Segmentation

"To get a product or service to the right person or company, a marketer would firstly segment the market, then target a single segment or series of segments, and finally position within the segment(s).

Segmentation is essentially the identification of subsets of buyers within a market who share similar needs and who demonstrate similar buyer behavior. The world is made up from billions of buyers with their own sets of needs and behavior. Segmentation aims to match groups of purchasers with the same set of needs and buyer behavior. Such a group is known as a segment."(Marketing Teacher, 2000)



The diagram above depicts how segmentation information is often represented as a pie chart diagram - the segments are often named and/ or numbered in some way.

We're doing a lot of experiments during Friday's lesson.
First of all, Ruth asked us to classify some figure (I can't add a photo of them because it's impossible to get to the blackboard). Anyway, there are many ways to do it. The only thing we need is an idea. Lois won this competition :) She had the most solutions.
Then, we had to think how many different shampoons we can find in shops, e.g. shampoons for: black hair, blond hair, red hair, brown hair, grey hair, long hair, short hair, curly hair, wavy hair, flat hair, greasy hair, dyed hair, bob hair, stubble hair... and many, many more. Marketers make us believe that men's hair differ from women's in order to earn more money. If there were only one product called 'shampoo', we wouldn't have neither competitions between companies nor advertisements.
Later, we were thinking about toothpastes and washing powders. I couldn't believe when Ruth said that there are only two companies which produce washing powders! It's amazing.
The last task was to read a receipt from Tesco and try to guess what kind of person was doing shopping there. It was very funny because we were drawing pictures as well. Here are some photos :)








As you can see, my group created a picture of a single, middle-aged, business-woman, on a diet and without children. Unfortunately, we were not wright, but it was really interesting experience.

If you want to read something interesting about segmentation, look at these websites:
http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_segmentation.htm
http://www.businessplans.org/Segment.html

Perception Experiments

During Friday's lesson we were doing some strange but really interesting experiments. We had an opportunity to taste different chocolates and drinks, look at some pictures and finally smell some perfumes and shampoons. The conclusions were totally surprising. As it turned out, most of us prefer to drink Pepsi than Coke. However, we thought that Pepsi is Coke. Even though this experiment was done many times, the results are always the same!
The other experiment I find very interesting was the one with chocolates. We were tasting 3 chocolate brads: Galaxy, Dairy milk and Tesco. Most people consider that Galaxy is the best one. The cheapest one, Tesco chocolate, was really awful.

I was doing my experiment with Magda. We tooke 8 different shampoons and ask 5 people to smell and touch them. They had to have their eyes closed, of course. We noticed that the most recognizable brand is Dove. It is the most expensive one as well.

When Rafał smelt the cheapest shampoon, he told: "It smells like a hospital!"
In my opinion, Dove has the best advertisements as well. Especially one is very interesting and catchy. You can check:
I read about perception in the Internet and I found some important and interesting quotations:

"It has been estimated that the average consumer is exposed to from 300 to 600 advertisements in a normal day." (Assael 1981)

"Consumers perceive marketing stimuli selectively because each individual is unique in the combination of his or her needs, attitudes, experiences, and personal characteristics. Selective perception means that the identical advertisement, package, or product may be perceived very differently by the two consumers." (Assael 1981)

"Selective perception ensures that consumers will receive information most relevant to their needs and to brand evaluation. This process is referred to as perceptual vigilance." (Assael 1981)

"As consumers are exposed to hundreds of ads in a single day, they must be selective in screening out information. Such a filtering process becomes particularly important in low involvement decision-making. In these circumstances, the time spent on information processing is very low. The consumer will pay attention only to exceptional information such as change in price or brand features or the introduction of a new brand. Information processing occurs, therefore, by exception. Little attention will be paid to frequently repeated and expected stimuli. Attention is only devoted to unexpected stimuli." (Assael 1981) Attracting attention in advertising is the most important factor when creating awareness to consumers! Taht is why we can watch or read so many different advertisements.

"Advertisements are designed to communicate effectively with the consumer. This is done by appealing to the right brain by using words, symbols, and illustration that are meaningful, familiar, and attractive to people." (Pride et al., 1998).

Take a look on this adverts, they're really good!

Perception

In today’s world we are all surrounded by wide range of colours, sounds and odours. Wherever we are, we can see different advertisements which influence our perception.

And what means ‘perception’? We can explain it as a particular way of looking at or understanding something. In our hand- book, ‘Consumer Behaviour’ , I read that ‘perception is the process by which stimuli are selected, organized and interpreted.’

Perception is a part of advertising. It is very important for particular brands to persuade potential customers to purchase a product or to consume a service. That is why we are bombarded by different types of advertisements on TV. Some of them are funny, other controversial but most of them are really catchy.



According to some articles: "What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, one’s culture and the interpretation of the perceived. If the percept does not have support in any of these perceptual bases it is unlikely to rise above perceptual threshold."

A lot of information reaches the eye, but much is lost by the time it reaches the brain (about 90% is lost). Therefore, the brain has to guess what a person sees based on past experiences. We actively construct our perception of reality.

Our perceptions of the world are hypotheses based on past experiences and stored information.

We are exposed to so many advertisements, that it is sometimes difficult to decide for only one product! We should try to select things which are really necessary, otherwise we will always spend more money than we should.

Interesting article about Perception:
http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/perception-theories.html