New personality and Self Concept

This blog is going to look at the different Factors affecting the buyers behavior, based on Kotler's model. There a different groups within this model, these are:






Cultural, this involves:
- Culture
- Subculture
- Social Class
























Social, this involves:
- Reference groups
- Family
- Roles & Status































Personal, this involves:
-Age and Lifecycle Stage
- Occupation
- Economic circumstances
- Lifestyles
- Personality and Self-Concept












The final group is Psychological, but lets focus more on the topic of personality and self concept. And another subject relating to this.

MBTI, this Myers Briggs Type indicator, this is a measurement for taking information and making decisions.


David W. Keirsey mapped four 'temperaments' to the existing Myers-Briggs system groupings SP, SJ, NF and NT; this often results in confusion of the two theories. However, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter is not directly associated with the official Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.



“Personality: a person’s unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment” sorry for nicking this Ruth but its the best, and most simple straight forward definition there is out there!

“Self-concept: the beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes & how he or she evaluates those qualities” Solomon, 1999. Thanks Solomon!

What are the Big Five?

-Extraversion (sometimes called Surgency). The broad dimension of Extraversion encompasses such more specific traits as talkative, energetic, and assertive.

-Agreeableness. Includes traits like sympathetic, kind, and affectionate.

-Conscientiousness. Includes traits like organized, thorough, and planful.

-Neuroticism (sometimes reversed and called Emotional Stability). Includes traits like tense, moody, and anxious.

-Openness to Experience (sometimes called Intellect or Intellect/Imagination). Includes traits like having wide interests, and being imaginative and insightful.

(http://www.uoregon.edu/~sanjay/bigfive.html)

Looking at these different theories is very difficult. They all do compliment each other however through doing psychology at A-level its never that easy! All of these theories contradict themselves and cancel other theories out with their own laws or rules. Freud looks at the ID, Ego and Super Ego however this could contradict the theory of 'The Big Five'.; The way I see it is that all the theories are right and wrong its just which you choose to believe and which ones have absolute sound evidence to support their theories on personalities and self concept.

A Day In The Life Of.....

Even though Im not as passionate for PR as I am for Marketing, I though it would be important to Blog about the Visit from Siobhan Sleet who works for Primal PR. This presentation was very informative about what its like to go from being a student into the cutthroat business of PR. I think that it would be easy to talk all about Primal but I would like to talk about Siobhan and how she got where she is now. So basically she was just like me, but doin a similar but different course, she got a 2.1 in PR and has been working for Primal for 18 months and is already a Senior Account Executive. This really gripped me because I really like the way you can just climb the ladder in business and goes to show if you put your mind to it you can actually do anything...sometimes more than you thought capable. Siobhan was shortlisted to be the CIPR PRide Outstanding Young Communicator 2009.

This only going to be a short blog as I just wanted to express my interest in how she got where she is today and i wish her all the best. By her showing us her daily jobs and responsibilities it really give us undergraduates a taster of what is to come! Peace out.

Gender Bender!

Sorry I haven't Blogged recently, I am a very lazy student and do not want to do any work until the last minute!! Do not judge me. So Gender is where we pick up. In the lecture one of the first slides which was funny showed how many things a woman would need to impress her, things such as complimenting, respecting, kissing, cuddling, buying them gifts being caring, basically the list is endless. However all a man needs is you women to show up naked and bring us some decent food.

This proves that our brains are wired differently, i have found that men think of sex on average every 7 seconds!!!! I took the Sex ID quiz online (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science) and found out this.....

I am more of a male thinker (thank God!) however I am under the average for the male score! On the angles test I scored 18, I have more of a male brain. On average, men outperform women in this task and those with more mathematical knowledge tend to score quite high as well.

Interestingly, men's testosterone levels fluctuate through the seasons and studies have shown that men's scores are lower in the spring, when their testosterone levels are at their lowest.

In the next section called 'Spot the difference' I scored 21% which was below average for males and females. I may have more of a male brain. Scientists say men tend to under perform in this task. The corpus callosum, the part of the brain that links the right and left hemispheres, is a fifth larger in women. This means women can process visual and other signals at the same time more easily than men. There is also a theory that oestrogen levels in women give them an added advantage in spatial memory.

The next section was about hands, my left thumb was on top when i held my hands together, this suggests the right half of my brain is dominant. Some studies theorise that as a right brain dominant person, you may excel in visual, spatial and intuitive processes.

There are other results but I shall leave it for you guys to get your own results and stop spying on mine!!
MARKETING TO MEN vs. MARKETING TO WOMEN

Considering that women make 80% of the consumer buying decisions, it is important that marketers pay attention and meet the demands, however the marketing industry is a male dominated area, surely it would make sense to have a majority of women selling to women as women know what women want!! If I haven't lost you there. (Too many women, sorry guys)

Marketing to Men seems much more in you face and seem to use words. For instance the Gillette adverts use words such as STEALTH, POWER and FUSION, and as a 'male', this bloody well works! (For me anyways). Where as marketing to women maybe more subtle and may connect with their feminine side, using different colours and using a women to talk on the advert so they feel more comfortable. (Maybe not the woman with a beer but hold that thought maybe there tapping into a niche market there prenant women who like to drink lager!!! Brilliant)

There are 22.9 million men and 26.8 million women in the UK aged 16 and over. (Source: Women and Equality Unit)

The difference in men's and women's hourly pay is narrowing but, in 2004, women's average pay was still just under 86% of men's. (Source: Office of National Statistics)

Men now do eight times more childcare than they did 30 years ago. (Source: Equal Opportunities Commission)

The most popular degree subjects are engineering and technology for male students (85%) and education or medicine for female students (81%). (Source: Equal Opportunities Commission)

The Experiments!!

The first assignment for the module of Understanding the customer was to 'Carry out a small-scale experiment to test out the theory regarding perception'. There were 4 choices of experiments that we could do, these were:

An experiment to test out the effect of the use of particular colours on wine labelling on the perception of the quality of that wine (this could also be done with the packaging of chocolates or health and beauty product such as bubble bath)

An experiment to test out music effects on perceived quality e.g. different backing tracks to advertisements for a particular product such as beer or perfume

An analysis of the use of atmospherics in a number of competing retail stores (e.g. use of lighting, music, colour etc) to see how the retail outlet owner is trying to influence people’s perception of his store or product range (Note: this is not just another name for a shopping trip – you will need photographic evidence and store layout)

Observe 2 or more people involved in a high cost purchases (e.g. a car, holiday or computer) and identify the detailed stages in their decision making process. Compare and contrast the different shoppers and account for any differences in behaviour which might relate to their perception of the risks involved.

I decided to choose the one that involved investigating the atmospherics in competing retail stores. This option appealed to me as there is a wide range of shops in the London and High Wycombe area that all vary. I chose three stores, these were: Next, Topshop and Abercrombie. All are different in there own right, Abercrombie being the most different from the other two, this gave me the ability to give a good contrast of store atmospherics between the three.

I think store atmospherics are important because they set the mood for the store can you imagine a store that had no music or colour, I would not like to go in, dont know about you!!??

Perception and the Decision Making Process

This week we looked at perception yet again but we also looked at the decision making process, the decision making process is a step by step process in which the customers buys the product. The first activity of the lecture involved drawing a picture of a typical over 50 year old, but we didn’t draw it with lines and colours, we used words! We basically wrote down what we thought was the typical characteristics of and over 50 year old such as false teeth, glasses and Werthers Originals and so on. Looking at everyone else’s diagrams we had more or less the same criteria for an over 50, however we found out that the oldest person living in the UK was 108, so from the age of 50 to 108 there was a difference of 58 years! This is important as in most surveys or questionnaires there is a category for over 50 but there is another potential 50 years in which the results for that category may change drastically. After that we looked at Kotler’s Buying Decision Process this step by process involves the customer recognising the product, they then search for the information about the product, then they look at other cheaper products that are available to them or look at the same product but for example rather than in-store they look online. The product is then purchased by the customer and they use the product accordingly! However when customers buy confectionary such a chewing gum or a drink they may miss out some of the stages in the buyer decision process.
We also looked at the Harvard risk assessment business model; it states that an individual’s subjective perception of the risk inherent in buying a product, furthermore the tolerance of risk may vary depending on certain people.
Definition of Gestalt Psychology - a theory of psychology that emphasizes the importance of configurational properties

(Definition provided by - http://estb.msn.com/i/3C/E511F5265C4B815FED9AE86D75CA16.jpg)

The Human Senses

Perception is detected by the means of the senses

Definition of perception

· Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world

Introduction to perception (2009) Definition of Perception [online]. Available from: http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/optical_illusions/intro_definition.html [Accessed 14 October 2009]

In today’s lecture we looked at how people respond to adverts that provoke the human six senses...For those of you who don’t know them it’s Smell, Taste, Touch, Hearing and Sight. All of these elements can be applied into the making of an effective marketing campaign. As I am sat on the train on my way home to Leeds makes me proactive and want to get some work done on the train...sooo looking around me I can see people blowing Z’s however there is nothing interesting in Coach B, the carriage wall are a pale cream, the lighting is low and I am pushed for space on the busy 5’oclock train to Leeds. Thinking in a marketing perspective, this would be a perfect place to promote and effectively market a new product, event or person. Why aren’t there any posters? Why are there no televisions? Why are there no flyers on the back of the worn seat in front of me...does anybody know because I would like to!! Further in the lecture we created our own businesses (in groups) and we had to name colours according to the set demographic we were given. Our group was called shitty shades only a joke, but the name of the colour selection was pic ‘n’ mix. We felt the name for these colours would be appealing to our target groups which was around 8 years old. The list of colours were: Icing sugar, Shazam!!, Candyfloss, Custard, Mustard Hotdog, Stardust, Mint Sundae, Bogie Green and Smurf Blue. We felt all of these colours would appeal to the age group we were set.

The first of many lessons!

This is my first ever blog so give this site chance it may get better through the year! On Thursday 31st at Bucks New Uni we looked at understanding the customer, and how each person is that little bit different from the next one. This can then influence the skills and techniques used within marketing as adverts and effective marketing must reach a really wide demographic.
As the ball got rolling in the lesson Ruth asked us to draw a shape on a page, we were then asked to fill in certain information about ourselves such as favourite car, colour, holiday destination ect...When we had filled our shapes with as much or as little information as we wanted, we then swapped them around, people had to guess what type of person they are from judging the information provided on the piece of paper. Some people guessed correctly but some people didnt, it was easy to guess mine as it had LEEDS UNITED in large block capitals on the centre of the page, however some were more illusive as others had just wrote words and not seemed to express themselves using pictures or large words, this could mean that they could be an introvert compared to me which had pictures and large words on...have you guessed it yes I am an extrovert!!!
So what did we learn from this? Well personally I learned that everybody is different and that not everybody may be what they seem or say they are. Some may say they are loud however their writing may show they are introvertd and may be quite shy, my view on this is that they might be shy to people they do not know and once you get to know that individual then may be more loud and chatty like they say they are.