Groups

There are many groups of people who belong to professional and social bodies. Some of them are professional groups such as medical and law societies, others are more social and recreational such as members of golf clubs, gyms. Professional individuals group in professional bodies to achieve status and recognition of their achievements. Social groups can represent people from many walks of life and their professional achievements are not a factor in social group relationships.

Bordbeck defined a group as an aggregate of individuals standing in certain descriptive relations to each other. The kinds of relation depends upon the kind of group, whether it be a family or an audience, a committee, a labour union.

A group is two or more individuals who:
-share a set of norms,
-have role relationships,
-and experience interdependent behaviours.
Groups influence the socialization process--i.e., they influence what we learn and how we behave.

TYPES OF GROUPS

The power to make an individual conform to group pressure and influence depends upon:
- Importance of membership e.g. football strips
- Fear of negative sanctions e.g. becoming a social outcast
- Degree of support from others e.g. course classes.

Group reference lies behind many successful advertising campaigns. People of certain social classes and age groups are frequently targeted with advertising showing products or promotional campaigns suitable to their class status. This can direct their thinking and cause them to take action according to the advertisement.


http://www.youtube.com/watchv=H8XzuNqDch4&feature=PlayList&p=D87D770E5A00D1EC&index=87


The Mercedes ad is perfect example of targeting successful professional people in the age group 30+ years. This advertisement is giving reasons that to own such a product increases the professional standing of the person and implies success.

Values & Involvement

Todays lecture was about values.

Values are our ideas about what is desirable (Wilkie).

Values are those things that really matter to each of us ... the ideas and beliefs we hold as special. Caring for others, for example, is a value; so is the freedom to express our opinions.

http://www.pinetreeweb.com/values.htm

Kahle’s list of values (1983)as follows:

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 and enjoyment

9. Sense of belonging

At the current time my education and good relationship with others is a top value. My prime target is to achieve a degree in the subject that I am studying. This is my ambition that I seek to achieve for my own satisfaction. The values that I place on relationships is secondary to the above target but in later years will replace what I am trying to achieve at this moment in time.

Values are also important in marketing efforts. They are used to create interest in new products using customer profiles generated in current products. This knowledge of consumers can influence the purchasing and consumption. Consumption activities are related to the set of values a person possesses in that people purchase products to achieve value related goals(Solomon,1996). To help businesses develop and evaluate marketing strategies there are many marketing and consulting tools available.
- The VALS system is one example which identifies opportunities based on consumer and marketing behaviours. Ref: http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtmlpresurvey.shtml
By taking a VALS survey it is possible to find out the consumer behaviour type which in my situation is experiencers and strivers.

Experiencers are motivated by self-expression. As young, enthusiastic, and impulsive consumers, Experiencers quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are equally quick to cool. They seek variety and excitement, savoring the new, the offbeat, and the risky. Their energy finds an outlet in exercise, sports, outdoor recreation, and social activities.Experiencers are avid consumers and spend a comparatively high proportion of their income on fashion, entertainment, and socializing. Their purchases reflect the emphasis they place on looking good and having "cool" stuff.

Strivers are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don't have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead.Strivers are active consumers because shopping is both a social activity and an opportunity to demonstrate to peers their ability to buy. As consumers, they are as impulsive as their financial circumstance will allow.

To sum up the VALS results describes my personality and consumption behaviour to a level of 90%

Gift giving

During the whole year one of the most wonderful times is Christmas. It is a time of celebration when family and friends have enough time to sit and talk. Christmas is the time of fantasy and magical atmosphere. The smell of the turkey cooking the lights on the Christmas tree and though of what Santa Clause may bring - gifts. This brings the same problem every year, what to buy. Ii is hard to interpret the dreams of family and friends, and many people are unaware that we follow the hint giving by marketing special thru the media. Present may be:

functional – utilitarian,

symbolic – status symbols

and hedonistic – for fun.

Gershoff (University of Michigan) claims that personal preferences may cause a problem, because the more we like something can influence a conduct during buying a gift.
"This difference leads us to make more exaggerated predictions that people like the same things we do, compared to predictions that people will dislike the same things that we dislike” said Gershoff.

Peoples shopping habits have changed considerably in recent years. One of the most dramatic changes has been purchasing the goods via the internet. This is now the second most important venue for giftware shopping.

Danziger (2004) claims that:
-Gift giving is about emotionally connecting giver and recipient
-Emotional shopping – the goal is to achieve a special feeling
-The gift communicates a message
-Problems can occur when the giver and the recipient’s values differ.

In conclusion every single gift is proof of an affection to the gifted person. The value of the present is irrelevant compared to the act of giving.

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.

Vive la difference

The lesson was about charity advertising associated with gender response to direct mail. There were 3 charity ads.
Number one was an ad for Dr. Bernardo’s charity, number two was for a cancer research and number three was an ad about giving blood.

The first is about small lonely girl, which showed a small girl with sad eyes which obviously played on individual emotions. Coupled with the voice over this portrayed a little girl lost without a future.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWd3iixIJc


The Cancer Research UK charity was structured in an such a way to show happy people who were previous cancer sufferers, followed by a happy event in the girls life which was showing her emotions at the thought of her mother who was absent due to affect of cancer. The words used “My mum should be here” showed the emotions she was experiencing during her most important day during her life. I consider that ad was most touching of the ads we reviewed.


http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=RMwt28P_xSQ


The last ad was based on “Do something amazing, give blood”. Once again showing people giving gratitude for the fact anonymous people had possibly been touched by the advert to give blood thereby saving someone’s life. It is known fact that many people give blood regularly. This advert is designed to encourage even more people to give blood on a regular basis.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tijSx_fwoM0&feature=related



These ads are made in a such a way to appeal to peoples minds, and shock their feelings in to action.

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=m4NtYHKGRQ0

Adverts are designed to impact on peoples feelings, and as such are made with dramatic events which when viewed cause uproar and sometimes result in the ad being banned. This still made people discuss and take action so achieved the original aim of generating funds for the charities.

The best way to understand the charity advertising sector is to work within a charity and gain experience of producing a dramatic eye-catching ad with as small amount of expenditure.

The second part of our task was to observe a picture taking in as many details as possible. This showed that males and females have a different approach to how they perceive an advert. Males are responsive to ads that show psychical strength and portray ambition. Women respond better to softer ads that stress, beauty and youth.

In conclusion, the biggest challenge for advertisers is to produce a charity ad at the lowest possible price at the same time using all the tricks available so that it grabs the most media attention, appealing to both genders to gain most attention.

Enterprise week

During Enterprise Week we had opportunity to attend speeches which were about advertising and business.I attended two events. I will talk about first because I found it more interesting and under present conditions the subject of the talk was about recession. Behind the table representing the event were seated eight successful working and business industry people

Ivor Peters - Managing Director of Primal PR,

Jamie Matthews - Managing Director of Initials Marketing,

Andrew Canter - Founder of Contentworx,

Don Cowley - Panel Chairman,

Steve Cox - UK Marketing Director for Titan Outdoor UK,

Allan Rich - Founder of MediaCom and now a Non-Executive Director of the Cello Group,

Jayne Barr - Runs Creative Consulting,

Rob Laurence - Marketing and new Product Development Director at TGI.

The main subject of the speech was: WHAT’S NEXT? What the future will bring for advertising, marketing and PR industry? How marketing may influence the environment? What is the impact of the recession in industry? Green marketing issue.

Speech of Allan Rich was very interesting and stayed in my mind for long time. He loves the job which he does and he is so passionate about it. Full of enthusiasm a person like Allan is a great example of how you can do something that you love and at the same time you can make a profit from it.Now I feel more optimistic about my plans and what I want to do in business industry in the future.I managed to remember one of the great expressions about business during the recession period:

“Every business which is run well will survive the recession”. (Allan Rich)

Allan Rich also mentions agencies interests. They have to remember that money which they are using is not theirs but the customers, and the agencies have to invest it in a reasonable fashion.Partnership between customers and agencies has a huge meaning in every industry and we have to always remember that.

I never thought that the event would be such a valuable experience for me. Before attending I was thinking it will be another boring presentation about business, but I was in 100% wrong. Everything that they were talking about was very interesting and so real. I was listening very carefully to their stories and learnt from them as much I could. Their speeches gave me motivation to work even harder and helped me to make a decision as to what I want to do in the very near future. We all have to do what we LOVE, and what is the most important ENJOY IT.

Gender differences in advertising

Today's topic was very interesting and funny too. We talked about gender differences in advertising. Ruth showed us some slides with many different adverts on. When the slides had finished she ask us to write down as many adverts we possible could remember. Most recognizable adverts were famous one such as Nike, Gillette, Armani and Sarah Jessica Parker fragrance.

Boys could remember those adverts which represented cars, sport, alcohol, nudity, beautiful women, humour etc.




Woman in turn to man remembered ad with perfumes, kids, celebrities, handsome man, etc.

"Men and women process information differently because of differences in a portion of the brain called the splenium, which is much larger in women than in men, and has more brain-wave activity" (Ibid).


"The human brain, like the human body, is sexed, and differences in the sex-specific human brain condition a wide range of behaviors that we typically associate with maleness or femaleness" (Nadeau, p. 330)


Bright colours, famous brands and celebrities, fun, happiness, straight message, contrast there are some of reasons why we pay attention to those adverts.

Women are complex beings. They tend to be emotionally expressive, laugh, gaze, and smile more, at the same time they are empathetic and sensitive to others feelings. Women express their feelings without constraint, except for the emotion of anger and express more love, fear, and sadness. They pay more attention to body language, tend to more obsessed with having children. They are better at judging emotions from nonverbal communication and anticipate negative consequences for expressing anger and aggression.

Men tend to express more anger quickly, in certain situations they have the ability to control their feelings, and also exercise restraint from expressing their feelings. This suggest men are sometimes stoic. Men are overwhelmed by women's expressions of emotion, but will frequently show emotions to communicate dominance. In some cases men can show as much sensitivity as women.