consumer psychology

Based on the two films, The Persuaders and Merchants of Cool, Jack Trout's theory about the consumer mind might need reevaluation. Admittedly, some of Trout's theories about the consumer mind are fairly accurate: the consumer mind is limited and hates confusion. The consumer mind is limited to the point that certain people will be more receptive to certain methods of advertising and the product/service. A black, white-collared worker with a daughter in college is more likely to watch basketball on television (i.e., be exposed to appropriate advertisements during the basketball game) than a white, twenty-something college graduate female with a degree in English. Certain products/services are designed for certain audiences, hence the consumer mind is limited to what is individually necessary. Second, the consumer mind hates confusion. In the film The Persuaders there is a scene in which the newly developed Song airline has a launch store in the mall. An older man walks into the Song store and is confused as to what product/service is being presented. He is confused to the point of asking the woman behind the counter if they are a travel agency. He is corrected; Song is in fact an airline. Close enough, but not close enough to convince advertisers that the consumer mind hates confusion.

To combat the changing media arena of stream television on the internet and TiVo, commercials are becoming rare it seems. However, as The Persuaders states, advertising agencies are continuing to focus their efforts on product placement. This is an incredibly useful tool because not only is the product/service incorporated into the program (hopefully intelligently and not terribly obvious) but it is also being utilized by a famous person. This aspect of using famous people to market products/services was touched upon briefly in both Persuaders and Merchants, specifically with Jerry Seinfeld for American Express and Limp Bizkit for a "cool" MTV.

Marketing and advertising are dangerous businesses to get involved with. There are so many factors that can influence how consumers respond and digest the information being presented by advertisements. The factors are endless: age, socio-economic status, race, gender, the economy, cultural trends, fads, intelligence, and "coolness" to name some of the most prevalent factors I consider marketers and advertisers to take into account when producing a campaign for a product/service. There is so much information to keep track of and multiple factors to consider when making a decision about how and why a product/service should be marketed one way and not the other.

Even though marketing and advertising has an arguably negative connotation, at least the consumer world is more three dimensional, instead of everything looking plain.