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Psychographics marketing

Some points on psychographics which give me a deeper insight into choosing a target audience and product.

What is Psychographics Marketing?
Most marketing involves certain demographics, which refers to factors such as the age, location, marital status, ethnicity and religion of the person in question. Psychographics goes beyond this to ask questions of the lifestyles, behaviour and attitude of the person in question to build up a more detailed picture of who they are. These tend to be directly related to consumerism, and the type of products that people prefer to buy based on their lifestyle choices.

Why is psychographics marketing important?
Surveys that ask these types of questions are vital to market researchers, who often use them to gain information on people who have bought their products in the past, or are tempted to do so in the future. Psychographics marketing can work alongside demographic marketing to allow advertisers to promote their products effectively, in order to sell their products in the long term. As many advertisers concentrate predominantly on demographics, using psychographics marketing as well can leave advertisers one-step ahead of their competition. In the past, advertisers could easily buy advertising space that targeted the people that they wanted to buy their products. For example, they could buy advertising space which targeted men aged 18-35 who lived in the city. This was done using demographics. With the introduction of psychographics marketing, advertisers can now target specific men within that demographic, such as men who like to work out, or eat healthily. This helps them reach out to the men who may ultimately buy their products, whilst bypassing the ones who probably would not. They can do this by buying advertising space in a health and fitness magazine, for example. Men who do not have an interest in this topic are unlikely to read these types of magazines, so it is a cost-effective way of targeting the specific people that may buy your products."


The 4th wall of advertising

4th Wall Of Advertising = Not going to patronise the consumers, creating advertising that makes them think and make a decision for themselves rather than telling them what to do, allowing the audience to be active opposed to passive. Branbach believed you had to start with the product, investigate the product before anything else. Apple subverted this 4th wall concept by taking the PC's shortcomings and comparing them with that of the Macs.

TYPES OF TV ADVERTISEMENTS:
- Political TV advertising = made by an organization/institution to influence the decision making process eg. elections.
- Infomercials = run for over one minute or as long as a television program and are usually on in the early hours of the morning. Also known as teleshopping.
- Product placement = promotional advertisements made by marketers using real commercial products and services in media.
- Sponsorship = something to support an event, activity, person or campaign which is funded financially through the provision of other products or services.

Development of digital video recorder (TiVo, Sky+) means people can record television programs directly onto a hard drive, allowing them to "fast-forward" or "skip" through the advertisements. As a result of this, many speculate that TV advertisements will be eliminated altogether and replaced by product placement advertising such as how in the TV program, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition", they only use certain brands of products when building the houses. By showing these products being used on a program, it immediately provides that brand with promotion and advertising.

Codes and conventions of television include: catchy jingles, catch-phrases, animation, and element of surprise.

Animation
Animation (drawn or computer generated) can give a certain appeal which would be difficult to achieve with actors etc. Notable advert: Kellog's Rice Krispies, combining the characters, Snap, Crackle & Pop with real actors. ANIMATION APPEALING TO CHILDREN.

TV adverts today appear between shows but also interrupt the show at intervals. This method of interrupting shows was used grab the attention of the viewers because they were already focused on the TV show and would not change channel during the adverts because they would not want to miss any of the show. However, with the development of remote controls, it has made it a lot easier for people to change channel during the advertisements, meaning advertisers are having to come up with ideas to keep the audience interested enough to sit through the advertisements.

The Process of Advertising

Advertising Communicates
All adverts try to SAY something to the consumer about the product or service they are advertising. They contain a message, through which the advertiser hopes to positively influence our thinking in favour of their brand.

Advertising is Part of a wider marketing process
Other factors, such as price and availability, also exert an important influence, so advertising has to work alongside the other elements of MARKETING in an 'integrated' way to communicate effectively with the consumer.

Advertising Sells
It costs a lot of money to put together an advertising campaign: Advertising must therefore EARN BACK the money it spends, by generating new business which more than covers what the advertising cost.

Industry Structure
ADVERTISERS - who spend money on advertising
AGENCIES - who think up campaigns for their clients, and who select the media in which they will appear
MEDIA OWNERS - who run the media organizations (papers, TV stations, poster companies etc.) which carry the adverts to consumers