Hello and welcome to my blog!
I am currently a student at the University of Huddersfield studying Events Management, and one of the modules that I am studying is Consumer Behaviour & Experiential Marketing. Part of the module I am required to comment on current affairs within this subject.
So please take a look at my blog and feel free to comment your thoughts on them!
Enjoy reading!
The countdown to the
new Star Wars film The Force Awakens has started to almost be in single figures
and there are lots more merchandise of the franchise appearing in shops around
us.
Next month in
Manchester there will be a convention held called “For the love of the Force” between
4th-6th December and part of the convention to promote
the new film being released and attract attendees to the convention they are
opening The Cantina bar!
The bar is a replica
of the bar The Cantina that we see in the Star Wars films and you are able to
order the drinks (cocktails) that are drunk in the film. This form of
experiential marketing is great in my opinion! The fan base for this film is
huge and is something a lot of people will want to get involved with, hopefully
attracting new market as well, by attendees bringing their friends along to
this bar to experience this, in hope that it inspire them to watch the new film
and attend this convention.
This form of
experiential sensory marketing will be connecting with our senses by creating
an environment that we have seen in the film (sight and touch), creating drinks
that are in the film for us to try ourselves (sight, smell and taste),
providing music that is heard in the film in the bar (hearing).
So why not go and take
a look at this bar and try for yourself some Bantha Milk; famously drunk by
Luke Skywalker himself, or even some Wookie Juice, a Princess Punch or a Jam
Jar Binks and have a look around this convention.
Below is the link to
the Cantina scene from Star Wars so if you have never seen it before you can
get a feel for what it would look like.
It’s here… The advert
that thousands of people have been waiting in anticipation for, creating smiles
and tears and totally over run social media websites. It’s the John Lewis
Christmas advert.
Last year’s advert was
a huge success and touched the hearts of many people, and in my opinion this
year would be a very hard to beat. The story of a little boy and a cute penguin
called Monty delivered the message of “Give someone the Christmas they have
been dreaming of” by creating a story that everyone emotionally connected with
as it brought love, family and friends altogether. See below the advert link
On Friday the 6th
November at 8am the 2015 John Lewis advert was released. Two weeks later it has
had 17,511,431 views on YouTube, the new advert has created a lot of debate
between people. Some absolutely loving it and other opinions of dissatisfaction
with it. See link below to watch the video.
Every year around
Christmas time John Lewis creates an advert as a way of promoting their brand
and the products they sell, but instead they do it in a way that we are not
fully aware until the end of the advert where we see what we are actually being
exposed to.
This year saw Man on
the Moon, the story of a small girl living on earth who looks in to her
telescope every day to look at an elderly man who is on the moon, and she does
something for him this Christmas, buying him a telescope so he can look at the
world and see this little girl as well. Creating the message of “Show someone
they’re loved this Christmas” and ending the advert with “continue the story”.
Instead of being given
advert or catalogue that just shows standalone pictures of the products John
Lewis sell, they create a story for us to connect with and give an emotional
response, and at the same time creating product placement, by show us their
products subliminally. There are over
100 products in the 2 minute advert; that range from the telescope the young
girl uses to the wrapping paper, all products can be found on the John Lewis
website under a section called Man on the Moon.
It looks at the idea
of old and new, family, love & togetherness at this time of year, and I
really felt like it made me think about my family and especially lost ones, and
did bring me goosebumps, making me want to do something special for the people
I am lucky to have in my life still.
Although, the subject
of this advert is actually quite saddening as the old man is seen as being very
lonely on the moon by himself, once he receives the present from the small girl
everything changes as he is finally connected. Looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs theory you can see the first three stages have been successfully met by
John Lewis in the advert; physiological, safety and belongingness. These three
stages are what marketers aim to meet in marketing campaigns as the last two
(ego needs and self-actualization) are actually harder to achieve in this form.
You see the first three stages being met by:
Physiological: both
characters have water, food and a place to sleep.
Safety: both
characters have shelter and protection. The old man may be on the moon but you
see that he has a little home and the little girl has a home too and her family
around her to keep her safe. If the old man had no home, it would have created
a very different story and feelings towards it.
Belongingness: we see
the idea of love and friendship between the two characters bringing the idea of
belongingness to the advert, knowing that there is someone there and thinking
of him even though they are millions of miles away from each other.
The advert creates the
Affective decision making process for consumers and motivates them to go buy
their products because it created this emotional trigger for people to buy from
this retailer instantaneously. Also by creating the tag line of “continue the
story” motivates the consumer to do just that. Go out and create their own
follow on from this story. This could be buying their children the telescope
from the advert for them to look out at stars and the moon, or even just buying
a gift for a loved one from their retail stores this Christmas. It could also
be prompting consumers who are more of habitual decision makers, as they only
really shop at John Lewis annually around this time of year.
In my views, I think
this advert is successful and does what John Lewis set out to do and that is
create a message through a story that we can all emotionally connect too. Everything
in the video, from the beautiful acoustic cover of Oasis’s Half the World Away
which relates to the story, to the tear that is shed by the old man and the
happiness of the little girl getting to see the old man happy is all beautiful
and creates the consumer involvement for the viewer. Creating involvement in
many ways, for example by letting you position yourself in that story, making
you think about loved ones, motivating you to do something for someone you love
this Christmas to also sharing your feelings about the advert by using the
hashtag #manonthemoon on social media.
Billboards, whether or
not their small or huge, they are something that are around us all the time
that we all notice, promoting different brands, events, films, etc. Normally
just providing us with key information we need to know, could just be one word,
a couple of words with pictures or even just a picture. But Carlsberg, a Danish
brewing company, decided to go one step further with their billboard back in
April 2015 named ‘Probably the best poster in the world’.
The company Carlsberg
situated a billboard in the middle of busy London Street, Brick Lane, where
lots of people go every day and is close to Shoreditch, where the taste for craft beers and ales are becoming more
popular than mainstream lagers. By placing it here it would hopefully reconnect
this market with this product again.
Very simply the
billboard just said ‘Probably the best poster in the world’ in the same font as
the Carlsberg logo on a green background, the same colour Carlsberg use for their packaging, creating
this connection between the stimuli and the brand so people knew what brand it
was straight away, as our minds remember these connections between colour and
font. Then situated in the middle of the billboard was a working beer tap so
people could pull themselves a pint and have a taste of this product whilst
walking past.
Watch the link to see
the reaction to this poster..
People did seem a bit
wary of this poster to begin with and didn’t really know if it was real and
whether it was going to actually give you a ‘taster’ of this lager or whether
it was just there for show but people were quick to realise it wasn’t and
started lining up to have a go.
This is an example of
experiential marketing, Carlsberg had created a link between their advertising
and the consumer by creating an experience for them to take part in. Carlserg
provided their audience with a chance to try their product for free, so instead
of just reading a billboard about their product they could actually taste, smell
and experience it for themselves. So in the future when they see other
billboards or even this product for sale they have this connection as they have
already once tried it and could influence their decision making.
They also encouraged
people to share their experience on social media using the hashtag trend
#probablythebest creating publicity for the brand and passing this message of
that Carlsberg is potentially the best lager in the market, in hope that this
raises their sales.
This
month saw season 6 of the TV show The Walking Dead from AMC come back to our TV
screens! I am a huge fan of this show and I have been very excited for it to
return. For anyone who is unfamiliar with this TV show, it is about a group of
people who are trying to survive in the world that has been overrun by zombies,
it is definitely worth a watch.
Whilst on Instagram a
couple of days ago the account for The Walking Dead (amcthewalkingdead)
uploaded a picture of a fan who had taken part in their trend ‘#DeadYourself’
by downloading their app ‘Dead Yourself’ and making their own picture. In the
Instagram post they state that the app has been updated and this has been done
for the new season of this TV show.
This is a perfect example
of experiential marketing by AMC who are the creators of this show. They are
engaging their viewers with an experience that they can take part in and have a
bit of fun with, and at the same time AMC are promoting the show in a different
way than just a poster on a billboard on the street.
The app is available
from app stores both for Apple and Android products and is very simple to
navigate and straightforward which makes the app user happy and willing to
proceed and take part. There are several options to choose from on the app,
each of them all related to different parts in the TV program using props,
characters and imagery. The reasoning for this is to give the user a feel that
they are part of this Walking Dead movement. This is using the method of
sensory marketing as it is getting their viewers involved through their senses
of touch and vision. While the whole
time using the app at the bottom is a reminder that the TV show is starting
again on a certain date, time and what channel it will be shown on.
Each of the
subcategories on the app are different and you can ‘zombify’ yourself on them,
by choosing different mouths, eyes, wounds, weapons, and more. Below you can
see the process on one of the subcategories that I took part in, finally ending
it off with giving your picture a tagline. Most of the taglines included #dead
which links in with the #deadyourself that AMC are trying to get trending. Once you have made
your zombified image of yourself, it saves the image to your phone straight
away. When saving this image the app adds a filter over the top which says “FOX
The Walking Dead. Dead Yourself” which is AMC’s way of promoting and marketing
the show again. After you are given the opportunity to share this image with
your friends on every social media site you are a member of. By sharing this
image you are passing this message on about The Walking Dead show and the
#deadyourself trend, which is what the company are wanting you to do, it is
cheap and easy marketing for the show. As well as creating this platform to
share your image with your friends, you also get given your own gallery on the
app where people from all around the world can see your creations and AMC often
pick a fan’s picture out to be shared on the Instagram page.
AMC have been very
clever when choosing this route to market their show. They have picked
something creative for their fans to get involved with and created a trend
which will be seen all over the internet, by different ages and in different
countries. This is an easy and cheap way of marketing, as once their fans get
involved and start sharing their pictures on the social media pages, their
friends will start to see these pictures and question what they are for. This
may result in them downloading the app for themselves and taking part and
continuing this cycle, by passing the message on to their friends, and so on.
Doing this is raising awareness of what the point in these pictures are, and it
is for the release of the new season of The Walking Dead, which you can see
written in the corner of any of the pictures created and on the app home
screen. Each time one of these pictures are shared with the #deadyourself
trend, more and more people are exposed to this movement and may take an
interest in to watching the TV program.
Below are a couple of
my images that my friend and I created with the app, seems perfect as it is just in time for
Halloween as well!
“People will forget
what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget
how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou, Poet & Philosopher
Welcome to my blog
where I am going to be discussing experiential marketing and consumer behaviour.
I will be sharing my personal experiences and other examples that I come
across. The quote I stated at the start of my blog is so true and this is what
companies and organisations need to think about when marketing their ideas.
Soloman (2014, pg.33)
defines Consumer Behaviour as the “study of the processes involved when
individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services,
ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.” We are seeing that a lot more
companies are coming away from the traditional method of marketing (for example
leaflets and posters) and moving more towards the idea of experiential
marketing and creating an experience that will stay with the consumer, as they want
more than just satisfaction from the product or service.
We are seeing a shift
from traditional marketing to experiential marketing as companies are seeing
that it is not all about that ‘purchase moment’ for a consumer. It is actually
an ongoing process from the moment the consumer thinks about that product or
service, so they need to remember the consumption process; pre-purchase issues,
purchase issues and post-purchase issues, engaging the customer throughout.
References
Solomon, M. (2014). Consumer
behavior. Harlow: Pearson/Education.
