Values

Let me ask you a simple question, what are your values?

This week we learnt about values, and I must say I really enjoyed this week. In fact, the past few weeks have been really interesting as they are focusing on going back and thinking about your past (it has put a big smile on my face in class!).

So values what are they?

“Generally speaking, a value can be defined as a belief about some desirable end-state that transcends specific situations and guides selection of behaviour. (Solomon, 2010)

“If we believe our overall values drive our behaviour, then we should be concentrating on the important, underlying motives that drive consumers to make product or service choices rather than simply product attributes” (Ries and Trout, 1982)

The best way I would describe them are that they affect us, it is our morals, our beliefs and what we believe in that creates our values. An example of one of my values is I care for my family. Values are what you hold on to throughout your life, they come from our culture, our family our friends, the values we have can depend on how we were brought up.

The list below is the values that Kahles (1983), chose as the most important in our lives. Ruth gave us a task in class to rank what value was our most important to the one that was least important to us.

Kahles list of Values (1983)

1. Self Respect

2. Excitement

3. Being Well Respected

4. Self-fulfilment

5. Sense of accomplishment

6. Warm relationship with others

7. Security

8. Fun & enjoyment

9. Sense of belonging

My Values (1 being most important, 9 being the least important)

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

 Where do you rank your values?

So, how does this relate to marketing? Let me ask you, can you identify any products which you buy to try to achieve these end-states? Like:

1.  Clothes
2.  Car
3.  Facebook
4.  Alcohol
5.     Cigarettes

Week Eleven - Nostalgia

Roll up, roll up! Please come and take a ride on the nostalgia rollercoaster!

I hope your strapped up, because with nostalgia you don't know if it is going to be a bumpy ride!

So what is nostalgia?

'Nostalgia has been described as a bitter-sweet emotion, where the past is viewed with both sadness and longing.' (Solomon, 2000)

' When a stimulus is capable of recreating a personal event, even after many years, there often follows a bitter-sweet sentiment known as nostalgia.' (Dubois, 2000)

So, in this lesson Ruth made us go to the computer room, and take a trip down memory lane.

We had to create a mood board, that represents our childhood!

So I would like to welcome you to my childhood!

Can you relate to any of my memories?

The question is, how does this relate to marketing?

Well, advertisers try to use nostalgic themes, so that consumers link their happy feelings they had in their past, to the product that is being sold. They can also use the five senses, to trigger nostaliga. For example:

Sound - A particular song you remember

Sight - Iconic fashion (Doctor Martins!)

Smell - Perfume you wore when you were younger

Touch - Silk, reminds you of a dress you wore.

Taste - Marmite, how your mum used to make you marmite on toast when you were not well.

A classic example of this is the new advertisement by Hovis.

Take a look and tell me what you think!

'Every time an advertisement or commercial appears, the objective s to have the reader or viewer learn something, and remember what he learned.' (Britt, 1955)

  

Week Ten - Gender

Good morning my fellow bloggers!!!

How are we this fine morning?

Why the flowers you ask? 

Surprise! I gave you all a virtual blogging present!

Unfortunately, as much as I would love to say that was my intention, I am afraid there is another meaning behind them.

I am sure that a large majority of the male readers that read this blog, you have been that pair of hands, holding that bouquet of flowers! 

Possibly for a certain lady in your life?

On that note, I would like to introduce you to my boyfriend Chris!

(Yes, I know what your thinking, complete idiot! His version of the Joker from Batman!)

I wanted to use Chris as a quick test dummy and asked him one simple question, what impresses a woman?

Chris's answers:

1. Buy her flowers. 
2. Take her for a nice dinner. 
3. Buy her jewellery.
4. Make her a card.
5. Be kind to her.
6. Respect her.
7. Treat her like a 'princess'.

(I have him trained well!)

Now please meet my best friend Allena!

(Yes, I do have strange friends!)

I asked Allena the the same question apart from one detail, what impresses a man!

Allena's answers:

1. Make them steak and chips.
2. Turn up naked to their house.
3. Bring them a cold beer.
4. Wear a short dress that shows off your bum and boobs.

Week Seven - Personality and Self- concept

Now I guess you are all wondering, who is the face behind the blog? Well I can now reveal my true identity!

My name is Apu and I am a shop keeper by day and a master mind blogger at night!


Well perhaps not, however I would like to introduce you to my personality twin! It is week seven and I must say this week I had lots of fun! This week we learnt about personality and self - concept. Schiffman and Kanuk, (2004) define personality as "Those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment." Before we started class Ruth sent over a link to complete a personality questionnaire, then we had to bring in the results the next day. After 70 questions, this is how my 'personality' looked like!













So I am classed as 'The Mentor'! If I am honest, with me I am one way or the other, a bit like Marmite I suppose, you can either love it or hate it, there is not really an in between. So I agree with being all of them, however I was shocked to see the result that I was leaning towards being judging! Using the link below, please try the personality test and see what you are. You might be surprised what the results show!


http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/


How was the test? Surprising or were the results what you expected? If you done the test please let me know what personality type you are using the comment box below this post.


On the day of the lecture, we took our results in and Ruth presented us with a Simpson themed personality chart. Who said learning could not be fun! There were four categories, protectors, creators, intellectuals and visionaries. I came under the visionary category. I have taken the chart from Ruth's lecture to allow you to see who you would be and what category you would come under.


P.s Thank you to Ruth for putting this together!












































So what were you? Maybe a Bart or even a Ralph?


The question we had to ask ourselves was, 'What are the factors that influence our behaviour?' According to Kotler et al, there are four factors. They are:


Cultural Factors

• Sub- culture
• Social Class

Social Factors

• Reference Groups
• Family
• Roles and Statuses

Personal Factors

• Age and Life-Cycle Stage
• Occupation
• Economic Situation
• Lifestyle
• Personality and Self-concept

Psychological Factors

• Motivation
• Learning
• Perception
• Beliefs and Attitudes

How do these factors relate to our personality? According to Hollander's research into personality there are four aspects that create our personality. They are:


The External Aspect


How a person interacts with other people.


The Internal Aspect


A combination of their values and attitudes.


The Dynamic Aspect


Faced with a new situation, how do they behave.


The Consistent Aspect


Their Characteristic style.


However, where do we inherit our traits from? Was it down to nurture, nature, peers or even birth order? Once we recognised who we have inherited most of our traits from, Ruth wanted us to go into more depth into our personality and our traits. She presented us with Cattells Trait Theory. This theory looks at the different personality attitudes people have. It illustrates the negative attitudes to the positive. This would define our traits of our personality so we could analyse ourselves. This is what mine looked like!

How do you think yours would look? Who do you inherit your traits from, maybe your older brother or your best friend from school? 


Another theory is Hollander's research. This theory has established four aspects which helps define personality. The aspects are:

• The External Aspect: how a person interacts with other people 
• The Internal Aspect: a combination of their values & attitudes 
• The Dynamic Aspect: faced with a new situation how do they behave e.g. social adjustments 
• The Consistent Aspect: their characteristic style

Solomon, (2001) defines self-concept as "...people see themselves as they imagine others see them."
Self concept can also allow others to see our material possessions, which can be used as an expression of our selves. Self concept influences the person's perception of the world around it. Self concept does not have to be reality, for example, a person who is regarded by others as successful may perceive as being a failure. Again this links back into perception. 

Self concept impacts on each of us, because it is what we think about ourselves. For example, a teenager who does not believe she is perfect or what is perceived to her as perfect, due to the influence of the media, tends to believe a size 0 will help them fit in, this then influences the teenagers self concept. I bet most of you are thinking this scenario sounds familiar! 

Self concept makes individuals believe what they would like to become and how this will impact on them. The important factors that are involved in this are:

• Self image
• Self esteem
• Ideal self

Self image impacts people because this is how they tend to see themselves, in which they judge the positive and negative attributes about themselves.

The question is how does personality and self concept relate to marketing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhp0MoIplZY&feature=related

Week Five - Perceptual Maps

Welcome to week five! Before I start I must inform you this was my favourite week so far. For the past few weeks I have been telling you about the stages in perception. This week we learnt about perceptual maps. To be honest I have never heard of perceptual maps, so I was quite intrigued.

Perceptual mapping is a marketing technique in which consumer's opinions and views about a product or service are marked or mapped on a chart. Consumers ask themselves questions about their personal experience with the product or service, for example its performance, packaging, price, size, etc. Using their data, they then transfer their answers onto a chart (perceptual map) using the Likert scale. This will then show companies how their product is doing and how they can improve their product or service. Egan, (2007) explains a perceptual map as, ‘A matrix used to establish a customer’s view point of the organisation relative to its competitors.’

Here is an example of a perceptual map:

 (learningmarketing.net, 2010)

Ruth then set us the task where we had to create a perceptual map on different brands of jeans. The questions that I asked myself were if the jeans were high or low quality and if they were expensive or inexpensive.

At the end, this is what I created:

It allowed me to see where different brands could improve and what the consumers opinion was of their product and brand.

Week Four - Attention and Interpretation

Hello again! I cannot believe it is week four already. How time flies! I wonder how many of you last week done the sensation test. If you did please comment on my box and let me know the example and how it went. This week Ruth taught us more on the process of perception, attention and interpretation. Attention is where consumers focus on stimuli when they are exposed to products within their range.

So I have decided to again put this to the test! Please let me introduce you to, Oats so simple! My task I set my self was to deconstruct the packaging and see how the packaging grabs consumer’s attention. The packaging grabs the consumer’s attention by using the ‘cooks in 2 minutes’ label on the front of the packaging. For example this product would be great for a young, healthy, active working professional and advertising it cooks in only two minutes provides a quick and healthy breakfast. With the packaging also showing a background of what seems to be a field, it gives the sense this is a healthy, organic and natural product. With it being honey and almond flavour, the packaging shows honey being drizzled, which gives the impression it is tasty as well as being healthy.

Here are some pictures of the packaging:

How does this packaging draw your attention? I appreciate your comments and opinions, and would love to hear what draws your attention!

The final stage in the process is interpretation. Interpretation is the process where meanings are appointed to stimuli. Consumers alter in terms of the stimuli that they perceive. The eventual meaning to these stimuli changes as well. Two or more people can see or hear an event or product, seen from one point of view gives one impression, however seen by a different view, it gives a different impression. Their interpretation can be completely different. This can be due to many things depending on what the consumer is affected by. For example this could be due to their age group, gender, class in society, race and sexuality. Consumers perceive the world differently. For example, Oats so simple is aimed for both male and female and their target age group is between 25 and 35. It targets a working professional who seeks a healthy lifestyle.  It shows this with the packaging showing fresh honey with a range of healthy benefits such as being high in fibre, no artificial flavourings, colourings or preservatives.

Personally, over the past few weeks learning in more depth into perception, I am really starting to get intrigued into the minds of consumers, and I am starting to get excited about getting stuck into my coursework! I thought I would never see the day that I got excited about doing work!

Hope you now know more about the stages of perception. Come back next week to read about week five!

Week Two - How do these theories apply to marketing?