Advertising for the sex's

Previous research suggests males and females exhibit different beliefs and attitudes toward traditional media advertising along with different advertising stimulated consumer behaviors. This formed the discussion of our Understanding the Customer class this week. Our lesson began with looking at a number of advertisements and attempting to remember as many as possible. This proved highly interesting as there was a vast difference between what the majority of the class (females) remembered and what the minority (males) remembered.
The spider diagrams below are a short summary of the type of things which males and females remembered. (Note the differences!)

At a semiotic level there is disparity in the portrayal of men and women in popular advertising. When men and women appear in advertisements together, the women are often depicted as weaker than the male, either through composition of the advertisement or particular situations in the scene. When females appear in advertisements alone we again note the stereotype of the female as sexual, unintelligent and fragile. Males, conversely, appear as strong and cultured. Particular roles and gender constructs are also evident in male adverts. Males are told to act tough, hide their emotions, and compete at all costs (Thompson 1993:146-7).

Take a look below, the advertisements present stereotypical images of masculinity which are highly unlikely to appeal to females.

In addition to this, Charity advertisements were used in class to provoke a response and discover the different emotional responses from both males and females.

How do you feel after watching that?

If you are female then there is a good chance you feel like I did. I found this video extremely powerful, making me feel emotional and overwhelmed. After discussing our feelings with other class members, it was evident that the majority of females were experiencing feelings like mine; however the males were not feeling quite the same. Despite the fact that the advert was quite short, they claimed that they lost interest quite quickly which may suggest that males are influenced by other factors rather than emotion. A study carried out by ‘All Academic Research’ stated that “Males were more inclined to take notice of, and interact with sexual images and humour in advertising, while females were not particularly interested in sexual or sports images.” They also stated that “although the effects of visual images in advertising did not directly influence personal involvement with the advertised products, visual images may indirectly encourage higher product involvement by exerting significant influences on individual preference to advertising”. (All Academic) The fact that the males in the class lost interest in the charity event relatively quickly could therefore be due to the fact that it is an advert serious in nature and did not initially capture their full attention by either sexual images or humour.

Guys, you may find the Ad below a little more entertaining!

Women control more than 80% of all consumer purchases and represent more than 50% of corporate buyers. When marketing to females, triggers, language, visuals and messages which will make women sit up and take notice need to be identified. This in turn will increase the effectiveness of their advertising and marketing initiatives.
It is for this reason that there are generally more advertisements aimed at females rather than males. (Mad4Marketing)

When taking a test to discover my brain’s “Sex I.D”, I found out that I have both male and female traits and thus, my brain works in neither a female of male orientated way. This has been discussed in depth in my “Gender Differences” blog, however in relation to this task, these results would suggest that I should be remotely engaged in Charity advertisement. Technically I shouldn’t experience high involvement emotions when watching it like females but I should experience more interest than males. So why did I feel overwhelmed by emotion? Could it be because I know numerous people who have been affected by cancer? Will an individual be less involved if they have not been personally affected by cancer?

These are all questions which should be considered when advertising a product/company/charity as it is not just gender which affects how we react. Although gender is the most important factor for the majority of products, advertisers can also appeal to our senses and use personal experience as a means of promoting their product (or in the case of the Cancer Research UK advert, to encourage us to donate).

I'm Bart!! (Personality)

Personality can be defined as: "a person’s unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment” (Solomon 1999)

Before this class, we took a test to determine what kind of personality we have. As silly as it sounds, the test; “Which Simpson’s character are you aligned with?” proved very interesting. We choose from different descriptions which had a letter assigned to them, making up a code and the code related to a character. My code was ESTP which means I am aligned with Bart Simpson!!


Although my personality type is aligned with Bart, it does not mean I do things like this!! <--

The description states that I love action and always seem to be doing something. I am clear headed when it comes to dealing with emergencies; I enjoy lavishing loved ones with big gifts (I’m not sure how true that is now that I’m a student!!) and apparently I’m also good to have on your side. According to the Simpsons personality test my weaknesses include getting bored easily and lavishing loved ones with big gifts!

My personality type can be defined as “ESTP- The Persuader” and according to http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/estp/ ESTPs are action-loving, "here and now" realists with excellent people skills. Informal, risk-taking, fast-paced and adaptable, they are not always in agreeance with rules and regulations. They are tactical problem solvers that desire quick results. ESTPs, who present a friendly and enthusiastic face, are straight shooters that are able to handle criticism. Out of the numerous personality tests I have taken I think the results of this one are most true of me- I really am a Simpson!

Why not take this personality test and compare your results to mine? http://www.scribd.com/doc/2286999/Simpsons-personality-types

This class also focused on Self Concept which can be defined as “the complex mental picture that people have of themselves” (Kotler 2008). In order to understand consumer behaviour, the marketer must first understand the relationship between consumer self-concept and possessions. To understand this further, here is an example provided from ‘Principles of Marketing, Fifth European Edition, Kotler et.al)

Apple applies this concept in a recent set of ads that characterise two people as two computers – one person plays the part of an Apple Mac and the other plays a PC. “Hello, I’m a Mac’, says the person on the right, who’s a youngster and dressed in jeans. ‘And I’m a PC’, says the nerd of the left, who’s wearing dweeby glasses and a jacket and tie. The two men discuss the relative advantages of Macs versus PS’s, with the Mac coming out on top. The ads present the Mac brand personality as young, modern and relaxed. The PC is portrayed as buttoned down, corporate and a bit dorky. The message? If you see yourself as young and with it, you need a Mac.

Inserted below is a youtube video of 15 short Apple ads similar to that outlined above! Enjoy!!

What do you want!? (segmentation)

Before today, I didn’t know the meaning of Segmentation, however after this class I was very aware of what it is and how important it is in all aspects of retail.

Market segmentation which is most relevant to us is basically the practice of dividing a customer base into categories or markets such as income level, geographic location or subscription type. The population of the UK on census day 29th April 2001 was 58,789,194 and as I’m sure you can imagine, not all thee people want the same thing which is why it is so important to for us use ‘profilers’ to gather information about the population and this information forms the basis of segmentation. Profiler questions may include age, gender, social class, personality and even hair colour and type!

Below is a diagram which outlines what factors influence behaviour, which in turn will influence the segmentation of the population you fall into.






Over the years, population segmentation has changed, along with the products we want. For example, In Victorian days, carbolic soap, bright red in colour and with a very interesting fragrance, was used to clean just about everything, ranging from floors to even washing hair! How would you react if your Mum told you to wash your hair with Detol floor cleaner!? I don’t think it would go down very well!

Nowadays we have hundreds of shampoo and conditioner brands with shampoos for greasy hair, dry hair, blonde hair, red hair, brown hair, died hair, thin hair, curly hair, damaged hair, dandruff… the list goes on!

This brings me on to STP marketing which stands for Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Smith (1957) claims: “Segmentation is based on the observation of evolution of demand and represents a more precise and rational adaptation of the product and the marketing effort to meet customer or user demands.”

You might be asking yourself why we need to use Segmentation?
Well, basically it gives us a better understanding of customer needs which would therefore increase the chances of a product gaining brand loyalty. It also allows prices in some premium sectors to be raised and a clearer message can therefore be sent out to customers about their brand.

Segmentation allows us to produce advertisements to suit a particular audience for example, a holiday resort such as Ibiza which is well known for its night life is likely to attract people aged 18-30 and therefore elderly people would not be used in advertisements!

‘The law of prägnanz!’ (Perception: Gestalt)

The fundamental principle of gestalt perception is the law of prägnanz (German for conciseness) which says that we tend to order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly, symmetric, and simple. Gestalt theory states that many stimuli acquire a pattern quality which is more than the sum of its parks and that the ‘figure’ is the central element which captures our attention. It also states that background is largely undifferentiated which explains why contrast is widely used in advertising.

There are three key principles of Gestalt:

1. Grouping (proximity and similarity)
We tend to group objects together that share similar physical characteristics, for example health and beauty brands tend to stick to certain colours and bottle shapes.

2. Closure
We tend to see an incomplete picture as complete, i.e. If we need to fill in the gaps we do it automatically. When individual elements are arranged in groups that define an object, we tend to see the object and not the element.
Take a look below... Do you see eighteen individual circles? Or do you see the word ‘HI’?





3. Stimulus Ambiguity
A stimulus is said to be ambiguous when it does not correspond to an immediately recognisable shape or form, i.e. we need to find a context in order to interpret it. This is used widely in 21st century advertising. For advertisers ambiguity can serve multiple purposes. For one, the viewer of the ad may be more inclined to buy a product because of the "postmodern" coolness associated by the ad.

The controversies over Bennetton's advertising campaigns illustrate that this strategy can sometimes backfire. It is a common practice of advertiser's to appeal to the emotions of consumers in order to sell a product. Over decades, advertisements have evolved to a greater focus on social institutions rather than the product itself. Nonetheless, the Benetton retailer distinguishes itself by its utilization of attention grabbing and often times shocking imagery. When flipping through the Benetton catalogue, I was hard pressed to find the prices of sweaters or khaki pants. Instead, I found images of a priest and nun kissing, a black woman feeding a white baby, and shockingly, death row inmates.

Here are a few of the Benetton advertisements, take a look and see what you interpret from them.

Smell, See, Touch, Taste, Hear! (Perception; 5 senses)

Our five senses play a key role in customer perception, therefore, advertisers are now aware that they need to utilize more than just sight in order create a deeper connection with their product, i.e. They need to appeal to our 5 senses. Appealing to our five senses can also include making use of a discipline known as ‘semiotics’. The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure defined semiotics as the study of ‘the life signs within society’. He noted that people communicate and understand one and other by many different methods other than through the use of language. This may involve the use of various signals, signs and symbols communicated through the use of noises, pictures, images, shapes and colours as well as through facial and body language. These methods are all used by advertisers to appeal to our five senses both as a complement to and a substitute for language.

So the Marlboro cowboy becomes a symbol for an adventurous, vicarious, ‘real-man’ lifestyle; a white ‘tick’ comes to represent Nike; mountain streams represent freshness; a white coat a scientific background and spectacles represent intelligence. (Even Sallie thinks I look intelligent and ‘studious’ with my glasses on!!)

The Andrex puppy has also become a sign for caring and motherhood. Below is a video with out-takes from Andrex advertisements which is a good representation of how an advert, with no speaking in it, can still appeal to our senses and influence us to purchase a product.

How many legs do you see!? (Perception)

This week’s class was in keeping with last weeks- Exciting, interesting and a lot of fun! Who thought you could enjoy University life this much? On a more serious note, the experiments we undertook today provided us with very interesting findings.

Basically, the experiments we were advised to complete had to show how individuals perceive things differently. Out experiments ranged form chocolate and Pepsi taste tests to aftershave and perfume smell tests to visual interpretation of pictures, some of which I have included below.

Surprisingly enough, the two tests I found most interesting didn’t involve chocolate! The diet Pepsi/diet Coca-Cola test was first shock us all! Twenty cups were laid out, labelled A and B with diet Pepsi in one and diet Coca-Cola in the other. Ten people from our class were chosen to take the test and we were given a cup of each. Being oblivious to which drink was in each cup, we had to write out favourite. After some serious thought I was sure A was Diet Coke and B was Diet Pepsi, I also preferred A along with the other 9 people who took the test. Believe it or not, it was in fact Diet Pepsi in cup A.

Since the first blind taste test was set up between Coca-Cola and Pepsi in 1975, the majority of people have picked Pepsi as the better tasting of the two soft drinks and out experiment further adds to this. So, if Pepsi tastes better, why does Coca- Cola have 44.3% of US soft drinks market share and why does Pepsi only have 31.4%? Is it due to a negative perception we have of Pepsi? Or is it because we believe Coca-Cola is a ‘better’ brand? Personally, I would always choose Coca-Cola over Pepsi but I have no particular reason for this. Maybe it is down to marketing? Who knows?! What do you prefer? and more importantly, why?

Our second perception test was a visual one. We printed pictures from the internet which could easily be interpreted in different ways. They were passed around the class and out individual findings were recorded. This test was very strange in that, some people were set on focusing on one thing and were not able to adapt to see the other possibility. This is a perfect example of perceptual set, where by people get “set in their ways”. For example, in picture one (below) do you see a young girl or an old lady? 18 people in our class saw a young girl in the picture however 2 people saw an old lady. Interestingly, these 2 ‘odd’ people were male! In the elephant picture (picture two), how many legs does it have? This caused a lot of debate between our group but there is no right or wrong answer, it is how YOU perceive something. What your friend sees and what you see could easily be different. I found this test was also a good demonstration of our individuality. Have a look at the other pictures below and see what you can make of them!