Consumer Insight Terms

Value

what people care about, often taken for granted, patterned

Insight

a novel idea rooted in data with implications for strategic action

Role Play Theory

• We play different roles in our day-to-day

• Not all roles are salient at all times'

• Use scripts, costumes, props, and stages to enact

symbolic communication

products do more than their functions, they mean more to the individual

Brand

• as a differentiator: name, symbol

Cultural Meanings with Brands

• experienced with brands

• stories with brands

Culture

Systems of meanings, practices, symbols, norms, goals, values, and rituals that are shared

Individuals gain cultural knowledge through

socialization and experiences

“Water that you Swim In”

• taken for granted

• embodies and naturalized

• everywhere, part of you

Why is cultural knowledge important for marketers to understand

• helps marketers understand patterns in how people finding meaning

• helps brands understand meaning systems in which they are embedded

ex. beauty means different to different people

How does culture shows itself?

• beliefs/ values, ideoligies (what I think is right)

• norms (what I think I should do)

Cultural Norms

• Informal rules dictating what is right or wrong, agreed by a social group

• Can be changed, but it is not easy

Emic

Interviewee/ subject/ person’s own perspective or observed facts or words said

Etic

• deeper researcher theory or insights

• cultural meanings

• tensions & pain points

Ethnography

cultural lens to understand practices

Why Etnography?

• reality based

• observed what people are actually doing

• allows you to understand tensions

• uncovers deeper insights, shows that brands understands them

Depth Interview

• to see and experience the world as consumers do within a social and cultural context

• we see what’s normal for them

why do depth interview?

• An ethnographic approach can be taken or not

• Use cultural lens? find pattern in lived experiences

Perception

The process by making meaning out of raw sensations taken in through sensory receptors (eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin)

The Process of Perception

our senses react to pre-existing schemas or create new schemas based on the cosumers understand of the meaning they put on the sensation

Selection

What people concentrate on, ignore, or completely miss stimuli

Perceptual filters

influences what captures consumers attention based on past experiences

Perceptual vigilance

consumers are more likely to be aware of stimuli that relate to their current context, tensions, needs.

Adaptation

consumers notice a stimulus less over time

Stimulus Factors

• attention is shaped by stimulus itself

• you are more likely to notice stimuli that differ from others

• marketers create contrast through size, color, position, novelty

Stimulus Organization

• classify stimuli into categories based on prior knowledge

• involves comparison between stimulus and comparison

• socially and culturally constructed and learned categories

Schemas

organized collections of beliefs and feelings a person has about objects, ideas, people, events, etc.

Scripts

• Form of schema

• sequences of actions

Schema Incongruity

An object, idea, or person that doesn't’’t fit into the particular schema which its being associated

ex. baby gambling at casino

Semiotics

• analysis of objects and meanings

• the relationship between sign/symbols and it’s associated meanings or schemas

• we can better understand how consumers interpret our communications

Positioning

creating a place for your product visually relative to the competition in mind of the target audience that meaningfully differentiates it

Perceptual Map

maps of how brands are currently perceived by consumers to determine future positioning

Self-Concept

organized set of idea and meanings that one has about themselves

Self-Product Congruence

Choose products when attributes match aspect of self

is it “me” or “not me”

Ideal Self

Our conception of how we would like to be

Ought Self

Our conception of what others would like us to be (how we should be)

Actual Self

our realistic qualities we have and don’t have

Symbolic self-completion theory

incomplete sense of self leads to buying symbols associated with who they want to be

Tribes

groups who share geography, familial relations, or ideologies

Values

enduring beliefs about what is important that transcend specific situations

Ideologies

systems or clusters of values and beliefs that are interrelated and organized around a dominant themes

Cultural or ideological tensions

when beliefs conflicts causing ideological conflict

Looking Glass Self/Reflected Self

• we see ourselves based on how we thing other see us

• identities change as people interact with new people and experience new situationsSo

Social Identity

derived from both felt and assigned membership in certain social groups/tribes

Internal Identification

one’s felt sense of belonging with a social group/tribe

External (mis) Recognition

doesn’t always match one’s internal identification often rooted in stereotype

Dominant social identity

Social identity is that of those with power in a social entity, often invisible to themselves

ex. fair skin, young, male, thin, able-bodied, middle class or higher

Non-Dominant Identities

Have deep knowledge of dominant cultural codes and the stigma of their non-dominant identity

Normative Respectability

self and institutional reform tactics to avoid stigmatized consumption or lessen impact (conforms to dominant norm)

Oppositional Respectability

self and institutional reform tactics to destigmatize consumption or lessen impact (by changing its meaning)

Color Blind Model

• dominant image, dominant lifestyle

• marketers fail to represent people with non-dominant identities resulting in lack of resonance with some audience

Cultural Assimilation Model

• non-dominant image, dominant lifestyle

• marketers represent visually but not the exact same way as those with those with dominant identities

Multiculturalism Model

• range of dominant and non-dominant images; typically dominant lifestyle

• represents but does not specifically speak to specific groups

Cultural appropriation model

• image of group is used but they are not the target audience

• group is target market but targeting based on stereotype

Identity Niche Model

• Non-dominant image and lifestyle centered

• “effortful accommodation”

Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psycho-Social Development

each life stage has a tension you have to overcome to move to the next life stage

Key Stages and Tensions

• Adolescence: Identity vs. Role Confusion

• Early Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation

• Middle Adulthood: Generativity vs. Stagnation

• Empty Nest II/Solitary Survivor: Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Early Single

• finished formal education (not grad school)

• tension between intimacy and isolation

Mature Single

• No co-habituating partner, no children at home

• Generatively vs. Stagnation

• focusing on career, volunteering, other relationships

• more settled, not scared of commitment

Newly Married w/o Children/ Long Term Cohabitating

• creating a home together (“nesting”)

• developing who we are as a couple

• hyper-consumption of goods

• more solid financial position

Full Nest 1

• youngest child less then 5 years old

• leaning role of parent

• life is orientated towards child’s needs

Full Nest 2

• defined by “busyness”

• nurturing child’s interest, skills

• life centers around extra-curricular activities

Full Nest 3

• increased independence

• tensions between control and freedom

• tension between letting go and holding on

• parent's begin to rediscover their own identities, lifestyles, (each other)

Full Next 4

• not sequential

• Special case for divorce/death of parent/ co-caregiver in full next stages

• loneliness, sadness

• layered on other full nest stages

Empty Nest 1

• Children left the home (ish), parent(s) still working

• rediscover own identity; “Identity renaissance”

• rediscover relationship partner, friends

Empty Nest 2

• retired and loss of identity from job role

• identity renaissance continues

• values family time, social connections

• Erickson: Tension between “ego integrity and despair”

Solitary Survivor

• mourning life partner, isolating, lonely

• learning tasks from task specialization

• learning to be a person in the world alone, apart from partner

Non-Normative Tensions

• brands not for me

• alienating, suffocating, painful, exhausting

• ex. infertility, single by choice

Brands with Personality

a set of traits people attribute to a product as if it were a person

Brands as People

attach human qualities to products/brand

ex. my computer feels better after I let it rest for a while

Entropy Model

relationship is just not actively maintained

Stress Model

• relationship transgression occurs

• intense emotional reaction to brands action