Bringing You the Best of the 80s, 90s and Today!

I was trying to decide what stage in my life I was nostalgic about, and I had almost settled on when I was about 14, but then I started to youtube nostalgia and found the below video. So the 90s it is, with great TV like Banana Man and Penny Crayon, brilliant music from The Spice Girls and Will Smith, and not least of all, the amazing fashion sense and hair. This is my own trip down memory lane, scary stuff.
I always assume that it would just be old biddies with their walking sticks who wondered around saying things like "the youth of today" and "in my day children had manners" and shaking their heads. But more and more often I find myself, and others my age, saying very similar things. Society is changing more and more rapidly, kids are growing up faster, and so people are beginning to feel more nostalgic about parts of their life that have happened more recently- because it was so different "back then". Part of the reason, I believe, that people are nostalgic is due to selective retention and selective distortion.
In The Principles of Marketing, Kotler et al. defines selective retention as the tendency for people to retain only part of the information to which they are exposed, usually to coincide with their attitudes or beliefs.
Kotler defines selective distortion as the inclination people have towards adapting information to a personal meaning.
As selective retention causes people to be more likely to remember information that backs up their beliefs about the society that they live in, it is a useful tool for advertisers. Many people in our culture believe that Christmas should be a lovely time of year, full of the joys and happiness of having family around. For this reason people often remember the good things about Christmas, and view the Christmas' of thier childhood with particular fondness. Magazines and newspapers make use of selective distortion when writing horoscopes. The way that they are worded means that they are open to interpretation- and the writers count on people distorting the meaning to their own beliefs and attitudes, and to what's relevant to them.

Consumer Behavior, Solomon et al. defines Nostalgia as a bitter sweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing. It then goes on to say that many 'classic' products appeal to the consumers memories of their younger days.
I am quite nostalgic about being a kid, and how different my childhood was to so many of today. When I was at primary school there were several crazes that went around, and never mind street cred, you didn't have any playground cred if you didn't indulge wholeheartedly in the fad of the minute. Whether it was pogs, tazos, yo-yos, pokemon cards it was a must have, to collect, to swap. And it was only weeks before they got banned because some of the children got a little over enthusiastic about being the winner, or the loser.
Now they must have toy is a Nintendo DS where you can sit in a room full of people and not interact with any of them. Unless they happen to have the same console, with the same game and you are in an area with wireless, and you actually want to play with them. As is described by journalist Giles Whittell in an article in The Times Online, the assortment of entertainment available and the diversity of the platforms that it is available on has utterly eradicated any quality, especially in terms of TV programmes, due to the ease with which programmes can get on the air. For this reason it is highly unlikely that any particular programme will get any loyal following, and, therefore, there will be no nostalgia for it in the future for today's generation of youngsters. It's certain that even the big names of today such as Big Cook, Little Cook, Lazytown and The Fimbles will be remembered by the future generations of nostalgic consumers.
Meg Carter recognises the use of nostalgia in advertising as effective because it is harping back to a "safer and simpler time", in her article The Return of Retro Treats. This is especially true in times of economic difficulty, such as the recession. Carter illustrates that there may be an element of escapism from the stress and worry of the modern, chaotic lifestyle when using products from the past, that have stood the test of time. Maybe that's why so many major, well-known brands and conglomerates are bringing back age-old strap lines, adverts, jingles and even products. Even the use of TV characters, styles and themes from shows of the 60s, 70s and 80s has become popular in advertising, says David Sprott, such as Snickers' new spokesperson, Mr. T. The relaunch of Whisper was huge, Mars has reverted to their "Work, Rest and Play" line, there are plans to relaunch Snickers as Marathon, and Starbusrt to Opal Fruits, Coca-Cola always updating old adverts, such as the revival of the Diet Coke Break ad from the 80s, jingles and lines; which, inevitably, brings to mind their Christmas advert.
Coca-Cola have had a string of excellent adverts, most notably is the Christmas one with the trucks driving through the country, bringing joy and happiness to all who have to fortune to see such a wonderful, magical sight. A whole generation has been brought up to believe, as a Facebook group over 7,000 strong and another few similar over 2,000 strong combined, It's Not Christmas Until You've Seen The Coca-Cola Lorries Advert. Now that's culture! Coca-Cola must be proud. Each advert brings warm-fuzzy feeling for different people all over the world about different eras, different stages in their life. Generations of people remember scores of tunes, straplines and adverts. The most memorable for me is a South African Coca-Cola advert, a must see. It became a cult classic when I was there. Brrrrrrrrrrrrilliant.
Christmas is a time when the use of nostalgia in marketing is highly prevelent. But as Sprott illustrates,

"this focus on the nostalgic elements of an ad may come at a cost--
acting as a distractor, such that fewer brand-/message-based thoughts would be
elicited during exposure to a nostalgic ad".

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008

Entrepreneurship- "the state of being an entrepreneur." An entrepreneur is an individual who owns, organizes, and manages a business and, in so doing, assumes the risk of either making a profit or losing the investment.

Enterprise week at Bucks consisted of series of optional lectures and challenges put on by the Enterprise Dept and the Business School. Many influential people with much experience in various industries came to Bucks to share their thoughts and advice with the students. All the events put on throughout the week were free, and all were of a very high standard.

Women in Business Day falls during Enterprise Week, and a workshop was put on for that day. It was a mixture of students studying various Business disciplines and some older women who had their own companies, and wanted to improve their business. It was a very enjoyable, interesting day- and the food provided was fantastic! The first lecture of the day was run by two women who were image consultants. They ran a simple exercise about first impressions and how it is estimated to takes at least eight positive exposures to change some one's opinion of a person/product/brand/place after a negative first exposure. Another fact that came across strongly in their lecture was that looking confident can not only make you feel more confident, but it gives others confidence in you.

The second lecture of the day was on presentation skills. This was the most interesting lecture of the day, in my opinion, as well as the most beneficial for me, as standing up in front of people is not one of my strengths. She gave some wonderful, if slightly odd, hints and tips on being confident, how to project, on engaging the audience and how to structure a presentation most effectively. One of the best aspects of this lecture was that because it came very early on in the day everything she said, the rights and wrongs of presenting, were all illustrated by other speakers during the day. For example, she mentioned a speaker who she had been to see who had stood in front of the projector throughout his speech this was also done by a presenter later in the day. Being told how to do it and what not to do was great, but then being able to see it in action just cemented what she was saying in my memory.

There were lectures through the day on different brainstorming techniques, Meyers-Briggs testing, and many other subject that were all useful and motivational. I had the chance to talk to women with many years of experience and to ask them how they felt about different issues. It was a good extension of what I have been and will continue to learn in the classroom. The speaker who I felt that I got the most out of was the Buckinghamshire Entrepreneur of the Year, Caroline Kinsey, who founded PR company Cirkle in 1998, which is a mostly female team. She shared many of her experiences as a woman in business, as a boss, as a PR in the world today and many other relevant issues with us. She was inspirational. One of things she said that most struck a cord with me was that the time where women have to try and compete with men in the workplace by trying to be like them was over, and that the way forward was now to embrace your femininity and realise that there are things that you can, perhaps, do that men can't, or aren't as good at.

All in all I feel that it was a fabulous day, that was brilliantly organised and it was immensely useful. I can't wait to see who will be speaking next year- and hopefully I'll be able to come back in a number of years and speak to the female students studying business then. That's exciting.

Micheal Dell's advice to entrepreneurs,

"Be willing to fail and learn from mistake
you make, and that others make."

The second event that took part in was The Bucks Apprentice Challenge. This event was a lot of fun, and during it I sustained a huge learning curve, as well as earning £50 profit for each of our six team members. Our team, The Dream Team, did extremely well and I am very proud of them all. We got through the first round, but, unfortunately, didn't make enough profit in the second round to get through to the final stage.

For our first challenge we were given £50 and had to buy doughnuts, and then sell them on for a profit. In the second round it was organised with The Eden Centre that we could set up a market with in the centre, and each team got given a lovely, old-fashioned barrow style market stall. We used the profit from the first round, and were given a further £200 to create a stall. We decided to sell hand decorated gingerbread men. This went down very well, but, regrettably, I over ordered on the gingerbread men, and we were unable to sell them all.

Had we of gotten through to the final showdown, our team would have had four days to design and put on an "event" at the Union in High Wycombe. The catch being that the event had to be during the hours of 5-8 in the evening, therefore not a student event. This would have been a huge challenge and, in a way, I am very glad that we didn't get through, as we had a lot of work on at the time. But mostly because it was quite a stressful process. Despite this I learnt a great deal, I had a wonderful time, I got to know people that I wouldn't otherwise have met- and I will definitely be entering next year. Long live The Dream Team!!

The Ultimate Question: Facts or Details?

"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 approach"

- Financial Times, June 29th, 2001

Recognising the way different people interpret and perceive information is fundamental to being able to create branding, advertising, products etc, that is effective. One of the main, and often most obvious, differences is between the Genders. After being shown a series of different magazine adverts, it was very interesting to see the differences between not only which adverts the guys and gals of the class remembered, but why. The differences in why people remembered the adverts was incredible. It is nothing new to say that there are scores of adverts that are aimed towards either sex, and it is immediately obvious which sex they target, even before you know what the product is.

Katherine Frith states that there are three different levels of understanding an advert. Firstly there is the surface meaning, the first impression of an advert from simply glancing over the picture. Secondly, the advertiser's intended meaning. This is the strategy behind the advert, the meaning the marketeers would prefer you to walk away with. The last level is the cultural or ideological meaning, which is how the viewer relates to the advert; using culture, social groups and immediate relationships as a reference point for the picture.

A recent article, The Effectiveness of Comparative and Noncomparative Advertising, in The Journal of Advertising, a very interesting and useful article that I would recommend to anyone interested in gender differences or advertising to read, states that studies show that while women will see a puzzle as engaging and challenging, and will immediately start to recall memory to solve the problem; a man will be more likely to try and use clues in him immediate surroundings to solve the puzzle, and will give up quickly if he feels that solving the puzzle will not be constructive for him at that moment in time. Essentially, unless it is urgent and significant, men will look for the basic facts where women will usually look for details, whatever the situation, as is illustrated by the cast of Friends in the video below.

Men weren’t really the enemy —
they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made
them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to
kill.

Betty Friedan, 1963

The differences between the genders is not something to be seen as an issue, a big problem that must be solved- it is something that should be celebrated. After all the fabulous campaigning of the suffragettes in the 20s and the bra burning of the feminists in the 60s the 80s saw the conformist era starting- and this is where it all started to go wrong. As with race, colour, age, sex- all people are NOT equal. If people were all equal, they would probably be the same. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Women in the 80s shouldn't have had to wear pinstripe suits to work in business.

The fact is that men and women are different, and that everybody should work to their strengths, although this might be a very idealistic hope. As people have assorted talents, likes, dislikes, shortfall, experiences etc. these are all things that can be marketed to, picked up on and, said crudely, manipulated.

A great, simple, funny video, partially in Italian- http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jlFsnlmLmyg it is very sweet.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Ideal Self Concept- The knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions people have about the self they would be like if they were perfect or ideal.
Real Self Image- The knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions people have about themselves as they actually are.

Self Esteem- Belief and confidence in your own ability and value.

The difference between how a person thinks they should be and how they view themselves in reality results in the confidence they have in their abilities. So, in a basic and crude form;

Ideal Self - Self Image = Self Esteem

Newcomb's Self Concept Theory states that an individual creates a view of themselves based on how they think they think they fit in comparison to a 'socially determined frame of reference'. So two people, for example, Franki and Sallie, are both loud. But because Sallie's housemates are also very loud, and Franki's aren't, Sallie doesn't view herself as being as loud as Franki. But they are both still loud.

Goffman goes one step further than this saying that self concept is defined not only by a social frame of reference, but by the different roles which the individual play throughout life. He uses the same analogy as Shakespeare 'all the world's a stage'.

'Goffman uses the theater and its three settings--onstage, backstage, and offstage--to define the Dramaturgical Perspective. Each stage provides a setting that ultimately shapes the manner in which actors present themselves and how that presentation is received.'

- Jaiyanne Chen and Greg Boothroyd, Ervine Goffman's Dramaturgical Perspective

This view claims that people might have different needs, wants and desires when they play different roles in life, and show the good, the bad and the ugly facets of their characters. The consumer may be satisfied by different products and services depending on what role they are in. Each role that a person plays affects his/her self-esteem. I asked a few people how they think their various roles affect their self-esteem, and came out with some very interesting answers. My father said that in his work 'being seen as a mentor, an innovator, a leader brings [him] a sense of satisfaction', boosting his self- esteem. On person commented that as a Daughter, she had always been told that she could do anything she wanted, but never the sense that she particularly deserved it. This led to a very mixed and conflicted self-esteem.
Fashionable items are often purchased raise self-esteem, to make the consumer feel like they are nearer to their Ideal Self Image. This idea is the basis for most modern advertising campaigns- especially those targeted at teenagers and young adults.


Personality- the totality of somebody's attitudes, interests, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, social roles, and other individual traits that endure over long periods of time.

It was concluded in class today that it is not feasible to base a marketing concept on Personality. This is because it is so varied, and people fall into many different categories. This is also true of both the Ideal Self Concept and the Real Self Concept, but the difference is that the latter two can be manipulated and change, relatively easily. Individuals may change depending on who they are with and the roles that they are playing, but their core Personality is constant.


Brand Personality- This is the psychological nature of a particular brand as intended by its sellers, though persons in the marketplace may see the brand otherwise (called brand image). These two perspectives compare to the personalities of individual humans: what we intend or desire, and what others see or believe.

People can use the personality of a brand to publicly portray those traits as their own. The picture at the top of the page shows one way to break down the various human qualities given to brands. Personification of a brand will make it more likely for the consumer to have an emotive reaction to the product, which in turn not only makes the product stick in their mind, but opens a relationship with that consumer. Apple Mac has done this very successfully with the iMac. They have started with a great product, it's a product that someone may buy to boost their self-esteem, to gain membership into a group by conforming to their ideas and ideals. This was followed by a series of 'Get a Mac' adverts, such as the one bellow.
In these adverts, not only did they give the brand an "Exciting" character, but gave it a human embodiment, in the form of comedian Robert Webb. My immediate, emotive response was to find it funny, I was able to relate to the character more than the product. It almost makes you think to yourself,"Yes, I'd prefer to sit around all day making home movies and photo albums, than have to worry about spreadsheets and graphs." Therefor I'll buy a Mac. Not that I can't do those things on my PC...

Me- As Defined by Market Research

It is impossible for Marketeers to effectively target individual, although I'm sure it's something that they often dream of. Instead people must be grouped, patterns are looked for. A prime example of this is Amazon. It knows that, for example, 45% of people who bought a Harry Potter DVD also bought a some other product. I couldn't think of anything that 45% of Harry Potter fans would buy, so I logged onto Amazon to see what I could find, and up popped a pair of Suga boots, on sale, which I almost bought in Office at the weekend, but thought they were to expensive. So I added them to my basket, and up popped four other versions that I might like. How helpful. So now I'm wondering which one to buy, very tempted just to not eat for the next month and buy all four. At least I'd have warm feet. After I have painstakingly made my decision, gone through the checkout, I am faced with a whole host of new headings, lovingly chosen by Amazon:

What Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item? (Apparently 30% go down the same route as I do and buy the item, 22% buy an alternative very similar and 9% go on to buy a more expensive variety of the same shoe)

Recommended Based on Your Buying: This came up with a pair of converse (I hate converse), a DVD called Ballet Shoes and a pair of 'Hip Emu Australian Fur Boots' (wannabe Uggs).

This all stems from the idea of STP Marketing. Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning, as seen in the figure at the top of the page. Segmentation is the ability to subdivide the market by way of similar needs, and how you can turn these into want and, finally, desires. Segmentation often looks at the market in terms of demographics; geographical location, age/gender, socio-economic situation. Another way of slicing up the population is using psycographics, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow states that there are five main stages of needs; starting with biological and physiological needs, such as food and air, above is safety needs, belonging and loving needs, then esteem needs, with self-actualisation needs at the top. Understanding this hierarchy means that you can successfully market each stage of the pyramid, either on it's own, or with another demographic. When aiming to target the most likely group, the size of the group and the level of involvement must be looked at. Quite a funny video to watch on targeting your market, from Nokia, is below.

In class we were given a task to illustrate how we might segment, or 'stereotype', people. Each team was given a till receipt from a different person and asked to analyse to see what sort of person might have bought these items. The team I was part of got given a long receipt from Tesco, with lots of snack items, lots of multi-buy savings, lots of convenience foods on it. From this we deduced that it was, perhaps, a working Mum with lots of mouths to feed, but limited time, energy and money. To a certain extent we were right. It was one of Ruth's weekly shops. She said that she didn't really enjoy cooking, and didn't have the time for it, and therefore bought lots of fast, convenient items. If we had been looking at this in more depth we might have been able to predict, or offer, other things that each shopper might be interested in buying, just as Tesco do through their Clubcard scheme.
All this brought me to think about how I might be viewed through market research. I would be defined by where I live, eat, shop, go to university, how I travel. Transport for London knows whenever and where ever I travel in London. Nationwide knows how much I spend, where I spend it and what I buy. Orange knows whether I'm a texter or a caller, who I call and how often I call them. I thought about how often I give out personal details to complete strangers, hoping that they will not abuse this information.
So, in conclusion, I am a female teenager who goes to university. She has a student loan, but still likes to treat herself with clothes. She goes out with her friends, clubbing, to the cinema, for a meal. She travels through London on the Tube and the bus, mainly around Piccadilly Circus and up to Islington. She call her parents most weeks, but texts more than calls her friends.

market share dictates profitability- not market size

Perception Experiments Lesson

Understanding how people percieve different situations is crucial to all marketing campaigns. Perception comes from your own, personal interpretation of what the senses receive. Franki and I did a taste test on a random selection of people from the class. We gave each of them two glasses, one containing a sample of Diet Coke and one a sample of Diet Pepsi. It soon became apparent that people had preconceived ideas about which brand they preferred. Out of the 8 people we tested, 7 preferred sample B, which was Diet Pepsi. Out of the 8 people we tested, 7 said that sample B was Diet Coke. Most people believed that they prefered Diet Coke, but were unable to use their sense of taste effectively to deduce which brand was which.
A test carried out by another group involed looking at a series of optical illusions and saying the first thing you see. Most of these were black and white pictures and illustrates how the brain puts certain elements into the background, and concentrates on what it sees as the forground- the important parts.
This is part of the Gestalt Psycology, which has four parts to it; back and foreground, grouping, closure and stimulus ambiguity. Britannica.com introduces the Gesult theory by saying that it "emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts".

Reality is nothing but
The sum of all the awareness
As you experience here and now
The ultimate of science thus appears
As Husserl's unit of phenomenon
And Ehrenfeld's discovery:
The irreducible phenomenon of all
Awareness, the one he named
And we still call
GESTALT.
(Perls, 1969b, p.30) (http://www.gestalt.org/barlow.htm)



http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232098/Gestalt-psychology#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=Gestalt%20psychology%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia

Perception

Perception: 'the process of sensing, deleting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world' -Wilkie

I would define perception as a personal interpretation of a situation according to previous experience. Everytime a piece of information is taken on it is filtered; is it relevant to me at this moment? It may be distorted due to personal bias and demographic situation. In my opinion Wilkie's definition is a narrow description, aimed at a amrketing situation, but fits it's purpose.
Everyday in the market place buyers are confronted, bombarded even, with sensory stimuli, determinded to attract your attention over other products and competitotrs brands. Once the stimuli has come to your attention, you make a judgement, a responce. It maybe be a smell that reminds you of a beach holiday, and you might have a strong, happy responce, making you feel more inclined to want that particular product.
Khotler says once a consumer recognises that they have a 'need', they will go out and research all the different options for satisfying the need, evaluating the alternatives. The need then becomes a want and they make a purchase decision. Khotler also identifies the fct that after the transaction is complete marketers have to be aware of post purchase behaviour in order to tale advantage of building a customer relationship.

Blog #1

This morning was my first Lecture in Understanding the Customer with Ruth, which is one of the modules that am I most interested in so far. We played several little games which made me think about how I form first impressions about people, and she pointed out that my first impression of others is mainly down to my values- how I personally interpret their actions, words and appearance. Having just arrived at a new place, surrounded by entirely new people and surroundings, I have made many judgements in the past week, many without even realising.
Thinking back to the judgements I have made it is very difficult to put words to exactly why I made those particular judgements, what made me instantly like some and dislike others, and how quickly many of those impressions have change in the short space of a fortnight. On the other side of these activities I had to look at myself and try and see what people's first impressions of me might be, which is, possibly, even harder than working out how I make judgements about others.
One question that was raised in my mind during this morning's lecture was; How much should I think about what judgements people are making about me? What do I want people to see when they look at me and how much do I want to alter myself to fit this?