The Thrill of the Hunt

There was a topic that at first was the front-runner for my paper, but I ended up deciding against it only a few days before our paper topic blogs were due. I originally wanted to explore customer experiences in regards to discount stores such as Ross, Marshall’s, and TJMaxx. Even though I decided to take a different route for my paper, I am still very interested in this topic, and felt that a free-response blog was an ideal outlet to at least scratch the surface as far as understanding how these stores work, what kind of experience they intend to deliver to their customers, and at the very least, to share what I feel when I shop in these stores.

When you walk in to these stores, you see row after row of plain metal clothing racks and rounders, aisles of shoe displays, stark white tile floors and fluorescent lighting. Once you dive into the racks, you find very little rhyme or reason in the organization of the clothing, other than signs hung from the ceiling that feature broad categories such as “pants” or “dresses.” To some, this minimalist setup may allude to a lack of forethought in creating an overall customer experience. However, I feel that such a setup is the most appropriate for this type of store, and that the experience it creates is quite intentional as well. Earlier in the semester we discussed a similar concept, in that Wal-Mart stores utilize similar minimalist displays. If a store image revolves around low prices, it only makes sense that the fixtures should follow suit.

Normally, the experience with a retail store is shaped by a mix of factors over a period of time, including internal thoughts and feelings, the atmosphere in the store, and customer service; just to name a few. From my personal experience, the experience in discount stores is predominantly created in the mind of the consumer, rather than from external factors. It is more likely that realizations in regard to external factors, such as minimalist displays fitting in with the concept of a discount store, occur in the unconscious. I do not go into these stores expecting the pristine customer service that I would expect from a store like Nordstrom or a small designer boutique. I go into a discount store with the mindset that I am going to find a great deal, thus, my customer experience stems from that positive mindset. This presents a key insight for stores in these categories. To some, discount prices signify lower quality, and that negative mindset is my best guess as to why many people don’t enjoy discount shopping like I do.

I initially grew interested in this topic when I thought about it in light of the current economic situation. Penny-pinching is necessary, as so many Americans are suffering huge hits to the value of their assets. Personally, I have always loved shopping at discount stores, even before the recession hit full-force. But there are many consumers who just recently found the value in forfeiting a luxurious experience in return for a great deal.

I found a USA Today article from February 2, 2008 entitled “More Shoppers Head to Discount Stores.” The article says that with a recession looming over their heads, many shoppers switched from stores like Macy’s, The Limited and Ann Taylor, to stores like Ross and Marshall’s. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, “January retail sales were dismal across the board…it was the worst January showing since at least 1970.” Despite this fact, discounters such as Wal-Mart, Ross and TJMaxx outperformed higher-priced retail outlets, such as Nordstrom and Macy’s. Basically, it has taken a trying time to lead many consumers to suspend their negative associations with discount stores in pursuit of saving money.

It will be interesting to see how these trends are furthered (or hindered) as the economy continues to change. I am most interested to see how many discount store converts remain loyal to the stores, even if a positive economic change finds them in a financial position that allows them to return to stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom.

Clotaire Rapaille...What a Name!

I wanted to start this post by saying that Dr. Rapaille seems like a fascinating man. However, because of the confidentiality of his findings and the brevity of the interviews with him, I am not completely sure how his methods are any more advanced than brain scanning technologies such as FMRI, or brain signal readings, such as those in the Today Show clip we watched on Monday.

The premise behind Rapaille’s method is that because consumers are unable to accurately voice what it is they really want, you have to tap into their unconscious to uncover their unspoken needs. This compels me to research his methods further, because judging by his New York mansion, his cars, and his flocks of Fortune 500 followers; he is obviously doing something right.

From what I was able to gather about Dr. Rapaille’s research method, the first step he takes is to blatantly ask people what they think of first by prompting them with a certain product or product category. In the video clip, the prompt was luxury, to which subjects responded with phrases such as “high quality.” He describes this as starting with the cortex, or letting people voice their conscious thoughts and associations with the prompt.

Dr. Rapaille’s next step involves uncovering consumer emotions. He does this by asking participants to describe the prompt to him as though he were a 5-year-old from another planet. At this point, Dr. Rapaille seemed satisfied with the fact that his participants seemed unsure about tasks ahead of them. The first task was characteristic of a more typical form for marketing research, so I can understand the confusion at such a deviation from the “norm.”

In the final step of Dr. Rapaille’s research method, he brought participants into a room with no chairs and pillows, pens, and paper on the floor. He turned off the lights to create a quiet and almost dream-like environment, wanting participants to go back to their very first experience with or exposure to the subject-matter the researchers are trying to understand. Rapaille believes that the scribbles and words that appear on paper after this exercise hold the code that marketers must use to most effectively sell their products. Rapaille reveals what he calls “Reptilian Hot Button,” or the source of the unspoken needs of consumers.

After going through this process and analyzing the findings, Rapaille comes up with succinct codes to guide marketers in everything from product design to advertising campaigns. For example, Rapaille’s code for SUV was “domination,” which explained why smaller SUV’s manufactured by Cadillac were not selling. His advice was to beef up the vehicles, and tint the windows, giving the car a look and a feel very much in line with the code that Rapaille revealed. Another example involved Rapaille’s advice to French cheese companies selling their product in the United States. In France, cheese is treated almost as though it is alive, and therefore is never refrigerated. In the United States, however, the code that Rapaille revealed showed an underlying desire for safety, in that the cheese needed to be pasteurized and refrigerated to ensure freshness; a completely opposing view to that of the French. I assume that if you asked a consumer what they look for in cheese, they would say something about the taste, when in reality, they are looking for something else. That something else is what Dr. Rapaille is known to reveal.

Delta Airlines made an attempt to tap into the underlying needs of consumers by creating Song, a new, hip subsidiary of the company put in place to compete with Jet Blue. The goal of Song was to create a new culture around flying, and one way they wanted to do this was to not only appeal to an untapped segment of air travelers, but to engage in unique marketing efforts to break through the clutter found in today’s ad-saturated environment.

After learning about song, I was left with mixed feelings regarding the potential success of the concept. Song realized that existing Airlines were ignoring women’s needs, and decided to fill this gap. They created a profile of their target customer named Carrie, a woman living in a dual-income household, with 3 children, multiple cars, the means to purchase high-end goods, but the desire to be practical and save money. Targeting a new, and in some cases unexpected, segment has proven successful for a number of new and innovative products, which made me think this was a smart move for Song. An example I had in mind was the Nintendo Wii. The obvious target for a video game would be young boys, but Nintendo chose to target this particular system to families, and the product is wildly successful.

Despite this realization, I was torn as to whether or not targeting a woman like Carrie would in fact be profitable for the company. I asked myself – how often will a working mother of three engage in air travel? I have had limited exposure to members of this segment, but regardless, I am hesitant to believe they travel often enough to be the most worthwhile segment to which to cater expensive marketing campaigns.

Overall, The Persuaders discusses the need to break through the ad-clutter that consumers experience on a daily basis. There are very few mediums remaining that have not been touched by an ad of some kind. This presents a complex task for marketing students, but at the same time presents an exciting challenge.

Kenna's Dilemma

After reading Kenna’s Dilemma, from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, I found myself questioning the reasons behind my purchasing behavior. The problem with this is that from Gladwell’s perspective, the majority of the decisions that consumers make and the opinions that they form stem from the unconscious, a place that is not easily explored. Thus, these reasons and opinions cannot be accurately verbalized. I can slave for hours over why it is I don’t like Pepsi and much prefer Coke, but chances are slim that I’ll ever come to an accurate conclusion given my limited knowledge of product attributes that go beyond the superficial.

Although Gladwell brings up several valid points, there were two that I found most interesting and useful for marketers trying to gain insight from current or potential customers. The first was a theme that I felt permeated the majority of the chapter, and that is the realization that asking customers how they feel about something directly will not yield accurate results. My initial attention to this point came from our in-class discussions on gaining insights from members of our segments. As marketing students, I sometimes feel as though our initial solution when faced with the task of obtaining information from others is to create and distribute a survey. Gladwell describes that to yield more accurate results, subjects must be in natural settings, interacting with the products as they would in their everyday lives. This concept will have a notable impact on the methods my team and I choose to gain insight from our segment.

I feel that a large part of the problem with surveys is that test subjects often hesitate to admit things. For example, consumers chose E&J whiskey because of a more ornate bottle. As consumers, many would refrain from outwardly admitting to a researcher that they chose something because it was pretty or portrayed an image of status, mainly because we are taught to go beyond the superficial when choosing products. However, whether we are aware of it or not, such attributes do play a role and cannot be overlooked.

I agree that methods such as blind taste tests and surveys do not capture the affect of the complete product offering, as the 4 P’s of marketing tell us that there is more to a company’s offering than just the product itself. Vast resources and human effort are placed into creating a complete package that goes beyond the base composition and the attributes of the product. These efforts might include branding, promotions or packaging the product in an eye-catching way. This idea leads to the concept of sensation transference, which is a transferring of sensation or impression about the packaging of the product to the product itself. My interpretation of this is that all of the internal attributes, external attributes and prominent associations with the product (i.e. spokespeople) are lumped together in the brain, and are not dissected when a purchasing decision is being made. Our inability to separate such stimuli makes it even more difficult to accurately portray how we feel about a product.

I can think of a frequent example from my personal life where packaging plays a significant role, and that is in perfume selection. I like to wear more flowery scents, as opposed to perfumes that are fruitier or on the verge of smelling like cologne. Once I narrow down my options based on this criterion, I am still faced with a number of options that suit my preferences. When faced with the following two bottles, both equal when judged based on my limited scent criteria, can you guess which one I’d choose? (Answer: Daisy).


The second lesson that I took away from this chapter is the need for marketers to persevere in order to get past or disprove the preconceived notions that consumers hold toward a given product a category. In the Herman Miller chair example, Bill Stumpf, an industrial designer for the brand, describes the American idea of comfort as a La-Z-Boy recliner and soft cushions. The Herman Miller Aeron chair fell far from this description and therefore was not initially well-received in the marketplace. Despite this negativity, the product was not abandoned because of the realization that consumers are not in touch with what it is they really want. The chair was not something that consumers were used to seeing, which made them nervous. Gladwell points out that these feelings of nervousness or fear might be interpreted by a consumer as dislike for the product, when in actuality, the two are very different from one another.

In the example of the Mary Tyler Moore show, market research led CBS to nearly pull the show off the air. It depicted a woman who was more interested in her career than in starting a family. Outward disagreement toward the show probably came from women who were raised to believe that a woman should get married, raise a family and take care of the house while the husband financially supports the family. Internally, I imagine that the concept of the show was exciting to most women, even though it may have taken some time for them to get used to.

For revolutionary products like the Aeron chair, or concepts like the Mary Tyler Moore show, I believe that marketers could find a great deal of value in unconventional forms of marketing. In my Consumer Behavior class, we watched a video about a glove video game controller. When you wore the glove, the computer would sense the movement of your fingers, and the game on the screen would respond accordingly (this video was obviously outdated, because now we have the Wii). An employee of the company that created this device would sit in coffee shops with a laptop and would use the glove, waiting for onlookers to question the device and eventually give the product a try. This supports the idea of utilizing a more natural setting in order to gain true insights from customers, and at the same presents a useful method of getting customers over the initial fear of adopting a new product.