Reptilian! THE CHEESE IS ALIVE!

This isn’t part of any of the questions or assignment, but I just loved “Do you feel accepting when you eat bread, do you feel lonely when you eat bread?” That comment just resonated with me. It made me worry about what was to come. As marketers are we supposed to be a bit zany asking off the wall questions. When I think of bread, I think carbs. Then even nuttier was “the cheese is alive!” I just had to get that off my chest because it was a little weird and made me question why I was watching this video.

Now to begin with Dr. Rapaille, his way about interrogating consumers and gaining insights is very different from the traditional method of asking “do you feel accepting when you eat bread?” He begins his three step method by going after the brains cortex. He asks the individuals in his different focus groups to take a look at a word, such as “luxury” in the video, and then say words that they feel are associated to this word. He asks them to come up with words that they think of when they hear the word “luxury”. I would call this the cortex step. The narrator describes the three steps as through reason, past emotion and finally to the primal core where Rapaille feels that all purchasing decisions lie. Therefore the first step is to blatantly ask the consumer. He says that people want to show how intelligent they really are. Then he explained that in the next step he wants to get into the emotions of the consumer. He asks them to tell them a story like he was a 5 year old. He says that this works because the consumers no longer try to be logical, but rather they try and explain a story to a 5 year old. This plays into the emotion of the consumer and starts slowly progressing away from the logic. This is one step closer to discovering the underlying rationale behind consumer purchases. In the third step he begins by placing them back in the room with only pillows occupying the space. He then emphasizes searching for the reptilian code. Here he tries to tap into the primal instincts of humans. He believes that consumers make their choices based on primal instinct.

When looking at the reptilian code for the example given which was luxury, I began by going through the first step of the process. Some words that came to my mind were costly and elite. I didn’t go through the second step, but I ended up realizing that my primal code for luxury is prestige and the way a product will make me look to others.

Song Airlines was a very interesting concept. As I’ve written in different blogs, I have this new found passion for organic meals. While watching the piece on Song Airlines, I became confused about who the company was. However, when they mentioned Jet Blue, I immediately knew that company. I never had even seen the commercial that was featured in the movie. However, I did enjoy watching the marketing consultant as he sped through ideas that he felt would convey the message of the airliner. I also liked that they referred to themselves as guerilla marketers. They felt they were the underdog. This showed in their showing of the commercial. They were going after a niche market and usually the niche company is the underdog to larger companies, in this case Jet Blue and other larger major airliners. Some things I didn’t like were the things they were offering. At the time of release of this move, which was around 2004, organic food wasn’t large enough, and didn’t have a large enough market base to propel Song Airlines in that respect. I also didn’t like the way they were going about competing with their competitors. They had to show points of differentiation that were relevant to people who would fly. In the airline business, an empty seat is lost money, and I don’t feel that with their offerings they could legitimately compete with any other company. They would have had to substantially increase price in order to cover the cost of their services which didn’t serve a large enough market to begin with.

I really enjoyed the Persuades because it made me think a lot of what I do as a consumer. It also gave some good views as to the way marketers go to attempting to persuade the consumers to spend money. BIG MONEY!

Kenna? Who's that?

Prior to reading this case, I had never heard of Kenna. I’m not sure if that is because I’m not a music junkie or because I only listen to certain types of music or something else. Therefore it was interesting to get through the read to gain an understanding of both sides of the pendulum. As I got through the reading, I found myself on the Top 40 side of Kenna’s dilemma. I would not give his music love because he isn’t popular and because he doesn’t get publicity from any channels that I trust. I mean that the social influencers out there that would usually push music that I may listen to, aren’t doing so with Kenna. I’m not opposed to new bands, soloists, or styles of music, but after some reflection, I have found that I’m most likely going to be turned on to such things because of social influencers such as friends, family, blogs, and websites.

My question throughout the reading was “why do I behave this way?” I hoped that in understanding why I behaved this way, I would gain a better understanding of the consumer. The end of the article explains that consumer behavior is much like expert behavior in that we arrive at the same end outcome. However experts combine different elements of scaling attributes, while regular consumers are unable to do this.

So what major lessons can be taken away from the article? I think the major takeaway is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. I mean that you can’t take your first test sample consumer report and decide to scratch a product or service simply because the test sample wasn’t positive. The article discussed many instances where product testing proved to be a sorry indicator of product success. The Pepsi/Coke example and the Aeron chair example were just a few that showed that sometimes tests can go awry. This lesson is shown in many other instances as well. An example I can give of an initial bias is with the Kenna music. When I entered class this past Wednesday and heard a song of Kenna’s, I was a little annoyed. I wasn’t sure what kind of music it was and I didn’t like it. However, after listening to it in my own environment, I found myself enjoying the song. This is because I normally didn’t enjoy music in class. It wasn’t the right place for me to be listening to music. However if I hear a song of Kenna’s in my car, I’m sure I would continue listening instead of just tuning it out. This covers my initial lesson and flows through into my second major lesson the article teaches.

The author of the article makes a small but major conclusion. There is more to a product than just the quality of the product. The packaging becomes the product. In the article, many different products were cited on how they grew or declined in sales solely based on their packaging and their perceived quality in the subconscious human mind. Since I was introduced to Kenna in a setting that I was where I normally wouldn’t hear good music, I was turned off. No offense to Mr. Walls, but I didn’t think that I would be listening to the same array of music as my Professor. Therefore, my subconscious alerted me that this song “packaging” wasn’t where I liked it and it tarnished Kenna or the brand. If I had discovered Kenna on my own, I would have felt a deeper connection to the musician as I usually do with such artists that I find through my own channels.

Therefore, I find it very important when considering the consumer that we look to these two major lessons from the chapter from Blink. Because we as consumers don’t always know what we want and will therefore be turned off by new, innovative, or just plain weird products, it is important to consider other factors besides consumer test markets before deciding to progress or scratch through a product release. I also think that when considering a product, we should not look at pure quality of the product, but also the brand and packaging associated with the product. When purchasing grooming or hygiene products I find myself continuously buying products that are dark blue or black in package color because I associate this with “man” products. I never buy products that are pink or purple in packaging because I don’t think I share the same characteristics as the users of this product would. Therefore it is important to consider more than just the “taste” of your product. We must consider the environment, packaging, branding, and subconscious consumer mind that sifts through these factors when coming to a purchasing decision.