SENSORY MARKETING
Gender Marketing Activities and Sensory Marketing
The decision making of a consumer preference represents a long term cognitive orientation relating to shopping and purchasing, which is choice dominant. The concept of gender is rooted in psychological and sociological or cultural traits, characters, attitudes, and behavior. Gender marketing was developed in the United States as a result of the diversity approach. Men’s needs differ from those of women, and products are not gender-neutral; this realization is a rational outcome out of the norm of differentiating consumer needs in terms of ethnic, religious, or cultural groups (Koc, 2002 p.258). For example bringing into consideration a man and a woman from the same ethnic, religious and cultural group, this similarity does not necessarily imply that the need of this two individuals will be similar, the man would demand more of mechanical goods like cars and machines while the woman demands more of junk food and clothing and maybe have no interest in those needs of the man.
The key objective of gender marketing is implementing the differing needs of women and men into distributing, setting prices, development, and giving of information on products and services. There are also emerging dissimilarities between the two genders in their way of expressing consumption preferences, purchasing intentions, or evaluation of a product. For example, a woman can purchase a vehicle for luxury like going on road trips and hanging out with friends, a man can, however, purchase the same vehicle but with different intentions like for hiring and offering delivery services to make income (Koc, 2002 p.275). Ways of thinking about and obtaining different products are also likely to differ between the two; the man can use his savings to purchase the vehicle while a woman will opt to take a loan to purchase the same.
Gender marketing strategies, to a certain degree, have affected the e-commerce sector in terms of campaigns, for instance. The website pages are now being designed based on gender-specific criteria. For example, the Gillet Company advertises their product on separate websites; the men’s’ and the women’s’ the reason being the commodity is not of the same use to the two sexes (Koc, 2002, p. 268). Considering that women do more online shopping than men also have enabled these websites to advertise more of the females’ commodities than the female, the Gender market may also have a negative impact. In instances where merchandise that doesn’t need gender differentiation, for example, fruits and vegetables being advertised by only women are advertising the commodities there is a probability of such a business losing its male customers because they may perceive a sense of discrimination thus losing their interest in such a product.
Sensory marketing refers to the strategies used to reach consumers’ senses and become influential to their behavior based on the brand and tactics effect on their feelings. The five senses of a human being are; sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste (Randhir, Latasha, Tooraiven, and Monishan, 2016, 278). In the past two decades, a variety of marketers have been creating expertise by reaching their customers via the five senses that can trigger perception about the brand. Bodily sensations aid in determining decision making. For example, findings by the researchers show that a warm temperature maybe as a result of consuming a warm drink makes people quickly conform to a crowd than individuals who have consumed a cold drink.
Smell as one of the sensors has a big influence in attracting customers, for example, in bakery, most of the customers are attracted to it due to the sweet aroma from the cookies being made there, the bakers use these scents intentionally, they locate their ovens in positions where the scent can quickly diffuse and get to the noses of their customers and always ensure it is strong for example by warming cinnamon sheets and sugar in the oven (Randhir, Latasha, Tooraiven, and Monishan, 2016, 281). By so doing, the company ensures a constant increase in its sales. Some companies go the extra mile of printing scents on their products; for example, a strawberry scent on sanitary towels attracts customers who love the strawberry scent even without considering the company.
The smell is linked to a section of the brain that controls emotions and memory. Thus they are likely to trigger involuntary actions and ideas. For example, most women can smell a certain perfume and relate it to a certain positive memory about an individual or an occurrence, and this may attribute to the individual purchasing the product out of the memory trigger (Chitturi, Carlos Londono, and Alberto Amezquita, 2019, p.42). This technique is applied by most marketers to create a memorable incidence in their customers’ minds. There are different types of scent marketing: Aroma billboard, Thematic, Ambient smells, and Signature smells. However, scent marketing is affected when it comes to online shopping; this is because it is not possible to attract customers using the scent technique online. This leads to a loss of customers who are scent-based when it comes to determining which product to buy.
Different visual variables can attract a person’s attention, but color has been rated to be the most influential when purchasing a product, it can create the customer’s buying intentions. For example, black and blue are perceived to convey power, and high quality and red express love (Chitturi, Carlos Londono, and Alberto Amezquita, 2019, p.43). Thus the marketing entities are in a position to associate these perceptions to different occasions. For example, in February, which is referred to as the month of love, most products will be branded with red to sell faster, it is less likely to have a high sale of products with black color in this particular season.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory
This theory was developed by Geert Hofstede (1980) to create an understanding of the cultural differences across nations and to identify how business is conducted across different cultures. In other terms, this framework figures out the distinction between different cultures nationwide, the culture magnitude, and their effect on a business setting (Soares, Farhangmehr, and Shoham, 2007, p. 278). He identified six classifications in defining culture. These are the Power Distance Index, Collectivism vs. Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance Index, Femininity vs. Masculinity, Short Tem vs. Long Term Orientation and Restraint vs. Indulgence.
Consumer’s rational and irrational behavior
Consumer behavior can be characterized as rational and uncertain, thus becoming a challenge to researchers and business people due to their nature and the tendency to keep on changing. Consumers respond differently to different sales programs in terms of emotions, which are portrayed in actions that are accrued to be irrational (Soares, Farhangmehr, and Shoham, 2007, p. 282). It has been established that the more similar goods are, the more the consumers are likely to apply emotional justification in deciding which product to purchase. The motive behind a customer buying a commodity would be either to have an emotional experience or to achieve a moving goal.
Consumer stereotype concerning the grey market
Depending on the quality, foreign, and grey market, goods can be classified differently by consumers. It is the perceptions of the consumer on the quality of the product that influences his intentions to buy a foreign product (Chen, 2007, p. 247). For example, a consumer in America would perceive a product made in china is of higher quality than the one made in Kenya because china is a developed country. Stereotypes determine consumer’s decisions on purchasing goods, thus serving as a challenge to the grey markets. For example, a stereotype that rice made from china is plastic made scares away customers outside china.
Bibliography
Chaudhuri, A., 2006. Emotion and Reason in Consumer Behavior.
Chen, H., 2007. Gray marketing and its impacts on brand equity. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 16(4), pp.247-256.
Chitturi, R., Carlos Londono, J., and Alberto Amezquita, C., 2019. The Influence of Color and Shape of Package Design on Consumer Preference: The Case of Orange Juice. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 5(2), pp.42-56.
Koc, E., 2002. The impact of gender in marketing communications: the role of cognitive and affective cues. Journal of Marketing Communications, 8(4), pp.257-275.
Randhir, R., Latasha, K., Tooraiven, P., and Monishan, B., 2016. Analyzing the impact of sensory marketing on consumers: A case study of KFC. Journal of US-China Public Administration, 13(4), pp.278-292.
Soares, A., Farhangmehr, M., and Shoham, A., 2007. Hofstede’s dimensions of culture in international marketing studies. Journal of Business Research, 60(3), pp.277-284.