Padd Solutions

Rapaille's method hints at deeper reasoning to our purchasing habits. I think his ‘decoding’ method merely a highly evolved form of rationalizing underlying emotion and reasoning. Although I can’t completely dismiss his theories, as they seem to work for many of his clients. The way I picture Rapaille’s deeper level of meaning is like this. We are always in an unconscious state of competition with our peers. We all buy products to differentiate ourselves in a world that encompasses over 6 billion people. In this world we are genetically 99.9% the same as each person and every other person. By surrounding ourselves with tangible products and services we feel unique, which in turn makes us feel empowered and satisfied. Tangible items simply serve as a bridge to these ideals.

I feel that whenever I set out to purchase something that I am guided by some deeper underlying reasons in my purchasing decisions. I could go out and buy a generic brand, but because it is the cheapest and is able to perform comparably to the luxury brand, it would make sense to buy the generic brand. However, underlying reasons insist that I buy the luxury brand because it is purchased by fewer consumers and because I am able to afford it, I don’t hesitate to pay up. I end up feeling that I made the right decision because I perceive that I have uniquely distinguished myself from the rest of my peers. The luxury brand is also more likely to have advertisements which reinforce this idea and that I’m worthy of this more expensive brand. But of course this all happens without conscious thought or articulate reasoning of course.

I think Frank Luntz’s study of carefully word choice is an excellent marketing strategy which is able pinpoint where people with opposing ideologies meet in the middle on different topics. However I find the way that he uses this strategy to market political/legal issues is completely deceptive to those to being targeted. Political advertising no doubt has some initial impact on me, but I usually take any political advertisement with a grain of salt. I realize political advertisements are notorious for being deceptive and I usually take appropriate actions by inferring with a trusted neutral news affiliate before making any judgments.

Narrowcasting is the dissemination of information about people in order to direct very specific advertisements to very specific audiences in likelihood that they respond strongly to a message. Many marketers believe that mass markets do not exist anymore. Instead they are focusing on creating messages targeted at specific segments of the public defined by values, preferences, or demographic attributes. Narrowcasting is important for the future as marketers aim to fight the overwhelming clutter which exists currently. By delivering specific messages to niche demographics instead of one mass broadcasted message, marketers hope to grab the attention of not more consumers, but people more likely to act on the messages themselves. Examples of narrowcasting include reaching out to voter demographics that are likely to be affected by an issue, search ads on the web and signage inside stores where consumers are shopping for an item being advertised.