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.

Introduction to the Advertising & Branding Module.

Last week was the first advertising lecture and workshop of the year. We were introduced to marketing tools such as SWOT Analysis and Perceptions Maps in the lecture and had a chance to practice them the following day in the workshop.

Joanna Montgomery a graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone came in to talk about her company ‘Little Riot’ and its first product ‘Pillow Talk’. 

In our groups we identified the Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats that faced this product and produced a list of ways in which ‘Pillow Talk’ could be improved. A few ideas we came up with were; having an option when shipping to send the pillows to two different addresses, customise pillows so they’re a bit more colourful, and allow the user to pre- record a message for their loved one to listen to when they get to bed. Also we thought the product would go down well with parents who may want to listen to their child sleeping or who may think it’d be comforting for the child to hear their parent’s heartbeat. I enjoyed hearing the feedback from the other groups, one group mentioned that as there’s a lot of interest from army wives in this product a donation should be given to ‘Help for Heroes’ every time a ‘pillow talk’ is sold. I thought this was a clever idea as it would gain publicity for ‘Little Riot’ and the product but also allow Joanna to give back and thank her customers.

My favourite part of the workshop was Joanna Montgomery being recognised by one of the exchange students in our class. It was a good example of how the internet can make you known all across the world. ‘Pillow Talk’ is not yet for sale but the student from China knew all about her and her product from the internet. Have a look at the video of our workshop here and see the action!