Friday 14 May 2010

Social Class


My opinion is that people will be divided into more class if others individuals find other ways in which to divide them.

Soical class in UK is split into three main areas their are as follows


  1. the upper class- often the members of this class have inherited wealth.

  2. the middle class- the majority of britain can be classed as being middle class

  3. lower class or working class- people who work in agriculture.

Generation Marketing

In today's lecture, we all as a class discussed how marketers target different generations of the target market the marketers are aiming their products at. Generation marketing can be slit into four main categories such as,




  1. Generation Y born after 1980


  2. Generation X or baby busters born between 1965 and 1980


  3. Baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964


  4. Mature citizens born between 1909 and 1945

Generation X members are sometimes known as baby busters which where the generation that was hugely effected by the economic downturn in the first part of the 1990's, so called Baby busters include many people both in and out of higher education.








Image at http://www.newmuseum.org/generationxshield


The generation that different members of the class discussed where between generation, generation X and generation Y.

Generation Y members are born after 1980's and are the future of business world plus many generation Y are perceived as lazy.






Generation Marketing

Final Reflection on blog






Thank god blog is over!!!!

Although it has been a long journey, i still enjoyed the experience.

If i had the chance to do it all over again, i would conduct both primary and secondary research, conduct some research on customer behaviour etc.


I enjoyed the way i could get creative with blogger as i was able to upload YouTube videos which made the topic even interesting. Although i do think i could have spent more time and effort on blogs but at least it's all done with and OVER.


As i have never used blogger before, i would recommend it to Friends and family as it's a good way of keeping up to date with the knowledge you have gained. For my it was like keeping a diary of everything that I've learnt and my views upon it. Although i had the advantage of other people's views which was helpful as it showed me a way out of solutions and look at the issues from another angle.

I must admit that using blogger has been a huge advantage in my first year as it has made me think deeper into the subjects that i have been taught and therefore gain more understanding about understanding customers. In fact my favourite topics have to be Generation Marketing, Personality & Self Concept and Nostalgia which i have to admit, before the course i had no idea what it was.


Overall, i hope you enjoyed reading my blogs on Understanding Customers. Lets just hope i get good grades!!!!!!


Bye








Learning, memory and nostalgia





In today we learnt about nostalgia and memory.

Nostalgia would consist of a persons 5 senses to help them remeber somthing that has happened to them in the past, for example, in their chilhood, when they were a teenager or even something that happened a couple of days ago which was a happy memory. I have been told that all happy memories reamin longer in your brain then sad, nostalgia only mainly happens with happy memories.


Solomon, states nostalgia is like a bittersweet emotion when the past is viewed by a people with sadness and some products appeal to consumer which remind them of their younger days.


Nostalgia tends to occur when something reminds them of the past which could be from songs, to soaps storylines Different types of people have different products or memories that make them individually feel nostalgic. Personally, the things that make me feel nostalgic are:


Montem Primary School - My first school that i wnt to, the best and happy days of my life.







The Spice Girls - When i was little, The Spice Girls where my favourite girl band. I uses to be so inspired by them and used to listen to their music all the time.







The Rugrats - Oww they where my favourite cartoons. I remember coming back from school and The Rugrats used to come on. I would watch them every day. My Favourite charactor was Tom, becasue he was the clever baby!!!





These are all things that I have grown up with. The music, tv and School life all helped me with growing up. They where the best times of my life and when i look back at these memories, they instantly make my emotions happier when reminiscing about them.































































































































































































































































































































Thursday 13 May 2010

Group conformity, opinion leaders and peer pressure



I learn today in class a group is a group of people which can be two or more how share the same norms, role relationship and how have experience interdependent behavior.




Over the years new types of groups have formed peers groups to ascibed. Groups are formed so that people can have some sense of belonging and acceptance. There main groups which people are divided into so that people are able to fulfill their needs and wants. This is a bit like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need as the sense of belonging is a need.



Furthermore, one of the main influence of groups are to fulfill certain expectation of behaviour such as rules of the group. However, we learnt in class that people may react to the pressure of their groups by the following:



  • compliance,

  • internalisation and identification,

  • or counter conformity

Additionally, there tends to be a huge amount of peer pressure on members of groups as they have to try to fit in.


Opinion Leadership


Solomon, During people's life everyone has come aware of people who have great knowledge regarding goods and their advice tends to be taken seriourly than others for that reason. Those people are called opinion leadership as they regularly are able to have an influence through their attitudes or their behaviour.












Values



In today's lesson we learn about values.

Definition of Values
Businessdictionary.com, values are described as enduring ideas or beliefs that are shared by an individual of a culture regarding what is desirable or good and what is regarded as not. Values tend to have an influence on people’s behaviour and they provide a broad guidelines in situation.
Also this term can be define in many way as Wilkie states "values are our ideas about what is desirable".

We learnt about Kahle's list of values (1983),

  1. Self Respect
  2. Excitement
  3. Being Well Respected
  4. Self- Fulfillment
  5. Sense of accomplishment
  6. Warm relationship with others
  7. Security
  8. Fun & enjoyment
  9. Sense of belonging

Also we learnt that people's values can change during their lives as after major events occur.

    • Diana's death in 1997
    • Tony Blair become prime minister in 1997
    • The World Trade Center was attacked in 2001
    • Tsunami - 2004
    • Terrorist Bombing in London 2005
    • Barack Obama 1st US President – 2009
After some of the above events mentioned occurred people's values may have changed in the way the behavior towards others. For example, after Tony Blair come in to people may have valued the labour party whereas during the final days of Tony Blair being in power their values might have changed and wanting other party to run the government.

I tested my values by undertaking a VALS Test on www.strategicbusinessinsights.com.
Below were my results from the test.

My primary VALS type is achivers who tends to be motivated by the desire of achievement. And who has deep commitment to family, career. Also my secondary type is a innovators who are sophisticated, successful and who like taking charge.