Extreme Nostalgia Marketing

It all started with a loaf of bread. The 2008 Hovis Advert started an advertising revolution, telling the story of this brand in a very personal context. This year has seen M&S, Sainsbury's and Persil follow in it's footsteps. Even Virgin Atlantic has launched an advert crammed with vintage imagery for it's 25th birthday. Why is it that brands have decided that they are all going to celebrate a birthday this year? And why celebrate it by running a history of the brand? Are they all telling the truth? One article suggests that the M&S advert is to remind customers, "of things that were pioneered or invented by M&S, but are now taken for granted" but I think that's spurious.

It is well known that in hard times people, especially Brits, like to turn to what they know and love, and stay well away from risks and the unknown. So is this the reason that big brands are turning back the clocks? Nostalgia? Richard Bent, senior lecturer in retailing and marketing at Queen Margaret University, in an article for The Scotsman, confirms this theory saying that both Sainsbury's and M&S are trying to stimulate sales through a the appeal of nostalgia. This article goes further by introducing a second point, they are attempting to convince consumers to "put their trust in stores that have a long and reliable tradition of serving the public with quality goods from home and abroad", and trust in a brand is key to it's success in more difficult times.

Claire Beale, writing in The Independant, agrees with this view;

"Even though recent events in the financial sector have shown that longevity is no guarantee of stability, we are still more likely to see brands that have been around for a long time as reassuring and reliable. Their

sheer familiarity is comforting. After all, these are brands that served our parents and our grandparents, they're part of our family history. And they're on the side of the family."

And this is what is seen in all of these adverts, bar Virgin, is that the family is at the centre. This makes the viewer feel that their personal family is the priority of these brands, that the brand is doing it for them.

This great war between the Sainsbury's ad and the M&S ad, both released within weeks of each other, has been dubbed the avocado war, as both an avocado. Most people seem to view both of these as jumping on the nostalgia bandwagon that Hovis pioneered last year. Which brings me to the conclusion that they may not be as innovative as they like to think...

Utalkmarketing brings home a very good disadvantage with these adverts though, "There’s a danger with heritage adverts. Some can play so much on the past that the relevance of a brand today can be lost." A view from Marketing Magazine corresponds with this stating that

nostalgia is, "powerful, but delicate". This article points out that Persil, a brand once about pioneering the future, may have tarnished it's name by harping back to a time when mothers were tied to the kitchen sink and relinquished their freedom for that of their families. But surely the target market is formed of these mothers, who fought so hard for liberation from the kitchen, who would not harbour the warm, fuzzy glow of nostalgia about these times.

An article named "Persil not looking so white hot" from MediaWeek furthers this outlook, "a browse on Internet forums suggests some mothers find the ad condescending". A quick search on Internet forums for parents shows just how much Persil have missed the mark with this one with comments on Mumsnet ranging from the harmless, "'someone who uses Persil' how is it possible to define a Mum as someone who uses their own brand, what about the Ladies with children who use Fairy, what are they if not Mums?" to the clearly outraged,

"Perhaps that's it - perhaps she thinks "sod the lot of you, do your own bloody washing, I'm off to follow my dream and play cricket for England in Barbados as I should have done years ago, before I met and married your father and became the drudge you now see before you".

Yes, now that would make me buy Persil!"

So why does the use of nostalgia in advertising work? When I explored nostalgia for my class blog I came across many definitions of nostalgia, one of which came from a course textbook; "Consumer Behavior, Solomon et al. defines Nostalgia as a bitter sweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing." But this is not the type that is currently being exploited, there may be an element of "bittersweet" but sadness is not the key here. To understand how nostalgia is used, it is, firstly, important to understand how it works. "Historical and Personal Nostalgia in Advertising Text" by Barbara Stern (1992), describes the process;

"Social forecasters (Louv 1985; Naisbitt 1982), literary critics (Doane and Hodges 1987), and marketing and advertising researchers (Havlena and Holak 1991; Holak and Havlena 1992; Wallendorf and Arnould 1992; Holbrook and Schindler 1991; Stern 1992) have commented on the increasing visibility of nostalgia themes in the past two decades. These themes seek to tap into consumers' "vast structure of recollection" by reviving promotions, products, and packages associated with the past. Advertisers claim that the use of nostalgia is a way to capitalize on the "gift" of brand equity possessed by recycled advertising (Winters 1990). In this view, even though consumers can not literally return to the past, they, can, nevertheless, recreate it through nostalgic consumption activities." Don Drapper, Mad Men, says that nostalgia is a twinge of pain, an aching to go back to a certain place.

As Claire Gaunt illustrates in "Future vs Nostalgia", "It’s understandable that, at a time when it feels as though the foundations of the society we’ve built for ourselves are collapsing, looking back to when bank managers at least seemed like honest brokers is an attractive form of escapism." Gaunt also reaches the heart of the issues, "Where contemporary nostalgia works is where it’s saying, reflecting or playing on something modern". The Persil advert says nothing new, contemporary or innovative. It is simply a montage of old adverts, saying the same thing they have always said, which appears condescending in today's society.

The Sainsbury's advert certainly has nothing new to add. M&S focuses slightly more on the aspects that effect our life today. But what is really missing from these adverts is what they are going to offer in the future. Consumers are looking for brands that are future-proof, and are doing this by looking at the longest standing, comfort brands, but as we have seen this is not a good measure. What brands need to do now is look to the future and assure their market that they will be around for years to come.

For another superb blog on, roughly, the above topic, follow this link to the ever funny PRvert's blog.

"It is possible to persuade people to act irrationally if you link products to their unconscious desires and feelings”

There are so many exciting things that I want to impart to you about this character, that I hadn’t heard of until yesterday, I just don’t know where to start. I guess I should start with the basics. His

 name is Edward Bernays, he was the nephew of Sigmund 

Freud and he lived from 1891-1995, in America. I was sent a BBC video called The Century of Self by a friend, which was the inspiration for this post. It is where I have got most of my information from, and where most of the quotes in this post are from, unless otherwise specified.  Eddie Bernays was the first person to use product placement, celebrity endorsement and he instilled in America the idea that products were an extension of the personality. He convinced regular people, not just businesses, to invest in shares, by borrowing money from banks that he represented. Single handed he doubled that market for cigarettes.  He invented Public Relations.

The significance of what Bernays achieved in unfathomable. The entire society that we live in would be an utterly different place. Goebbels used many of his ideas for Nazi propaganda; the fashion industry thrives on a concept of style as an appendage of the self that he created. He introduced the idea that democracy and capitalism are entwined and need each other to survive.

“If you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace”

Bernays’ initial dabbling into this idea began with a conversation between himself and George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Association. In the early 1920s it was not permissible for women to smoke in public, and many places had laws against it. Not only was this seen as grossly unfair by women who were fighting so hard for equal rights, but this prohibition noticeably cut the cigarette market by half. The exchange between Bernays and Hill was to determine whether anything could be done about this. With much help from Dr. A. A. Brill and using a paper, written and sent to him by his famous uncle, on psychoanalysis Bernays determined that cigarettes were “a symbol of the penis and male sexual power”. Bernays decided to make the cigarette a sign of freedom and liberation for women, to smoke would mean you were a “new women”. A modern, enlightened, open-minded woman unchained from the shackles of men.

The slogan, the hook, the pictures, the article, all of this was thought up by Bernays for this stunt. All he had to do was get the photographers to be in the right place to take the pictures and let the journalists hear the story. It was New York City, March 31^st 1929. The world famous Easter Day Parade was in full swing. The whole city was watching and the rest of the United States was waiting to hear about it in their morning paper. The photographers and journalists been alerted that a group of suffragettes were going to use, what they called, “torches of freedom” to protest by lighting up cigarettes in the street. These women were young, affluent, wear fashionable clothes, they were debutantes. They were not to be taken lightly by the press or the public.

The view of America at that juncture was a place of emancipation; its whole culture was based on liberation. The Pledge of Allegiance, which would have been said by American citizens many at public gatherings, even contains the words “liberty and justice for all”. Any person who agrees with these principles must now agree, by definition, with women smoking in public, simply by using the word “freedom”.

 

"If Edward Bernays were the father of spin, then Obama is the son."

Larry Tye

In Nancy Snow’s article If Edward Bernays was on Obama’s PR council she presents an extremely valid point that Bernays could only used PR in an abusive because he knew how to use it in a “pure” way. She relates this to the present and former Presidents of the United States, saying that each President fashions their policies with the greater good in mind, but that they always end up getting involved in the “Big Sell”. Maybe if everyone knew a little more about Bernays and the things that he did the industry and the leaders of this world could use it in the “pure” way. And maybe the consumers and citizens would learn to be more aware of the tricks that it uses.

“Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

Don Draper

 So if marketing is just a way of making people feel excepted, then it must be ok. But if marketing is just a way of making people feel that being accepted is just out of thier grasp then that's not good, is it? Bernays' interest and use of psycho-analysis lead to leading the masses down the path that he wants, making them believe that they are getting what they what- but what's the difference between giving someone what they want and making someone believe that they are getting what they want? Is it wrong to give people what they want by taking away thier deffences?

When Two Molecules Collide

Where will I be in five years time? I will have glided through university, sailed into my first full time job and be gracefully working my way up through the company. Having travelled to many places far and wide, colliding with other lives. When you meet someone, part of that person stays with you. You interact with them, and you change them in varying degrees. Whether they remember you and you them throughout the rest of this captivating expedition is yet to be seen, but you will have imparted something to them. And what would you want to impart? If you met someone fleetingly what would you want them to know? Something about yourself? Your world views, beliefs, causes or crusades? That you feel that the salvation of the world is that people must realise the perfection of the world in which they live? Or would you simply reassure them that they are a good person and should carry on doing good things for themselves and those around them (which I think is what advertising does!?)? What would you want to receive from them? Would you want the reassurance that you're a good person doing good things? Or would you want to learn of the world that they have come from? Whatever you learn from the people around you, you can be assured that knowledge is power, and that by learning and sharing knowledge with the people that you meet we grow stronger as humanity.

Despite all of the new views, opinions and information that you can incur from Googling and searching the web, it would be just as easy to only find people who agree with your world view, which is not what I would use the web for. Since I have been thinking about the massive world of the web, I have been thinking about the benefits it could have on expanding people's view of society globally. But it can just as easily be used to convince yourself that you are correct and right in your views and morals because you can quickly find hundreds of other people who agree with you. And that means you are right, right? Thanks to the broadness and frequentness of advertising we have become very good at screening out unnecessary information, such as adverts. But this could stretch to include screening out views that you disagree with. This is a less inviting way of looking at the world.
But this isn't just sharing information with people you meet, oh no. No longer can you, vaguely, control the people that you share this existence with, or at least those that you don't share with. Since I started blogging less than a year ago I have had absolutely no control over who reads it. I don't even have any way of knowing who's reading it. I can't even be sure who comments on it, despite them having to leave a name. But I guess that point could lead us to the "how well do we really know anyone" debate, and I'm sure I will get to that in due time, but it's a little deep for my first post of my new blog.

B2B

A company grows cotton. That company sells it to a factory where they spin the cotton, and turn it into fabric and thread. A t-shirt company buys some of thier cotton fabric and thread. They also buy dyes and print (with it's own trail of transactions behind it). The t-shirt company sells those t-shirts to Topshop. Topshop sold the t-shirt to you- only, of course, after a hefty mark and and putting it's own label in.

Inbetween each of these transactions transportation companies have been hired to ship around these goods. All the companis in each stage of this process has will probably have bought a property from an estate agency, furniture from IKEA, electricity from EDF, hired staff from a temp agency or through a newspaper, bought computers from Currys, pens and pencils out of a Viking catalogue, put new windows in from Velux, had local painters in to re-decorate, hired a repairman when the coffee machine stopped working, calamity, I know, hired a solicitor, an accountant and a cleaner and had so many other transaction with many other businesses. And for what? So that You could buy a t-shirt from Topshop.

Business to business (B2B) transactions are much more likely to be of a higher value,but fewer, than B2C transations. Most companies are buying to create something else to sell on, and therefore buy in bulk. This means that you cannot afford to lose any of your customers. An example that was given in class was the comparison between a company selling MRI scanners (B2B) and Coke (B2C).

Focusing on the UK, Coca-Cola has millions of customers. A company selling MRI scanners probably has very few, probably only the NHS. However, Coke has hundreds of compititors, other soft drinks, hot drinks, squash at home, water, alcoholic drinks, all from different companies. There probably aren't many retailers of MRI scanners in the UK. This means B2B retailers must work much harder at building a relationship with the customer. This is why personal selling is much more efficient than advertising and many other types of marketing that are widely used in the B2C sector.

Because there are often fewer substitutes in B2B markets the demand for products and services is more likely to be inelastic- "A situation in which a cut in price yields such a small increase in quantity taken by the market that total revenue decreases". This means two things for marketers. Firstly, it is harder to stimulate sales through price cuts and promotional offers. Secondly, the marketer is, often, able to set the price because if cutting the price doesn't increase sales it is likely that raising the price will not decrease sales. The cause for this, in many cases, is that if a business needs a product, it needs the product. An example given for this in class was financial software, but the same could be true for communications solutions, farm machinery and hospital beds. There are three core causes of price elasticity, "a measure of the sensitivity of demand to changes in price" ; 1. the availabilty of substitutes 2. the amount of budget available to spend 3. time.

The availability of substitutes probably has biggest influence of price and demand elasticity, as has been discussed earlier. Budget affects elasticity as a rise in the price of a product without a rise in the alloted budget for the product would mean that the company would not buy the product.

There are three main types of organisations (Fill & Fill, 2005):

• Government Organisations- eg. Health, NHS, and Policing, London Metropolitain Police
• Institutional Organisations- eg. Not-For-Profit, Cancer Research UK, Community Based Projects, Watford Women's Centre
• Commercial Organisations- eg. Distributors, Eddie Stobbart, Retailers, Zara

The main method of marketing in B2B is personal selling. Salesmen and women have a lot of pressure on them to make sales, and a lot of time and money is put into training them. Earlier in the module we were shown Kotler's Buyer Decision Process. Quickly we realised that this was not always how consumers bought products, especially FMCGs and impulse buys. But his model is much more applicable in B2B buyer behaviour.

Problem Recognition > Information Search > Evalutation > Purchase > Postpurchase Evaluation

In the B2C market this might translate into something like:

I'm Hungry > What's Available? > Ice-Cream or Cake > Ben&Jerry's > Should have had Cake

In the B2B market it might look quite different and involve many more people, especially in a larger organisation. The Marketing Department might decide that their sales team need some extra training, so they go to the Finance Department to see if there is any funding. The Finance says there is. So the Marketing Department look for what type of training is available. They then take this to the CEO, or who ever needs to sign it off, and the R&D Department want to see what type of course it is, to see if it will be effective for what they are working on. The CEO and R&D agree. So the salesteam go off for training. Then the sales figures speak for themselves. This might look something like:

Sales needs training > What training is available? > B2B or B2C? > B2B > Good choice, most of our clients are Businesses

Randy Shattuck, of the Shattuck Group, summerizes corporate buying as the following things:

• Methodical
  Complex
• Budgeted
• High-risk
• Analytical
• Coordinated

Shattuck states that B2B buyers are motivated to spend because they know that if they don't spend their budget they will probably lose it. He emphasizes that the desired effect of the product is what creates the risk. "The bigger the desired effect, the bigger the risk". Shattuck's version of the B2B buyer decision process differs slighlty from Kotler's:

Identify the Problem > Create Criteria > Search for Providers > Evaulate the Options > Test the Options > Procure the Solution

The main difference is the lack of post purchase analysis. With most B2B purchases there is no option to get it wrong, this is why the solution must be tested. When you are the driver behind a big purchase decision it is often the case that your position, or at least credibility, in the company is at stake.

To improve sales and build inter-business relationships many companies use reciprocity, "A buying arrangement in which two organizations agree to purchase one another's products". They enter into an agreement that, for example, a mobile phone company will provide phones for a car company in return for a company car. Another option is leasing. Companies often make the decision to lease a product rather than buy it out right. This may be because it is an expensive product and they do not have the budget for it, or maybe they feel that because it will become obsolete soon.

Culture Is...

To be able to segment a market by culture you first need to understand what culture is. The Culture Show on the BBC has a Culture Is... application that is fascinating. It has hundreds of words that people have entered that people think culture is. It also has many definitions of what culture is from different people. Boris Johnson says culture is what differentiates human beings from animals. Patsy Kensit says culture is taking her 8 year-old son to the Natural History Museum. James Corden says culture is nothing to so with how intelligent you are. John Humphreys says culture is everything from grand opera to soap opera. Duffy says that culture to her is speaking Welsh.

There are, also, many different dictionary definitions of culture. Wikipedia states that there are three main definitions of culture:

~excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
~an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
~the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.

Marketingpower.com has two very good definitions. Firstly, "The set of learned values, norms, and behaviors that are shared by a society and are designed to increase the probability of the society's survival", and secondly "The institutionalized ways or modes of appropriate behavior. It is the modal or distinctive patterns of behavior of a people including implicit cultural beliefs, norms, values, and premises that govern conduct. It includes the shared superstitions, myths, folkways, mores, and behavior patterns that are rewarded or punished". About.com defines culture as "the perspectives, practices and products of a social group". Dictionary.com has pages of definitions. Most of the relevant definitions include words such as "society", "behaviours", "traits", "patterns", "class" "community", "values", "attitudes" and "population".

From this it can be seen that culture is many different things to many different people. So how, as a marketer, can you combat marketing to many different cultures? Or do you try and define a culture and market exclusively to that culture? Culture is posing more of problem to many businesses daily as cultures are mixing and as many companies go global. How employees behave in one country will not be the custom in another country. I think the most important aspects of culture are values, beliefs and customs, all of which are to be respected.

Values- The important, enduring ideals or beliefs that guide behavior within a culture or for a specific person. For example, health and fitness have recently become important values for Americans.

Beliefs- A cognition or cognitive organization about some aspect of the individuals world. Unlike an attitude, a belief is always emotionally or motivationally neutral. Krench and Crutchfield define belief as a generic term that encompasses knowledge, opinion, and faith an enduring organization of perceptions and cognition about some aspect of the individuals world. It is the pattern of the meanings of a thing, the cognition about that thing.

Customs- A practice followed by people of a particular group or region.

An article, The Need for Culture-Sensitive Marketing, explains that "culture defines the way collective groups of people think and behave". It states that Geert Hofstede defined 5 dimensions of power in culture, and how this greatly affects the way people do business and how they consume. These are as follows: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. The article summarises with a very interesting point:

"After all, if human relations are defined by cultures, then brands - which ultimately are about product-people relationships - cannot remain agnostic to them."

Geert Hofstede has scored many different countries on these 5 measures. I will explain, in brief, what they mean, but it is explained in full, along with all the country profiles, on his website. Power Distance Index (PDI) is the extent to which people in groups and organisations accept that power is distributed unevenly, this represents inequality, but defined from below not above. Individualism (IDV) versus collectivism. This is whether people are out for themselves, and look out for number one, or whether they think first about others and the greater good of the group. Masculinity (MAS) "refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found... The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other." Uncertainty Avoidance Index (AUI) "deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations." Long Term Orientation (LTO) versus short term orientation. "It can be said to deal with Virtue regardless of Truth. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'."

Not surprisingly Japan and Iran scored very low on Individualism, which means that they have a very collective culture, what is good for the group is good for them. To equate this to marketing, it means that products must be marketed in a way makes the product seen to be purchased by a large number of people. If many people in this society have the product, then it must be good. Japan also scored much higher on Long Term Orientation than Poland and the UK, which means that it merits virtue and perseverance. This Japanese Nike Advert is focused on team not individual sport. At the end it says, "How far will you go?". This plays to the Japanese collectivist attitude that you should always try your best for the greater good of your society, or here "team". Norway scored much lower on the Masculinity scale than South Africa, which indicates that it has a more modest, caring society, whereas South Africa is a more competitive, aggressive culture, as can be seen in this forceful South African Nike advert. These are also attitudes that can be marketed to. A product being marketed in Norway might want to be seen as a helpful product, one that will improve quality of life, however the same product being marketed in South Africa might strive to be seen as one that would improve your quality of life over your neighbour.

Rachel Lawes' article Consumer Behaviour: Look to the Future explains how individualism relates to the marketing world a bit more. She writes "with Western consumers generally determined individualists, each believing themselves to be the master of their own destiny. This makes them sceptical of "official" messages, including most forms of advertising". Saikat Banjeree, writing for Cross-Cultural Management, explains that the reason that culture is so important in marketing is that consumer behaviour is based on two things: inner-self and outer stimuli. Culture is the main player in the outer stimuli sector. He also states, re-iterating this importance, "relationship between culture and values manifesting themselves through consumption of products is well-documented, with material goods being important to individuals due to their ability to carry and communicate cultural meaning".

It is patent that these differences are paramount for business across cultures, whether it is for opening an office in a new culture, marketing in a different country or entertaining clients from other societies. One of the premier companies in advertising the fact that they understand this is HSBC. They have many adverts discerning the differences between different cultures and how this can affect you business.