First Impressions

Understanding the Customer or understanding how a consumers mind works.....may be simple to the untrained eye. But there is a 3 year degree course which covers it. Well obviously i don't know a lot yet, but if you read above I'm sure it has expanded. The first Lecture was insightful and taught me that stereotyping and perception is a big part of understanding the customer. We looked at two people and judged them for who they are and what they do. This isn't normally what id enjoy done to me but in reflection it opened my mind into how the marketing industry targets its customers. First impressions are therefore potentially the most important within the industry and in normal social situations. According to leading psychologists and writers people have between seven to seventeen seconds of interacting with strangers before they form an opinion. This isn't a long time so your pitch is normally considered your rise and or downfall in any situation. Unless your Levi Roots.....



For those of you who don't know his story he appeared on Dragons Den presenting the now popular Reggae Reggae sauce. His pitch was appalling but with Peter Jones presenting some faith in his product and investing, it became one of the most well known sauces and has made millions. Levi now has his own cooking books and restaurants within the UK and is reaping the benefits of his recipe. Therefore perception isn't always everything but it plays a big part in the decision making process.

Following learning the basics of perception the group were asked to draw a shape of their choice. This shape or 'egg' was then used to place the answers to questions inside. These answers were used to form a perception of each person. This 'egg' was then handed to a random person and they had to work out who owned each 'egg'. In reflection this was a great exercise as know one new each other and could make judgements on each other subjectively.

Shown below is my egg:

In terms of my initial thoughts on blogging i think its a great idea and uses the Internet to the best of its capability. The idea of creating a blog about what i learn in each lecture should also benefit my memory as through repetition people tend to remember things better. This is because through repetition it places information in the long term, rather than short term memory.