Pervasiveness of Marketing

In his 1982 article, “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals,” Jib Fowles informs readers of various psychological human needs, defined as appeals. These appeals are used in advertising, to persuade consumers to purchase a product. Due to the prevalence of advertisements in today’s society, consumers have learned to block out advertisements. By using any of the fifteen appeals such as the need for sex, or the need for affiliation, companies can get into consumers’ minds, with hopes of selling their products. In other words, by appealing to consumers desires, the chance of marketing success

The demographic characteristics of customers can be broken down by the class they choose to fly. First Class is chiefly attracting high-income earners, who are concerned with a high level of service and enjoy an air of exclusivity. These are knows as “comfort seekers” and they can include business magnates, federal politicians, sporting stars and a-list celebrities. The First Class market is highly concentrated; less than 3% of passengers will choose to fly First Class but those customers make up close to 30% in revenue for the airline (Keen and Strand 2007). Because the focus is on service and

Advertising is all around us. Companies of all sorts rely heavily on internet, television, print, and various other types of media outlets as means to reach their audience. Advertising aims to bring in more customers and thereby, more profit. All of this is complicated by the fact that, out of the vast number of products and services available, companies want to prove that theirs are the best. From this is born the tricky and unique language of advertising. In their respective articles, With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything and The Language of Advertising, both William Lutz and Charles A. O’Neill discuss popular ploys used by marketing advertisers to rope in the most customers. Lutz takes a

Over the years, it is apparent that adverts in general have adapted their advertising language by employing extensive methods of persuasion, instead of focusing on their actual product or purpose.

The Persuaders (2004, directed by Douglass Rushcoff) is a documentary with a hard eye on the multi-billion dollar advertising and marketing industry. They examine the subconscious and psychological techniques behind advertising and marketing developments. The documentary also determines how these new methods of marketing influence us, our desires and our self-image, finally theorizing on the future implications or repercussions of the influential forces that are constantly at work.

In this documentary, PBS uncovers the evolution of marketing. Marketing has moved from targeting large groups, to targeting individuals and smaller segments. With so many messages being transmitted through the media, the line between what is being absorbed and what is not has become blurred. Getting through the clutter is difficult. Every thing is done to break through the clutter. Therefore, marketers need to market to only those who really want to hear the message, and to get those people that hear that message, to have an emotional response to it.

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

In addition, advertising feeds from mob mentality, convincing people a product will change their lives by deeming it fashionable or sophisticated. It bypasses logical thinking to take control of how people view themselves and their “need for esteem. People want and need to be respected and we need to feel good about ourselves. And this is where much advertising lives, often because we are selling products that people really do not need. L’Oreal’s ‘Because you’re worth it’ is the perfect example” (Madigan 83). For this reason, expectations of a person are manipulated to fit the wants of the industry to sell products. These people are affected since they feel as if they have no choice in what to wear, how their body should appear to others, and which brands they buy. It all comes down to the need to be apart of something bigger, instead of sticking out from the crowd.

The products I use in the bathroom, the coffee I drink, and the clothes I wear are influenced by marketing. The commercials convinced me to try soap products, toothpaste, and the coffee I drink. Marketing may persuade one to try a new product but ultimately the product or services must live up to the “hype” to keep consumers coming back.

Sometimes it’s not so important that your product fits the exact needs of the segment you target; rather, it’s vital that customers perceive that you do, even if it’s not true. In order to achieve this, the proper amount of advertising and sending the appropriate message are both vital.

“Marketing communication is an ever changing field. New theories, new techniques, cultural changes and technological advances all combine to create a dynamic environment within which marketers try to ensure that their messages get through to their target audiences” (Blythe, 2006, p.2). Fill (2005) argues that marketing communications is the way in which organisations reach their target audiences or it is an “audience-centred activity” (Fill, 2005, p.9).

In the book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, two authors, Ries and Trout, illustrate how efficient positioning a product can affect the recognition of the target market. In addition, it is an outside-in approach to the business marketing. In other words, the marketer considers a business with the prospect’s mind rather than the products. First and foremost, the authors introduce the concept of positioning---“Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect” (Ries & Trout, 1986). Moreover, the past strategies for marketing no longer match the present market, and Ries and Trout believe that communication itself is a big problem. Since our society is “over-communicated,” customers might receive overwhelming information. People’ s minds can only collect a narrow amount of information and it blocks out the rest of irrelevant information; therefore, this can explain the reason why some advertisements fail to attract the attention of consumers. The authors provide several statistic data to support their statement about the over-communicated world. Obviously, 57% of the world’s advertising is offered by the United States, America publishes more than 30,000 books per year, and the average of American family watches around 51 hours per week of television. Therefore, American customers receive too many messages from different mediums, such as television, books, and

The marketing segmentation concept allows a company to focus on a specific group of customers that it is best prepared and suited to satisfy. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, selecting a target market enables a company to tailor its offerings to more specific customer needs and preferences (Schewe & Hiam, 1998, p. 200). When a company focuses its efforts and capital (both tangible and intangible) on a more narrowly defined set of needs, it is more likely that the customers will get the product they desire. Companies that use the marketing segmentation concept typically have a more intimate knowledge of the customers they target, and customers usually relate better with companies that understand their interests. As such a relationship is built.

The birth of ‘Marketing’ happened centuries ago where vendors in ancient times tried to seduce the oncoming customer by chanting in loud noises and catering to the customer needs by negotiation of price or assumption of what they might need aside from what they were actually looking for. Over the years, this process has been refined, given a

Long before now has branding been considered as one of the peripheral aspects of business. Manufacturers, investors and other key players focused on the product without paying much attention to the consumer. But as the business landscape got tougher, marketing became not just an integral part of business but one of the fundamental principles of success.