Ch. 15 - Retailing

I recently visited Macy's Department store located on 34th Street, between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue, on Herald Square. This store is massive and antique, as it has been around since 1902, complete with their then modern-day wooden escalators still in place today. The building itself is a national historic trademark that still has its original modern exterior, however, most of all the fixtures have been renovated and are usually redesigned with every changing holiday. Inside its a very unique experience with multiple atmospheres, as the sound of professionalism rings in the ear of every shopper being asked by an employee if they need assistance, the smell of sales runs through the nose of every shopper in the building, and the grandeur of Herald Square can be felt upon the first rush of the smell of a fresh new sample of some new fragrance you just smelled and all the sudden, now you really want to buy. To think this happens everyday to every shopper on a daily basis, despite how busy the store is, continues to make the experience of the Macy's atmosphere more efficient and remarkable than the last. 

Macy's employees are very neat, extremely friendly, service oriented, highly professional and knowledgable of products. Upon walking into the store, the high employee density of the lower-level of Macy's personnel extend their retail strategy by offering shoppers a smell of the latest fragrances. With the combination of the employee's plain, all-black, professional business attire and the euphoric allure of the fragrances sampled by shoppers at the doors, the upper levels of the building utilize less and less employee density to help shoppers spend their time around the building shopping in an agreeable and satisfied mood.

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

A method that I find very interesting is the use of magazine advertisement as a tool to influence consumer behavior. While magazines like Ebony attract African-American women that are intelligent, upper-class, and fashion trendy, others like Cosmo are designed to attract women on an international level that are sexy, fashion trendy, and upper-class, as well. Besides the point, the magazines both use advertisements of women corresponding to their covers, as in the Ebony magazine there is an African-American woman with the Pantene hair and look, and in the Cosmopolitan magazine there is a Caucasian woman with the Pantene hair and look. Going a step further, this helps all women understand that no matter the hair type, the product can produce Pantene hair that shines, regardless of ethnicity. This makes a big difference to the consumer because it functions like an aspirational reference group would, as these two  women with nicer hair are Pantene Pro-V users, making other ladies reading the magazine that are passing by the advertisement want to conform to the norms of the group of more attractive women because it is a likable quality that comes with benefits in society. However, it makes the marketing strategy even more interesting because women have always aspired to be high-maintenance to give the impression that they are also from a higher social class, even if they aren't from an upperclassmen at all. This understanding of consumer behavior makes the promotion of products like Pantene Pro-V very easy because all they have to do is illustrate the results of product use, in combination with social norms, to increase the demand for their product.

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

After the 1985 acquisition of Pantene by Proctor & Gamble, they had a global vision of what to do with the hair care line. Their global vision was to take the product global, distributing their newly acquired revolutionary hair technology around the world, sharing the secret luxury of strong, beautiful hair with women all across the world. Today, their vision has evolved into one of the greatest competitive foot-in-the-door strategies, since the addition of the pink cancer support ribbon emblem on their Beautiful Lengths products. By placing this cause-related, marketing  symbol on their bottles and promoting awareness of the cause,  they basically take on a responsibility so profound with the rest of the world that they are now naturally embraced by all cultures. Business fronts, where business was once difficult to establish, are now remarkably easy to contrive by their ability to personalize global targets through efforts that help the world's welfare and needs. Even more important is the fact that this product has easily found its way to every market around the world because of the way the company's strategy avoids any, and all, cultural blunders that could effect the productivity abroad. So, if the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then say goodbye to cancer and say hello to Pantene!