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Search - Personal Influence

I always ask a friend of mine in California what he is watching, because I guess I must have the same taste in TV as he does. He has recommended a lot of things on Netflix like Narcos.

One I tried because of him - Ozark. I don't find Netflix as convenient as cable but I'm trying not to fall too far behind on technology!

I am influenced by some marketing sources in terms of word-of-mouth too, for TV. I end up watching some of those on-demand pitches for shows while looking through other stuff. And lots of times I will check them out too.

For this discussion, post an example of a product for which you were influenced by word-of-mouth, either organic or amplified. How frequently do you use this information source? Do you always ask the same person? Or do you buy several products that a single celebrity endorses?

Marketers impacting the decision-making process

Please post an article that has an example of marketers' influence on customer's decision-making. Refer to Fig. 12-1 in your book to remind yourself of the 5 steps - your article can be about any one of them, but please make sure you explicitly say which one, and describe how this is being done. Then think critically about the process - do you feel what is being done is effective? Or, given what you're learning, could it be improved?

Problem recognition

One of the criticism of marketers is that they activate problem recognition even when we don't need a certain product (marketers sometimes can create a sense of need themselves!) This aspect makes for interesting examples, like the one below.

A surprising number of people worldwide are lactose intolerant. Is it ethical to make people think they should consume milk after infancy? Is it ethical to recruit those that are intolerant to participate in a lawsuit? The ad below works on an consumer's actual state, showing the uncomfortable symptoms of this condition.

For this wiki, post an advertisement that you think activates the problem-recognition process. Do you think that the ads work on the consumer’s actual state or ideal state?  Can you improve the problem recognition features of the ads?