The seven worries to forget about

Jenni Romaniuk explains that there are seven different marketing beliefs and concepts that have no empirical evidence and thus must be removed from our research agendas. The first belief to be forgotten is creating a brand personality. Romaniuk goes on to tell us how there is no evidence linking a brand’s alleged human traits with in-market success. Brands are not people and consumers don’t want brands to be people so we must remember this when building brand image. The second marketing idea is finding the best position for a brand. Romaniuk states that there is no specific position for a brand to be successful. There is no evidence that links the success of a brand and its position or its position strength. The third idea was overcoming consumer rejection. Romaniuk states, “No mother is happy when she hears that her child is not popular, marketers often feel the same way about their brands.” With only lack of awareness being the major cause for the low 10% of consumers who will reject the product, this is not something to worry about. The fourth idea on Romaniuk’s list was benchmarking to the competitor in order to judge performance. Instead of setting sights on excellence, marketers focus on what the competitor is doing and in turn this is a distraction. The fifth marketing blunder is searching for brand loyalists. With the use of social media, hunting down your most aggressive customers is free. By simply drawing brand loyalists into the company’s reigns, social media allows for demographics to be displayed to the company at any time. The sixth point was heeding negative word of mouth. Negative word of mouth is rare but not only is it rare, it has the same impact as positive word of mouth. Wasting time on programs and models that note negative word of mouth should be minimalized if not eliminated. Differentiating your brand from customers was the seventh point Romaniuk drives home. Current evidence suggests that most consumers see brands as interchangeable in terms of category needs and satisfying those needs. In all, these are parts of every day marketing that should be looked past when laying out a new marketing mix. Time is money and with that, no time should be wasted. Being as efficient as possible and by focusing on the ideas and strategies that have proof for their existence is the difference between success and failure.

Works Cited:

ROMANIUK, JENNI. "De-Clutter Your Mind: Seven Worries You Can Drop From Your Research Agenda." Journal Of Advertising Research 53.2 (2013): 131-133. Business Source Complete. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

Market Research Consultation Services

Mike Petch and Julie Wheals discuss optimizing the activities that market research companies conduct. Businesses all around the world are seeing a plateau or even decline in profits as they continue to do the same things day in and day out. The companies that do decide to evolve with the growing market generally shy away from consulting a 3^rd party firm for various reasons. The problem with this is that when it’s left up to management or some department within the business to do the research, they flee to do it yourself or (DIY) websites that can’t compete with the service provided by a market research company. Structuring a business requires deep and strong planning, taking a team of specialists to read the market properly. Once data has been retrieved it’s all about interpreting that data and understanding what to do next. Market research analysts work around the clock to understand the market to its fullest potential and exactly how their client’s business can succeed in that market. Finding the data, sorting the data to where it can be read and then understanding the data are different steps that must be taken in order to evolve. Knowing best practices is one thing, knowing which practices your business needs to utilize is another. Market research companies have the true potential to provide a business with all of the straight forward tools they need to grow profits and maintain a healthy business. When interviewing managers and decision makers from client companies, many profitable opportunities via consultation arose. The clear indication for consultation makes you wonder why so many companies shy away from it when there is a clear value present. As research companies move from product supplier to service provider by analyzing data, they themselves grow as well. The clear message here is that instead of just purchasing data about your business’s market; why not pay a little extra to have that data explained and to be shown how your business needs to change. If the market is constantly evolving and growing, your business must do the same to survive. With new competitors entering the market regularly, it’s wise to build a relationship with your research company in order to better the business.

Works Cited:

Wheals, Julie, and Mike Petch. "A Fresh Look At Consulting And Collaboration." International Journal Of Market Research 55.2 (2013): 320-322. Business Source Complete. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Emotional advertising and consumer's age bracket

I read a scholarly journal on age related differences in response to emotional advertisements. Patti Williams and Aimee Drolet both explain how older people as compared to their younger counterparts, process more positive emotions than negative. Younger people tend to be more rational than emotional and lack the abilities that wisdom and age provide. Williams and Drolet discuss how older people subconsciously avoid negative emotions in order to continue living a more content life. Younger people experience more of the anxiety and negative emotions due to their lack of experience and age. 122 older participants with an age range of 65-98 were used in the study along with another 122 participants aged 19-24 years old. With a scale of 1 to 7, participants in the research study were asked to rate products based on the advertisement they were being shown. Participants were asked to rate statements like, “This advertisement was meaningful to me,” or “this advertisement is believable,” in order for Williams and Drolet to determine whether the ad provoked a rational or emotional response. One finding was that the older aged group of participants attended more to the negative emotional responses the most because they wanted to avoid a negative experience. They also found that negative values in the ads were seen as more expansive or long term in relation to time. Positive values were seen as more limited in time or short term. This could truly be helpful to marketers when planning a marketing mix or advertisement. Knowing your target market beyond simple facts and actually getting to know how they view and see the world is key to being successful. The study also found that the older aged group viewed the concept of time or life as short lived. The younger aged group took to the expansive view of time and sees life as long lived. When creating an advertisement for a marketing campaign, knowing how to structure your dialogue in order to manipulate how the customer thinks and feels can be the difference between making millions and making nothing. If an ad is worded to where it invokes a negative emotion or connotation, it must be reworded. All advertisements must spawn positive feelings within the customer no matter what the cost and especially if it’s a younger person. If your target market is in Generation Y or even younger, this becomes crucial to being successful in marketing your product or service.

Works Cited:

Patti Williams, Aimee Drolet, (2005) “Age‐Related Differences in Responses to Emotional Advertisements” , Journal of Consumer Research , Vol. 32, No. 3 (December 2005), pp. 343-354

Gender In Advertising

I read a journal on gender and advertising by Iris Mayne. The journal entry is all about television ads depicting men in almost every scene and rarely a women. Not only are women rarely portrayed in tv ads but when they are, they are shown either cleaning or in the kitchen. The research that was done was based on British television from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. Mayne does admit that times are changing and that ads are becoming more sophisticated, however they still remain the same to a certain extent. Mayne put a table together consisting of 125 tv commercials that showed either a man or a women. Women were shown in only 10 percent  of commercials and 90 percent of the time they were shown either taking care of their nuclear family or cleaning. Cleaning product adverts showed a women in the primary scene almost every single time. This is because throughout history women have been believed to be caretakers of the family and home and that men did not participate in cleaning. So showing a cleaning product with a women using it to clean some dirty surface would allow for women in that same position to relate. This then leads to the female viewer making a purchase decision when they see the cleaning product on the store shelf. The article explains that women have more freedom today than ever before and that the views adverts place on society about women might be offensive.

                Iris Mayne doesn’t see any big changes in the way adverts show women any time soon. Things like showing a women’s body in an ad but not her face has meaning. It uses her body as a symbolic image but does not identify her as a person. Rarely do we ever see an advertisement showing a man’s body but not his face. It produces a societal image that women are to be subordinate to men and I think that will change over the next ten to twenty years drastically as women become more powerful and hold higher positions in the business world. It has been agreed that advertising is controlled and dominated by men, this has a mild influence on the way adverts are depicted. I think that society will start to mold acceptable limits for what an advertisement can and can’t get away with sooner rather than later. Here in the United States people become more and more conscious about equality and stereotypes every day. It’s only a matter of time before you start seeing men in advertisements doing some sort of cleaning or cooking or helping take care of the family as society has evolved with its single parent families and full time mothers.

Work Cited:

Iris Mayne, (2000) "The inescapable images: gender and advertising", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 19 Iss: 2/3/4, pp.56 - 61 - See more at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.uhd.edu/journals.htm?articleid=880693&show=abstract#sthash.OkUhqkx0.dpuf

Invisible Communication

I read an article on invisible communication written by Ake Finne and Tore Strandvik, where they discuss communication between the customer and the company. Invisible communication is defined as communication occurring when no communication seems to take place from the marketer’s point of view about the company itself or its products and service, but still does so from the customer’s point of view. This focuses on the communication about the brand, firm or even service that the customer perceives no matter what the source is. Non-communication is where a company doesn’t send any messages to the customer and the customer sees this as a message. If a marketer were able to balance the perfect amount of non-communication and communication with the customer, it would build longer lasting relationships with the consumer. The idea here is to understand just how your customer views and interprets the invisible communication your company produces. Controlling invisible communication properly is only possible with proper research. We are trying to paint the perfect picture about a company in our customer’s minds. This is also called relationship communication, between company and customer. The paper stresses the importance of looking at created meaning rather than simple attention or immediate behavioral response. They also stress looking at the customer as an active creator of meaning rather than a passive target for communication. You must think that the customer is constantly changing how they view your firm and always creating meaning out of the communication or non-communication from your company’s messages.

                To truly understand how to manipulate relationship communication, we have to understand how customers view each message we send. If you send a direct message to your customers, you must follow up with your customers and find out how they viewed or saw that message. As a marketer, without the knowledge of invisible communication interpretation, you’re at a disadvantage. Most marketers believe that the majority of influence on customers is done through the marketing campaign. In fact, the majority of influence is in the small points of contact that we don’t generally look for. Constant research and feedback response is required to have the most influence on your customers as well as manipulating consumer response. The key here is to analyze and manage all communication and non-communication between the firm and the customer without losing sight of the company’s vision.

Works Cited:

Finne, Åke, and Tore Strandvik. "Invisible Communication: A Challenge to Established Marketing Communication." European Business Review 24.2 (2012): 120-33. ProQuest. Web. 5 Oct. 2013.