Understanding the Customer - Week 1

In today's lecture, we discovered how our first impressions of a person can influence the way we perceive them and their way of life to create a stereotypical image for that person. We also had the opportunity to study a number of possessions belonging to classmates, allowing us to create an image of a person, finding reasons why they initially bought the item and also what type of person we think would buy the specific item. For example, one of the items was a toy in the form of Beaker from the Disney programme 'The Muppet's'. In discussion, we decided that the owner of this item was most probably female, was unique and had her own style and is not afraid to voice her own opinions. She is also someone whose personality traits include being outgoing and fun-loving. Another part of todays lecture involved us creating, in the form of a mind map or a brainstorm about us as individuals, the possessions that mean the most to us and qualities that make us who we are and what make us unique. This gave us an opportunity to discover what we do as hobbies or jobs, how we perceive our personalities and things in our life that mean a great deal such as family and friends. In my opinion, the most challenging part of the session involved us thinking about other people's opinions of us and although challenging initially, it was very interesting to see how others' opinions either differed or in many cases were similar to how we personally perceive ourselves. In my experience, i always class myself as being quite shy and occassionally lacking in confidence whereas others would say that i am outgoing and very confident due to my background of competing in the equestrian sport of Eventing.

When thinking about our personal possessions and what they mean to us, we were able to link this to a theory created by Russell Belk. 'A key to understanding what possessions mean is recognising that, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, we regard our possessions as part or ourselves.' (Possessions and the Extended Self - Journal of Consumer Research 15 Russell Belk (1988))

Although i have never thought about doing a blog before, i feel it is a great way to record the information we learn in our lectures. It means that we can always refer to it for future knowledge. It is also very informative in the way that others can refer to each individual blog and also make comments and allow us to view and comment on other blogs.