Selling Colour

Different colours are used in marketing to target or suit their potential type of customer. For example red can reach out to men and women.


The colour red symbolises blood, luxury, fire and passion as well as having its own physical properties, e.g. red catches the eye more than any other colour.The ancient dynasties of China chose red shoes to indicate status and wealth and the Popes red slippers in the Vatican shows that red shoes are recognised as special. Red originally was an expensive dye so to wear anything red you would have had to be wealthy.

As you can see the brand L'Oreal has used red to signify beauty, passion and luxury and possibly wealth in this advert.

Here you can see Cheryl Cole in a red dress, and a red vase and lamp in the background 

The red here catches the eye immediately and shows the consumer the beauty of this car.

The initial marketing tool for this Mercedes SLS AMG was a billboard with this image on it and underneath it said 

'THE AVERAGE PERSON LOOKS AT AN ADVERT FOR 2.6 SECONDS'.

This is all it said but people waiting in traffic or passing by this billboard got drawn in by the colour of the car which then made them think how spectacular the car was and by the time they read this, they had been looking at the billboard for about 10 seconds, and by the time they realised how long they were looking at it, 20 seconds had gone by which is very clever how they got their consumer interested in this product.

Perception and the 5 Senses

What is Perception?


Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us and involves both the recognition of environmental stimuli and actions in response to these stimuli. Through the perceptual process, we gain information about properties and elements of the environment that are critical to our survival. Perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment. Perception includes the five senses; touch, sight, taste smell and taste.

The perceptual process

The perceptual process is a sequence of steps that begins with the environment and leads to our perception of a stimulus and an action in response to the stimulus. This process is continual, but you do not spend a great deal of time thinking about the actual process that occurs when you perceive the many stimuli that surround you at any given moment.

The process of transforming the light that falls on your retinas into an actual visual image happens unconsciously and automatically. The subtle changes in pressure against your skin that allow you to feel object occur without a single thought.

Here is each step of the perceptual process

The Environmental Stimulus

The world is full of stimuli that can attract our attention through various senses. The environmental stimulus is everything in our environment that has the potential to be perceived.

This might include anything that can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled or heard. It might also involve the sense of proprioception, such as the movements of the arms and legs or the change in position of the body in relation to objects in the environment.

For example, imagine that you are out on a morning jog at your local park. As you perform your workout, there are a wide variety of environmental stimuli that might capture your attention. The tree branches are swaying in the slight breeze; a man is out on the grass playing fetch with his Golden Retriever; a car drives past with the windows rolled down and the music blaring; a duck splashes in a nearby pond. All of these things represent the environmental stimuli, serving as a starting point for the perceptual process.

The Attended Stimulus

The attended stimulus is the specific object in the environment on which our attention is focused. In many cases, we might focus on stimuli that are familiar to us, such as the face of a friend in a crowd of strangers at the local coffee shop. In other instances, we are likely to attend to stimuli that have some degree of novelty.

The Image on the Retina

The attended stimulus is formed as an image on the retina. The first part of this process involves the light actually passing through the cornea and pupil and onto the lens of the eye. The cornea helps focus the light as it enters the eye, and the iris of the eye controls the size of the pupils in order to determine how much light to let in. The cornea and lens act together to project an inverted image on the retina.

Transduction

The image on the retina is then transformed into electrical signals in a process known as transduction. This allows the visual messages to be transmitted to the brain to be interpreted.

The retina contains many photoreceptor cells. These cells contain proteins known as rods and cones. Rods are primarily for seeing things in low light, while cones are associated with detecting colour and shapes at normal light levels.

Neural Processing

The electrical signals then undergo neural processing. The path followed by a particular signal depends on what type of signal it is (i.e. an auditory signal or a visual signal).

Perception

In the next step of the perceptual process, you will actually perceive the stimuli and become aware of its presence in the environment.

Recognition

Perception doesn't just involve becoming consciously aware of the stimuli. It is also necessary for our brain to categorize and interpret what it is we are sensing. Our ability to interpret and give meaning to the object is the next step, known as recognition.The recognition stage is an essential part of perception since it allows us to make sense of the world around us. By placing objects in meaningful categories, we are able to understand and react to the world around us.

Action

The final step of the perceptual process involves some sort of action in response to the environmental stimulus. This could involve a variety of actions, such as turning your head for a closer look or turning away to look at something else.


source: http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/perceptproc_2.htm

Perception is the process of sensing, selecting and interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world (Wilkie 1994)


'Perception is how we see the world around us' (Schiffman)

These adverts are using humour to connect with their audiences it order to promote their product or service, this method is often in commericals althought some commercials get banned taking it abit to far and is appropriate to audineces such as kids.


For example this IKEA  and Nandos commercials below got bannedfor ebing inappropriate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjsrUTk8Jho


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE3ZB9Oz5HE






Marketing Stimuli have important sensory qualities. We all rely on colours, odours, sounds, tastes and even the 'feel' of products when forming evaluations of them.


The 5 Senses are :
HEARING





























SIGHT

SMELL

TASTE

TOUCH

In terms of marketing these 5 senses are the things that entice the potential customer.  A television advert could use between 1 and 5 of these senses to try and market there product to make it as appealing as possible. For example many car adverts, such as BMW use hearing to allow the consumer the hear the sound the car's engine to attract the likely person who would buy their car and the vision of the leather of the cars seats helps the consumer identify the touch of the car just by watching an advert or looking at a billboard.

First Step To Understanding Your Customer

The key to marketing is to identify and satisfy customer Needs and Wants, market research enables us to understand this. A business firstly can look at the way a person dresses in order to get an indication of what things they like such as hobbies, music and clothes they like as well as what lifestyle they live simply on 3 major steps.

Dress

The way people dress is very beneficial for business in

dentifying what they like so they know exactly what to sell to keep them interested in the brand and potentially entice them into being part of their loyal customer base.

• Types of Brands, give businesses an idea of what sort of social group they are from, for example the difference between someone wearing Primark and Ralph Lauren is very helpful as it is easy to identify someone from a lower class background, such as a C2 in the socio-economic class and someone who buys luxury clothing and is from a high class background such as an A or B in the socio-economic scale
• Colours- allow businesses to understand typical lifestyles of customers for example brighter colours on a person may suggest they are a happier person.
• Trends- help understand what things these customers want, for example someone who wears alot of black, has long hair is stereotyped into the gothic genre and maybe potentially like heavy metal music. It is just the way people are stereotyped helps categorize them into knowing what products the will appreciate more than others

Body Language

The body language people use defines what sort of person they are, therefore what sort of products they would buy.

• Posture- reflects what sort of background they are from. Someone who stands up straight, head back indicates that they are pompous and wealthy which would mean they would buy high income goods.
• Accents- the type of accent can indicate what background that person is from such as their social class which would then show what products they would potentially be interested in.

People are multi-layered unique and share a lot of traits.