Marketing (Blog post #6)

Marketing ploys have always seemed pretty transparent to me. When growing up, I would see a commercial for a product that portrayed it to be extremely fun and make everybody happy, when in reality, I knew it was still just another soda product. However, I was totally wrong. Supermarkets market towards very specific, very different consumer groups on an everyday occurrence. The sheer layout of the store is one big subliminal message that says "Buy me!"
As I walked into my local grocery store Dissmores the first thing I noticed was a display of snack type foods (easy to eat whenever you feel like it). I never stopped to think about that. The first thing I will see when walking into my college town store is a display of chips and dip. I believe this is a tactic used because stores know students are usually in a hurry and don't want to take the time to actually cook food, or that an easy snack like chips is great to munch on while they do their homework or play video games or just watch tv. However, this type of product location is just the start of my supermarket trip. As I continue on my trip, my girlfriend notices something. "Have you ever noticed that all of our aisles and display casings are decked out in Coug stuff?" she asks. Thinking about it, she was right, regular products were dressed up in a cougar display. Then I notice that I usually bought those kinds of products thinking I had some sense of comradery with my fellow Cougs. Literally, buying that product did not display my school spirit in any way. However, the crafty marketers even went as far as to make tortilla chips in the colors of crimson and grey. Continuing on, I see the energy drink display, promising hours of alertness for all nighters and whatnot. Sorry Monster, you're not selling me on that one this time. Finally, the granddaddy of them all. the beer section. Easily one of the largest sections of the store, even more than cereal and bread combined. So many different brands to choose from, all enticing by their "cheap" college prices. As I walk through this section, I find an assortment of ping pong balls and dixie cups. You all know what that means...

As well as having these drinking game supplies by the beer, the snacks are also right across the aisle, making for a one stop shopping experience to throw a party. At this point, college students are so easy to market to. One of the last things I notice through my trip to the store was the Red Bull display cases and magazines at each checkout. Spontaneous buys right as you're almost out of the store! Marketers are good at what they do.

That was just the marketing to college students too. Marketing to children is a little different. The first aisle in the store is candy and toys. A child's dreamland. Display cases are used for children too, the oreo cookies were displayed in a cardboard train, enticing the kids into wanting those particular cookies. Soda is at eye level, where kids are bound to see it and ask their parents to buy it for them. In the bread aisle is also a toy section. This is clever because everyone needs to buy bread, and there is a decent chance they bring their children along to shop with them, meaning those kids see the toys in the bread aisle, and hassle their parents for it. Across the aisle from the bread/toys is the cereal section. The colorful, fun cereals are found on the bottom, like Crunch Berries, Trix, and Cookie Crisp. The bland cereals like Kix, Cheerios, and Total are found at the top of the shelf because those don't appeal to children as much.

As I've said in previous blogs, choice is an illusion. We are given the products that the companies want us to buy as we walk in the door. These products are usually the first thing we see when choosing a brand to buy (That's a completely different story, see my Branding post if you want more on that). It plays into this supply and demand myth about consumers, because they only supply a certain percentage of the products out there, so our demand doesn't affect them when that is the only thing to buy around. When only a couple products are offered, we choose the best from those and go along our merry way.
This relationship between consumer and food chains gives all the power to the food chains. They regulate and control the price and variety of every food group we have in our society. They can raise prices as they see fit, and people will continue buying whatever they see because food is a necessity and we need it to survive. This means that a small portion of people (Those that own food products and sell them to supermarkets) control how we really eat, and can change those habits at any time they feel like it.