Research: Customer Contact.

After having a chat with this fish supplier I decided to talk to some of the customers at the fish & chip shop. Customers are after all at the heart of every business so I felt this was important.

I decided to keep the questions short and sweet and ask them while they were waiting for their order. I wanted to find out what their favourite fish was to see if it matched Hugh’s opinion that Brits only like haddock or cod. I also wanted to know what they thought of fish & chips and the fish & chip shop experience, any word that came to mind. I brought with me a black card cut out of a haddock for them to write their answers on and cooked some battered plaice for them to sample. I thought some free food would be a nice thank you for them completing the questions and it would also let me judge some of their responses to a new type of fish.

I found that the majority of the customers I asked preferred haddock, next in line were cod and salmon, only a couple chose different types of fish such as halibut or mackerel. Getting people to try a piece of plaice proved difficult I’m not sure this was because they thought they wouldn’t like it or if they felt to uncomfortable to take a free sample.

I have also drawn up four personas of my regular Wednesday night customers. They all have their rituals and all get the exact same order every week. 

This make me think that it may prove difficult to get people to change their habits and try a new type of fish. So maybe it’s not these customers I should target maybe it will be the more adventurous younger generation who are a bit bored of their local chippy, these may be the customers that will want a shark supper? 

Customer Behaviour. ‘Pillow Talk’

When marketing a product a business should take into account customer behaviour. What customers use and why.

 The ‘what’ is simple it’s just what product has been purchased, what it looks like, what it does. The ‘why’ is split into two sections ‘Rational decisions’ and ‘Irrational decisions.’ Rational decisions are about what function the product serves and what we need to use it for. Irrational decisions look at social pressures, emotional and psychological connections with a product. As mentioned in a TED Talks video that I watched recently it’s not about what we buy it’s about WHY we buy it. Businesses need to sell you their product by showing you its benefits not its functions, they need to tap into your emotions. This is why ‘Apple’ products are so popular their adverts show you how their product will benefit you and make your life easier.

Today in our group we looked back at ‘Pillow Talk’ the upcoming product by Little Riot. Discussing customer behaviour and using what we have learnt in the lectures our aim was to create a press advert for the product.

Firstly we asked, ‘what is the market segment we are focusing on’?

We decided this was young couples with disposable income.  We also felt this product would appeal to women more so than men.

What is the product?

It’s a small speaker and light which is placed inside your pillow case and your partners. It has a ring to connect the two devices through a wifi signal. Once connected the light will glow and you will hear your partners heart beat.

Why would the customer buy this product?

Rational: To keep connected with their loved one. It’s an alternative to a phone, easy to use and allows people to contact each other with out having to talk.

Irrational: To feel loved, safe and comforted. For company and peace of mind. To know your loved one is thinking of you and to feel their presence. It will create memories of past experiences and times you’ve spent with one another.

We had enough information now to start on our advert… or so we thought. We all decided an upmarket young women’s magazine would be best for the ad. One that featured both gossip and fashion as this would be the type of magazine a potential customer would be reading. Thinking up adverts was tricky so we did a brainstorm on the word ‘Couples’ hoping this would generate some fresh ideas and it did!

 After sketching a few ideas we all agreed on a two page ad. that connects to make one whole advert. One page showing a woman sleeping with her ‘Pillow Talk’ in Paris, the other shows a man waking up with his ‘Pillow Talk’ in New York. Half the tag line is on page one which will make the customer interested and the other half is on the second page revealing what the product does. Connecting the pages will be a row of love hearts.

Below is a mock up of our advert.