Why Direct Mail Marketers Love Variable Data Printing

Pepsi or Coke? Apple or Android? Starbucks or Tim Hortons? These are seemingly insignificant choices between products; however, taken together they structure the lives of individuals. To reduce brands to anything less would be to negate the significance they hold in the fabric of individual’s lives. What is important, then, is to uncover the ways in which certain brands weave their way into this fabric through their advertising practices and promotional culture. This paper begins with a brief historical outline of consumer culture and it’s ties to neoliberalism, and then moves to an in depth exploration of the way in which companies work to create and maintain a positive brand image among consumers. Through a focus on branding, versus product-specific advertising, companies work to create attachments and emotional bonds, effectively creating a loyal and invested customer base. Corporations draw upon established systems of meaning, selling consumer’s values and beliefs back to them in the form of a brand. This process is not unidirectional, operating simultaneously through individual consent and participation. In our modern, neoliberal market place, notions of individuality have positioned “the choosing self at the center of consumer culture”, and individuals seek self-fulfillment and satisfaction from “active lifestyle choices” (Arvidsson, 2001, p. 48). The self has come to be defined by the brands one identifies with.

For businesses, identifying consumers -- and exposing them to a unique brand message as much as possible -- is an essential, basic marketing concept. The service educates potential clients by allowing attorneys to disseminate information over

Going into a store to buy either a new shirt or some cough medicine, the decision on what is bought is affected by the brands or even the advertisements customers have been subjected to. Branding and the marketing of those brands affect people as they make decisions on what they want to spend their money on. In “A Brand by Any Other Name,” by Douglas Rushkoff and in “With These Words I Can Sell You Anything” by William Lutz, the authors write about how consumers are influenced by different marketing practices. Rushkoff and Lutz explain the ways that shoppers can be manipulated just by what they read or hear and buy things just because they think they are getting the best or the coolest.

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.

of current and prospective customers. Management had the data they needed as a result of collecting

Many people in today's society are distressed greatly with ones rank in the social hierarchy; material possessions of all sorts seem to construct, shape, and style the lives of consumers all over the world. Consumers all over the world are becoming more and more demanding as more and more is being advertised. Many companies, such as Apple, often advertise months in advance for products creating commotion, attentiveness, and desire among the world. Stores, such as Old Navy, inspire consumers to shop at stores like theirs to feel pleased and satisfied with how much can be bought with such small amounts of money; when in reality, the consumers are spending money on their identity.

Brand consumption plays a big part in everyday lives. We all think consciously about the products we buy such as food, clothing and electronics and the certain brands they come in. The purpose of this reflection is to demonstrate how brands affect individual and communities’ perception when buying products and how the brands HP and Glassons play an important part of my life and how they reflect me.

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

Stephen’s Retail Revival highlights the changes in consumerism that have emerged in the last two decades as a result of social, economic, and technological advancements. These advancements have challenged the traditional business model of large corporations, specifically in the way that brands need to reach out and retain their consumers. The mass amount of information that is now attainable to customers has made customers more knowledgeable and raised their expectations. Simply with the ease of communication, to both the company directly and to other customers, they are able to voice their opinion and concerns of the product. People have become more conscientious of their money because they are aware of their options; they no longer have to settle for less.

For over five years, Cheshire Printing has been working with clients to address their printing and advertising needs. At the heart of our strategy, is to offer

In the article Branding in the Digital Age (Edelman, 2010) author and research David Edelman successfully illustrates how the Internet has re-ordered the balance of power between consumers and the brands they develop loyalty to over the long-term. His premise of the article is based on how successfully the Internet is transforming buying decisions into a more egalitarian- and trust-based relationship between marketer and customer. The concepts he bases his Customer Decision Journey (CDJ) on is predicated on a foundation of mutual benefit and trust between customer and marketer. The four phases of the CDJ, which are Consider, Evaluate, Buy and Enjoy, Advocate, and Bond are more oriented towards a lifetime relationship with customers versus the completion of a transaction.

Consumerism and the effects of branding affect people’s lives. Branding allows consumers to easily identify which products are made by which companies. Yet, the brands create more of an influence on consumer’s lifestyles and in the end decide what kind of consumer that person is. Branding creates a blurred divide in our society. Consumers who are ore likely to purchase the branded products that are associated with better quality and higher prices are put into their own category bucket versus the consumers who choose the cheaper priced products that are made with less quality. When it comes to deciding who you are based off of the products and brands that you associate yourself with, it creates a capital divide in our society. Consumers than associate brands with personal feelings based upon whether or not they associate themselves with those brands. Lives of consumers are heavily influenced. Their lives are worse off when they feel the need to ‘keep up’ with brands in order to feel as if they are portraying themselves in the best light. In a way, this is similar to how all of branding began with livestock. Consumers want to physically brand themselves with specific brands by wearing logos and identifying with a brand. They might not be burning the brands directly onto their skin but they are burning the brands onto their clothes and burning holes in their wallets to keep up with society standards about brands.

Stocking of brands is based on popular demand – recently, Provogue, MTV Style, and Benetton have been added. In-house labels are available at competitive prices and target the value-formoney customer and make up around 12 per cent of Shoppers’ Stop’s business. Sometimes in-house brands plug the price gap in certain product categories. To cash in on this, the company has big plans for its in-house brands: from re-branding to repositioning, to homing in on product categories where existing brands are not strong. Competition between brands is not an issue, because being a trading house, all brands get equal emphasis. The in-house brand shopper is one who places immense trust in the company and the quality of its goods and returns for repeat buys. And the company reposed its faith in regular customers by including them in a concept called the First Citizen’s Club (FCC). With 60,000 odd members, FCC customers account for 10 per cent of entries and for 34 per cent of the turnover. It was the sheer appeal of the experience that kept pulling these people back. Not one to let such an opportunity pass, the company ran a successful ad campaign (that talks about just this factor) in print for more than eight years. The theme is still the same. In 1999, a TV spot, which liked the shopping experience to the slowing down of one’s internal clock and the beauty of the whole

Earlier companies use to concentrate on making a brand image is to only entice new customers but these days theories have turned around. Maintaining the brand has become one of the prime targets’ for marketing professionals in order to gratify existing customers.

In recent times, branding has played a pivotal role in some brands’ success. This has been made possible through the ability of some marketers to capture the essence and minds of people (consumers), and put the trends and characteristics into the personality of a brand. Customers have always found ways to identify themselves with certain products, and on several occasions, branding campaigns