could distinguish different types without knowing the brands. It was interesting to see on collection of the results that in most cases the volunteers could not distinguish between the men's and women's perfumes. The last test carried out incorporated the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. A number of television adverts had been chosen but had been altered from their original state by inserting music clips over the top. We were to decide which version we thought suited the advert best and which one would be most effective for the product it was advertising. This was a very inventive and original test and it was interesting to see how the type of music used in an advert can really influence your desicision and opinion on the product.

Gestalt psychologists working in the 1930's researched the concept that animals and humans are bron with built-in ways of seeing and organising the world. They argue that for our ancestors the world was a dangerous place to be born into and babies needed to understand as quickly as possible what was going on around them. This ability to take limited information and attempt to make sense of it has become known as Gestalt or Closure and it stays with us for the whole of our lives.

Gestalt Psychology is a school of thought maintaining that people derive meaning from the totality of a set of stimuli rather that from an individual stimulus. Gestalt is a German word that roughly means whole, pattern or configuration, and this perspective is best summarised by the saying 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. There are 4 main principles that are based on work in Gestalt Psychology, these include: the principle for closure which implies that consumers tend to perceive an incomplete picture as complete. The principle of similarity that tells us consumers tend to group together objects that share similar physical characteristics. The figure-ground principle is where one part of a stimulus will dominate while other parts reced into the background. The final principle is stimulus ambiguity which is where a stimulus is said to be ambiguous when it does not correspond to an immediately recognisable shape or form.

Optical Illusions

Optical illusions are a good example of the way our brains take an object and perceive it in a way that makes sense to us. They test our visual perception and show that in many cases this type of perception is not always reliable.

An optical illusion occurs because the different cells and receptors of the eye perceive images and colors at different rates, which sometimes result in a false image being relayed to the brain. The brain receives information from receptors in the eye, but really, the eye only perceives a certain quantity of visual information at any given time, while our brain continuously decodes, constructs and reconstructs visual information, giving us the illusion of continuous sight. The right combination of colors, shapes, spatial relations, and other stimuli viewed by the eyes and reported to the brain during the relays of information can achieve the effect of an optical illusion.