Term Paper

Course Name: Elementary Psychology (Course Code- ALD 2204)

Submitted By
THE USES OF
Group 3
PSYCHOLOGICAL Aryan Zabee Rhyme (Roll – 17251011)
Eshrak Farhan Sami (Roll - 17251037 )
Golam Sadman (Roll –17251047)

PRINCIPLES IN
Submitted To :

MARKETING Akib Ul Huque, PHD

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Dhaka
Date: 21 October,2018
 Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Applications of Psychology Theories in Marketing ....................................................................................... 3
Neuroscience and Behavior – Marketing Application .............................................................................. 3
Sensation and Perception – Marketing Application ................................................................................. 4
Learning- Marketing Application .............................................................................................................. 5
Motivation and Emotion – Marketing Application ................................................................................... 6
Personality and Marketing ........................................................................................................................ 6
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
 Introduction
Through the course Elementary Psychology, we have learned the basic principles of psychology.
We have covered topics starting from Neuroscience and behavior to Stress related topics. As we
are students of Marketing we must now apply these theories in practical field. For this we must
first see the previous applications of these theories in Marketing. After learning the previous
applications, we can apply it in our working field.

Applications of Psychology Theories in Marketing

We will now bring out different advertisements for explaining how those have maintained the
principles of psychology. We will gradually go through the principles and bring out relevant
marketing strategies.

Neuroscience and Behavior – Marketing Application

In the neuroscience part we have learned about the way our brain works after receiving any kind
of stimuli. Our nervous system is built with nerve cells or neurons. The Brain is the center point
of every behavior. The neuroscience part of the psychology will be involved in every principle of
psychology. Everything goes through this part and then we get the response. So, first we will
discuss about what happens in our brain when we come across a marketing implication.

Marketing implications can be of many types. For this part we will discuss the process through
which our brain goes after watching a video advertisement. For explaining this part, we have
chosen the Mercedes Benz commercial titled as ‘Sorry’ (Sorry, 2010). Here we will discuss what
happened on the brain while seeing this video advertisement.

The moment light from the video reaches our eyes the nerves take the information to occipital lobe
of the cerebral cortex of the brain. At the same time sound from the video reaches our ears and
nerves carry out the information to the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex. These information
travel throughout the brain and start to make meaning. After going through the occipital lobe and
cerebral cortex these information reach to the thalamus of the forebrain part of the central core.
Thalamus relays sensory information to the higher parts of the brain and integrates information
from the higher part to send those to cerebellum and medulla. The cerebellum performs some of
the intellectual functioning. Once this information reaches the limbic system of the brain the
learning and memory process begins. The viewer does not conduct any motor function with the
advertisement so the pons part in inactive. This is how the brain works after experiencing an
advertisement. After watching and while watching the frontal lobe part of the cerebral cortex part
of the brain remains active. This part helps us in thinking, planning, problem solving, decision
making, and accessing and acting on stored memories. So, afterwards if the viewer experiences a
need for car the viewer can be reminded of this car and thus can decide.

Sensation and Perception – Marketing Application

Sensation is the activation of sense organs by a source of physical energy. Perception is the sorting
out, interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimuli involving the sense organs and brain. For
this part we will use different examples. First comes absolute threshold which is the smallest
amount of stimulus that must be present for it to be detected. When we see a logo or any
advertisement then absolute threshold must be present or else we will not e able to see it. When
we see a biriyani shop in the street and the moment we get the smell of biriyani, we experience
difference threshold. Now, comes the adaptation process. When Oreo entered the market of China
it saw a slump in its sales. Chinese people were not trying out Oreo. So, they tried to adapt. Oreo
reduced its packet size to a smaller version. The pack price was reduced by $ 0.25. Also, they made
video advertisements with Chinese actors showing the dunking process of Oreo. This resulted in
sales increase and this is the adaptation process. Perceptual organization says that our brain fills
the gaps that are not visually present. When we see any symbol of any kind we try to bring out
meaning out of it. Gestalt laws of organization is A series of principles that describe how we
organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes. For understanding closure, we can
look at the logo of NBC (logomyway.com, 2017). They changed their previous logo and in the
new one because of closure we find out the trademark peacock. When conducting an ad campaign,
marketers use the gestalt process when reducing the product to a basic design theme, logo or
slogan. McDonald's golden arches. That symbol evokes hamburgers and French fries to anyone
remotely familiar with advertising, although the logo itself does not display food. This is an
example of similarity. We can see the usage of top down processing and bottom up processing in
crowd engagement of digital Marketing. Many brands give out images containing materials that
people need to guess. As people guess and comment on that image, engagement increases.
Everything about depth perception is greatly used in designing. Whether it is logo designing or
content creation. Marlboro uses subliminal perception in its advertising on Formula one racing
cars.

Learning- Marketing Application

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience. Learning is a
widely used psychology principle. In marketing the first task of a marketer is to make people learn
about the product or service. There are three forms of learning. These are classical conditioning,
operant conditioning and cognitive social learning.

Classical conditioning tells us that once conditioning is done, the subject will get conditioned
response. For this we need an unconditioned stimulus conditioned with a neutral stimulus. We can
understand more easily with a marketing example. Heineken sponsors the UEFA Champions
League. Whenever we sit to watch a champions league match we see Heineken advertisements
related with it. Individually the Heineken advertisement is an unconditioned stimulus. And a
champions league match individually is a neutral stimulus. After conditioning or advertising
Heineken while champions league match, we get a conditioned response. The response is
whenever we see a champions league match we think about drinking Heineken. As Heineken now
has stopped sponsoring champions league, we will gradually forget about the conditioned
response. That is called extinction and if again Heineken starts advertising while matches then we
will get spontaneous recovery.

Operant conditioning says that If an organism exhibits a behavior and receives a reinforcer, the
rate of behavior will increase or decrease. Positive reinforcer increases behavior and negative
reinforcer decrease behavior. For example, if in a soap packet it is written that it will whiten our
clothes and due to this if soap purchase increases it is positive reinforcer. On the contrary, if the
soap packet says that this soap removes dirt and this results in increase in buying behavior then it
is negative reinforcement. Positive and negative punishment are not used in marketing. The
effectiveness of advertisements also hinges upon how reinforcers are timed. Mountain dew gives
tk. 10 recharge every time someone buys a bottle. This is continuous reinforcement schedule. And
when an advertisement is aired daily on the same time then it is partial reinforcement schedule.
Scratch cards are the example of variable interval schedule.
In marketing cognitive social marketing is too used. Marketers target observational learning for
this. This is termed as buzz marketing. When people talk about any product or any service others
also get interested to it.

Motivation and Emotion – Marketing Application

Motivation and Emotions are integral part of the human psychology. Motivation is the reason why
we do any kind of actions. Emotions are the reason why we feel pleasure or displeasure from any
kind of mental activity. Let’s look at one such example

Starbucks is one of the leading global coffee franchises around the world. They have successfully
launched a lot of marketing campaigns and used Motivation and Emotions to the full extent. In
2014 and 2015, They introduced a red cup content for Christmas. The users had to share with the
photos of the special red cups and share it on social media. This generation a lot of notoriety for
the world famous brand as people shared photos of the red cup extensively. So what sort of
Motivation and what emotions were triggered?

It can be argued that Starbucks used an Arousal approach for this. People love taking photos of
their foods and drinks. Starbucks used this to their advantage and tried to associate Christmas with
their delightful coffees. By making people share their coffees on their social media. This might
arouse a need for coffee within people. Associating Christmas with Starbucks, also drives the
audience to try out their coffees. Thus making people want to sip their coffees in Christmas. It can
also be argued that Starbucks used Incentive approach. They gave an incentive for their consumers
to share the red cup photos on social media. As five random winners will be picked and will be
given rewards. Thus, giving a reason for the customers to try out and take a photo of the special
red cups.

Associating Christmas with their campaign, also associates Starbucks with positive emotions.
Christmas is a time for love, joy and happiness. So if people relate the two with each other, people
will associate Starbucks with these same emotions. From this analysis, we can accept that the Red
Cup Campaign for Starbucks was an effective use of Motivation and Emotion theories.

Personality and Marketing

Personality is the pattern of enduring characteristics that differentiate people – the behavior that
make each individual unique. In marketing there is a term called target marketing. Due to different
personality types it is easy for marketers to target group of people for their product or service. In
Freudian approach we get to see the components of personality. These are Id, Ego and Superego.
Id is unconscious and primitive. It is the irrational, illogical, impulsive dimension of personality.
Superego is the moral part and Ego balances between the other two. People who have id dominant
in their personality tend to be attracted towards sexualized marketing. They like to buy things that
support their laziness. Gucci follows this strategy (#GucciCollectors, 2018). Likewise, companies
can also target the morality within people and the balanced people. Freud gave us the personality
development stages. By analyzing through big data, we can now segment and target people based
on their actions during childhood. Even children can be targeted during different stages. For
example, in phallic stage the boy wants to copy his father. So, we can introduce razor like toys for
children.

As the big five personality traits is the most scientific step towards personality, this can help the
marketers greatly. For example, consumers with low self-esteem will tend to respond to messages
of acceptance and belonging such as “if you dine in this restaurant you will feel appreciated and
rewarded.” Telecom companies can target extroverted people with talk times and introverted
people with music packages. Also, companies can target people who are open to experience with
their new product. In this era of Facebook and Google it is very easy for marketers to target
personality-based audience.

Conclusion
Throughout this entire term paper, we have discussed how the psychology principles are closely
related to marketing. These principles have been used and now are being used widely. We have
skipped some of the principles as they don’t seem to be used in marketing. Intelligence, thinking
and reasoning and memory are all basic human abilities. As a marketer our target is to enter the
long-term memory of the customer. With the help of the discussed psychology principles we can
achieve so. From logo design to targeting to product creation everything falls into the scope of
marketing. With the use of psychological theories, we can effectively conduct these parts.
Nowadays marketing, psychology and data science all are working together to create greater values
for customers. With every new discovery in psychology we must bring in ideas to correlate it with
marketing.
References
#GucciCollectors. 2018. [Film] Directed by Glenn Luchford. France: Gucci.

Kotler, P. & Keller, 2016. In: Principles of Marketing. s.l.:s.n.

logomyway.com, 2017. A look at NBC’s logo and the history behind it. [Online]
Available at: http://blog.logomyway.com/nbc-logo-history-behind/
[Accessed 20 October 2018].

Sorry. 2010. [Film] Directed by Alex Feil Element E Filmproduktion Gmbh. Germany: Jung von Matt
Hamburg.