“Reading Week” – Week 8

Coming soon

What do you see in the mirror? – Week 7

Coming soon

First Assignment Submission – Week 6

Here we are at week 6, and it’s time to hand in my first assignment for this university module. For this assignment we were required to create a poster deconstructing a piece of packaging analysing all marketing messages (I chose to do my poster on Muller Stars yoghurt pots, mainly aimed at children) and 1,500 word essay defining perception, explaining the perceptual process and drawing on theorists such as Howard Sheth, Engel Kollart and the Blackwell Model. In addition to this, we were expected to explain and give examples of factors which might affect a person’s perception of the world around them e.g. gender, age, social class, level of education, race and ethnicity etc. Then as a conclusion, apply all of this theory towards my deconstruction of the packaging chosen e.g. How does the packaging capture attention? How does it relate to the senses? How does the target market interpret the colours, images, fonts, etc to form a clear opinion of the product?

I think I captured all of these points well and thoroughly within my assignment and completed it and handed my final copy into university before the 2 o’clock deadline we were set on Friday.

As a result of this, this week’s lecture was cancelled to give us more time to work on our assignment. A large and colourful poster and a 1,500 essay later, assignment one (“Packaging and Perception”) is done and dusted!

But, it’s back to work next week and we’re going to be learning about something new. Come back to find out more.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The Great Ice-Cream Wars Of The 1980’s

In relation to perceptual maps, ice-cream brands Haagen-Dazs and Ben and Jerry’s have always been at the top of the scale so they have always been in competition with each other. Ruth showed us advertisements from both companies and how they both appeal to their target audiences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XbREgc6SOk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUVx-1VSmhA

Personally, Ben & Jerry’s is my favourite ice-cream brand J

You can click on the images above to view them larger.

Haagen-Dazs reigned as the United States’ top-selling super premium ice-cream during the 1980s. Their success partially resulted from their pure, unaltered ingredients they used as well as from its decadent reputation. However, their fastest-growing competitor, Ben and Jerry’s, marketed their also super premium ice-cream brand as a product for anyone and everyone.

Ben and Jerry’s began expanding their business to middle class consumers in the 1990s. “It’s hard to find two competitive brands neck-and-neck that are so very different in consumers’ minds,” Walt Freese, Advertising Age. He also stated that Haagen-Dazs was assumed to be “for the chosen few” but that Ben and Jerry’s were generally identified as a “super-premium for the people.”

Ben and Jerry’s became Haagen-Dazs’ most threatening competitor in the 1990s, branded its “super premium ice cream around fun and irreverence”. It also used a large percentage of their advertising budget to sponsor socially conscious events which proved very effective. “From April 2003 to April 2004, Ben and Jerry’s boosted its sales by 15.9%, while sales for Haagen-Dazs dropped 16.5%”.

In order for Haagen-Dazs’ sales to soar they launched a “Made Like No Other” campaign, mainly for ice-cream enthusiasts airing three television spots which they cost around $5-$10, which eventually went on to win a Gold EFFIE Award in 2005 in the snacks/desserts/confections category.  The first, “Anthem” launched in May 2004 and won a 2005 Bronze Clio Award for the Original Music category. Goodby, Silverstein and Partners explained that “the advertising spurred a dramatic turnaround: sales and market share soared as old and new audiences were won over – reminded why they loved Haagen-Dazs once more.” Their other two television advertisements “Strawberry” and “Vanilla” both started airing in June 2004, with each of their adverts using the same taglines such as “Just perfect” and “Made like no other”.

With the help of this campaign, Haagen-Dazs’ sales raised and members of the advertising industry began to view the ice-cream brand more positively than before. In mid-2004, Gary Koepke (Modernista!) admired the campaign by stating “I like the new Haagen-Dazs ad with the tagline ‘made like no other’. It shows umbrellas opening on an empty beach and rain falling on a pond. It takes me by surprise. They’re not showing the typical scoop of ice-cream. The ad makes ice cream precious like a reward or a setting sun. It’s just nice. It’s different.”

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Segmenting the Orange; Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning – Week 5

During our lecture, Ruth showed us a PowerPoint presentation on perceptual maps. At first it looked very scary and confusing as shown below. However, the theory behind this is followed.

You can click on the diagrams above to view them larger.

A vital decision, which can affect a product’s life length and its flexibility in a market over time, concerns their position. This requires thinking in the context of the competitive segment it occupies in its market, defined in terms of traits that matter to the target market. The important criterion is how close to the ideal on each of those features, compared with competing products, yours is to be judged by the target market. For example, Harrods in London is positioned as a high-class and high-quality and exclusive huge department store. In order to reinforce their positioning with their target market, they ensure that their product ranges, staff expertise, displays and overall store atmosphere are all of a high quality for their consumers.

Perceptual maps help to offer an insight into suitable competitive actions. For example, an essential decision could be whether to try and “meet the competition head-on or to differentiate your product away from them”. They can show just how far away from the competition your product is shown to be and where its weaknesses and strengths lie, directing to an understanding of the marketing tasks involved in improving the product which is being offered. If the purpose is to differentiate, the map can point out whether your product is sufficiently different in terms of characteristics that matter and whether nick markets exist that your product could be adapted to fit into. (Brassington and Pettitt)

By identifying the key aspects and then asking individuals to segment competitors within the perceptual map space, marketers can answer some fundamental strategic questions, such as which substitutes are seen by consumers as similar or dissimilar, and what opportunities exist for new products that hold attributes not represented by current brands. The perceptual map below shoes the iconic Burberry brand, showing its “old” position from the 1980s and 1990s, and the shift in perceptions of the brand in more recent years. (Solomon et al, 2010)

You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

In addition to this, Ruth showed us her version of her perceptual map of biscuit brands, shown below. As a class, we all thought up more brands that could be added to our map. This then turned into a mini debate about the “best biscuits” – Jaffa cakes. Are they biscuits or cakes? J

You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

We were then set a task to create our own perceptual map of jeans brands in small groups. The map that my group came up with is shown below.

You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

Overall, a perceptual map can be used to “establish a customer’s viewpoint of the organisation relative to its competitors” (Egan, 2007). It also a form of a market research technique which consumer’s views about a product is traced or mapped on a chart. The product is analysed in terms of it performance, packaging, price, size, etc. to figure out where to segment them on the map. “These answers are transferred to a chart (called a perceptual map) using a suitable scale, and the results are employed in improving the product or in developing a new one.” (businessdictionary.com, 2010)

Main prep for this week was to complete my first assignment ready for submission during week 6. This required me to read through various textbooks, journals, reports and websites to find useful information that I could include and reference thoroughly within my work. I was also required to produce a poster analysing a type of packaging. The packaging that I chose was Muller Stars yoghurts which mainly appealed to young children due to the use of bright colour and cartoon imagery used.

We were also expected to read Brassington and Pettitt (Chapter 4) as outside reading. After reading and highlighting the important points within the chapter, I found that “Segmentation techniques are split into both macro and micro variables. Macro includes organisation characteristics, such as size, location and purchasing patterns, and product or service applications, defining the ways in which the product or service is used by the buyer. Micro leads to the definition, in some cases, of segments of one customer, and focus on the buyer’s management philosophy, decision-making structures, purchasing policies and strategies, as well as needs and wants.”

In marketing, five main categories of segmentation are defined as the following: geographic, demographic, geodemographic, psychographic and behaviour based. Each of these points cover a full range of characteristics which can be perceived as “descriptive”, “measurable”, “tangible” or “intangible”, “relating to the buyer”, “lifestyle” and “relationship with the product”. In practice, a multivariable approach to segmentation is likely to be put into practice, classifying a range of applicable characteristics from all categories to suit the market that is under consideration.

The implications of segmentation are extensive. The possibilities range widely. For example, from a niche strategy (which specialises in one particular segment), to a differentiated strategy (which targets two or more segments with different marketing mixes). The undifferentiated strategy hopes to cover the whole entire market with only one main marketing mix, is becoming more and more less suitable as consumers become more demanding recently, and although it does appear to assist the managerial burden, it is very exposed to competition.

Segmentation offers a variety of benefits to the consumer and to the business involved. Consumers get an offer that is better adapted to their exact needs, as well as the pleasure of feeling that the market is offering them a broader range of products for them to choose from.

The business can also use their segmentation as a basis for building a strong competitive upper hand, by understanding their customers on a meaningful psychological level and reflecting that in its marketing mix or mixes. This then forms bonds between the business and its product and/or service and customers that are very difficult for competition to break. There are, however, some dangers in segmentation, if it is not done properly. Weak definitions of segments, badly chosen selections of significant variables or inadequate analysis and performance of the outcomes of a segmentation application can all be unsuccessful and disastrous. There is also a danger that if competing marketers become too enthusiastic and keen in trying to “outsegment” one other, “the market will fragment to an unviable extent and consumers will become confused by the variety of choice open to them.”

In addition to this, I found some useful websites on the internet which explained segmentation, targeting and positioning very well.

http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/cb_Segmentation.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6356725/MARKET-SEGMENTATION-TARGETING-POSITIONING-By-Subha-Rudra

http://www.da-group.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30%3Asegmentation-targeting-and-positioning&catid=2%3Amarketing-lectures&Itemid=3

Please read my next post about ice-cream brands in relation to perceptual mapping.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Introducing Sensation and the Perceptual Process – Weeks 3 and 4

Wow! I’ve been at university for nearly a month now, although it really doesn’t feel like it! This week, Ruth explained that the best marketing provides simple but factual information and still meeting consumer’s wants and needs. This is defined as “the perceptual process”. There are three key stages: exposure (or sensation), attention and interpretation.

Sensation simply involves receiving stimuli through sensory factors, whereas the perception process involves receiving raw data from each of the senses and then “filtering, modifying or transforming the data completely through the process of cognition” (ICMR 2010).

This focuses on what we “add to or take away from sensations as we assign meaning to them” e.g. advertising appealing to your senses. (Solomon et al 2010).

The perceptual process is the “primary source of knowledge about the world around us” and “operates at a pre-conscious level of cognition” (Helm et al, 2006). This means organizing incoming information (e.g. visual advertising or advertising appealing to senses).

The different types of consumer stimuli that make up the perceptual process are sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures. These are divided into two groups; sensation and meaning. “Sensation” refers to the immediate response of an individual’s “sensory receptors” (eyes, nose, mouth) and “attention”. “Meaning” is how a customer interprets (“interpretation”) these stimuli and their “response”. An overview of this is shown below.

(Solomon et al 2010) - You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

My prep for this week’s work was to identify 2 useful articles on warc.com. However, when I tried accessing the website it would not let me view any of the articles. Although, here are some of the searches I found:

http://beta.warc.com/Pages/Search/WordSearch.aspx?q=sensation&Filter=ALL OF WARC&Area=ALL OF WARC

I also discovered from outside reading that the study of perception focuses on what we “add to or take away from sensations as we assign meaning to them” e.g. advertising appealing to your senses. (Solomon et al 2010).

Come back next week to learn about perceptual maps. Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Gestalt Psychology – Week 4

Gestalt psychology is theory that looks at the human mind and behaviour as a whole. This was originally thought up by Max Wertheimer and Wilhelm Wundt. The development of this area of psychology was also influenced by a number of other theorists such as: Immanuel Kant, Ernst Mach and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

“There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.” (Wertheimer 1924)

Ruth simplified this for us in our lecture by defining Gestalt Psychology (Psychology of the form) as the following:

ü  Is there a rulebook for the way we think?

ü  Figure and ground – Figure is the central element which captures our attention. Whereas, background is largely undifferentiated.

ü  This argues that many stimuli acquire a pattern quality which is more than the sum of its parts.

Gestalt Psychology can be split into 3 main categories.

1.      Grouping (Proximity and Similarity)

We tend to group together objects that share similar physical characters – Hence health and beauty brands sticking to certain colours and bottle shapes.

2.      Closure

We tend to see an incomplete picture as complete – We need to fill in the gaps – We do it automatically. E.g. We can hear a couple of notes and we remember the whole jingle. For example, 118 118.

3.      Stimulus Ambiguity

This is a stimulus that is said to be ambiguous when it does not correspond to an immediately recognisable shape or form. We need to find a context in order to interpret it. This is widely used in advertising.

I was lucky enough to find some websites which explains this in much more depth. The links are below.

http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws.htm

You can find out more by clicking next on the webpage.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/gestalt.html

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Engel Kollat – The Blackwell Model

Tuck (1976) describes that Engel-Kollat – The Blackwell Model “used the concepts of behavioural science in an attempt to model, in a way both detailed and capable of general applications, the process which the consumers must go through in decision.” This model is made up of 5 stages although it is not essential for the consumer to go through every stage.

This is shown and analysed below.

You can click on the diagram above to view it larger.

This website: http://www.globalspec.com/reference/27114/203279/consumer-decision-making also explains this model quite well.

As everyone is different, there are factors which affect a person’s perception of the world around them. Different individuals will perceive the same things differently. These may arise due to factors such as attitudes, motives, expectations etc., based on the situation (time, place etc.) or the target e.g. novelty, background, sounds, size etc. (ICMR 2010). For example, cultural, age, gender, social class, family status, economy and race and ethnicity factors all have a significant impact on buyer behaviour.

Come back to see what I learned about in week 3: Sensation. Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The Howard-Sheth Model

John Howard and Jagdish Sheth introduced their buyer model in 1969. It explains the complex decision making process a consumer goes through. A diagram of this is shown below.



(Howard and Sheth 1969) - You can click on the digram above to view it larger.

A more complex version of this theory can be found at:

http://www.churcher.com/FOSM/foundations-of-senior-management-10013.htm

“Behavioural Determinants” determines the factors an individual takes into consideration before buying something. For example, people’s personalities or cultures affect their buying decision. “Inhibitors” shapes a person’s decision to purchase a product or not. For example, the financial status of an individual will take the price or brand of a product into consideration before purchasing.

“Inputs” establishes the facts, feelings and images behind a product, service or brand to grab the attention of a customer. “Perceptual Reaction” and “Processing Determinants” verifies an individual’s judgement, their filtering of the information and how they make their decision e.g. based on satisfaction, motivation, past experiences etc.

“Outputs” is the conclusion of these sections put together. It takes an individual’s purchase intention, behaviour and decision into consideration. On the whole, each of these categories forms an actual purchase or no purchase decision.

This decision makes up the “Blackwell Model” (Engel, Kollart & Blackwell 1995). An overview of this is shown in the next post.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

The 5 Senses

Ruth showed us a Galaxy television advert from the 1980s (Link below) which appeals to 4 of the 5 senses: Sight, Sound, Taste and Touch. The colours used in the ad are mainly sombre colours. The use of red also stands out and catches the eye. Additionally, the music played is slow and quite sultry. The tearing of the chocolate wrapper and the woman eating the chocolate appeals to both the taste and touch senses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqCqXPiBRy4

Ruth also showed us a Marks & Spencer summer advert (Again, link is below) to highlight the importance of sound and appealing to your sense of hearing. The advertisement was advertising women’s clothing and used famous female actresses and models modelling the stores clothing in a field and having a picnic. The music used here was very girly and fit in well with what was going on in the advert. Ruth then muted the video and played a completely different song over the top. This reinforced how important sound can be and if the wrong background music is chosen, the advert may not make any sense and confuse the consumer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVivTXlaEo

We then looked at the use of the colour blue in advertisements to appeal to our sense of sight. We first looked at the advertisement below. This uses the colour blue in a very simple and manly way as it is advertising a beauty product aimed towards men. Therefore, this use of the colour blue is likely to attract them more. This colour is apparent multiple times in the advert (on the packaging, the man’s suit, the bedding in the background with his wife/girlfriend). Overall, this advertisement is definitely appealing towards men due to the use of colour and imagery used.

Secondly, we looked at Bombay Sapphire Gin, which uses the colour blue in all of their advertisements as they package all of their products with this colour, not the usual, typical colour for advertising gin (green) so this stands out from the rest and is their USP (Unique Selling Point) as it differentiates from their competition and appeals to the eye more because it is not your average type of packaging. This kind of blue is more like an aqua colour and is classier than the previous advert. The website link is below. Their website also features music which is slow and elegant to fit in with their product range. Some of their advertising campaigns are also shown below.

http://www.bombaysapphire.com/#;market=us;language=en;centralPlanet=331;detail=open;currentPlanet=383

The website link below defines how the use of colour is important when marketing and what it means and symbolises. It also looks at the use of the colour blue again and the advantages of using it as well as a number of other colours.

http://www.squidoo.com/colorexpert

“Some colour combinations are powerfully tied to a company's image. For example, Kodak's product packaging has such a unique look with its gold, black and red colours, the company has been granted trade dress, a form of trademark granting exclusive use.” (Lichiti, “The Record”, 2006)

1.      Sight

 “This is the sense we use most often. We use it every single day, all day. Infact, television, magazine and internet forms of advertising are considered to be annoying by some individuals. This is why it is important for businesses to use a wide range of colour and imagery to appeal to their audiences so it will stick in their minds and not be turned away. Several surveys show that this sense is the most impressionable and responsive of all.”

2.      Sound

“Sound evokes memory and emotion. Mp3 players, iPods, earphones etc. are great examples of promotional products that engage the sense of sound, while at the same time still creating an enjoyable experience for a consumer. Through this, you are able to get your message across, which is memorable to your target audience. AOL uses a voice familiar to many young Web users. For example, Britney Spears fans found that they can hear her voice not only when experiencing her music but also when launching AOL. Britney lets you know, "You've got mail." Kellogg's has also invested in the power of auditory stimulus, testing the crunching of cereals in a sound lab to upgrade their product's "sound quality."

3.      Taste

“This is one of the senses that you can appeal to consumers with by using promotional products. This is a very effective method of getting your message to your target audience. For example, edible promotional products are widely used because of their effectiveness in creating a memorable experience for the end user.”

4.      Smell

“Ads for perfume in magazines can be very effective as they appeal to the sense of smell. It has flaps you can lift up to smell that particular fragrance. Of all the five senses, smell is the one that creates the most powerful impression in your brain. This is a proven fact based on numerous in-depth and well known scientific studies. A particular scent can trigger memories from a long time ago. This is a huge advantage as that scent is the most powerful memory trigger.Smells creates memories and appeal directly to feelings.”

5.      Touch

“Promotional products are tangible. You can hold them in your hands. You can feel them and use them. Again, you can create this by using promotional advertising. When someone writes with a pen imprinted with your logo, they are performing a useful task. It's yet another feature that separates promotional products from the rest of the pack.”

Sources:

(Lindstrom, 2002) http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1695460/sensory-brand-management-it-makes-five-senses

(Redmond, 2010) http://ezinearticles.com/?Promotional-Products---Appeal-to-All-Five-Senses&id=3701407

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

How We See the World around Us – Week Two

I have survived another week! This week, we learnt about perception. This is a procedure where stimuli selects, organises and interprets. Kotler (who people regard as the “God of Marketing”) and Armstrong (2009) define perception as: “The process by which people select, organise and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.”

Perception is how individuals perceive our surroundings or “how we see the world around us” (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2003).

More definitions and a wider analysis of perception can found on websites such as:

http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/

http://www.webinteractiveconsulting.com/marketing/marketing-perception.php

This lecture made me think that even if my friends and/or family share similar interests with me, they see things from a completely different perspective, even if we are looking at the same thing. Ruth showed us a clip from an advert by The Guardian. This shows and explains well how we can all see the same thing, but see it differently. This link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU

I wanted to find more examples of this which portrayed the same idea. I searched YouTube and found the following links.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0SsgfstzDw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Keo97K9cs&feature=related

Ruth explained all of the different concepts that make up perception. These are: Sensation, attention and interpretation. Perception is a much broader concept in comparison to sensation. This is because sensation is the immediate response of our five senses through stimuli such as light, colour and sound. It also only simply involves receiving stimuli through sensory factors, whereas the perception process involves receiving raw data from each of the senses and then “filtering, modifying or transforming the data completely through the process of cognition” (ICMR 2010).

Attention is where individuals focus on stimuli when they are exposed to different products. Finally, interpretation is the process in which meanings are appointed to stimuli. No one will interpret the same stimulus as everyone is different. (Brassington & Pettitt 2007)

My prep which I completed for week 2 was making a start on my blog; I also sent my blog URL link to Ruth. In addition, I read through chapters 1 and 2 in more depth in the Solomon (2010) text book. From my outside reading I learnt that perception can impact on brand names.

This is because they usually have noticeably defined images or “personalities” created by their advertising, packaging, branding and other marketing strategies they use that focus on positioning a product a particular way or by groups of consumers adopting the product.

Therefore, individuals often chose a product, service, or subscribe to a particular idea, because they like the image they portray, or because they feel its “personality” “somehow corresponds to their own.” Perception and sensation defines marketing which appeals to our 5 senses as this is our way of how we perceive the world.

Finally within this lecture, Ruth explained how consumers process our buying decisions. Our buying decisions relate to two main theories. These are:

ü  The Howard-Sheth Model

ü  Engel Kollart – The Blackwell Model

I will create separate posts on these theories and explain them in depth in the next few slides. This is where it starts to get confusing! But first, let’s look at the 5 senses.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

“We Are What We Have”

“It’s a simple concept, and a basic premise of consumer behaviour. But, it has boggled the minds of the best psychologists, sociologists, consumer behaviourists, advertisers and marketers for half a century at the least. For, as it turns out now, this simple concept is really a combination of two others. Not only what we are seen to be (the “me” concept), we are also what is seen to be ours (the “mine” concept). It seems we, as human beings, create our identities using both these – the “me” and the “mine” – concepts.”

(http://runawaysun.blogspot.com/2006/09/posessions.html)

Also in week one we learnt about the “me” and “mine” concepts. These take the different factors into consideration which encourage individuals to purchase something. Overviews of these concepts are shown below.

Overall, these factors make up “Kotler’s Buyer Decision Process” as shown and explained below.

This is “the decision-making process by which organisations establish the need for purchased products and services, and identify, evaluate and choose among alternative brands and suppliers”. (Kotler and Armstrong 1989)

For example,

1.      Need Recognition

e.g. Need a new PC.

2.      Information Search

e.g. Internet, In store.

3.      Evaluation of Alternatives

e.g. Dell, PC World, price, customer service, software support, printer/scanner package.

4.      Purchase Decision

Choice made e.g. Epsom

5.      Post Purchase Behaviour

e.g. Use, breakdowns etc.

Again, outside of class I researched what I was required to do for my first assignment for this module. To do this, I went on blackboard and read through the brief and highlighted important sections that I needed to complete. After looking through blackboard I found the following useful information.

The packaging of a product acts as the “silent salesman” who is used as the communication tool between a business and a consumer. The benefits of this are:

ü  Grabs attention

Packaging is “crucial in consumer choice, as one product can be chosen over another in a split second” (Osborne, 2001)

ü  Recognition

Packages which deviate considerably from the standard e.g. wine in a box attract a lot of attention. However, this could be a disadvantage as it may lead to negative package evaluation.

Sources: (Schoormans, J.P.L and Robbern, H.S.J. (1997), “The Effect of New Package Design on Product Attention, Categorization and Evaluation”, Journal of Economic Psychology, 18(2), 271-87)

Dialogue VS Trigger:

ü  Dialogue

You pick it up, look at it, are intrigued by it, informed, persuaded, entertained.

ü  Trigger

Little dialogue other than the brand name.

The design is recognised through visual identifiers – Colour, name, logo, lettering etc.

May be a trigger back to other communications – Advertising etc

Reinforces brand values

The VIEW Model:

è Visibility

“This signifies the ability of the package to attract attention at the point of purchase. The main objective is to have packaging that stands out to consumers.”

è Information

“This includes the various forms of information that is on the packaging e.g. product information, claimed benefits, instructions on use and ingredients.”

è Emotional Appeal

“Package designers attempt to arouse specific feelings such as elegance, prestige, cheerfulness, fun etc.”

è Workability

Does the package protect the contents? Does it facilitate storage space? Is it easy to access and use? Does it protect against breakage? Is it environmentally friendly packaging?

I also found some useful websites which clarifies these topics in more depth. These are below.

http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/buyerbehaviour/

http://www.marcbowles.com/courses/adv_dip/module12/chapter4/amc12_ch4_two.htm

And that was my first week at university, you will have to check back to see how I get on next week, learning about perception.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.

Consumers Are Like Onions – Week One

Walking into class for the first time was definitely quite daunting. The first thing I noticed was that most of the class was made up of loud and rowdy boys! However, once I started talking to everyone, they all seemed extremely lovely and friendly.

During our first week, we were informed about our scary module scheme and even scarier assignment structure. We also purchased our books we would need for the year outside of class from the university bookstore.

Ruth introduced us to our course and explained that consumers can be compared to onions. We all have different layers. We were then set a fun task to draw our version of an onion on a large piece of paper. Ruth then asked us a series of questions regarding our interests, hobbies, social life, family life etc. Our page was then full of information about us along with our onion. Ruth then handed us all another person’s sheet of paper and we were then asked to write on the back, what we thought their personality was like. The student who got mine captured me perfectly I think. Girly, outgoing, likes shopping! J

Our next task was to look at 2 book covers, which both had the titles removed by Ruth. These are shown below.

As you can see, one is a fiery red colour. The images shown here is a city skyline (New York perhaps? Although we don’t know this for sure) and what appears to be a man’s smirk. The second book cover is the complete opposite as the colours used are very plain and monochrome. There appears to be a woman opening a car door with her foot stepping onto the pavement. Her foot is dressed in a fashionable high heeled shoe (This could indicate that she is glamorous/business-like?). Our task was to guess what each of the books was about, with our only clues being what was on the cover.

We had a class discussion about this and we all came to suggestions that the first book cover may be something to do with Wall Street, terrorists or city life. In comparison, the second book suggested that it could be about an independent business woman and/or romance. This task really did require us to judge a book by its cover! Our answers showed that the two book covers were given two different perceptions.

However, it was then revealed that the two books were in fact the exact same story, with both covers just being published at different times. Here, Ruth was reinforcing the fact that everyone sees the world from a different point of view.

My prep outside of the lecture room included purchasing and starting to read our textbooks for the year, in particular, Solomon et al (2010) chapters 1 and 2. From this, I learnt the following.

Consumers’ evaluations and perceptions of different products are affected by their 5 senses. These are sight, smell, hearing, taste and texture. We might be influenced by the shape and/or colour of a package, or more subtle factors, such as the symbolism used in a brand name, in an advert, or in the choice of a model for a magazine cover. “These judgements are affected by – and often reflect – how a society feels that people should define themselves at that point in time.” This can be explained as the study of the processes involved when individuals “select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.”

As well as this, I researched different blogging websites that I could create my blog on, with blogger.com being the main favourite. We were also required to read through the assignment brief for our first assignment: Perception and Packaging. I read through this thoroughly to gain a helpful understanding of what we required to do for our first assignment for Ruth.

On the whole, my initial thoughts and first impressions of my new course are very positive; I thought that the first lecture was very interesting and fun. I am the type of learner who learns best by doing activities and getting involved rather than reading textbooks and writing things down so I thoroughly enjoyed my first week at university and I am looking forward to what else is ahead.

Please read my next post to see what else I learnt in my first week at university.

Hope to hear back from you.

Erica.