Learning More About The Consumer

After reading the “Kenna’s Dilemma” chapter, I was really interested to know more about Kenna’s life. He seems like such a fascinating person that has gone through many ups and downs with his music career. I like the fact that Kenna’s style of music is different, not in a bad way, but just different from other artists.

Market researchers have to find a way to get into the consumers’ minds. This is not an easy process by any means. I have always thought that asking consumers directly would give you all the answers, but after reading this chapter, I definitely think differently. One lesson I have learned is that when people are asked a question directly, that doesn’t necessarily give you factual information and you shouldn’t rely on it 100%. (pg.5)

Market researchers playing a clip of Kenna’s songs over the phone to find out if it was what consumers wanted was probably not the best solution. I thought this was particularly important because it puts the emphasis that people are so quick to judge. They are so quick to like or dislike something without giving it a real chance. I admit that I sometimes fall into this category as well. I am a huge movie freak. I rent movies almost every weekend. A lot of the times, when I put the DVD in, if the first 30 minutes doesn’t interest me because of the slow plot, I immediately turn it off. I judge the movie too quickly just on the first 30 minutes. Recently, I have watched the entire movie, regardless of the slow plot, and it turns out, that these movies are AMAZING. For the past year, I have been missing out on some great films. This relates to the whole Pepsi challenge. In a taste test, people chose Pepsi over Coke. Coke was more of a well-known brand at the time, and because people only had a sip, they did not have the chance to drink an entire glass. By drinking the entire glass, which changed a lot of opinions.

Also through sensation transference, I believe that marketers should study this concept thoroughly in order to gain insight from current or potential customers. This concept is based on the packaging of the product. It has been studied that the way the product is packaged, ultimately makes the product. (pg. 8)

Another lesson I find very helpful for marketers is they should learn to become experts in their specific fields. When I mean expert, I mean know the ins and outs of EVERYTHING that they are researching. I think this will help greatly. (pg. 17). If you are researching whether people would like a certain television show, this takes a lot of expertise. You have to know what sells, why people watch what they watch, what is entertaining, what gets the ratings up, etc. It takes more than just watching the show and saying you like it. There is so much background knowledge that marketers need in order to gain insight from current or potential customers.

At first, I was honestly dreading to read this 22 page chapter, but I surprisingly found it very interesting. It is neat to see that consumers’ minds are so complex and market researchers have to be creative in understanding the way they think.