Hmmm,

I was thinking about what i just wrote while i was in the bath just now, pretending to study...

(This is from a series of posts on the Open University's First Class server for B825 Marketing in a complex world)

The thing is, that decisions are made about purchases using criteria that we are often only slightly aware of. The natrure of a strong brand that is often overlooked is that "meanings elaborated in decision making have importance beyond the mundane realities of rendering decisions". (March 1994) Buyers of Apple computers, for example, are subscribing to the meanings attached to the slogan 'Think different'. They want to align themselves with a social meaning that is 'independent thought is better than conventional thought'. It's an integrated message that is savy to the segement that are hard core Apple 'advocates' (Yawn - and aren't they!). I use both Apple and PC. There's nothing in it...its a conditioning thing. This brand is not in the least bit fragile. People are not buying them for the price. They're not buyng them for the functions....thought they wont admit it....but there's hardly any programs written for them that are actually useful to me...(and one of my roles is as a storyboard artist) They're buying them because of the way that owning one makes them feel about themselves.

Decision outcomes communicate meanings and can be seen as occasions for the validation of social order in any particular society. To the extent that a brand is associated with some aspirational state that the decision maker values – will it face a secure future. The associtaton of self to the decision making process is tantamount to universal, and the branding process is, in this presentation, far from a desperate last ditch clawing at life for distributors of commoditites, since the commoditiy to which they are aligning their product is self esteem itself.

The role of information in the decision making process is not as central in this conception as it is in a purely rational one. Most decision makers searching the web will come away with more information than they need or want, and they subsequently may ignore the content of it, whilst being justified in their decisions BY the act of searching rationaly. The information is ‘reasurance’ of the validity of the decision, but is not a call to action. The process is the thing that is important. The validity of the claim that Apple is for ‘artists’ is highly contestable. It is not the same thing as Apple is for people who like to think of themselves as ‘artists’. We assume that a decision process is to be understood in terms of its outcome. But it is also to be understood in terms of meaning. What does it ‘say about you, about your life, aspirations, sucesses and failures, background, intelligence, ability to cope, to cook, to enunciate, to understand, to drive, to attract the attentions of those you value, to fit a ‘blueprint’? Heinlien (1978) says ‘specialisation is for insects’. I say rationalisation is for the deluded. Everyone gets suckered by brands…because ‘price only’ IS a fate worse than death.

Chris