Secretive Sallie's Blog: April 2009

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

In traditional British society there are three classes, with little social mobility. Most cultures throughout history have had some kind of class system, usually with slaves. But this sort of society is steadily changing. In previous generations education was seen as a privilege, and was only open to the privileged. Having a degree was a sign of wealth, education and influence. Now education is seen as a necessity not a luxury, open to everyone. If knowledge is power then anyone can have access to knowledge and therefore power, which would in the past have meant a higher social class. We find ourselves in a society where those that "have" want to keep, and those that "have not" want to get- and both are at rights to try.

Despite this an article in the Guardian states that, "The poorest children still have little chance of becoming lawyers, doctors, senior civil servants and financiers". It sites the reason for this is children from the poorest families often end up in the poorest school, therefore obtaining weaker grades. The article reveals some shocking facts, such as, "More than half (55%) of secondary schools in the most deprived parts of England did not achieve the benchmark of 30% of children getting five good GCSEs".

Marketers "Social class segmentation works on the assumption that the higher your profession the more you will earn. Thus the more affluent lifestyle you will lead". Britain has a letter system that is used to work out class based, traditionally, on occupation, as follows:

A Professional staff
B Middle management
C1 Junior management
C2 Skilled manual
D Semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
E Those dependent on the state.

Using the class system as a segmentation of the market may seem out-dated and fairly useless in many respects, but it can be useful when marketing products and services that covey status connotations. James Edwin Harris explains that "consumers use social status to learn about and evaluate value-expressive products". Harris believes that social class and income are independant of each other. He also articulates that people are most likely to see themselves as "middle-class" regardless of determining factors. Harris explains that "this self-concept went directly against the revelation that people who were traditionally [akin in] class kept the same attitudes and preferences". Terrell Williams, writing in The Journal of Consumer Marketing, states that segmentation by class should, "be seen as just one source of social division not as the primary divider". He goes on to assert that the result of large middle class, as can be seen in the diagram below, is that "for many marketers social class divisions fail to make sufficient distinctions between this dominant middle class".

The diagram above shows the change in the ratio of the different classes from the turn of the century to today. Here you can see the pyramid shape that prevailed for centuries in Britain, which had many having little and a few holding most of the wealth. An interesting video, Understanding Class, from Eltechno states that there were those who ruled and those who were ruled. There were those who did the work, and those who prospered from the work done. Currently there is still a small Upper Class but the majority has risen to Lower Middle and Working Class. This has been know to many as the rise of the Middle Class. The video explains that it is since the industrial revolution and the emergence of the service industry that has created the shift in the class system.

The Grumpy Guide to Class, part 1, part 2 and part 3, a rather tongue in cheek look at classes today, hits the nail on the head with how to define class in modern day Britain. It says that it's all about where you live and what you put in your house. It goes on to suggest that one of the defining features of class is how you dress your windows. Do you use venetian blinds or lace curtains? It sounds extraneous, but they have a point. It's about what class you strive to be in. And this is done through obvious purchases. These sets of rules have come about so that people can instantly tell what class you are, or what class you wish to be perceived. It's why brands now put the label on the outside of clothing. It's why people drive an certain type of car. These are publicly perceived purchases. It's all about judgement. And marketers play on these insecurities people have that they might be seen as middle class, when really they are upper middle class, or they want people to think they are upper middle class. One of the pivotal points that the grumpies made was that class is no longer where you were born, what your father did you where you went to school, but it's what you wear, what car you drive. Things that people can instantly see and instantly judge.

Thursday, 16 April 2009

Hanah Montana Syndrome

Business Week defines a becoming a tween as "when he/she rejects more childlike images and associations and aspires to be more like a teen". BW believes that the main purchasing power of tweens is the dependant of the finance of the parents and other family adults through allowance and gifts, and not dependant on their own financial resources such as after school work. It also states that tweens are the main decision driver in many of the family decisions. A whole new way of marketing to tweens has evolved through the combination of play with purchase, such as the Build-A-Bear workshops and online stores such as fashionology.com, as can be seen in this video. Most of the tween marketing, currently, is focused on girls, but, BW says, marketers focus is turning to the boys.

As could be expected the mobile phone industry is also turning it's attention to tweens, with giants such as Disney and Nickelodeon making the mobile phone and accessory market as full and varied for tweens as it is for adults. Not only this but a range of new networks are poping up in the US to offer starter packs focused on helping tweens stay in contact with their parents, often with features such as GPS to help parent "track" the child.

Marketing Junk Food to Kids states that there are three main reasons companies want to market to children. Firstly, brand loyalty. It is as Hitler said, above. If a child drinks Coca-Cola at five, she will probably drink Coca-Cola over other brands for the rest of her life. The second reason is pester power, that I have explained in the previous blog. The third reason, and here is is talking only of the junk food market, is that the marketers want children to think that they can only eat "kid's food". Things that come in funny shapes and colours, with cartoon characters on the box.

This last point can, however, be transferred into other markets, that children think they should have their own products, that differ significantly, if only in looks, from those their parents use. For example, Disney have bought out a series of Disney Princess TVs, DVD players, CD players etc.

You can get children's bed that look like race cars, IKEA has a whole section of it's merchandise solely aimed at children, so there's no way that parents will get away with buying them a boring old adults desk/chair/bed/wardrobe. And these aren't just things that are smaller, in a child's size, they have a completely different look, style. Children are alot more fickle with what they like, and will therefor quickly grow out of the child-friendly products, wanting the next latest fashion.

One advert that is aimed at adults, but is extremely child-friendly, is the BUPA Health Insurance adverts. It uses bold colours and simple shapes that would appeal to a child, and make it stand out in his/her mind. This is a tactic being more frequently usd by marketers as the Insurance company is more likely stick in the mind of a generation of children, and when they come to want medical insurance they will be more favourable to Bupa, and they probably won't even know why. Bupa will have become part of thier evoked set from such an early age that these children won't even know it's there. It also employs a sing-song tone of voice and a story-like script with a happily-ever-after ending.

Although ASA has just extended it's code of conduct to include online marketing there is one problem. According to The Guardian this code only includes "paid for banner and pop-up ads and sales promotions" yet this leaves the rest of the website to be used as one big advert. Just one of the many websites the article site is the Cheestring website. It is an easy to use, "play" style website, with games and quizzes. One of the quizzes asks: "To keep teeth healthy, what is the best food to eat at the end of the meal? An apple or a Cheestring?" (The answer is Cheestring.) And apparently these websites really do work. The article states that;

"A recent study carried out by Intuitive Media for New Media Age magazine interviewed more than 2,800 primary school children and found that 43% of them said they would buy or eat more of a food brand because they have seen it online or played a game about it. What is more, over 20% of them go online to find out about their favourite foods and snacks."

So with branding and advertising seeping into the heart of child's play on the Internet, know as embedded brand opportunities, many adverts are going unnoticed. Agnes Niarn, on The Dangers of Internet Marketing, is concerned that the laws that apply in "the real world" aren't being enforced online. This includes things like product placement and advertising alcohol, advertising tobacco and advertising to children. This is all compounded with the problem that arises with every topic concerning children and the Internet; it is much harder for parents to monitor what their children see on the Internet.

An article entitled "Should We Ban Marketing to Children?" takes a brief look at just how detrimental to children such omnipresent marketing can be, suggesting that such a high level of advertising creates a materialistic cycle that is getting out of control. Children are growing up as walking, talking, living advertisements that believe that the brand is the value. As they become more materialistically focused they become desensitised to the things that really matter in life, and come to believe that the only way to happiness is having the right "things". This creates an even bigger "need" to buy these things, and that this high level of exposure to the consumer culture at an early age is associated with increased chances of becoming obese, anorexic, bulimic, acting in violent or aggressive ways, using alcohol or tobacco and being sexually promiscuous.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Entertainment not Information

It is now generally excepted that generational marketing is a more effective segmentation than the more traditional age segmentation. Generation is not purely about age, and there are many discrepancies over which age fits what generation. It is about experiences. What has happened in your lifetime to that has created the unique way you view the world? And which of these do you have in common with a lot of people? It is a practice based on the values and attitudes of the market.

Up until the late 80s many marketers believed that advertising to adults, usually the 30+ segment, was the most effective way. But then they realised that exploiting teenage angst worked much better. All they had to work out was, What is Cool? Today a highly marketed to generation is Generation Y. Those born in the beginning of the 80s. Those who were too young to remember Communism in Europe. Those too young to understand the early 90s recession. They saw Diana die. They haven't quite grown up with the Internet, but have seen it's revolution. They were there to see the first iPod released and they stood in silence as they watched the fall of the Twin Towers live in their living rooms. They have read countless reports of tragedy and first hand accounts of those involved. Instant access. Instant information. But this is not enough.

Information is free and readily available at the touch of a button. Entertainment has value. Round the clock news means that nothing is new. By the time a story reaches the evening news it is old news because it has been told every hour on round the clock news channels. By the time news reaches these dedicated news channels it is still already old because first hand reports, blow by blow details have been circulating in the web, on Twitter, on mobiles before it even reaches the news room. This is the world of Generation Y.

Ed Walker writes, in The Value of Generational Marketing, that generational marketing requires a "comprehensive understanding of values and attitudes, which tend to be the drive behaviours". Kevin Higgins write, in Generational Marketing, that "generation-shaping social and economic events influence how each group reacts, and astute marketers must be cognizant of how their target generations view the world and shape their marketing message accordingly".

J. Walker Smith write, in a different article named Generational Marketing, that by "knowing how the motivations of customers are tied to the underlying values of the generation to which they belong, a business can tailor products, services, and communications to their needs, interests, and desires."

The message? That it is no longer enough to know what your customer does, where they eat, how they travel, how old they are, what beer they drink, what music they listen to. These facts are arbitrary. Now you need to know what they believe in, how they feel about different issues, what are their attitudes on political, social and environmental issues, have they been affected by poverty, terrorism, wealth. Theses are the facts that marketers need to know about their consumers.

Another rising group that marketers are keen to maximize are the silver surfers. Oxford University Press has the following to say about them:

People are now living far longer than they did in the past and older people form an increasingly large percentage of the population. As a section of society, they are relatively rich as they no longer have young children to provide for and, in many cases, have already managed to pay back the loan on their house. Not surprisingly, many companies are competing to attract this group, which is sometimes referred to as the grey/gray or silver market:

The potential of the silver market in Japan is not only based on the number of elderly people, but also on their spending power.

For the first time in history, our grey market is increasing and our youth market is declining.

Grey/gray is also sometimes used as an adjective relating to this part of the population: US advertisers are competing for thegray dollar (= the money that older people can spend on goods). An increase in life span causes an increase in grey power (= the economic and political power of older people) Grey consumers are becoming key markets for an increasing number of companies.

Roughly speaking marketers have four generation segments, which, ironically, they base on age (or at least when the consumer was born). They are as follows: