Are Men from Mars and Women from Venus?

Scientists have discovered that only 78 genes separate men from women ( BBC News, 2006). How these differences influence on consumer behaviour ? 

It can be argued that men shop on Mars, women shop on Venus, because the behaviour of the gender is so different. With women, there are several types of shoppers: mothers and kids, shopaholics, social shoppers and bargain hunters. With men, there is, well -just men.

 In general women see shopping as pleasurable, stimulating activity and a way of obtaining social interaction. Men see shopping as a way of acquiring goods (Hoyer&;MacInnis, 2008). Man goes  into a store with a precise goal. If he can’t find what he want in a few minutes he despair . Woman is able to visit  hundreds of shops for  a lot of hours to find something what is JUST :  fashionable, glamorous, chariming, pretty and original ;-)

According to research and observations by marketers and urban anthropologists, women care more about comparison of stores, bargain hunting and getting a lower price at outlet stores. When it comes to men they are more willing to do shopping at traditional  stores to find well-known brand names, regardless of the price.

Shopaholics are tend to be women.That is why marketers recognize the growing importance of women as customers.  A funny image of shopaholic, but real, however,  was presented in Confessions of a Shopaholic, directed by P.J Hogan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8BoR-tKCLs&feature=related

 Gender Marketing

According to Bristor and Fischer (1993), gender is a social concept referring to psychologically, sociologically, or culturally rooted traits, attitudes, beliefs, and behavioural tendencies. Because gender is a pervasive filter through which individuals experience their social world, consumption activities are fundamentally gendered. Women and men design their environments differently. The main purpose of gender marketing is to consider differences between women and men in their way to making purchase (Flocke 2006). According to Mitchell and Walsh (2004) males and females want different products and they are likely to have different ways of thinking about obtaining these.

The cause of differences in consumer decision making process is made up with several reasons.

 Gender differences in brain functioning are used to explore  different information processing of advertising message. Men tend to use more of the left side of their brain. The left side of the brain tends to focus on anlytical thought, logic, language, science and maths. Women  tend to process  well  both sides of their brain,  the right side of the brain focuses on holistic thought, intuition, creativity, art and music. This is the reason why men tend to do better at left brain activities and problem solving and women excel at solving problems creatively and being aware of emotion.

The advertisements are created with the aim of stereotypes about men and women.

 Women are tend to be more emotionally expressive and more empathetic. They  are more obsessed with having children than men. Women judge emotions from nonverbal communication and express more love, fear, and sadness.Men control their feelings and show emotion to communicate dominance. Advertising is most effective when it targets women becouse they are tend to believe ads more than men.  Women are more engaged in a detailed, thorough examination of a message  and they make extended decision based on product attributes . Men receive informations using simplified stimuli. Men are more likely to express positive emotions than women(Hoyer&;MacInnis, 2008).

 Colours play a significant role in marketing communications. Scientific surveys have concluded that red is the sexiest colour of the rainbow.  Women perceived men wearing red T-shirts to be significantly more attractive than those in blue T-shirts. For both gender ,red has powerful psychological triggers (uk.special, 2010). Advertisements with yellow and blue are more effective with men than women.Orange is the least favorite color for women. Blue is the most popular color for both men and women. Green is also a good color for ads that that target both men and women.

 This video shows male advertising...

...and this video presents advertising for women :

Did you see the difference ? ;-)

Self-concept

 
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

Dr. Seuss

Sometimes we think that we are to fat or too skinny. We tend to compare ourselves with someone who appears to be more successful, happier, richer and better looking than we. We are grown into our self concept by what we learn when we are young from our parents and siblings or our friends. Self concept is changed throughout life from how people look at you, how you compare to others,and how you feel about yourself.

Self-concept (also called self-construction or self-perspective) is a multi-dimensional construct that refers to an individual's perception of "self" in relation to any number of characteristics, such as academics (and nonacademics), gender roles and sexuality, racial identity, and many others (http://en.wikipedia.org:2010).

Self concept is what you think about yourself. How does the view about yourself look like?. Your self-concept can change because you see and understand things differently depending on your feelings, beliefs and attitude.

Self Concept has three different components:

• The view you have of yourself (Self image)
• How much value you place on yourself (Self esteem or   self-worth)
• What you wish you were really like (Ideal self)

 (http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk:2010)

 This website presents  10 Ways to Instantly Build Self Confidence  :)

Self concept plays a big role in costumers' behaviour.We can identify several types of consumers self-concept , which are :

We can identify several types of  consumers self-conceptwe can identify several types of self-evaluation among consumers

Actual self-image (how consumers in fact see themselves)

Ideal self-image (how consumers would like to seethemselves)

Social self-image (how consumers feel others seethem)

Ideal self-image (how consumers would like others tosee them)

Expected self-image (how consumers expect to seethemselves at some specified future time)

Ought-to self image (consists of traits orcharacteristics that an individual believes it is his orher duty to posses)

PERSONALITY

Who am I ? What makes me who I am? What makes me act the way I act ? 

When we were children, we learned how to think, feel, speak and behave by growing up and participating in a social environment. We experience a series of life cycle changes as we become students, marry or reach middle age, and grow old. We still shape our PERSONALITY . However, the changes could be on the good side or the bad side.Through the changes from nurture, we change our views on different situation and behaviours from parents and siblings influences, peer pressure and culture. 

What do we mean by PERSONALITY ? 



A concise definition appears in the 1991 ‘Dictionay of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology’: The characteristic models of though, motivation, and feeling, conscious and unconscious, which guide the behavior of an individual (Winthrop:1991, p:213). As humans, we have the ability to adapt to our environment and surroundings. The type of personality develops is a product of the complex interaction between indyvidual’s unique biological constitution and total life experiences(Peoples&Bailey:1997).

Just as no two people are alike, no two personalities are alike.Human personality is what makes a person distinctive, unique, and exceptional. We all have strenghts and weaknesses. These factors depend on our type of personality. There are a lot of tests, which can help you to determine your type of personality.


This is a funny 'personality test', have fun! ;-) 

Personality test!  

Marketers are interested in understanding how personality influences on consumers behavior. This knowledge enables them to better understand buyers and target those consumers who are likely to respond positively to their product or service communications.

Targeting, segemntation and positioning

Marketing segmentation is a process of identifying different group of users within a market who could possibly be targeted with separated products or marketing programs. Market segmentation was first defined as ‘a condition of growth when core markets have already been developed on a generalised basis to the point whereadditional promotional expenditures are yielding diminishing returns’ (Smith,1956).The objective of segmentation research is to analyze market and find the opportunities.(McDonald, 2004) .

Segmentation makes it possible for organisations to tailor the marketing mix for specific target markets, thus better satisfying customer needs. The bases for segmenting consumer markets include:

    * Demographical bases (age, family size, life cycle, occupation)

    * Geographical bases (states, regions, countries)

    * Behavior bases (product knowledge, usage, attitudes, responses)

    * Psychographic bases (lifestyle, values, personality)

For examople, the product presented below is addressed for woamen, who like cosmetics and goodlooking:

The graph below presents segmentatin criteria for consumer markets .

Targeting is the process for selecting and prioritizing targets and matching appropriate actions to those targets to create specific desired effects that achieve objectives, taking account of operational requirements and capabilities.
For example while McDonald’s has a great reputation for fast, consistent quality, family friendly food, it would be difficult to convince consumers that McDonald’s now offers gourmet food.  Thus, McD’s would probably be better off targeting families in search of consistent quality food in nice, clean restaurants.




Positioning involves implementing our targeting. It is a marketing strategy that aims to make a brand occupy a distinct position, relative to competing brands, in the mind of the customer. For example, Apple Computer has chosen to position itself as a maker of user-friendly computers.  Thus, Apple has done a lot through its advertising to promote itself, through its unintimidating icons, as a computer for “non-geeks.”

How advertisements try to appeal to our five different senses?

The role of advertising is still growing up. Advertisemens are everywhere. It is important for both seller and buyer. It helps to keep the buyers informed about whatever new products and services are available but the main aim of advertising is to sell.

Advertising is connected with perception and perception is connected with our senses.
Perception and sensation play two significant but different roles in how we interpret our surroundings.

Sensation can be definied by the operation or function of the senses . It refers to the process of sensing our world through sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Perception helps us interpret these sensations and make sense of everything around us.

This short explanation help us to understand the process of buyers behavior. Advertisements are made to gather attention, using our senses. Each advertisement is carefully planned. They are eyecatching and convincing, especially when they present famous people : our idols, pop stars, models etc.


Advertisemens are everywhere. Becouse of the captions “buy me”, “rent this”, I find myself asking, what effects do these many message have on us...

PERCEPTION

I found an interesting view about perception, created by David Armano. It's a graph called PERCEPTION PYRAMID.
My first impression on seeing the graph was reminder from religion...

"What we think, we become"
                              Buddha
 ...and philosophy :
"We are, what we frequently do"
                                Aristotle
Judging by the graph and referring to the citations I can inffered that perception is a hierarchical system.The foundation is what we think. It's more fundamental  than "what we do" . Actions seem to be less subjective than words, and words more than the views of other people.

PERCEPTION : the process of using the senses to acquire information about the surrounding environment or situation.

The simple definition  tells us, that perception is made up with our senses, which help us to understand the surrounding environment and gather information about thw world.

PERCEPTION IM MY OWN WORDS...

 I associate perception the work of art of Julian Beever, affectionately nicknamed, "Pavement Picasso".

That little boy in the photo is standing on flat pavement. This amazing piece of art gives us an illusion that the boy is standing on the top of high bilding.  Reffering to this, perception is  something what we see, how we interpret this and how to react to external stimuli. It's made up with our senses, our mind, and is connected with our inteligence and imagination. It allows us to see an individual experience of the world.



;-)

First Lecture

An important part of the marketing  is to understand why customers make a purchase. Buyer behavior is an complicated process and  has as much layers as an onion has.

"We are what we have"
This is a pure truth. 
Possessions play a significant role in our life which nowadays seems to be more comercial than ever before...




A lot of work is waiting for me...