Self Concept & Personality

Before our self concept and personality lecture Ruth asked us to take personality test on My Personality.info to see who we really are. It turns out that i aim The "Advocate" (ENFT).

Like Barney Grumble our strengths are that we see the best in people and are likely to bring out the best in them. Puts a lot of effort to making things work out between people. I think this is a lovely personality :) what a positive way of thinking. The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator measures of the more dominant preferences when it comes to us taking in information and making decisions. This theory helps us to understand our working style however it does not calculate our capability. The end result of this personality test is given in scales which are parts of a personality, these are:

Extrovert (E) - Introversion (I)

Sensing (S) - Intuition (I)

Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)

Judging (J) - Perceiving (P)

"Self Concept- the beliefs a person holds his or her own attributes & how he or she evaluates those qualities" (Solomon, 1999). So in other words self concept is how you would see yourself or even how you would like to see yourself in the mirror, however what you may think of yourself other people may not think the same! Self concept can be broken down into three main aspects, these are:

Self Image- this is the kind of person you think you may be, the mental image you have of yourself.

Ideal Self- this is the the kind of person you wish to be, when it comes to bringing out a new product or service marketers will take advantage of this aspect. They would target a certain age group or gender and make them feel like if they purchase the product or service they would automatically feel so much better about themselves!

Self Esteem- this is the extent to which you like yourself, to whether you would approve of your self image.

"Personality- a person's unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment" (Solomon, 1999). Personality is the way you behave are and what type of person you really are, like Solomon states it makes you unique in every single way as nobody will have exactly the same personality as you. The kind of personality that you will have may change or developed through the way you have experienced your life.

Enterprise Week

Between the the 9th November to the 27th 2009 Buckinghamshire New University hosted Enterprise Festival. During this time there was many activities to take part in and to go and see. These were designed to get the students involved, work as a team and get their minds thinking more business like. There was lots of different activities which students could participate in such the apprentice challenge, The 24 Hour challenge, My great business idea and many more.

The Apprentice Challenge

The aim behind this challenge was to encourage students business planning, marketing, organisation, selling skills, time keeping etc. The challenge had three steps which were:

1. Sell doughnuts and make the largest profit
2. Promote and sell products of your choice to the public and make as much money on a market stall in the Eden Shopping Centre
3. Stage an event

Jane (who organised the apprentice challenge) came to one of our lectures and gave us a talk about Enterprise week and the benefits of taking part. After the talk majority of the class wanted to get involved and decided to get into groups and the competition. On the first day of the competition we had positioned ourselves in High Wycombe town to sell our doughnuts, as there was 12 other groups selling similar doughnuts we found it a challenge to sell our ones as majority of the locals kept on saying "sorry we just bought some from the other groups" sadly my group didn't get through to the next round however the group that did when the whole competition where my class friends.

A few of my friends and I volunteered to help Ruth on the day of one of the events of Enterprise week, this event was called 'Telling it like it is' it involved Bucks graduates talking on a panel about their experiences and challenges they faced while studying at the university this was then followed by questions & answers session. I really enjoined myself on this day as we all got to know the ex students and they was so helpful and full of advise which inspired me to be like them in three years time. :)

The second panel were people from the industry these people were:

Sue Elms- Millwood Brown

Sue Ullerman- Mediacom

George hudson- burston Marteller

Rick Haslam- RAPP

Matthew Chapman- Billets

Gender- Viva La Difference

For our introduction to gender lecture we started with discussing on ways to impress a woman, as a class we came up with respecting her, cuddling her, kissing her, spending money on her and protect her. If you think about it every single woman wants to feel secure, appreciated and most importantly be reminded that she is loved by the people who are close to her heart. Which means that it is much harder and some people might think that it can be time consuming to impress a woman than to impress a man.

Ruth then went on to talking about how to impress a man, Ruth had stated two and only two points on how to impress a man and these were 1) show up naked and 2) bring food. As you can tell there is so much more of a difference between both genders advertisers and marketers have to target them much more differently. Woman's adverts tend to be more complicated, detailed and mens have a much more straight forward story line to them.

However, here is an advert that i think is based on both genders. The reasons behind my thinking is because Lynx is showing the man that if he sprays himself in there chocolate deodorant he will become desirable to woman once they smell him. I feel that this advert is trying to make a woman want their man to smell like this because every body knows a woman can't resist some chocolate!

Are our brains wired differently?

Nadeau, R (1997) believes that man and woman are not only different from the hormones that drive them but they are also different in the way they think. The brains of males and females are wired differently. He then goes on and states that... "The human brain, like the human body, is sexed, and differences in the sex-specific human brain condition a wide range of behaviors that we typically associate with maleness or femaleness"

He then goes to describe that the reason why men and woman process information differently is because there is a portion in our brains called splenium which is much larger in a woman's brain than it is in a mans and also have more of a brain wave activity. There are also differences in a way men and woman communicate which are functioned by the sex-specific areas of the brain. Woman seem to have an enhanced awareness of "emotionally relevant details, visual cues, verbal nuances and hidden meanings".

Segmentation, targeting & positioning

Solomon (2006) sates that.. "the use of market segmentation strategies means targeting a brand only to specific groups of consumers rather than to everybody- even if that means that other consumers will not be interested or may choose to avoid that brand". For example, if Audi (a very popular car manufacture brand) designs a new jeep and wants to bring it onto the market they will have to deiced which market group they would want to aim their product on. By doing this Audi will have to segment their consumers into groups e.g. young professionals, families, where they live etc. Segmentation is just a process market researchers go through to divide particular groups in to sections which will be similar in their characteristics or behaviour. There are different segmentation veriables that will make it easier for any type of organisation to divide their markets into groups, The main four are Demographic, Geographic, Phschographic and Life Style.

Demographic Segmentation

The word demographic originates from the word 'demography which means 'study of population'. Population can be split up into many variables such as age, gender, income and family lifecycle. As people get older their needs and wants change, many organisations have invented many products aimed at specific age groups e.g. toys for children at all ages, clothes for teenagers etc. Gender segmentation is used very much so for when it comes to cosmetics, clothes and even magazines here are a few examples.

Geographic Segmentation
Geographical segmentation splits the markets into different regions. Marketers use this segmentation because consumers in different areas can show different charateristics and behaviours in particular areas e.g. in certain parts of London like West London there would be particular products being sold where you would not be able to buy in less developed parts such as certain areas of East London. An area can be divided by the town, region or even country. If there is a business working on a global scale it may divide the areas globally such as Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America.

Phschographic Segmentation
Demographic segementation is very useful to marketers when it comes to develop a more accurate profiles of their target segments. Phschographics segmentation can be split up into different characteristics such as lifestyle, social class and personality.

Lifestyle Segmentation

The Oxford English dictionary defines a lifestyle "as a way of life" and lifestyle segmentation aims to examine the way people live. Soloman (2006) also defines lifestyle to be.... "a set shared values or tastes exhibited by a group especially as these are reflected on con sumption patterns."

The every day activities we do, our beliefs on certain subjects, our opinions and our interests makes us who we are. Marketers would refer these as AIO's which stands for Activities, Interest and Opinions. Our AIO shows our everyday behaviour from where we go shopping to what we decide to buy. Every marketer when it comes to developing and aiming their products or services look at the lifestyle of the particular group and then develop a lifestyle profile on their target market. If a marketer was to do reasearch on the lifestyle a particular group leads they could then sell their product or services to them on the basis that this would improve on their lifestyle.

These two pictures demostrates the different lifestyles people can lead. The first picture shows a couple who look like they have a very high paid job in the city, expensive car, only purchase organic food and live in an amazing house/flat marketers would call this group as the Yuppies. The second picture shows an elderly couple who can also be put into the target group called the Third agers. These people are over 50, retired, may have a high disposable income and as they are retired they would have time on their hands which can make them very adventurous and experimental.

Here is a Youtube video that explains in more detail what Market Segmentation is:

After the segmentation process comes Targeting, this is used when a organisation decides how it is going to target particular groups. Wright (2000) states that targeting is... "When the possible segmentation have been identified and the characteristics of each group having been clearly researched and established, the organization chooses which segments to target and which groups to ignore. The target group is organized in gender, age, lifestyle or behavior".

Once an organisation has selected its target market the next stage would be Positioning, this i when the organisation decides on how they will there product or service with their chosen target audience. Positioning refers to ‘how organisations want their consumers to see their product’. For example, years ago the the UK car Skoda brand had a negative brand associations however Volkswagen took over the brand and has changed Skoda into a award winning cars, this positive reputation has changed the perception of consumers that would never consider purchasing a Skoda car. perception of the brand.

I personally think that the message Skoda is trying to give to their consumers or potential consumers through this advert is that they are a much better brand now and are capable of more amazing creations.