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?