Gender

How to impress a woman?







How to impress a man?





Gender differences play a big part in how business go about marketing. In a research report, a group of people were taken into a room and were asked to remember various items. The males in the group remembered the big picture hanging on the wall, also a desk and bookshelf. The females, however, remembered more intimate details like flowers or a picture.



Schiebe and Condry (1984) examined advertisements according to product type and discovered major gender differences in the way companies market to the two genders.


Advertisements aimed at:
Males - Valued ambition and physical strength
Females - Stressed beauty and youth

A male approach to buying and communication requires decision making based on partial information gained, minimal patience, look for clarity and simplicity and humourous advertisements.

For advertisers, adverts for women are more likely to be more detailed as they appreciate finer details in a product. Males however, pick up on only one or two subtle clues, they need to be shown the bigger picture and are less likely to process cmplex metaphors.



A video highlighting how adverts stereotype the two genders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIXUjzyMe0

Enterprise Week

The apprentice challenge was a university run competition themed on the television programme. The aim was to get into groups of 6 and each group were given £200 of money from a local business. In my group there was myself, John, Lynne, Chris, Francine and Hannah. Our team name was SMARTYPANTS.




Round 1

The first round consisted of having a designated area in High Wycombe town centre, where we had to buy doughnuts and sell as many as we could and make a profit. We purchased 200 jam doughnuts from tescos at 20p per doughnut, and sold them on for roughly 40p per doughnut.


We were located just next door to tescos in the eden centre and split ourselves into two teams. One team was directly next to tescos and the other group next was further into the eden centre.

Everyone made a great effort in flogging the doughnuts, alongside selling the doughnuts, starbucks very generiuosly lent us and urn of coffee. We then gave an offer to the public of a coffee with every two doughnuts purchased. This really helped our sales, as people were paying for two doughnuts just to have the coffee as it would be cheaper than going to starbucks. Even though the day started slowly, it picked up as the day went on and finished the day by selling all 200 doughnuts.



Round 2

We came 2nd in the first round, which sent us through to the 2nd round. This started off with us having to pitch and idea for a market stall in the eden shopping, to their management. We came up with an pitch to sell doughnuts again as it worked for us in the first round, but also to sell christmas cards, cakes and again free coffee from starbucks.

The team went flat out to acquire customers to our stall. We were located at the front of the eden centre and near the student halls, so this was ideal as we were able to sell to students as well as the normal high wycombe public. By the end of the day we had sold every item on our table and had made it through to the final.



Round 3

The third and final round was to hold an evening event at the universities student union bar. We
came up with an idea to hold a James Bond themed night. We decided to come up with this idea because we had access to casino tables, roulette wheels and James Bond memoribilia. Also, extra things like vodka shots and a James Bond guys and girls auction made this event an attractive proposition.

The night was a huge success. It took a while for the event to pick up, but when it did, all the vodka shots were sold out, the casino and roulete wheel was always busy, and we made nearly £100 on the auction alone. By the end of the night we were confident of victory. When the news was announced we had won, the celebrations started, and a what ended up as a memorable night for everyone involved.

Personality and Self Concept

A famous personality theory was developed by Sigmund Freud. This was named the psychoanalytic theory of personality. It consisted of three parts: the Id, Ego and Superego.

The Id

The id is the only component that is present from birth. This aspect of a persons personality is completely unconsicious and includes primitave and instinctive behaviours. The id is by principle pleasure or self gratification of all desires, wants and need. For example, a need to drink, will result in getting a drink.

Ego

According to Freud, the ego is a development from the id, and makes sure the actions of the ego is acceptable in society. The ego strives to satisfy the id's desires to be realistic and socially acceptable. The id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification, the ego will eventually allow the behaviour, but only in the correct time and place.

Superego

The superego is the part of a persons personality that holds all moral standards and ideals that we acquire through our parents and society, essentially our right and wrong. There are two parts to the superego: The ideal ego and the conscience.

Ideal ego: The rules and standards of good behaviour. These rules are approved by parents and other authority figures. Obeying these rules feels like a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

The conscience: Information about bad behaviour that is viewed as negative by parents and authority figures. These behaviours are forbidden and often lead to bad consequences.


According Freud, self concept is a social product developed through experience, it possesses boundly potential development and actualization. Due to past experiences, individuals may percieve themselves in a different light and others may see them. Also, individuals percieve themselves differently at certain times, therefore inner focusing is an available tool for counselling.



Research from William James (1890) argued that self concept derives from social comparisons with others. e.g. peers, family etc. However, Goffman (1959) saw self concept as reflecting social role experiences. e.g. mother, daughter, sister etc. which add facets to the view of oneself.




There are three sub headings under the idea of self concept:

Self Image: The kind of person we think we are. This usually comprises of social roles, body image and personality traits.

Ideal self: The kind of person we would like to be. This could be slightly or totlly different from our actual self. The larger the gap the lower our self esteem.

Self esteem: The extent to which we like ourselves, whether we accept or approve of our self image.