In this last blog, I would like to reflect about on the Insight/Experience Audit & Prototype group project talking about two concepts that have helped me to have a better understanding of the project. Finally, I will explain my emotional reaction while I was working on it and after taking the results.
First off, Persona will be the first concept that I want to explain because of the importance of it in our project. Persona is a process in which you collect all the data you gathered from the demographic, behavioral and psychographic segmentation. As a marketer researcher you should identify roles, goals and segment factors. You must create this persona as if you are creating a real character for a movie, book etc…so It must define the needs, desires, fears, hopes, the personality traits and the lifestyle characteristics of this persona. After the segmentation this is the first step you have to carry out. It is utterly important to define the target. It must be careful in this point of your process because if you do not create an accurate persona the rest of you research may be useless. In our case, we had to study the home-office, so we decided to create Monica as a persona of our target “Do It All Moms”. A woman that lives in urban or suburban areas and is married with a husband that works outside the home and with 2 or 3 children. She is more or less 35 and with a median income of $70,000. They are successful and professional moms that prefer to work at home in order to look after their children. This persona helped me to understand which target we needed to address and what we needed to look for in our target. Having an accurate persona was useful for us to do the rest of the study.
The second concept that helped us to gain real insights was The Photo Journal. After studying some marketing courses in Spain, here it was the first time that I studied and I found really interesting in order to look for common insights. As a qualitative research technique means to involve people to express their opinions, thoughts and attitudes. These ones you could find difficult to take out from a survey or interview. People have to involve physically in the project and the real problem is that it is time-consuming so it may be difficult to find people disposed to participate. The instructions for participants must be really clear. The process bases on some specific questions you request your target answer through photos with a brief explanation about why you took that specific photo and what this supposes to you. In our research, it was the key to achieve our final prototype. Although our target is quite heterogeneous, from the photo journal we found some insights. Almost all our “moms” like to work in different parts of the house and they like to do a “to-do-list”. These insights were the key to create the portable home-office table.
Lastly, I would like to comment the emotional reactions I had working in this project. From all the groups that I had in this fall semester, exactly 4, this has been the best. All of us were different and with different cultures but we understood each other perfectly. We did not have any problems to arrange meetings and furthermore we spent a great time together, even we met to go out together. All of us we contributed in the same way to the project. Professor Walls has helped us to improve our analysis and study. He has been really receptive, overall when we decided to go to his office to have feedback of our grades. However, sometimes the feedback was a little bit confused, above all with the design of the slides. This project and overall my teammates have contributed to my learning and enjoyment in Texas. With the different cultures, the different ways of working and doing research now I have an open mind. This has been contributed to my great and unique experience in Austin.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Social media - the new marketing strategy - blog 5
Social Media is one of the last marketing strategies that companies are using nowadays to achieve more customers. Using social networks, blogs, online communities or any other internet systems, marketers have found a good way to gain insights and create experiences. Something to highlight is the fact that the content is not usually written by the company, users are the ones who publish and make real this strategy. This provokes marketing viral and buzzes marketing. Lately, we are being overwhelmed by some social media, such as, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. But there are more than these ones.
Focusing on why companies do to gain insights and create experience we can find some strategies. Firstly, most of companies have decided to create blogs in their pages to know their customers opinions about the products or services. For example, in some pages you can find how customers rank a certain hotel and, below the rating, you can exchange comments with others. This tool is really useful, because the best way to promote is the word-of-mouth. In this way, marketers can know why customers look for in the product, what they expect etc…they are gaining insights. Some companies, for example, they are publishing promotion videos in a freely way in Youtube, so you can leave your comments. Appreciating the number of visits etc…you can gain insights and create experiences. Furthermore, a very good way to create experience is when customers build fan pages and you can invite your friends to join. This tool is very common in Facebook. However, companies must be careful because it is a powerful marketing tool that can spoil your business. Customers can become vultures.
In order to be more specific, I have decided to choose as a social media to explain, Tuenti. I suppose it is unknown for all of you because it is a Spanish social network. It is really similar to Facebook because it has the same functions although it is less powerful because it is a national social network.
The first thing that companies use to promote in Tuenti is the page where it shows that the website is loading. Other useful things are the events. On the one hand, you are invited to events created by companies. You can decide between go, not go or maybe, and you can see how many people go and who. One useful thing is that you can comment about the event even if you will not assist. You can see all kind of comments. It is like fan pages in Facebook. But the main tool is that you can create blogs and events on your own and moreover you can invite all your friends to the event and your friends to their friends creating a large chain. In this way, marketers know in first-hand what their customers think about the value of a service and product. I would like to say that not too many Spanish companies use Tuenti as a main source of gathering information.
Now, I am going to talk about two websites that seem really useful for marketers. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/ ; http://blogsearch.google.com/
The first one serves to find national and global finding trends and in the second one you can seek blogs about everything. In both of them you are going to find customers’ opinions, so the best way to value your products and services.
I would like to deep more in these pages showing an example to know how they work. I did not know about these websites before so I would like to know to what extent they are useful. I have decided to look for Axe information because it is the main example of my final paperwork. Trying to look for what customers think about Axe in the second website, I have only obtained news about lawsuits over deceitful publicity. Nothing was interesting. In the first page, we found some interesting things. First of all, I wanted to analyze if Axe deodorant was searcher than its competitors in all countries and more or less, it is the most famous with Nivea. The relative popularity has increased a lot. The main competitor because of the similar positioning is Playboy and it hardly has searches. I also found how many users looked for “theaxeeffect.com” and overall in United States and India. This website is really interesting because you can know the trends of your product searches.
I would like to remark that these websites are quite difficult to use because you have to find the correct words in order to find what you want. I find them interesting but they are pointless to gain insights.
Focusing on why companies do to gain insights and create experience we can find some strategies. Firstly, most of companies have decided to create blogs in their pages to know their customers opinions about the products or services. For example, in some pages you can find how customers rank a certain hotel and, below the rating, you can exchange comments with others. This tool is really useful, because the best way to promote is the word-of-mouth. In this way, marketers can know why customers look for in the product, what they expect etc…they are gaining insights. Some companies, for example, they are publishing promotion videos in a freely way in Youtube, so you can leave your comments. Appreciating the number of visits etc…you can gain insights and create experiences. Furthermore, a very good way to create experience is when customers build fan pages and you can invite your friends to join. This tool is very common in Facebook. However, companies must be careful because it is a powerful marketing tool that can spoil your business. Customers can become vultures.
In order to be more specific, I have decided to choose as a social media to explain, Tuenti. I suppose it is unknown for all of you because it is a Spanish social network. It is really similar to Facebook because it has the same functions although it is less powerful because it is a national social network.
The first thing that companies use to promote in Tuenti is the page where it shows that the website is loading. Other useful things are the events. On the one hand, you are invited to events created by companies. You can decide between go, not go or maybe, and you can see how many people go and who. One useful thing is that you can comment about the event even if you will not assist. You can see all kind of comments. It is like fan pages in Facebook. But the main tool is that you can create blogs and events on your own and moreover you can invite all your friends to the event and your friends to their friends creating a large chain. In this way, marketers know in first-hand what their customers think about the value of a service and product. I would like to say that not too many Spanish companies use Tuenti as a main source of gathering information.
Now, I am going to talk about two websites that seem really useful for marketers. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/ ; http://blogsearch.google.com/
The first one serves to find national and global finding trends and in the second one you can seek blogs about everything. In both of them you are going to find customers’ opinions, so the best way to value your products and services.
I would like to deep more in these pages showing an example to know how they work. I did not know about these websites before so I would like to know to what extent they are useful. I have decided to look for Axe information because it is the main example of my final paperwork. Trying to look for what customers think about Axe in the second website, I have only obtained news about lawsuits over deceitful publicity. Nothing was interesting. In the first page, we found some interesting things. First of all, I wanted to analyze if Axe deodorant was searcher than its competitors in all countries and more or less, it is the most famous with Nivea. The relative popularity has increased a lot. The main competitor because of the similar positioning is Playboy and it hardly has searches. I also found how many users looked for “theaxeeffect.com” and overall in United States and India. This website is really interesting because you can know the trends of your product searches.
I would like to remark that these websites are quite difficult to use because you have to find the correct words in order to find what you want. I find them interesting but they are pointless to gain insights.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The power of Wal-Mart's information - blog 4
As several companies nowadays, Wal-Mart affirms that the knowledge of the preferences of their customers make them anticipate to new changes. In this case, it is true. They start to predict what is going to happen instead of waiting sit down. Wal-Mart captures their customers’ habits gathering a lot of information about product preferences. However, although from my point of view it is a bright strategy that has been converted into a competitive advantage; I wonder if it is licit to do it without the clients’ consent.
First of all, I would like to talk about how they gather the information and why this point is now an experience converted into a competitive advantage.
Normally, according to the article “What Wal-Mart knows about customers’ habits”, they gather the data of each product at the checkout aisle, then this is recorded, mapped and later it is up-to-dated by store, by state and by region. They also gather information looking at customers how they buy in the local and using the credit and debit cards as a source of collecting data. Lately, the website has been situated in one of the main methods for them to seek information. One surprising thing for me is that Wal-Mart does not use loyalty cards as Target and barely offers promotions based on past purchases.
As I see it, it is a great competitive advantage because they launch products in the market before their competitors since they anticipate what is going to happen and that is the reason why customer always find in Walt-Mart what they need and when they need. But I do not think the method they use is awesome. They do not use all the technology available to look for the customers’ habits. I do not understand when they point out that when you are in the everyday-low-price market, you do not gather information from customers directly, for instance, using loyalty cards. I find it ridiculous. Ikea and Target do it. For example, they could provide loyalty cards addressed to those customers that spend more than certain amount of money monthly in Wal-Mart. In this way, they could have specific information about the most important clients. Apart from this, it seems to me suspicious the veracity of the information they give about how they gather information taking into account that in Wal-Mart you can find everything and the competitors could take advantage of this privileged information.
Now, I would like to deep in the question about if it is licit to have such specific information about customers.
First off, I will say that if I were a company, I would probably act in the same manner. But as a customer I do not like to share my private information. In Wal-Mart, the customers do not now that their data is being captured when they carry out their purchases. I know that as a customer I ought to be grateful to companies for doing this because otherwise I would not find my preferred products in shops, supermarkets etc. Nevertheless, they have much more information about us than the information they need. For example, the credit cards number, your mortgage, your debts etc. Do you think that Wal-Mart really needs this information for their purposes? I cannot stand having my details extended around the companies although they say that is for a customized service. If they want to give such individual service they could ask me first if I really want to have it. For example, you go to one shop, you buy something and you pay by credit card. What a surprise when one month later you find a letter with advertising of that company. I get on my nerves when I receive these letters. We should sign something first to give them the possibility to send us that information.
For example, in Spain they are thinking about forbid the companies calls to private houses searching for information or informing about new offers.
Talking about the suppliers, Wal-Mart shares the information about customers with them, but they are quite strict with them. The competitor can lie in wait for stealing information. As I see it, they make them better and more efficient because providing customers’ habits information suppliers will know the supply, so therefore, which items they should produce more for example if they are producers, and which raw materials they should buy etc… and which ones will buy Wal-Mart. In this aspect, the technology is again important. But in this case, I do not think you need a lot of complex technology, just the typical to be in contact with suppliers in an immediately way.
In conclusion, I would like to remark that Wal-Mart has all its things really well-tied. But although its performance is brilliant, you can always do better.
Finally, I will say that I am from Spain and in this country there is no Wal-Mart, so I am not really expert about this. I have been there just twice but considering all the articles I have read about it and the meeting of Lee Scott at McCombs, I know a little bit more, although I am not a real customer and we know that customers are the best tool to value Wal-Mart.
First of all, I would like to talk about how they gather the information and why this point is now an experience converted into a competitive advantage.
Normally, according to the article “What Wal-Mart knows about customers’ habits”, they gather the data of each product at the checkout aisle, then this is recorded, mapped and later it is up-to-dated by store, by state and by region. They also gather information looking at customers how they buy in the local and using the credit and debit cards as a source of collecting data. Lately, the website has been situated in one of the main methods for them to seek information. One surprising thing for me is that Wal-Mart does not use loyalty cards as Target and barely offers promotions based on past purchases.
As I see it, it is a great competitive advantage because they launch products in the market before their competitors since they anticipate what is going to happen and that is the reason why customer always find in Walt-Mart what they need and when they need. But I do not think the method they use is awesome. They do not use all the technology available to look for the customers’ habits. I do not understand when they point out that when you are in the everyday-low-price market, you do not gather information from customers directly, for instance, using loyalty cards. I find it ridiculous. Ikea and Target do it. For example, they could provide loyalty cards addressed to those customers that spend more than certain amount of money monthly in Wal-Mart. In this way, they could have specific information about the most important clients. Apart from this, it seems to me suspicious the veracity of the information they give about how they gather information taking into account that in Wal-Mart you can find everything and the competitors could take advantage of this privileged information.
Now, I would like to deep in the question about if it is licit to have such specific information about customers.
First off, I will say that if I were a company, I would probably act in the same manner. But as a customer I do not like to share my private information. In Wal-Mart, the customers do not now that their data is being captured when they carry out their purchases. I know that as a customer I ought to be grateful to companies for doing this because otherwise I would not find my preferred products in shops, supermarkets etc. Nevertheless, they have much more information about us than the information they need. For example, the credit cards number, your mortgage, your debts etc. Do you think that Wal-Mart really needs this information for their purposes? I cannot stand having my details extended around the companies although they say that is for a customized service. If they want to give such individual service they could ask me first if I really want to have it. For example, you go to one shop, you buy something and you pay by credit card. What a surprise when one month later you find a letter with advertising of that company. I get on my nerves when I receive these letters. We should sign something first to give them the possibility to send us that information.
For example, in Spain they are thinking about forbid the companies calls to private houses searching for information or informing about new offers.
Talking about the suppliers, Wal-Mart shares the information about customers with them, but they are quite strict with them. The competitor can lie in wait for stealing information. As I see it, they make them better and more efficient because providing customers’ habits information suppliers will know the supply, so therefore, which items they should produce more for example if they are producers, and which raw materials they should buy etc… and which ones will buy Wal-Mart. In this aspect, the technology is again important. But in this case, I do not think you need a lot of complex technology, just the typical to be in contact with suppliers in an immediately way.
In conclusion, I would like to remark that Wal-Mart has all its things really well-tied. But although its performance is brilliant, you can always do better.
Finally, I will say that I am from Spain and in this country there is no Wal-Mart, so I am not really expert about this. I have been there just twice but considering all the articles I have read about it and the meeting of Lee Scott at McCombs, I know a little bit more, although I am not a real customer and we know that customers are the best tool to value Wal-Mart.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The revolution of innovation and creativity. Welcome!! - blog 3
Nowadays, we are living a revolution that is having an effect in every people’s mind, a new revolution that is changing the nature of the society, the economy, the industry, companies, jobs and even personal life. We are living in a constant change. That is why we need new businesses, different, creative and innovative (Funky business). Hence, we can take out the conclusion that creativity and innovation are the challenge that addresses to a competitive advantage, but firstly we need to understand these concepts perfectly.
First of all, I would like to remark some misunderstandings related to these concepts. Firstly, a lot of people use creativity an innovation as synonyms because they do not understand them well. Secondly, some others do not differentiate between innovation and functionality and between creativity and originality.
On the one hand, innovation is the application of new concepts, ideas, products or services and practices with the intention to be useful for productivity increasing. But an important element is the successful commercial application. For instance, not only do you have to invent something, but also you need to introduce it in the market for people’s satisfaction. It is a change carried out with the purpose of solving problems or to improve a situation. On the other hand, creativity is defined as the generation of new ideas, concepts or even the new associations between known ideas and concepts that habitually generate original solutions. Creativity represents an aid in order to solve problems within an organization because it contributes with new ways of analyzing the nature of one specific problem.
As far as I am concerned, I would like to share with you some points of view that I have about this topic. I have generated this opinion through an article that I read in Spain related to “The medici effect” book.
In my opinion something is creative because it is new and valuable and it is innovative because the creative idea is carried out. An idea is not creative though it is new for us if the others do not know. On the contrary if an idea is old for us but is new for all the rest, then that idea is creative. Lastly, innovations to be innovations have to be used for other people of the society.
Now, I think it is useful to know what innovation provokes and I will explain through the article “The New, Faster Face of Innovation”. It says that companies are using the technology to save time and money in testing their new ideas. Innovation is doing the lifeblood of growth more efficient and cheaper. Because of the price is lower they can try their new ideas and we know that in each failure you can find something worthy, so it is better for the company to get a better idea about their customer likes and behaviors. But, this has implications for the company because they will have to educate and train in innovation terms.
In order to provide a good example of an innovative and creative product or service I have chosen an independent travel agency set in Bilbao (Spain) which is called Blue Planet.
Blue Planet is not the typical travel agency. It has a supportive commitment giving part of its profits to finance activities related to the promotion of cultural and natural diversity. Their purpose is to promote cultural and sustainable tourism for travelers with an independent and adventurous spirit. Routes are beyond the classic ones trying to have a closer look. For people who want to live the culture experience, daily life and natural surroundings of places in direct but with respect towards the nature and local people. “It is a proposal for human and cultural integration, to get to know the natural beauty of our planet, because we cannot respect and care about we do not know”.
As I see it, it is an innovative service because according to the definition of innovation Blue it is the application of a new concept “sustainable travels”. And they already put it in practice. And it is creative because it is an original way to solve the problem of tourism disaster and combines uncommon destinations for travelers who find something out of normal and the environmental care. It is also creative because it is valuable, what was something people demanded. Moreover, it is also innovative because the creative idea has been carried out. Apart from all of this it is the first one in Spain. The cornerstone is that it is a new idea of traveling that has already been introduced in the market. It fulfills all the requirements to be innovative and creative. These concepts are the competitive advantage of BluePlanet that differentiates them from the rest of the agencies.
I only want to finish with this affirmation of Victor Hugo “What drives and tows the world are not machines but ideas”.
First of all, I would like to remark some misunderstandings related to these concepts. Firstly, a lot of people use creativity an innovation as synonyms because they do not understand them well. Secondly, some others do not differentiate between innovation and functionality and between creativity and originality.
On the one hand, innovation is the application of new concepts, ideas, products or services and practices with the intention to be useful for productivity increasing. But an important element is the successful commercial application. For instance, not only do you have to invent something, but also you need to introduce it in the market for people’s satisfaction. It is a change carried out with the purpose of solving problems or to improve a situation. On the other hand, creativity is defined as the generation of new ideas, concepts or even the new associations between known ideas and concepts that habitually generate original solutions. Creativity represents an aid in order to solve problems within an organization because it contributes with new ways of analyzing the nature of one specific problem.
As far as I am concerned, I would like to share with you some points of view that I have about this topic. I have generated this opinion through an article that I read in Spain related to “The medici effect” book.
In my opinion something is creative because it is new and valuable and it is innovative because the creative idea is carried out. An idea is not creative though it is new for us if the others do not know. On the contrary if an idea is old for us but is new for all the rest, then that idea is creative. Lastly, innovations to be innovations have to be used for other people of the society.
Now, I think it is useful to know what innovation provokes and I will explain through the article “The New, Faster Face of Innovation”. It says that companies are using the technology to save time and money in testing their new ideas. Innovation is doing the lifeblood of growth more efficient and cheaper. Because of the price is lower they can try their new ideas and we know that in each failure you can find something worthy, so it is better for the company to get a better idea about their customer likes and behaviors. But, this has implications for the company because they will have to educate and train in innovation terms.
In order to provide a good example of an innovative and creative product or service I have chosen an independent travel agency set in Bilbao (Spain) which is called Blue Planet.
Blue Planet is not the typical travel agency. It has a supportive commitment giving part of its profits to finance activities related to the promotion of cultural and natural diversity. Their purpose is to promote cultural and sustainable tourism for travelers with an independent and adventurous spirit. Routes are beyond the classic ones trying to have a closer look. For people who want to live the culture experience, daily life and natural surroundings of places in direct but with respect towards the nature and local people. “It is a proposal for human and cultural integration, to get to know the natural beauty of our planet, because we cannot respect and care about we do not know”.
As I see it, it is an innovative service because according to the definition of innovation Blue it is the application of a new concept “sustainable travels”. And they already put it in practice. And it is creative because it is an original way to solve the problem of tourism disaster and combines uncommon destinations for travelers who find something out of normal and the environmental care. It is also creative because it is valuable, what was something people demanded. Moreover, it is also innovative because the creative idea has been carried out. Apart from all of this it is the first one in Spain. The cornerstone is that it is a new idea of traveling that has already been introduced in the market. It fulfills all the requirements to be innovative and creative. These concepts are the competitive advantage of BluePlanet that differentiates them from the rest of the agencies.
I only want to finish with this affirmation of Victor Hugo “What drives and tows the world are not machines but ideas”.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The importance of expectations in the marketplace - blog 2
After reading the chapter from Predictably Irrational written by Dan Ariely I can point out that the primary lesson described in it is the fact that expectations have a strong influence on our life decisions. When we have a stereotype, or a knowledge that is previous to a decision-making, this one will be highly probable conditioned by these expectations. “When we believe beforehand that something will be good, therefore, it generally will be good” (Dan Ariely). The key is to find who creates those expectations.
This is really interesting and important for marketers if they want to gain valuable insights and consequently designing valuable experiences for them. Indeed, if they want to achieve this goal, they need to provide products or services according to their expectations, so marketers need to know how they think, their behaviours, who they would like to seem, what they expect in a service or a product. Nevertheless, knowing your customer is the most complicated part in a company. The empathy is one the most valuable aspect for being a good marketer. For instance, as Dan Ariely says we can not underestimate the power of presentation. How you place the food or the packaging of a product or the image of your campaign is essential because it is the first thing that your customers will see and with these issues, clients will begin to create their expectations.
Another thing that is remarkable to comment is that expectations also shape stereotypes. A stereotype is built on what it has seen before, this is the reason that I prefer to say that stereotypes shape expectations. One stereotype creates a set of expectations that make us acting differently. The good point for marketers is that some people are conscious of belonging to a stereotype and they buy according to it.
The main example that is provided in the chapter makes us realize of the importance of expectations. Two professors decided to investigate if a pre-knowledge of something has a power influence on the final result. They carried it out through a beer experiment.
The experiment consisted of tasting two different beers in different conditions and say which of those beers they prefer. The first beer was Budweiser and the second one was Budweiser but with balsamic vinegar (MIT Brew). The first part of the experiment was to give to taste the beers to some students without saying anything about the brands and about the added ingredient. The outcome was that people preferred the MIT Brew. The second part was to do the experiment again but saying before they taste that the first beer was a standard commercial beer and the second one contained balsamic vinegar. With this pre-knowledge people preferred the typical Budweiser. Even, it was demonstrated that people who did not know the first time what kind of beer they were having and afterwards they knew, they still preferred MIT Brew.
This experiment illustrates perfectly that marketers have to create knowledge and expectations before people evaluate their products or services. But an expectation is considered the most likely to happen so we cannot think that a good pre-knowledge will be the only thing to get a success.
The example that I would like to add is similar to the beer experiment. Some students of my University made a research about if people really distingue the quality of the clothes. Firstly, they showed two shirts without saying anything. One of them was an unknown brand, but the other was a Lacoste’s polo. The results of the study were not conclusive, so secondly, they decided to put the crocodile of Lacoste in the unknown shirt, and they took out the logo from the Lacoste’s polo. The results were incredible. The 85% of the students saw the fake shirt as the most quality shirt. It is surprising because it is a private school and people wear always brands.
This is really interesting and important for marketers if they want to gain valuable insights and consequently designing valuable experiences for them. Indeed, if they want to achieve this goal, they need to provide products or services according to their expectations, so marketers need to know how they think, their behaviours, who they would like to seem, what they expect in a service or a product. Nevertheless, knowing your customer is the most complicated part in a company. The empathy is one the most valuable aspect for being a good marketer. For instance, as Dan Ariely says we can not underestimate the power of presentation. How you place the food or the packaging of a product or the image of your campaign is essential because it is the first thing that your customers will see and with these issues, clients will begin to create their expectations.
Another thing that is remarkable to comment is that expectations also shape stereotypes. A stereotype is built on what it has seen before, this is the reason that I prefer to say that stereotypes shape expectations. One stereotype creates a set of expectations that make us acting differently. The good point for marketers is that some people are conscious of belonging to a stereotype and they buy according to it.
The main example that is provided in the chapter makes us realize of the importance of expectations. Two professors decided to investigate if a pre-knowledge of something has a power influence on the final result. They carried it out through a beer experiment.
The experiment consisted of tasting two different beers in different conditions and say which of those beers they prefer. The first beer was Budweiser and the second one was Budweiser but with balsamic vinegar (MIT Brew). The first part of the experiment was to give to taste the beers to some students without saying anything about the brands and about the added ingredient. The outcome was that people preferred the MIT Brew. The second part was to do the experiment again but saying before they taste that the first beer was a standard commercial beer and the second one contained balsamic vinegar. With this pre-knowledge people preferred the typical Budweiser. Even, it was demonstrated that people who did not know the first time what kind of beer they were having and afterwards they knew, they still preferred MIT Brew.
This experiment illustrates perfectly that marketers have to create knowledge and expectations before people evaluate their products or services. But an expectation is considered the most likely to happen so we cannot think that a good pre-knowledge will be the only thing to get a success.
The example that I would like to add is similar to the beer experiment. Some students of my University made a research about if people really distingue the quality of the clothes. Firstly, they showed two shirts without saying anything. One of them was an unknown brand, but the other was a Lacoste’s polo. The results of the study were not conclusive, so secondly, they decided to put the crocodile of Lacoste in the unknown shirt, and they took out the logo from the Lacoste’s polo. The results were incredible. The 85% of the students saw the fake shirt as the most quality shirt. It is surprising because it is a private school and people wear always brands.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
What marketers should know about me
First of all, I would like to remark that marketing is changing nowadays. Before, it was really product-oriented and now it is much more customer-oriented because people want to have a customized service and furthermore they want to be involved in the value creation process.
I am 22 years old and from Spain. I play tennis and violin, I love music and I care always for what I am wearing. These are the basic things that they need to know about me. What I am going to do now is to talk about ten characteristics that a marketer would be really interested in knowing about me. I know that marketing use the 4p´s of Kotler, so I am going to divide my characteristics into those p’s adding one more, personalization.
Product:
1. I am used to focusing on the functionality and the quality of the product more than the design of the product. This is for all of the products, except for clothes and mobile phones in which I focus on the design much more than the features of the mobile. Packaging is not essential for me. I am not going to buy pasta because of the packaging.
2. Brands have a powerful influence on me. As I see it, young people are a little bit worried about brands, not just me. In food terms, my family are really worried about our nutrition, so they do not care to pay extra-money in good food brands. For clothes, I have two sisters, and they are really fond of fashion, so that, they advise me.
3. I am an early-adopted customer but I do not need to be the first. When the iPhone appeared, I felt attracted on it, but I did not have the necessity to buy it.
4. I am not really loyal to a brand, just in terms of food. This has connection to the price point. This is a tendency in the new marketing. You must find a good competitive advantage if you want to be a top of mine.
Price:
5. I am student, so I am not disposed to pay an extra price just for the design. I compare prices between brands before I buy. I really love music but I am not going to buy a CD when I can download it for free.
6. I wait for a discount. When I have to buy clothes or something else I am used to waiting for lower prices.
Place:
7. I am used to going to the city to buy or to shop centres because I am from a town and I do not like to buy there, just daily things.
Promotion:
8. I like watching Television, so I feel attracted to advertising. In Spain there is a tendency to put the advertisements inside the broadcasting of series, not just commercials in between, like in America.
9. I do not like to be bombarded by advertisements on the internet because I spend a lot of time surfing. I know that this is the future of the marketing but as a customer I hate it, mostly because it is more of an interference than an advertisement.
Personalisation:
10. I prefer to enter in a shop and have a look, and then, if I have a doubt I will probably ask them. I hate feeling overwhelmed by the seller, even in luxury products.
I am 22 years old and from Spain. I play tennis and violin, I love music and I care always for what I am wearing. These are the basic things that they need to know about me. What I am going to do now is to talk about ten characteristics that a marketer would be really interested in knowing about me. I know that marketing use the 4p´s of Kotler, so I am going to divide my characteristics into those p’s adding one more, personalization.
Product:
1. I am used to focusing on the functionality and the quality of the product more than the design of the product. This is for all of the products, except for clothes and mobile phones in which I focus on the design much more than the features of the mobile. Packaging is not essential for me. I am not going to buy pasta because of the packaging.
2. Brands have a powerful influence on me. As I see it, young people are a little bit worried about brands, not just me. In food terms, my family are really worried about our nutrition, so they do not care to pay extra-money in good food brands. For clothes, I have two sisters, and they are really fond of fashion, so that, they advise me.
3. I am an early-adopted customer but I do not need to be the first. When the iPhone appeared, I felt attracted on it, but I did not have the necessity to buy it.
4. I am not really loyal to a brand, just in terms of food. This has connection to the price point. This is a tendency in the new marketing. You must find a good competitive advantage if you want to be a top of mine.
Price:
5. I am student, so I am not disposed to pay an extra price just for the design. I compare prices between brands before I buy. I really love music but I am not going to buy a CD when I can download it for free.
6. I wait for a discount. When I have to buy clothes or something else I am used to waiting for lower prices.
Place:
7. I am used to going to the city to buy or to shop centres because I am from a town and I do not like to buy there, just daily things.
Promotion:
8. I like watching Television, so I feel attracted to advertising. In Spain there is a tendency to put the advertisements inside the broadcasting of series, not just commercials in between, like in America.
9. I do not like to be bombarded by advertisements on the internet because I spend a lot of time surfing. I know that this is the future of the marketing but as a customer I hate it, mostly because it is more of an interference than an advertisement.
Personalisation:
10. I prefer to enter in a shop and have a look, and then, if I have a doubt I will probably ask them. I hate feeling overwhelmed by the seller, even in luxury products.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
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