Perception
The most important and critical aspect about a product is the perception of the potential consumers. Mostly, perception affects the marketing of a product and its overall sales (Quester et al., 2011, p. 27). The perception of the customers might increase or reduce the demands for a given product, thus affects it marketing.
For instance, looking at our images, one might find it difficult to tell the actual thing being marketed, unless there are more descriptions about it. This means that the picture of the advertisement itself cannot be sufficient in marketing the product.
Learning and Memory
Marketing is also affected by learning and the memory of the marketer. For example, the person having a short memory about the product cannot do adequate marketing because he/she may forget other useful aspects of the product.
Once the marketer have short memory about the product, then he/she may not entice the potential buyers to purchase the products because he/she may not be in a position to satisfy the potential buyers with the specific information that the latter may need to consider buying the product (Quester et al., 2011, p. 32).
Self-Concept, Personality and Identity Construction
Still on the consumer behaviour, there are several factors controlling the potential buyers, for example, self-concept about the product, issues of personality and a sense of identity construction. People differ in terms of belief, personality, identity and acceptance of a particular, thus such factors contribute to the overall perception and attitude about the product (Ulrich & Eppinger 2004, p. 42). For example, when marketing a company such as Google, there are people who do not believe that the information they receive from the search engine are credible.
Notably, such people might not take the marketing of the company, its products and other related companies on a serious note. This fact would also affect the marketing approach that the marketer would use in promoting the company and its products.
Self-deception could also derail the significance of the advertisement, thus must be attended to, so that the marketers avoid promoting unwanted products (Quester et al., 2011, p. 41). In addition, the consumer’s social status that makes up his/her personality and identity should be examined to ensure that the product marketed, meets the general demands of the intended people.
Attitudes and Changing Consumer Attitudes
In most cases, the general attitude of the person and that of the consumers usually affect the marketing of the company and its products. A shift in the consumer demands would equally affect the attempts to market the same product (Quester et al., 2011, p. 43).
For example, if the marketer intends to market influential tech Bloggers as suggested in the first picture, the people who have formed opinion about Bloggers and their activities might not listen to the information being portrayed about the Bloggers, but will simply rely on the information they already understand such people. Definitely, once the perceptions about the Bloggers are negative, any good thing that the marketer would mention about those experts would not withstand the people’s perception about Bloggers.
Despite their contributions to the various websites, Bloggers are known to possess high-tech skills, which might enable them access sensitive information over the net, provided that the information is online. This affects the secrecy of the internet data even if such information is considered as classified and should remain the secret of the source.
Therefore, though the marketer might be promoting the good work of the Bloggers, the people’s attitude towards them could taint their image on the face of the people who might not trust them for the secrecy of the issues about them (Quester et al., 2011, p. 54). However, for those who need the assistance of the Bloggers, they might perceive the advertisement as very useful in assisting this group of people.
Group Influences
The control that the group of people might be having on their colleagues might also affect the marketing activities for a particular product or company. Basically, a group consist of people with fairly similar mindset, and any formation originating from one of them has great affect on the other members (Van Bruggen & Wierenga 2010, p. 102).
In addition, since the group’s activity and demands are exercised after collective agreement, it might not be easy to change their perception about a given product, so long as they have had negative attitude about it.
For instance, considering the second picture, once a group of people is convinced that the particular city in America is not tech-friendly, a marketing advertisement of that nature trying to portray the city as being tech-friendly might not be recognised as important, but merely a cover up of the ills that goes on in the place.
In fact, the group will have all the reasons to believe that the city is not tech-friendly and influence its members to share in the belief. In this regard, it is imperative to consider the perception of other people about the product being marketed so that its reception does not contradict the marketers’ beliefs (Venugopal 2010, p. 90).
Culture and Consumption
In marketing the culture and degree of consumption have a lot of impact on the demands that the various categories of buyers might have on the product (Solomon & Solomon 2011, p. 66). Indeed, the cultural differences between the different categories of consumers significantly affect their choices and consumption style. As a way of identity, many people stick to their cultural practices and would consider if the advertisement meet the attributes of the people before deciding whether to adapt the advertisement or reject it.
Cultural tension that could result from conflicting practices among the different communities should be harmonised when designing and marketing advertisements (Solomon & Solomon 2011, p. 67). For the use of advertisements to be effective, harmful, outdated, and poor cultural practices must not feature in any advertisement.
There are some items considered cultural taboos and that the people embracing a particular traditional practice have to uphold it so as to keep on identifying with the community and limit the controversy that characterises the relationship among the different groups of the people (Perreault 2009, p. 74). Therefore, for the marketer to achieve success in his/her promotion endeavours for any product, company or an activity, the culture of the people becomes a significant consideration (Shimp, T 2007, p. 40).
Marketing executives agree that marketing without the cultural demands and attributes of the targeted consumers might be a costly venture. This is because the people’s purchasing power will be inclined to their cultural requirements, thus might not be able to purchase those products, which are portrayed as against the culture (Surhone, Timpledon & Marseken 2010, p. 74).
Improvement to Each Marketing Activity
In order for the above three marketing activity to realise the intended and desired outcome, there are a number of adjustments, which should be made to each of them. Notably, the adjustments would be different depending on the desired results.
On the first picture, the improvement should focus on clarity. In this sense, having a computer and a hand typing does not necessarily bring the picture of a blogger. Therefore the advertisement should have more information such as the blogger’s name, important things he/she is capable of doing and those he/she has accomplished (Shimp, 2007, p. 49).
This will give each specific blogger a brand of identification. Also important to be clarified is the Bloggers attitude towards the issues perceived as unwanted and unjustified in terms of blogging activities.
In the second picture, a lot of information has to be adjusted to make the information it tries to portray sound clear to the users. It might not be possible for the potential user to understand the ways in which particular cities are tech-friendly and those that are not. Therefore, in developing the product, the information about the cities being called tech-friendly must be clearly presented to make it sounds suitable for technologically enabling environment.
In the third picture, many aspects have to be altered to make it send the message that may convince the intended users. As an internet company, the picture does not detail the attributes of Google that could make it saleable. Therefore, on enhancing the marketing communication, changing the picture to reflect the important features that could make it preferable to the people are appropriate for its success (Blythe 2006, p. 52).
The ability of the advertisement to prove that the product could be user friendly and technologically viable is important for its acceptability. Through exercising value addition, the attributes could be changed to make the advertisement depict the reality about the internet company (Kelley 2009, p. 12).
Ethics of Each Marketing Activity
Matters dealing with the ethics are essential in making sure that the marketing activities do not contravene the aspirations and wishes of the users (Sahaf 2008, p. 102). The pictures do not display any issue relating to the ethics and thus might not meet the moral requirements for an advertisement.
For example, the first picture should have demonstrated the moral codes to make it legitimate. The second should display the human elements that are of moral nature. Finally, the third picture should display the benefit that comes with human morality so that it meets the ethical requirements.
References
Antti, S & Anselmi, I 2008, Product Lifecycle Management, New York, NY: Springer.
Blythe, J 2006, Essentials of Marketing Communications, FT/Prentice Hall, New York.
Hutt, M & Thomas, W 2002, Business Marketing Management: B2B, Thomson Learning, South-Western.
Kelley, K 2009, Value Added Marketing, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania.
Mike, G., Chris, M & Eric, R 2009, The Path to Developing Successful New Product, MIT Slow Management Review Press, New York.
Perreault, W 2009, Basic Marketing: A Marketing Strategy Planning Approach, McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York.
Quester, P et al., 2011, Consumer Behaviour: Implications for Marketing strategy (6th Ed.), McGraw Hill, New York.
Redman, B 2012, Three Types of Marketing Activities That People Use Every Day, <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/three-types-marketing-activities-people-use-day-30746.html>
Shimp, T 2007, Advertising, Promotion, and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications, Thomson South-Western, Ohio.
Sahaf, M 2008, Making Decisions for Strategic Advantage, Prentice-Hall, India.
Solomon, M & Solomon, M 2011, Consumer Behavior with MyMarketingLab, Pearson Education, New York.
Surhone, L., Timpledon, M & Marseken, S 2010, Marketing, Betascript Publishing, New York.
Ulrich, K & Eppinger, S 2004, Product Design and Development, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Van Bruggen, G & Wierenga, B 2010, Marketing Decision Making and Decision Support, Now Publishers Inc, New York.
Venugopal, P 2010, Marketing Management, a Decision-making Approach, Sage Publications, London.