I Love Wal-Mart!

Dear World,

This week in class, we talked about customer experiences and how researchers in the past and today create them for customers. We read an article on Monday called “True Colors” about two hair dying products and learned that it’s not just about the product a company is selling, it’s about the experience the consumer gets when using the product. On Wednesday, we discussed Bernd Scmitt’s Strategic Experience Modules, or SEMs, which breaks customer experiences into five categories: sense, feel, think, act, and relate. Sense, the first category, appeals to the consumers’ five senses. Next, the feel category appeals to emotions like happiness, sadness, or anger. Third, the think category takes a cognitive approach and appeals to the intellect. Fourth, the act category aims to affect bodily experiences, lifestyles and interactions. Finally, the relate category connects people to his or her ideal self, other people, and cultures. The ultimate goal for a marketer is to use all five of these modules to create a holistic experience. I found this model very interesting in class because as a consumer you rarely put yourself into the shoes of the marketer and wonder which strategies they use to capture your attention. But after having a general overview SEMs model, you can take any type of ad or experience and break it down into one of these categories.

So what exactly is an experience? It’s defined somewhere along the lines of “a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something.”  And what is a customer experience that is particularly meaningful to me?

My best customer experience is not a particular product, but a service that allows me to enjoy myself every time I go – Wal-Mart. When I got my car senior year in high school, the first thing I did was drive to a nearby Wal-Mart. I fell in love with Wal-Mart in middle school when I started going grocery shopping with my parents every couple of weeks. Everything was cheap so I could afford buying accessories that I didn’t need (headbands, cute stationary, etc.). The store stocked several varieties of every product so I was given a choice on which one I wanted. For example, if I wanted a bottle of shampoo, I probably had over 10 brands to choose from. Also, everything on the shopping list was pretty easy to locate in the store. Above each aisle, general items are listed so all you had to do was look up, read, and locate. I was getting to that age where I wanted to buy things for myself but felt bad if I asked my parents to pay for me, so I would save up money from my weekly lunch allowance and ask a friend to bring me another time to pay for my stuff. My parents also opened up a restaurant when I started high school so there was never any food in the fridge. I started to buy some groceries here and there for days I didn’t feel like driving to the restaurant to get dinner. So Wal-Mart was easily one of the first destinations I made in my new car.

Along with the in store experience, I really enjoy Wal-Mart’s newest commercials with Mr. Rollback. Mr. Rollback “rolls back” prices and helps make items in the store more affordable to average people like me. Wal-Mart does a great job at making customers feel like they are thought about and cared for with Mr. Rollback because he makes an effort to understand that we are looking for more affordable things to buy in this weakening economy.  

Even today, as a college student, I love going to Wal-Mart because it gives me the same experiences I got when I was in high school. They are easily located with their giant blue and yellow logo, prices are always the lowest compared to any other supermarket I go to, and the stores are almost always the same on the inside so I don’t have to relearn how to make my way around the store.

Best,

CJL

The Asian American

Dear World,

So for this week’s assignment, I’m supposed to create an accurate and rich persona of myself. We (my classmates and I) were given articles to read on how companies create personas and given other articles with illustrated examples of personas. I’m not going to lie. That first article was hard to get through because it was a bunch of technical stuff that bored me. (It was also probably because I was trying to read it in a sea of voices at the computer lab so I couldn’t concentrate). I thought to myself, “How on earth am I supposed to write at least one page on this?” But after reading the first article and moving on to the second article (with colorful pictures might I add), I got a better idea of what I had to do to create my persona.

Last week in class, Karen from Proctor and Gamble came to speak to us about personas. She has been working in the beauty line for several years now and was showing us an example of personas that the company came up with for their CoverGirl Simply Ageless makeup line. P&G had come up with several categories that seemed very obvious to me when Karen presented it to the class. The personas ranged from young, frequent users to older and very self-conscious users.  However, she made a good point and explained that it is a lot easier to see personas after they are created and state the obvious than to be doing the behind the scenes work and actually trying to create it.  Now my job is to get behind the scenes and create something that represents me that will be valuable for marketers.

 This wasn’t an easy task for me. I thought about it for a few days before I even wrote anything down. I thought about it while I was showering, walking home from class, going to the grocery store, and even before I went to sleep. I finally came up with a list (that kept growing as the day went on) to incorporate into my persona, including my hobbies, basic demographics, and habits. I am a 20 year old student from Houston, Texas attending a public university. I live off campus but not far enough to take my car to school. Instead, I walk 10 minutes to the closest bus stop and take the bus another 20 minutes to get to class. I am a marketing major at one of the nation’s top business schools, meaning I am always stressed and swamped with homework. Instead of doing homework, I procrastinate by streaming videos on www.hulu.com and by catching up with my social life on Facebook. I am also in a long distance relationship so I spend a lot of time talking to my boyfriend. Because I procrastinate so much, I stay up late virtually every night and get an average of 5 to 6 hours of sleep. I am involved in several organizations and honor societies on campus, so I am kept very busy with officer positions, socials, and volunteering. I am a first generation Asian-American and grew up in a very strict household. I speak several languages and enjoy my diverse culture. Being a college student paying for everything on my own, I am strapped for cash all the time and have loans and grants to help me out with rent and food. I can’t cook very well, so I resort to cheap food that’s still relatively healthy (like frozen peas). I have a lot of school spirit and attend football games on weekends and enjoy going out in the nation’s biggest party city with my friends during my free time.

I loved the article Cohorts’ Vignettes, and decided to use one of their personas as my template. So if I were to create a persona for me with all the descriptions given above, it would be something like this:

Cohort Segment Name: Cindy

Description: First Generation Asian-American College Student

·         College student growing up in different cultures who has a slight language barrier with parents; is strapped for cash, enjoys going out with friends, and is busy with school to keep up grades to impress parents.

Personality:

·     My favorite TV show is streaming online so I will do homework in a couple of hours. Don't tell my parents that I'm wasting time please!

·     Let’s go to the football game this weekend, pregame ahead of time and then go downtown after the game.

·     Frozen peas count as my daily intake of vegetables right?

·     Man, I wish I got more grants! I have to pay rent and bills and food and the list goes on. When does shopping get to come into the equation?

·     I have to call my mom and tell her I’m doing well in school. She doesn’t have to know I just failed the last test – as long as my overall GPA isn’t below an A-.

Demographics:

·         Average Age: 20

·         Median Income: -$40,000 in loans

·         Race: Asian

·         Mobility: 10 year old car and bicycle

·         Home ownership: None

Lifestyle:

·         Audio/Video: owns a smart phone, laptop, and digital camera

·         Outdoors: kayaking, running, football, sunbathing

·         Sports and Fitness: school gym, IM sports

·         Other interests: sleeping, watching TV, baking

I’m hoping this is enough for the beginning of creating a persona. I’m not sure how researchers do it, but it’s tough work! When you think you have everything down, more stuff just keeps popping up in your head. As complicated of a person as I seem based on the above description, I am almost positive most of my first generation Asian-American friends can completely agree with most of the points above.

Best,

CJL

Impact of Design

Dear World,

After a week of my Customer Insights class, a few readings, my professor and guest lecturer Jeff Mulhausen have opened my eyes up to the world of design that I never really knew about.

Jeff’s presentation consisted of a list of designers in the past that have impacted the world of design today. I was surprised to find out that so many designers in the past created their own philosophies that changed the idea of design over the course of time. The designer that I found most interesting during the presentation was Dieter Rams. His philosophy was a very simple one - “a good design is as little design as possible.” I found this particularly interesting because when I think of the word design, I think of animations, graphics, patterns, shapes, colors, and everything in between. Growing up, I wanted to be an interior designer for a short period of time. I always imagined I would design rooms with extravagant table pieces, curtains and ropes, vases of all shapes and sizes, fancy couches, and include at least a color scheme consisting of ten different colors. Thankfully I never pursued this dream because I soon realized that I had no talent in designing anything. I look at IKEA display rooms today and realize that you can be a lot more effective with simpler designs. IKEA room displays include as little as a chair/sofa, a table, a carpet, and a cabinet or shelf on the wall here and there, and they look amazing! Designs carry beyond rooms and displays too. Everyone passes by simply designed logos everyday that we can identify without even seeing the company name under it. Take Target Corporation for example. When you see a red circle with a red dot in the middle of it, you automatically think of Target. If you see a burnt orange longhorn on someone’s shirt or car, you know that they are a fan of The University of Texas. Even clothing companies are using simple designs to capture their consumers’ attentions.  When you see A&F on a shirt, you know it is Abercrombie and Fitch. AE is American Eagle, and CK is Calvin Klein.

Just as incorporating design into our marketing practice is important, I feel that sometimes we focus too much on the design part and end up hurting a product by making it too confusing or difficult to use. In most new designs, a small learning curve is involved before it becomes more efficient than the older design. An upgraded version of a cell phone is a great example. When I got my phone, I spent a couple of weeks playing with every button and testing out what I needed and didn’t need. After about a month, I figured out exactly what I wanted to use and didn’t bother with what I didn’t need. However, there are times when an upgraded version of something actually becomes more difficult to use. Take Microsoft Office’s Word 2007. Drastic changes were made, and everything was grouped and categorized in different tabs. Instead becoming more efficient, Word 2007 had groupings that were so different from Word 2003 that many users, including myself, found it very difficult to find things that were simply laid out in older version.

Of products that are especially creative in terms of its designs, I think the iPhone wins in my book. As mentioned in class, the iPhone was created with the user in mind. There is only one button under the screen, and everything else is laid out on one big screen. It’s easy to read things off of, and it fits into your pocket or purse easily. The iPhone’s creation corresponded to the principles of Henry Dreyfuss, who incorporated the human aspect of design. He said that “if people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient, or just happier, the designer has succeeded,” and Steve Jobs has definitely succeeded. When the iPhone first came out, I automatically turned against it. I thought the touch screen was a mistake because I assumed it would start having problems after several uses. I thought this only because I’ve had phones with touch screens in the past that eventually wore out and completely ruined the phone. I don’t own an iPhone today, but after actually using one and playing with it, I have been convinced that it’s not as horrible as I thought it once was.

Now that I know a little bit about the impact of design in the marketing world, I’m looking forward to learning more about the impact of customer insights and how it will affect the future someday.

Best,

CJL

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