Marketing perspective factory (Pavlov's conept)

Pavlov’s customers may wake up in the future?

Yan Zhang April 2016


Pavlov’s Dog is a famous experiment in psychological field. Gradually marketers use this model to ‘train’ the customers. Marketers combine the unconditional stimulus and conditional stimulus to build Pavlov’s customers. Some people perhaps not aware of themselves becoming a Pavlov’s customer at all. However, looking at these examples you may realize the real situation. Black Friday is the fourth Thursday of the November, it is a common day for people originally. The government and marketers give the sales promotion for customers. It seems as an unconditional stimulus and people give the positive response easily. And bell said ‘Black Friday is best day for shopping because of the lower price.’ And these processes repeat year after year. Finally, people have a habit to go shopping on Black Friday. This day has different meaning for people, it is successful to create a conditioned response for marketing. 

At the same time, companies use Pavlov’s concept to catch the customers’ attention. Almost people would say I never influenced by advertisements when I consumed something. In fact, it is impossible to refuse all the advertisements in life. A champagne advertisement from Youtube, use the words ‘celebrate’ and ‘luxury’ to link the products. Therefore, when the people want to celebrate birthday might be reminded of the champagne.

The Pavlov’s concept is used frequently in the marketing. It means that might lose the function after overused. People are different from the dog in Pavlov’s experiment. They will to think and analyse the issues. The customers will wake up and not influenced by classical conditioning without control. Particularly, in the luxury goods market. For instance, people want to buy a car and the price is the significant factor influenced decision. So the BMW advertisements make no sense for these customers who cannot afford the luxury car. Although the BMW advertisement use the Pavlov’s concept. Because the luxury goods have limited target marketing. 

In the modern society, more and more customers immune to advertisements. (McGovern, 2011) They have lots of choices to select products so the customers may consider about many parts such as price, quantity. The abundant products will make customers become more rational in purchasing.

The Pavlov’s effect will still exist but the impact on customers could be weak in the future.

Reference:

McGovern,G. (2011) Customer experience: Pavlov's Dog are waking up. Retrieved from: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/customer-experience-pavlovs-dogs-are-waking-up-013290.php

Marketing perspective factory( Brand experience)

Brand experience and live event

Yan Zhang March 2016


As the theory referred by Brakus (2009), the brand experience could be described definitely like that ‘internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings, and cognitions) as well as behavioural responses that are evoked by brand’ (p.53).  That could be summarised as an experience of ‘communicating’ with brand for customers. Giving an example close to our daily life. A well-known fast food brand Mcdonald’s, people may have an impression about tempting food advertisement. And the advantages like fast and cheap meet almost people’s requirements. Then customers start to buy food from the Mcdonald’s. At the same time, people have a feedback or some comments for this brand. In every year, Mcdonald’s has a Monopoly game to reinforce the brand attractiveness. This kind of the strategy focus on psychology of the customers that want to get extra benefits from the brand. These processes involve the sensory, affective, intellectual and behavioural four dimensions. For customers, it could be a memorable brand experience if you win first prize during the Monopoly game. It sounds crazy and exciting about this unlikely dream.

Springer showed her opinion that brand come alive is one of the best way to display the creativity without limitation. The audiences interact with brands totally in special environment. By the way, I am agree with the idea from Handley. She said that ‘live events are arguably the ultimate brand experience.'Listing a typical example, you cannot image the pictures of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion before starting. Because they always surprise the audiences year by year. While people feel lower impression in the Victoria’s Secret shop than live fashion show. Victoria’s Secret  launched first show in 1995 and now get more than 9.48 million viewers. Even people label the ‘erogenous’ ‘charming’ for Victoria’s Secret. This brand gives the visual feast for customers and get the customer’s loyalty.

And I am willing to share specific brand experience about a small live event. This event was hold by final year students who study the event management. The event was called International fashion show. When I heard the name of the event, the size of the event I imaged would be big. This is one of the reasons to attract me to take part in the event. The poster drive my curiosity to go to the event. Because there only a beautiful girl. In my mind, I would to fantasy the scene of the international fashion show. Moreover, ‘free’ could be the biggest factor to attract people.

In fact, the event involved no more than ten countries. However, A place in the Sun managing director Andy Bridge claims that a smaller live event can cut the distance betweeen the exhibitor and visitor. Therefore, I have a clear sight of the models and enjoy the show entirely. 

From the picture, audiences are close to the T-stage with strong sensory experience. During the event, it had a quick interaction with audiences. And exhibitors arrange the audiences make a group to discuss the questions were given by them. The audiences can aftertaste the first half of the show. I think it is a good approach to avoid the overloading of the sensory. At the end of the event, audiences can take pictures with models. One of the measures to change the short-term memory into long-term memory under the stimulation by photos.  

This is the latest brand experience from live event. It also teaches me a lot knowledge of the fashion. That might be the purpose of the event want to express.

Reference:

Handley, L. (2011) Live shows deepen the brand experience. Retrieved from: http://www.marketingweek.com/2011/02/09/live-shows-deepen-the-brand-experience/

Schmitt, B. H., Brakus, J., & Zarantonello, L. (2014). The current state and future of brand experience. Journal of Brand Management, 21(9), 727. doi:10.1057/bm.2014.34

Springer, K. (2013). Victoria's Secret- The Brand Experience Retrieved from http://www.shebuildsbrands.com/#!Victorias-Secret-The-Brand-Experience/c1qyy/57995BEB-FA4B-46B8-A3C7-21EDFC6D055D

Marketing perspective factory ( Brand trust)

Brand trust likes a huge man in the marketing

Yan Zhang February 2016


Tesco is one of the most famous brands among the supermarkets. However, the BBC new reported that Tesco knowingly delayed payment to suppliers. The purpose was found by supermarket ombudsman that Tesco in term of improve its financial position. (Simpson, 2016) At the same time, there was £ 250m black hole in the accounts in 2014. These kind of scandals could damage the reputation of the brand and lose customers’ loyalty. Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst said “The company is not out of the woods yet, but has at at least started on the slow path of recovery.” Facing a difficulty, Chief executive of Tesco Dave Lewis said that Tesco will focus on changing the relationship with suppliers and customers and adopting the recommendations positively from public.

Tesco suffered a huge challenge after crisis. Competition is not only rife in wholesale supermarkets but also in retail. Lidl is one of the UK’s fastest growing retail chains and win the lots of customers from Tesco. Because retailers pay more attention to the consumer loyalty and trust. The customers perhaps doubt the quality of the products because of the mistakes made by top of the company. Although the quality of the products is not relevant to the scandal. These scandals will damage the trust from customers and lose a plenty of the potential customers. (Clark, 2014)

                                                                                                       

From the picture, Tesco shows the clear slogan “Never pay more for your branded shop” and guarantee the price lower than rivals. And in the March 2016, Tesco announced an own-label rebrand fresh food. (Hobbs,2016) It promoted the new products with great discounts for customers. Tesco in order to regain more customers from the discounters, reducing the prices by 3% over a year period. (Hobbs, 2016) After all the price of the products is an important factor will influence the decision by customers. The price war is first step of the strategy to regain the trust of the customers and competitiveness. As Lewis said: “I set out three tasks- regaining competitiveness, rebuilding trust and gaining greater transparency in areas such as price.”

The most companies have been suffered scandals and result in losing customers’ trust. They try best to rebuild the brand trust.  But why the companies care about the brand trust strongly? First of all, Brand trust as a valuable intangible assets of the brand. (Rao et al, 2004) The data from a survey on Word-of-Mouth marketing, it takes up 58% of the respondents that they were willing to recommend the companies which gave the positive experience for them to friends. It means that a company may lose more than half potential customers if it had a low brand trust.  Moreover, brand trust also like a tool to help company beat the rivals. For example, people had a good experience from the British airway before then they will deem it as first choice. (Williams, 2014)

Reference

Clarke, M. (2014) how can Tesco rescue its brand reputation and restore customer loyalty. Retrieved from: http://www.mycustomer.com/experience/voice-of-the-customer/how-can-tesco-rescue-its-brand-reputation-and-restore-customer

Hobbs, T. (2016) Tesco says brand trust is ‘returning’ as it posts first quarterly sales growth in three years. Retrieved from: http://www.marketingweek.com/2016/04/13/tesco-says-brand-trust-is-returning-as-it-posts-first-quarterly-sales-growth-in-three-years/

Simpson, E. (2016) Tesco Knowingly delayed payments to suppliers. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35408064

Williams, S. Three Reasons Why Trust is Important. Retrieved from: http://blog.logogarden.com/branding/3-reasons-brant-trust-important/