Generation Marketing

This is the method of marketing to a specific generation.



The generations are often split into 4 groups:

Millenials - Born after 1980

Empowered and optimistic. They live in a fast world and therefore expect everything to happen quickly. Being the youngest generation they are the most intelligent (the average IQ leaps 3 points with each new generation). This generation is also the most educated.

Baby Busters - Born between 1965 aqnd 1980

Instilled with a sense of economic uncertainty and a reduced expectation of long term fidelity between employers and employees. This is due to events such as the 1973 oil crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the early 1980's recession.

Baby Boomers - Born between 1946 and 1964

The post WW2 generation. People started settling down into family life and repopulating Britain. Without a war going on people also started to get jobs and establish careers, rebuilding Britains economy. They are aware of what their parents had to suffer and are grateful for what they have as a result. They are intelligent consumers and will not be won over easily by advertising.

Mature Citizens - Born between 1909 and 1945

An ever increasing generation in the UK. Thanks to improved healthcare, cultural changes and increased health awareness people are living older. Therefore the mature citizens market is ever increasing, so much so that it is split into 5 groups.

Over 55 - Approaching or already retired, still has commitments such as mortgage and perhaps children to fund.

Young Olds - Under 70. Both partners alive meaning a lot of disposable income.

Old Old - Over 70. Little money and unfortunatly usually living alone.

Silver Surfer - Less money than old old. Many rely on internet due to inability to travel.

Skiers - Their children are now earning the most they are likely to in their careers and they will benefit from their childs income.

The reader should bare in mind however that the above dates are only contemporarily relevant and need to be constantly updated as generations age and time passes.



Above is a life cycle for those fortunate enough to live a long life. It shows that while there are 4 main stages in life, there are also 3 significant transitions. These transitional periods are essential to marketeers as if they can catch people while they are transitioning, they may be able to influence their buying behaviour for a long period in there life.



Here is a graph demonstrating current population distribution.



It is worth mentioning that some generations e.g. silver surfers become a niche, due simply to the fact that there are so few of them compared to other generations.

SPOTLIGHT - Pester Power

"Kids represent an important demographic to marketers because they have their own purchasing power, they influence their parents buying decisions and they are the adult consumers of the future"

Article on marketing to kids

Industry spend on advertising to children has increased dramatically in the past 10 years, from $100 million in 1990 to over $2 billion in 2000.

This is due to trends such as smaller family size, increased disposable income due to women gaining employment and later in life pregnancies, guilt purchasing.

Pester Power is the ability children have to nag, moan and pester their parents to get what they want. PERSISTANT nagging is simply asking for the item repeatedly, IMPORTANCE nagging however plays on the parents longing to provide the best for their children.

Pester power also plays on quick fix parenting. Parents who don't have time to spend with their child or perhaps do not even live with their child will rely on expensive presents to gain their favor.

Cultural changes in parenting have also had an effect. Children are now rewarded for good behaviour by their parents when in previous generations they were punished for bad behaviour and were expected to be good all the time without the incentive of reward.

Pester power can be very effective, advertise to an adult to sell a childs product and the adult will see it once, advertise to the child and the adult will hear about it a million times!

A child does not have the ability to analyse an advert or a product the way an adult can, looking past the adverts bells and whistles and objectivly evaluating the product. Therefore they are a much less complicated group to advertise to, a real benefit for marketers.

Enterprise Week - The Apprentice Challenge

The apprentice challenge is a competition in the style of the popular TV show The Apprentice in which teams compete in various challenges, with the ultimate goal of making as much profit as possible. Any current students studying any subject and from any year could compete as part of a 6 part team. The team would be given money from a sponsor company to participate in the challenges.



I will be talking from the perspective of team leader of team Smarty Pants, being Lynne, Francine, Hannah, John, Ian and of course myself.

When we heard about the apprentice challenge, it went the way of a school disco, all the girls teamed up and the boys did the same. Being that we are no longer 12 we decided that a mixed gender group would be more beneficial all round, bringing more variety to each team (plus who doesnt like a bit of female company). So, what proved to be an awesome team was formed.

The team then had to attend a preliminary meeting, unfortunatly only a few team members (Lynne and Hannah if my memory serves me well) were able to attend. It was they who created the enigmatic entity that is TEAM SMARTY PANTS.



CHALLENGE 1 - DOUGHNUTS



Mission - Sell doughnuts and doughnuts only for one day. The team with the most profit at the end of the day wins.

We elected to go for a buy a lot cheap and sell a lot cheap strategy, using all our budget to purchase jam doughnuts from Tesco. We managed to negotiate a spot in Eden shopping centre that gave us an excellent footflow and lots of sale opportunities, all that was left to do was to start selling.

We split our team into 2, the boys taking on a sales role that involved a lot of shouting and generally attracting a lot of attention and the girls handling the money and the transactions between customers. We then further split the team by setting up 2 seperate stands to maximise our sales potential. All the team members did very well, John used his innate charm and sales experience to great effect, Ian however, was utter shit.

An hour or so in sales were not going as well as we had hoped, we needed a USP. It was then that we decided to approach Starbucks to get free coffee to sell with our doughnuts. We managed to blag it and sales shot up as a result.



By the end of the day we had sold all of our doughnuts and we had made a tidy profit. This got us through to the next round!

CHALLENGE 2 - PROPOSAL



Mission - To propose an idea for a stall within Eden to management.

We decided to use our stall to sell painted pictures of popular childrens characters with a sale or return deal in place. Although they were impressed with our initial idea, implementing it was not allowed due to copyright laws. 6 teams passed through the round, each with different ideas. The strength of our initial idea got us through, although in 6th place and having to completly rethink our strategy.



CHAllENGE 3 - THE STALL



Mission - Sell whatever (legal and tasteful) commodity you wish so long as it is purchased using only profit from previous rounds.

After having our initial idea complimented and then crushed to dust we went with what we knew we could do well. Selling cakes and doughnuts. Our strategy was similar to before, although it focused more upon providing a range of cakes of different price and quality, as well christmas cards. This time the sales team went balls to the wall, assaulting the public with a barrage of charm. John and I made it our mission to approach each and every person who crossed our path, we managed an excellent rate of sale, especially amoungst young women thanks to John's gleaming smile. Ian remained a hideous salesman.

Come the end of the day we had sold our entire inventory, even down to the balloons and christmas hats we had used to decorate the stall. The whole team put in a great effort and if paid off, we had made it through to the penultimate round.

CHALLENGE 4 - THE PROPOSAL (PART DEUX)



Mission - Propose an idea for an event to be held in the SU infront of Uni staff and SU managers.

3 teams left, 2 teams get through, we fancy our chances. The team came up with an excellent idea of hosting a James Bond Casino Royale night. This would allow us to play around with a fun theme as well as capitalise on the income that can be generated from gambling. We decided to go the whole hog in the proposal. We dressed to impress and were accompanied by music as well as posters and all our facts and figures worked out. Although they had some reservations about our theme, our effort and enthusiasm got us in to the final round.

FINAL CHALLENGE - THE EVENT



Mission - Run an event in the SU, highest profit throughout all the tasks wins.

It's game time now. Having already decided on our theme it was now time to put the man hours in and make it all it could be. We went on a sales escapade and knocked on every door there was in student halls, selling as many tickets as possible. The girls did a great job soughting out decorations, creating posters, making jelly shots and generally organising the boys. Thanks ladies.

The night of the event arrives and it is crunch time. The doors open but the queues we hoped for were not there. Over the next few hours people came in drips and drabs, we sold a few jelly shots here and there and a few poker chips but there were no big profits yet. The other team next door were in a similar position. Our trump card was yet to be played however and we held on for a few more people before we held our 00's and Ho's auction.

The auction kicked off and despite my initial nerves as host it went quite well. We received some big offers and made a substantial profit (thanks largely to Anthonys longing to purchase the DJ) with no cost.

The end of the evening came and our nerves reached their climax. Before we knew it the announcement came and we were holding champagne and big cheque. We had won!!!!

It took a lot of effort and a little bit of luck to fight through each round and emerge victorious, but we did it in the end, forever confirming......



WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

Lynne Carter opened a brothel with her winnings, Anthony Holt is a regular customer.

John is now pursuing an actor/model career, using his good looks and lack of morals to get work.

Hannah opted to have a new experimental plastic surgery procedure, she is now a member of the tall society.

Francine bought a share in Nestle to show her support for Yorkies, her stock went through the roof when Craft purchased Cadburys and she is now sipping mohito's on a yaught in San Tropez

Ian decided to use his new found "talent" for sales and start a telesales business, he is now homeless.

As for me, Im selling myself to fuel my crack addiction.

Future Apprentice Challenge members, team Smarty Pants will be back next year to defend their title, so watch your backs.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

STP marketing involves segmenting, targeting and positioning yourself within a market.



Segmenting the market is based upon seperating the different consumers into groups. The market can be segmented based upon many factors which adhere to 4 groups, geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral. Using age (demographic) as an example, the market could be split into 3 groups, children under 12, teenagers under 16 and teenagers under 19.




Targeting is choosing which segment would be the most beneficial for the company to focus on based upon segment size, growth, profitability, current and potential competitors as well as the core capabilities of the business and then selecting which segment(s) to target.



Positioning involves selecting the target market and creating and sustaining a differential advantage in relation to the competition. This involves the use of the marketing mix.



In the above advert, bounty is clearly highlighting the fact that it attracts and absorbs spills much more effectivly than the competition. This is a clear demonstration of a differential advantage being marketed effectivly.

Group conformity, Opinion leaders and Peer Pressure

A group is 2 or more individuals who share a set of norms, have role relationships and display interdependent behaviours. A group can have an affect on what we learn and how we behave.

So why do we form groups?

If you break it down to its most basic function, people form groups in order to increase their chance of survival. Hunting, forraging for food, building and defending what is yours becomes much easier if you dont have to do it on your own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwt1ioiqMgQ

In modern society however, it is much more complex. Groups exist to fulfill a huge variety of needs and wants.



Maslow suggests that it is one of mans most basic needs to belong to a group, we are very social animals after all.

One of the reasons we establish groups is for social comparison theory. We look at the behaviour of others to provide a guide for ourselves. We normally choose a co-oriented peer (someone whom we view to have equivalent standing) to benchmark ourselves against.

Different groups form different expectations and rules. Behaviour that is acceptable in one group may be considered out of line in another. These norms of behaviour are one of the main influential factors of a group. An individual can comply, internalise and identify or counter confrom in reaction to the pressures of the group.

The power to make an individual conform to a group is based on importance of membership, fear of negative sanctions and the degree of support they receive from others. This peer pressure is often utilised in the marketing world to stimulate purchase.

It is natural for people to want to fit in with people around them, be it neighbours, colleagues or people who enthuse on the same subjects you do. This behaviour is strongly linked to social marketing as people will purchase items in order to achieve this.



The Pepsi challenge provides 2 perfect examples of this. First of all, most people drank coke. The challenge showed that despite the fact most people claimed to prefer coke, they actually preffered pepsi. This would suggest that taste is not the only factor influencing purchase but perhaps people choose to drink coke because it is more popular and by drinking it they are conforming. Further proof of this is that when people became aware that most people prefer pepsi, pepsi's sales increased dramatically and coke's sales fell, why? Well I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to put a pretty substantial bet that it had something to do with wanting to conform to the new trend of prefering pepsi over coke.

Oh what a fickle species we are.

Opinion leaders are people who are frequently able to influence others due to their technical expertise, knowledge, social activity and high interconnectivity with the community. These people can be used for marketing purposes as consumers believe that if they are endorsing a product, it must be worth buying.



Hope you liked it, more blogs to be crammed in before monday.

Values

Values are our ideas about what is desirable, we establish belief systems upon these. We decide what our values are, based upon individual, social and cultural forces. Values tend to transend specific situations and they guide the way people behave. They are linked to related goals that the person wants to achieve, if a person values excitement then they are likely to set goals that will help them lead a more exciting life, for example they may choose to be very spontaneous and live for the here and now (perhaps affecting their impulse purchasing). This living for the moment behaviour will affect every aspect of their lives.




Values can vary from person to person and manifest in different ways. However Kahle suggests there are 9 values that are commen amoungst the masses.

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


Each of these represents a terminal value (end state). This is what you ultimatly want to achieve. We all go about achieving these end states in different ways.

We all have some of these values but we hold some in higher regard than others. For some self respect is everything where as for others fun and enjoyment is all that really matters. Makes life kind of interesting doesn't it?



Guess which one represents self respect............ Thats right its Kendra Wilkinson, any self respecting person wouldnt be caught dead in those glasses, come on Ghandi, they are soooooo 1935.

If marketers can understand consumer values and motives they can then manipulate these values in order to make products appeal to them. For example a product promising "a real challenge to the mind" is appealing to consumers who have a sense of accomplishment as an end state.



Marketeers can position a product as a means to achieve an end state, thus increasing the likelyhood of purchase. For example a nutrition company may advertise a protein shake saying "6 pack in 6 weeks". This will cause the customer to associate the product with their goal (fitness) and thus as a means to achieve their end state, in this case perhaps a sense of accomplishment.




Laddering is a commenly utilised technique that allows a link to be made between functional product attributes and desired end states.

1.Concrete attributes 2.Abstract attributes 3. Functional consequences 4.Psychological consequences 5. Instrumental values 6. Terminal values

Here it is using a protein shake as the example product.

Protein Shake---->High Protein------>Muscle anabolism---->Get bigger and stronger------>Look better naked----->Self-Esteem

It is clear that a solid understanding of consumer values and a strategy that implements this theory is a very effective way to sell products. It may be challenging and expensive to gain the information but the juice is worth the squeeze.

Thats all on values, on to the next blog!

Gender

Adverts aimed at men tend to emphasize ambition and strength,





















Adverts aimed at women tend to emphasize beauty and youth.



Gender roles vary from culture to culture and time to time, the extent to which we are expected to conform to these roles also varies. In some cultures deviating from the expected behaviour can result in a death sentence, in others deviation from the norm is accepted and even embraced.


You would be a fool not to acknowldege the significantly different approaches required when marketing a product to men or women.

Men tend to be controlled by Agentic goals, focused on self assertion and mastery.

Women are taught to value Communal goals such as affiliation and establishing harmonious relationships.

Throughout history marketing has been dominated by male values, with most situations handled in a more masculine fashion. As more women graduate and become succesful however we will likely see a shift in marketing strategy.

Gender should not be confused with sexual identity. Masculinity and Femininity are not innate, they are non biological characteristics that can vary considerably from culture to culture. In some cultures it is the cultural norm for male friends to hold hands, in others this would be considered unusual and a more feminine characteristic.

Sex typed marketing intentionally alligns a product or brand with one sex, taking on either masculine or feminine attributes.



Notice the association with physical prowess and ambition.



Clearly linking the product to beauty and youth.

Notice the products are very similar, they are both haircare products designed to improve the appearance of hair but they are advertised in 2 completly different ways. Without alligning the product to a specific sex it probably wouldnt sell. Why, because men and women want things for completly different reasons.

Androgyny refers to the possession of both male and female characteristics. No one is 100% masculine, nor is anyone 100% feminine, we all possess a mix of tendencies, however much of a man or a woman we feel we are.



Gender roles for men and women seem to be blurring as time goes on. Many women are now working and earning money, something far less common in previous years. Mens roles are also changing, previous masculine stereotypes are being disspelled and characteristics such as close male friendships are being utilised in marketing campaigns.



Marketing products to a male audience or a female audience is becoming more challenging, relying on traditional stereotypes as the foundation for contemporary marketing campaigns will leave you with an incomplete picture. What does the future hold for male and female gender roles? Only time will tell.

Self Concept and Personality

Personality - A person’s unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment.

Self-concept - The beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes & how he or she evaluates those qualities.

Self Concept

The self concept is both a complete evaluation of oneself and an evaluation of many parts of oneself. For example you can feel good about yourself as a whole but dislike the fact you are bald. Self concept has many attributes which span a large and confusing area. They can be seperated by their content, positivity or negativity (self esteem), intensity, stability over time, accuracy.

Self-esteem is the positivity or negativity of a persons self concept.

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People with high Self Esteem tend to be more confident, expect success from themselves and enjoy being the centre of attention. Those with low self esteem tend to expect failure and will try to avoid situations in which they may become embarressed or in which they may fail.

A persons self concept and self esteem is heavily influenced by social comparison. Social comparison is simply benchmarking yourself against those around you. If an individual is surrounded by the elite and they themselves are mediocre then they are likely to see themselves as inferior, likely causing low self esteem. If the exact same individual however is surrounded by those who are below average he is likely to see himself as superior, likely causing high self esteem. Therefore without social comparison, self-concept and self esteem becomes almost irrelevant. If you lived your entire life in isolation, never even seeing another image of a human being, would you care if you had a 6 pack or big boobs? I highly doubt it. Everything is only relevant when compared to something else, otherwise it is just meaningless words and numbers drifting through space. 9.48 seconds, the time it took Usain Bolt to run the 100 metres, gaining the world record. Completly irrelevant and utterly pointless without a social comparison.























































































We have 2 main images of ourselves. Our actual self and our ideal self. The former being a realistic evaluation of our characteristics and the latter being what we aspire to be.




The gap between our actual selves and our ideal selves differs from indiviudal to individual. For some people this gap is small, for others it is a gaping chasm.

We all have more than one self. Almost everyone adapts and changes themselves to better suit different siutations or to appear differently to different people. These changes are dependent on role identities. Certain roles e.g. a student or a boyfriend may be central to ones character where as other roles such as "the joker" amoungst a particular social group may be less prevalent and only shine through in specific situations.

The looking glass self is essentially looking at ourselves as other see us. This involves projecting the image that we feel people have of us. If someone thinks you are a "funny guy" then you may try and adhere to this image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQId8tN0X8M

Does Russel Brand always act like this or has he adapted his behaviour because he is on a talk show? Furthermore is he only playing the role of the comedian because it is what everyone expects? What stopped him from answering Johnathen's question sincerely and made him go for a comedic approach? Would he answer the question in the same way if he was speaking to his mum? I doubt it.

It is incredibly important for companies to understand how these processes work in order to tailor their marketing promotions and products to manipulate certain tendencies.

For example advertising a product using a beautiful female model may cause consumers to make a social comparison, decide they want to look like the model does and therefore purchase the product in order to try to achieve their ideal self image.



Marketeers may also target certain products at people with certain roles in the attempt to make them buy the product with fulfilling that role in mind.