Marketing to Children

Advertisers spend 100s of billions of dollars a year worldwide encouraging, persuading and manipulating people into a consumer lifestyle that has devastating consequences for the environment through its extravagance and wastefulness. Advertising exploits individual insecurities, creates false needs and offers counterfeit solutions. It fosters dissatisfaction that leads to consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation. [Sharon Beder, 2o11].

Large companies such as McDonald's market their products strong towards children, they've even got meals specifically advertised towards kids such as the "Happy Meal" where the children can choose either nugets, fish fingers, cheese burger and ham burger plus chips and a drink as a meal, but the reason why most of the children want their mum or dad to purchase them this mean is because it includes a toy within the meal. This then means not only are the children getting "nice food" they also have an a toy which come with it so the children will have something to eat. 

Children are very demanding as the parrents want to provide there children with all the things in which they want so when companies are creating a new product they will find adverts in which will stick into the childrens head so that when it next comes on, the child turns on their puppy dog eyes and ask mummy or daddy to purchase what they want no matter the cost of the product.

Girls Adverts

Boys Adverts 

Family Purchasing Behaviour and the Roles of Husbands and Wife's

Family Purchasing Behaviour

Each family have the weekly shop, depending on the size of their wallet will also determine where they will carryout their shopping as each family have essential needs i.e. Food and Drink. The role of who is the Family Shopper is dependent on each family, 80% of families would say that the mother is the main shopper within the family i.e. they will carryout the main shopping for the family. This has become "the job of the women" as "women are meant to cook and clean" (i don't agree with that by the way). So it has just become normal for them to carryout the weekly shop as they are more likely to cook the dinner and therefore more likely to know what is needed and what isn't. 

 

Values

What are Values?

Values are those things that really matter to each of us, the ideas and beliefs we hold as special. Caring for others, helping other, wanting to do well etc. The values in which we develop is based on the way in which you are brought up. Your family will have a VERY strong influence in the values you hold. Values are things which cannot be changed easily there are big factors within everyone life which these become important and change or develop. Once you are born till you start school you values will be of those which your parents have inputted in to you. But once you start school you friends will also have a large input into the values you will develop or change the opinion on some other that you may currently hold.  

Things in which have a big impact on the values we have are parents, teachers and religious leaders, but society has changed. Too often young people today are mostly influenced by what they see and hear on television or on the street. 

Examples of Values

ambition, competency, individuality, equality, integrity, service, responsibility, accuracy, respect, dedication, diversity, improvement, enjoyment/fun, loyalty, credibility, honesty, teamwork, excellence, accountability, empowerment, quality, efficiency, dignity, collaboration, stewardship, empathy, accomplishment, courage, wisdom, independence, security, challenge, influence, learning, compassion, friendliness, discipline/order, generosity, persistence, optimism, dependability, flexibility.

The above are just some common values in which we people hold and believe in. 

 

Values can also make you the person you are and the things you believe by the things that happen in the world which change everything. Global Events which occur which have a Massive impact not only on one person but on the whole world. 

Things like the video approve will also change the values we have and the things we believe in because these things have had such a massive impact through the world which has meant that opinion of people have changed and values of people that live within those countries will also have changed due to what the world now thinks. i.e. World Trades Centres which was a Vitim of a terrorist attack will long live in the memory of the world as i had a very big impact of the way in which people now view Muslims as they believe all Muslims will have extremist views.

Group conformity, Opinion leaders and Peer Pressure

Group Conformity

What is Group Conformity?

  
"Conformity reflects a behavior that is a response to a perceived group pressure". [/www.psychologyandsociety.com, 2011]

Examples of Group Conformity

A work place become available, the workforce advertise the job they are carrying out interviews, One member is liked by the rest of the interviews by the other member has an objection against this person being hired, but as they are all for the idea he/she holds back the opinion in which they have and this new member once hired become very unreliable and later gets fired.  

Opinion Leader

An opinion leader is a person who has different ideas and behaviors to other in the group. The leader tends to have very strong views on a subject and is not affraid of to voice their opinions on the subject at hand. The opinion leaders will have an impact on the opinions the other members in the team will voice as they may be afraid to say what they really feel.

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is when "friends" persuade you to doing something that you do not want to do. But maybe you want to do it, and you just don't have the courage to do it and your friends talk you into it. Peer Pressure can be broken down into two areas; good peer pressure and bad peer pressure. 

Friends have a tendency to think that they know what is best for you, Well, if friends are going to tell you what to do, what can you do about it? The most basic thing that you can do is to say "No, I don't wish to do that!" or if you want to do it, say "Yes, give me a try!"Weak people are more likely to be pushed into doing things in which they wouldn't normally do. Children within Secondary school are more likely to be pushed into doing things in which they wouldn't even thought about in primary school. I remember when i first started Secondary School there were pupils there which i grew up with in primary school that were being pressured into doing things such as Smoking because of other kids smoking and they believed that it was "cool" to smoke.  

What is BLOGGING???

Initial Thought on Blogging...

Blogging??? Whats Blogging you may ask yourself? Blogging has been around for over 10years, the word Blogging itself means “Web Log”, And a web blog is Basically and online diary where the user choose a topic to talk about which they have some interest too. There are many many blogging website which a user can use the share there thoughts online but some of the more popular ones are “Wordpress, LiveJornal and Blogger”.

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’ [Matisse Enzer].

I believe blogging done well could be a very interesting, the importance of a blog is that it appeals to the readers. If it asks or answers question which the “followers” has asked, this creates satisfaction from the followers as this means they will be able to comment and allow the writer to understand their thoughts on the writers blog and whether they agree or disagree with the blog.

A large number of business are now using blogs to gather a form of research from potential customers as they will announce information about new product lunches or ask for opinions of people which already own the products. For the companies its is free research as they will be getting feedback for their products from users or potential buyers this is a must for a large number of Big businesses and this will also allow potential buyers to see whether the product they may want to purchase is any good. We all seek approval for things we buy therefore if other users are complementing the product then this could lead to increase in sales for he business, but this could also work against the business as if they receive bad comments about their products then this could cause for sales to decrease.

A negative of blogs is that big companies can create other accounts or ask other memebers within their organisation to post postive comments about the products and therefore this will be to no good to potentail buyers as the comments that have been posted are one sided or biest.

"A blog can be an incredible tool for sharing information and expertise. Kathleen Goodwin, CEO of iMakeNews, says business blogs "can offer organizations a platform where information, data, and opinion can be shared and traded among employees, customers, partners, and prospects in a way previously impossible: a two-way, open exchange".

I believe that blogging is the way forward for a large number of organisations, and a new way of communication for a vast number of people which use blogging to share their opinions and discuss other issues.