25 Feb 2011

Those Annoyin' Little Buggers - Pester Power


"Today's kids have more autonomy and decision-making power within the family than in previous generations, so it follows that kids are vocal about what they want their parents to buy"

Those annoying buggers!
- Have you even gone shopping with your kids (or in my case younger brothers) and had them nag at you to buy them sweets or chocolate or a new game?

Well... You know who to blame.. Yeah that's right... We marketers are at it again and we're never gonna stop *evil laugh*

What used to happen in the pre-historic times of marketing (and by that I mean approx. 20 years ago) was that us Marketers would only target the adults... BUT NOW!!!! We can do whatever we like... We now make adverts that target kids knowing full well that they have no money and thats where Pester power comes in!!

The mathematical equation for what goes on is pretty simple

Advert for Kids + Parents Money = Big Sales

The beauty of pester power is that if parents don't succumb to the demands of their spoilt brat kids then there'll be public displays which are embarrasing in the view of others and as we all know from my last entry The need to belong entails the esteem of others and if people are seeing public displays of ill discipline from your kids then their perception of you goes DOWN!





 Quotes On Pester Power
"Kids represent an important demographic to marketers because they have their own purchasing power, they influence their parents' buying decisions and they're the adult consumers of the future"

"Industry spending on advertising to children has exploded in the past decade, increasing from a mere $100 million in 1990 to more than $2 billion in 2000.
Parents today are willing to buy more for their kids because trends such as smaller family size, dual incomes and postponing children until later in life mean that families have more disposable income. As well, guilt can play a role in spending decisions as time-stressed parents substitute material goods for time spent with their kids"

"Almost 30% of parents also said they buy the toothpaste their kids choose and 44% will buy a brand of spread, such as peanut butter, their children select"

Einsteinz Toy Box MD Steve Quinlan says "pester power is as much about the environment children are brought up in, as the kind of advertising to which they are exposed"

"The wisdom is that if you are going to launch a kids’ product, you market it to kids, you don’t market it to Mum,” Sauerman says

“Pester power doesn’t just come from the children—they are being influenced by their parents and their environment and from a marketing and advertising viewpoint, if you are tapping into that, the result will be children pestering. From a marketing perspective, that’s a powerful tool.” - Steve Quinlan






The Grand Finale
The Big Question

Is "PESTER POWER" being overused and abused by marketers??

Sean's Big Answer

No! Pester Power is just like any other tool used by Marketers.. If a ban was imposed on the targeting of children in adverts then a ban should also be imposed on data capture or telemarketing.
The whole point of marketing is to make the public aware of the products and services of a company and if you prevent kids from being aware of what products and services then you might as well send them back to the stone age!

Mr. LZF has left the building again!









--- Another blog on Pester Power [http://netasbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/2010/05/chilrens-power-pester-power.html] ---

--- Research Sites






"Kids are increasingly buying for themselves. To cover all the bases, advertisers must work to build purchasing habits as well as brand awareness"

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Group Conformity, Opinion Leaders & Peer Pressure

IN THIS ENTRY I PLAN TO USE NO THEORY - STRICTLY EXAMPLES.... There's fun to be had and nothing gets done by simply reading books ;)

1 Shepard, 1,000,000 Sheep - Group Conformity
[Check out http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/conformity.htm for all the theoy based stuff ]
Group conformity - In my own words is "I'm a Chameleon, I Blend in with the crowd" although its generally seen as a negative thing group conformity is a great tool that can be used by us conmen (Marketers) .... Fashion is a PRIME example.


If you look at recent fashion trends - [lets take snoods in football as an example].. It starts off with one guy taking a risk... [Left is Carlos Tevez.. He pretty much started the snood trend that plagued this season]




Then another guy follows suit...
Samir Nasri of Arsenal follows the footsteps of Tevez..






Then suddenly you've got ALL the players wearing the things (including me)

The beauty of Group conformity is that it only has 2 possible ends - Conformity or NON-Conformity
Its instinctual that human conform because of the need to fit in and belong (Its all in good old Maslow's hierarchy of needs)

Esteem needs: Esteem needs include both self-esteem and the esteem of others. Self-esteem is the feeling that one is worthwhile, competent, and independent. The esteem of others involves the feeling that other people respect and appreciate the person. Once the person has satisfied his or her basic needs, concerns about worthiness emerge. The focus becomes not just surviving, but doing well according to meaningful communal standards. [Extract Taken from http://www.enotes.com/nursing-encyclopedia/maslow-s-hierarchy-needs]

If we look at the extract above (sorry, I had to do some theory) people feed off of the esteem of others and this hunger is something that we marketers can use to make lots of money... be it fashion or anything else there is a BIG BIG BIG Bounty on conformity and people are willing to pay through the nose for it! [I smell a business Idea!]

He Said It, So Its Got To Be Important - Opinion Leaders
What is an Opinion Leader?
Individual whose ideas and behavior serve as a model to others. Opinion leaders communicate messages to a primary group, influencing the attitudes and behavior change of their followers. Therefore, in certain marketing instances, it may be advantageous to direct the communications to the opinion leader alone to speed the acceptance of an advertising message. For example, advertisers may direct a dental floss promotion to influential dentists or a fashion campaign to female celebrities. In both instances, the advertiser is using the opinion leader to carry and "trickle down" its message to influence its target group. Because of the important role opinion leaders play in influencing markets, advertisers have traditionally used them to give testimonials.

Check out this interesting article on Opinion Leaders & Gaining Influence via Word of Mouth

To be honest... Opinion leaders as a concept is pretty much self explanatory.
Like Vito Corleone is the boss of the Corleone family in the Godfather ... Each sector has its own "Guru" who's word is the be all and end all.









Normally (and I use the term lightly) these people are "Big in the game" like Simon Cowell and Lord Sugar but every now and again you do get some REALLY weird one... in a workshop some time ago We were told about a 13 year old who became MEGA LARGE in the fashion industry because of her BLOG (Yes, you read correctly a 13 year old girl became a fashion mogul because of her blog)... now cometh the big question... How do we Influence the influencer?

Influencing The Influencer
We influence the influencers the same way Men influence women... WITH GIFTS and lots of Money! Taking the 13 year old girls' blog as an example .... The big companies saw that this little girl was starting to get quite a following so what did those clever little thieves do? They showered her with their latest fashion thingys and tickets to big events .. What effect did this have you ask? Well.... She would talk about their new stuff on her blog and seeing as she had such a big following, regardless of whether she absolutely rubbished their product or gave it the praise given to God on sunday, people like the sheep they are would want to go out and try these latest bits and bobs for themselves.
From a company's point of view its a great piece of promotion - 
They give away 1 freebie in order to sell MILLIONS!


Peer Pressure
My Air Force 2 Experience...

The final segment of this entry is all about peer pressure... I'm not going to dilly-dally with all the theory but here is a site that I've looked at for all those who'd like to know the psychology behind Peer Pressure & Conformity: [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0005/ai_2699000579/]

I've been a victim of Peer Pressure..but not as drastic as some..
The year was 2004, I was in Year 10 and Nike Air Force 2's (The trainers above) were the in thing (I've talked on fashion a whole lot today haven't I?)... All my friends had them ... Infact the WHOLE SCHOOL HAD 'EM except ME! I was mister old shoes with my Nike Dunks
 ... They look quite nice don't they?
Mine were absolutely battered and I didn't have £65 to throw away on a new pair... Hence the dilemma.
One day after school, me and my friends were in town doing what boys do after school (Lounge around, chase girls etc) when a couple of the guys decided to go into a well known shoe shop...*Minutes Later*.... I've run out the shop with the pair of Air Force 2's!
Long story, short I was pressured to steal the trainers (Luckily I never got caught) in order to conform.. but hey, there's a moral to this story!

Although stealing is VERY VERY BAD! It just goes to show the lengths that people will go to in order to conform... 
The moral of today's blog is... You Can't Put A Price On Happiness BUT You CAN CERTAINLY PUT A PRICE ON CONFORMITY!

Have a good day people!

MR LZF, Signing Out
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23 Feb 2011

Confessions of a 1st Year PR & Marketing Student

I Hate GROUP Work!!!
Its driving me "^£&!!! mad!
For the last 7 weeks we've had to do this charity assignment as part of our coursework... and I've hated it so very much!! - The worst thing is.. Its affecting my individual work in an insane way... Late submissions and all sorts. (But hey....I'm sure its all for the greater good... I hope)

So far we've done 1 event "Bucks Jam Sessions" which was my idea and then implemented by Piers & I ... It targeted Uni students and was actually a success BUT I'm sick and tired of Group work... I personally don't think its fair that my demise may come about because of somebody else's ill discipline!

Rant Over.
...
I lied.

Its been annoying having to miss so many Workshops because Piers & I have had to run around organising 1 event.... I'm just happy that in the end we made enough money to pass the £££ part of this piece of coursework.

*Sighs* There's so much more I'd like to say but instead I'll talk about how we've been sponsored

Nobeso donated some money (I'm honestly not sure how much) to the cause I think its less than £100 to help raise money
...
Krispy Kremes gave us 55% off their donuts once we informed them about our fundraising
UNICEF we're allegedly meant to give us T-Shirts and Banners and all that... but seeing as I didn't bother to oversee that it all went Pete Tong.


.... It's reading week this week yet I find myself home alone in my Uni home (not my family home like everyone else) playing catch up on my blogs all because of all the time and money I've had to spend in order to ensure that 1 event went well... Now to complete the other events just put icing on a cake that was initially mouldy.

I reckon my Mohican will consist of grey hair by the time my birthday comes round.

A disillusioned LZF Away // Juxtaposed Rant Over!
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Men Are From Somewhere, Women Are From Somewhere Else

Gender Differences In Buyer Behaviour
Where do I begin?? ...*Scratches Head*... Solomon!
Chapter 5 [Page 154] of the great book of Solomon (I don't mean the bible!!) talks about Gender goals and Expectations.
According to the Solomon males are controlled by Agentic Goals and Women are controlled by Communal Goals

What are Agentic Goals?

Agentic is: "A Social cognition theory perspective in which people are producers as well as products of social systems" ... Now we convert that into #SeanSpeak: Agentic goals can be defined as goals that have the result of setting self-authority and being the master *Beats chest a-la-Captain Caveman*


What are Communal Goals?
In #SeanSpeak Communal Goals are those that give importance to being in a community (sounds kind of simple don't it) ... If you look at the way Men and Women are in general you will notice that Women are more concerned with how everyone is, how they're doing... Simply put women care more about the bonds between people and in contrast what drives men is ensuring that they "Bring the bread home" (They're more interested in being the Producers)

The way I see it (according to the different goal types) Women (based on the assumption that Women are driven by Communal goals) are more likely to be good at managing due to their ability to bring people together and Men are more likely to take administrative roles as the agentic goal set indicates that men prefer to be the dominant/overseeing figure.

...Okay now we have the key boring Science out the way lets get down to the fun stuff!!
[Warning: Content from here on may contain elements of Sexism, as well as Satire, Spin and Bias...and Stereotype]

How Adverts Target Different Genders






 














Look at the 3 adverts above... They all obviously target men.... But HOW do WE Know this??
Looking at the Male adverts they all have very similar properties


1 - They all have basic colour schemes (1/2 Colours)
2 - They all have a minimal amount of text
3 - The Images are all simplistic


I'm not saying men are stupid (well, I kinda am) but the main thing with adverts targeted at males is that Men dislike having to process things... their forté is certainly not paying attention to detail.
Take Homer Simpson in this Video Clip for example... Look at how long it takes him to realise that his surroundings are on fire


The advert below is for a L'Oréal Deodorant for men


Knowing that they were targeting the male audience meant that the people at L'oréal kept everything simple... They kept the message clear and made the message obvious so the inferior male mind would be able to pick up on it "Keep Cool Up There, Keep Cool There too" - Even the slogan/strapline is kept relatively primitive.

Now if we compare this to  L'Oréal's Paris Glam Shine Reflexion Lip Gloss Advert (Below) we instantly see how complexly emotive adverts targeted at females have to be *yawns*


Listen to all the buzz words Cheryl uses in order make women believe that this Lip Gloss is the best thing in the world (Personally, I just switch off after 3 seconds.. but I'm a guy so its understandable) they even had a sexy masculine voice over to keep you ladies interested.



These two Images show the direct contrast between the advertising used to grab the attention of the 2 sexes
1 - There's more than 2 colours in the background
2 - They have stronger emotional appeals... look at the Yves Rocher advert, Just by looking at her face you can see the extreme amount of pleasure she's getting from being in that Hotel room and smelling that wonderful perfume (I hope its solely due to the scent of the perfume)




Summary
The gender differences in buyer behaviour are down to (...yes you've guessed it) differences in the Neurological make up of the male & female brains...
In #SeanSpeak -  Male brains have 6.5 times more grey matter than female brains and the female brain has 10 times more white matter than that of the male brain. (but what does this mean for Marketers???!?!?!?)
Basically, the Male brains' excessive amount of grey matter shows that he is designed to be more active which accounts for the need to Get up and go and for marketers this means that adverts have to appeal to the "Do It Now, Wham, Bam and Thank You Ma'am" part of a man whereas because a woman's neurological setup is a bit more complex adverts that target women have to be a lot more detailed and sensual... otherwise they'll be perceived as "lazy" adverts

LZF has left the building!!
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