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.

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.

Charity Research

The aim is to propose an appropriate event for a chosen charity using the research findings from the two focus groups, where one group will consist of students and the other group will consist of people that are over 30 years old. This is in order to see what motivates individuals to donate to specific charities. Additionally, it will be chosen based on using the secondary research findings on academic findings and other resources. Both secondary research and primary research was conducted in order to identify what motivates individual to give to charities. Also to identify consumer attitudes and behaviour towards charities and research was carried out regarding the UK charity sector. The chosen charity which funds will be raised for is Oxfam as they are a well established charity which fights poverty and who believe “ Everyone has the right to a life worth living”.

Below in summary are the simarlities and differences between the two age groups:

Table A

The Lake Districk.

An appropriate event for Oxfam to run is a marathon in the Lake District in which should be targeted especial woman aged over 30 as there are more woman donors than men. The target age of the participates of this event should be ages over 25 as older as the research that was conducted illustrates that older individuals tend to donate more.

Segmentation, targeting and positioning

Segmentation

Nowadays, many organisations have to segment their target audience in order to market to them as many of them do not have the resources to market to everyone. Therefore many organisations tend to break down consumers and divide them into different groups in regards to their similar characteristics.

According to Brassington, there are many ways consumers can be divided such as geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation. However, two main ways consumers are divided are demographic and geographic segmentation.

Geographic segmentation is when consumers are divided into groups according to their location which can to be useful for small businesses as they have limited resources. Additionally, this type of segmentation have advantages like it assist organisations to develop efficient systems for consumer contract and distribution.

Whereas demographic segmentation is when consumers are divided regarding their descriptive like their sex, age, race etc. Also consumers tend to be divided into group in relation to their incomes, occupation family structure etc.

In other words segmentation involves discovering what types of consumers exist and dividing them to into groups. The above picture illiustrates population of consumers being segmentated different categories regarding their perception.

Targeting

Targeting depends on many factors such as where there is a gap in the market, how efficiently other organisations are serving people in their target market. As well as other factors affect it like how big is the segment, how much growth can be expected in the segment.

For example, the retailer called Zara would be targeting consumers which are sophisticated, elegant as their stores and their clothes range is a bit more up market then retailers like River Island. Due to materials which the clothes they sell are manufactured from are of a better quality than retailers like River Island, Primark etc.

Position

Schiffman & Kanuk (1994), Positioning products is important as a product will be competing with similar products and brands of those products. As in the chocolate industry certain chocolates such as thorntons, ferrero rochers, lindt are targeting and position higher in the market than chocolates which cadbury's manufacture or a owned brand chocolate from a supermarket.

It is important to position your products in the right position so that the consumers in the segment you are targeting will buy it. The reason being, you can not have ferrero rochers position low whether it is in the market as its qulity and taste is to goods for it to be positioned lowly.

Gender differences in buyer behaviour

In the lecture we discussed the responses of both genders. As men tend to remember the bigger picture like location of an item whereas women remember in more detail what colour, material of an item.

Men have been stereotyped as generally being aggressive, physical than woman and enjoy taking risks. Whereas, women tend to be seen as more compliant, sociable, nurturing than men.
www.gender.org.uk

Due to gender differences men and women response to different things as a result their buying behaviour to be different. As well as it forces companies to aim their advertisements one gender.

It was highlighted in class women appeal to adverts that stress youth and beauty.

Below I have displayed some advertises which I think are targeted at women as they are target woman by promoting youth and beauty through the products which they offer.













However, men appeal to different things than women as it is in their nature to do so. It was highlighted in class men appeal to advertisements which involve physical strength, or an valued ambition.

Below I have placed advertisements which I think appeal to men rather than woman.

Enterprise Week

In the Enterprise Week there were two question time panels that were held. The first panel was of former student who come to decision how they thought studying at Buckinghamshire New University was like and speak about their current jobs. Also another question time panel was held in the Gateway building of people working higher up in the media industry. The question time panel were the following:


• Sue Elms
Executive Vice President, Global Media Practice Millward Brown

• Sue Unerman
Chief Strategy Officer Mediacom

• George Hutchinson

Chair and Managing Director Public Affairs, Burson-Marsteller UK
• Rik Haslam

Group Creative Architect WWV Rapp
• Matthew Chapman

International Service and Systems Innovation Director Billetts

During this discussion the members on the panel were putting across their views on how communications has changed over the 20th century to 21st century. They emphasise on how much technology has rapidly increased and about the increasing amount of users the internet has. Additionally, the internet has increased in its popularity both consumers and business. The reason being many businesses sell their goods to their consumers over the internet. The members of the panel explain many businesses are resorted to use other types of communications than TV adverts to market their consumers as TV adverts are not effective enough.e.g. texting or emailing their consumers. Besides this, members of the panel went on to state how brands are important to the customer as it adds value to a product.

Personality and self-concept

Definition of Personality:

Schiffman & Kanuk(2004), those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment.

Definition of Self-Concept, Solomon (2001), people see themselves as they image others see them.

I have found out some research regarding self-concept which is stated below.

Goffman(1959) saw self-concept as reflecting social role experiences (e.g. daughter, wife, mother, employee, manager) which add facets to our view of ourselves

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

I found out different researcher have various view points on what they regard as self-concept which is similar to people have different perceptions of images or TV adverts for instants.

In class we looked at a brand personality framework and we discuss which personality certain brands have adopted. e.g Gucci has a sophistication personality.

I was told to undertake an online questionnaire on to help me establish my self-concept and personality.





After completing the questionnaire I discovered my personality type is a mentor. These kinds of individuals have tremendous amount of power to manipulate others with their interpersonal skills. Mentor tend to be people focus individuals and success comes for them through involvement in the process of making things happen for others.

Perception Experiment

I carried out a perception experiment which involved analyse two competing retail department store's atmospheres in order to test whether perception theories are able to be accurately applied in today's society.

The theory under investigation were the black model in this experiment.

The experiment was undertaken to analyse of the use of atmospheres in two competing department stores John Lewis and House of Fraser as well as to test out theory regarding perception. A personal observation was carried out by myself in these stores in order to gather and record information regarding the use of music, lighting, colour and store layout in trying to influence people’s perception in these stores. During this experiment an observations were made on each of the floors of these two departments in order to observe the layout of the store and the way that products were displayed their products. I listen attentively to the music which was being played and noticed what types of the flooring was used in these stores. Also, an observation was made to the different types of lighting that was used by the store and how bright they made the stores as well what colours were displays in the two department stores. Stimuli were used to make decide on what information should be recorded and what was less relevant to be recorded in this task.

Personal observation is a research strategy that an individual observers the phenomenon as they are occur. – Malhotra second edition. Page 214.

The finding of the experiment

The findings of the experiment was that House of Fraser is located in as town centre in the Eden shopping centre. Cox, Fourth edition pg 116, Many department stores tend to be located in shopping complexes as a result they receive many consumers visiting their stores in order to purchase products. However, the department store John Lewis is actual location in a out of town location in Cressex. This retail outlet tries to influence people’s perceptions by the store being location in a less noise, crowded atmosphere and where there is less traffic congestion. Also, John Lewis are able to increase their income/consume as they are not located near their direct competitors whereas House of Fraser is located near another retailer who specialises in selling similar products which they sell in their store.

Layout of store

The above shows the John Lewis store layout of their branch in High Wycombe. McGoldrick, second edition, page 468. This department store has adopted a free-flow store layout which enables their consumers to have more freedom to move around the store and tends to increase impulse purchases. As a result of John Lewis having this layout allows them to be flexible so they can rearrange the store whenever they wish to do so.

The store layout House of Fraser has is a boutique store layout as the department are “arranged in the form of speciality individual speciality shops, targeted at specific market segments”. Also House of Fraser has concession of well kno

wn brands like Ted Baker inside their stores. .

Below is an image of ground floor of House of Fraser.

In regards to John Lewis product positing,

they only displayed designer goods together such as DKNY bags and perfumes.

Whereas products like small electronic products were displayed together in spite of their brands. Levy, fifth

edition page 608, Also on the first floor of John Lewis the sports were displayed on “feature fixture” according to their brands. Although House of Fraser have concession to separate their brands and products.

Furthermore, I found that during this exper

iment the lights which were on the ground floor were much brighter than the

first floors one as I walked around in the store despite the fact that the first floor has a selection which displays lights.

In relation to House of Fraser their store lights were much bright than John Lewis throughout their store. The picture displayed on the left hand side is of House Of Fraser and the picture displayed on the right hand side is John Lewis's department store. As you can see clearly the department store of House of Fraser is much more bright and airer than John Lewis's department store. In relation to the music bein played in the department store of House of Fraser was Pop/Rock whilst in John Lewis no music was being played whilst their customers are shopping in their store.

The limitation of this experiment was that I should have been more structured and should have planned the experiment before undertaken it by specifying in detail what is needed to be observed as well how the information was to be recorded. Malhotra second edition. Page 213.

Another limitation of this experiment is that it can be time consuming as I had to plan and structure the research in order to observe the atmospheres of these two large department stores. Also another limitation was the expense of the experiment as I travelled to John Lewis which was located outside the town centre. Malhotra second edition. Page 256

Decision making process

Kolter states,this model is used to illustrate both marketing stimuli and other stimuli that affects the consumer's and then creates a particular buyers responses. According to theorist named Kolter the marketing stimuli for business purchasing involve the four Ps of marketing price, place, product, promotion. Also the other stimuli consist of rather influences power in the political, economic, social, technological, environment, competitive and culture. When all these stimuli go into the black box the buyers have to respond by choice i.e. Product, brand, deal, purchase timing and the purchase amount.

Below is display a clip of an example of a decision making buying process.





During our daily lives we all go through deciding what to buy whethers it is a refreshment such as soft drink or buying clothes. During this, we all go through a process of decising making.

Decision buying process

Kolker states this particular model implies consumers pass through all of the five stage in order make every purchase.

However, if a man went to a shop to buy his regular brand of shampoo after recogining the need for it. This man would skip stages which involve information search, evaluation of alternatives as he would be happy enough to purchase a shampoo from the brand which he reguarly uses than looking to find an alternative one.

Additionally, this model is used to illustrate when a consuemr faces a more complex purchasing decision to make.

Kolker states, the first stage of this process is Problem recognition which refers to a consumer recognise a need or either a problem. The second stages is when a consumer searches for more information. It is mentioned if a consumers drive is weak than they may just store information in memory or undergo a information search for their need or problem. However, if a consumer's drive is strong as well as the product which is needed is near than it is highly likely a purchase would be made.

Kolker states, consumers are able to obtain information from several sources:
Personal sources: friends, family, neighbours
Commercial sources: the internet, adverting, displays, salespeople.

The third stage is evaluate alternative which whereby a consumer uses information to actual evaluation what other alternatives are on offer. Also the fourth stage is when a good is actual purchased. And finally, the last stage of this process is postpurchase behaviour that is when a consumer takes more action after a purchase has been made which is based on their own satisfaction.

Perception

Definition of Perception

Schiffman (1994) and Kanuk (2004) states perception is an process whereby an individual selects, arranges and interprets stimuli into meaningful and logical pictures of the world. In other words it is the ‘how we see the world around us.’

Solomon (2006, pp36) states individuals process raw material through their huma

n organs but, the study of perception concentrates on what individuals add or take away from those sensations.

What is a perceptual process?

Solomon (2006, pp36) states it is when individuals go through s

tages of where information is processed using stimuli to input and store the informatio

n. Though people do not process all kinds of information that is presented to us as only

a few amount of stimuli are noticed. Stimuli tend to be interpreted by an individual th

at is influenced by their unique needs, experiences and biases. The three stages wh

ich form the process of perception are sensation, attention and interpretation.

Schiffman

(1994) and Kanuk (2004) states Sensation stage relates to the instant response of an individual’s sensory receptors

to simple stimuli such as a brand name, a advertisement, a package. The quality of an

individual’s sensory receptors effort the outcome of the perception process a

s a blind individual might have a more developed sense of hearing as they could be able to hearing what a normal ave

rage individual with normal sight cannot.

The kinds of TV commercials which could appeal more to individua

ls who are blind than a normal average individual when most of the context

of the advert is expressed through the figure of speak rather than illustratio

ns.

Solomon (2006, pp36) states the second stage of the process of perception

is attention which is a extent to which consumers focus on stimuli inside their range of exposure. Due to consumers being expo

sed to lots of advertising stimuli which forces marketers to become creative in

order to gain attention for the products/services they provide.

Solomon (2006, pp 48)The finally stage is interpretat

ion is where meanings are assigned to stimuli. As individuals tend to vary in terms of the stimuli which they

perceive as well the response to those stimuli tend to differ.

For example, two or more individuals c

ould see the same event however their interpretation of the event might be different.

This view has been supported in the work of Solomon (2006, pp.50).

The perception process

The NLP which is known as the model of communication explains individuals take in two million pieces of information every second through their five senses. In order to balance the vast amount of information the mind filters it by deleting, distorting and generalizing it through our memories, beliefs, attitudes, values etc. Afterwards then an individual forms an representation of the world we are interpreting through sounds, feeling, images. The above changes an individual’s physiology which effects the behaviour.

Gestalt theory refer to where an individual looks at an object as a whole but also consider the various parts that make up the object. This is because an individual normally does not consider the various parts that make up an object. This theory relates to the perception process as some people may look at an object as a whole whereas as some stimuli will make others have a total different perception of what they think it is.

In this week Lecture Ruth showed us some TV advertisements, Magazine adverts, newspaper adverts to help explain how different advertises try to engage with our senses to appeal to us.

Below are display some example of TV Adverts Ruth was showing that use senses in order for us to try to appeal to the adverts.

Touch

Taste

Sound



The above adverts appeal to each of mention senses above it however the more sense an advert is able to attract than the likeliness of it being remembered tends to increase.