Heuristics memory and nostalgia

The main subject was how to trick people out of their buying habits for example the purchase of everyday items are often tied to a known brand and with no thought to looking for a different brand due to the fact that the product satisfied all needs.








Low to high involvement as shown above indicates more thought and investigation. Is carried out when purchasing irregular large items. Price is sometimes an important factor.

Fast and frugal heuristics – making quick decisions when there is a lot of choice (Williams 2001).

This process starts with a search for info i.e. cost and suitability arriving at a decision to purchase. These are heuristics mental shortcuts.
We discussed Fast and Frugal heuristics of which there are 4 kinds:
• Recognition (you are more likely to buy the one you know than a new model) Branding
• Minimalist (recognition plus one random criteria – works for low involvement e.g. recognition plus nice label) Advertising
• Take the Last (uses the last criteria applied to a similar situation) Habit
• Take the Best (assesses the options in order of perceived importance of criteria – still only uses one reason) Branding/USP

Now I am going to show there are two main learning theories.
Behaviourist Approach – approaching a problem without any previous conceptions - stimulus response connections
• Classical conditioning (Pavlov)
• Operant conditioning (Skinner)
Cognitive Learning – a process of listening, watching, touching or experiencing – consumers as complex problem solvers
• Latent Learning
• Observational Learning

We also talked about nostalgia which is strongly associated with memory.

"A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days". (dictionary.com)

An example of nostalgia is a song by Wham - Last Christmas which is repeated every year during the Christmas period and invokes happy memories. This promotes nostalgia.

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=3354flS1KJs

In the lesson two more ads were watched relating to nostalgia.
1. Marks & Spencers ad. This was an associated with nostalgia by going back to 1960s.
2. Another Marks & Spencers ad. Uses a group of women meeting in the afternoon. This reminds women on how afternoons used to be spent.

In conclusion this lesson raised some important aspects of adverting. The idea is often to trick a person in to accepting new ideas/products. This is often related to nostalgia. Sometimes with romantic overtones which tend to take peoples memories back through time.