Assignment 5

Assignment 5(a)

After reading the Tipping Point in semester one, I decided to research into how facial gestures and the body language of the sales man can influence people. For this assignment I am going to take this topic further and look into how I could use primary research to find out more data.

First of all, In semester one, I did some secondary research using mind-maps, brain-storming and also using the libraries cross-search, which was very useful as I found statements from psychologists and doctors which were very interesting, relating to "How facial gestures and body language of the sales man influence people." We also did a lot of discussion on this project and I found that it helped a lot and gave me more ideas to use when mind-mapping.

I feel that if I was asked to do the same now and research into "How facial gestures and body language of the sale man influence people" I think the new research techniques and what I have learned in semester two will benefit me more and I would be able to find out a lot more data.

For this project, as I am researching into peoples thoughts and feelings, I think that interviews would be a good primary research method. I would have to do a bit of brain-storming to come up with questions that I could ask but I would have to make sure not to come out with questions like 'Do you feel influenced by a sales man when shopping?' This sort of question wont tell me anything, They might just say yes,when they have never really thought about it or noticed it before. I think using the brain-storming or mind-mapping technique would work really well and help me come up with questions which are relevant to ask but are also quite disguised so they don't catch on to what I am trying to find out.

Also another primary research technique which I think would work with this topic is the photograph technique. I could source maybe three photographs that are relevant to my topic/question and ask some people to tell me what story they get from these three pictures. Again I would have to do a bit of mind-mapping when choosing the pictures, as I don't want to give away to much information. I will then be able to see what they have come up with and I could also add in another photograph to fit in with one of the stories. I would then ask another group of people to tell me the story that they get from the four pictures this time. I think it would be quite interesting to see if this technique would work and to see if people then came up with the same or similar stories relating to there thoughts on the salesman.

I don't think that I would benefit and find out as much information from this technique as the interviewing technique but I think it would be interesting to do anyway to see what the results would be, No harm would be done.

What I have learned this year, is that the most important technique is discussion. I think that it would be a good idea, once I had decided on what my research method will be, to find out other peoples thoughts about it to see if they could suggest any changes I could make to my research method . For example someone could tell me that I could maybe re-phrase a question, as they think it may give too much away. And then talk about how it all comes together and how it will work.

I think the most important thing to do, If I was to do interviews to find out if facial gestures and body language of sales men influences people, would be to do a test run of the interview questions that I had planned to ask. This way I would be able to see if I am getting the right information from my questions. If not then I think personally I would go back to the mind-map that I had done and see if I could rearrange the questions to work better with what I am trying to find out.

So when it is time to ask my questions which I came up with by doing some secondary research, I would think about my target market, who I will be asking the questions too, In this case I would ask people who buy or have bought electrical goods from shops such as curry's, comet or PC world, Or maybe someone that has just bought a new phone, basically anywhere where the employees work on commission would be my best bet. So therefor I think it would be best to target people coming or going into these kinds of shops.

The only problems I think might happen when using this research technique is having to ask the busy shoppers. Personally I don't like doing question airs for people when I am out doing my shopping, and I think it could be quite hard to get the shoppers to stop and speak to me, especially if they have just been hassled by the salesman. The last thing they would want is to stop and talk to me for five minutes. I think the only way I could solve this would be to target only the people going into the shop or people that look calm when leaving. Or I could ask them to come up to the university when they are free and have time. I think that would be the best solution if I was to have any problems as they would be calm and stress free.

Overall I think if i was to research into "how facial gestures and body language of the salesman can influence people" using primary research, I would use the interviewing technique along with some mind-mapping and discussion. I think that I would get more data from doing this than any other techniques including the photograph technique, I just don't think the information from that would be as strong from the information the interviews. But then again, I don't know that. I could be wrong, but the only way to find out would be to do both and then compare them.

Assignment 5(b)

I have chosen one of the briefs that we were given this semester to look into and investigate what different research methods I could have used when doing my research. I chose the brief "The Origin of food." For this project we were given a fruit, and we had a week to research into this fruit, then make a moodboard containing everything we found out. For there we had to pick one part of our research to focus on and do more research. There was quite a lot of researching for this project and once it was all finished we then had to make a spread sheet with everything that we had found.

I got given black currents as my fruit so I used the Internet to try and find out as much as I could about them . For my end piece of work I decided to call mines 'True or False', this was because I had found out so much interesting information, so i decided to use it all and add in some false information and that was it, it wasn't just a spreadsheet, it was a game.

For this project I found the main research method I used was mind-mapping, brain-storming and also some discussion, mostly secondary research. The secondary research that I used worked really well and it helped me get to my final outcome, without me thinking I hadn't done enough. I mind-mapped and brain-stormed different things and areas that I could look into. I used these two techniques quite frequently while doing my research, whereas I think I could of discussed it more with other class mates, especially because there was tree of us researching into the same fruit, so we could of had good, interesting information to share with each other.

Going into using primary research for this project I didn't really think that it would be relevant and I didn't think I would need to do it as I thought secondary research would of just been enough as it i mostly my thoughts and my project, but the more I think about it the more I realise what I can do and how it will be useful. I think a good idea at his stage would be to do some research on primary research and what kind of primary research would be relevant to my project. Then take it from there, by developing it and deciding what research method suits my type of project best.

What I would do in terms of primary research would be the interviewing method again. i think this would be most relevant to my project than any of the other ones. I feel I would get more out of doing the interviews than any of the other primary research.

First of all I would again do a bit of mind-mapping to see what kind of questions I could come up with. I think I would try to find out "what people think of healthy eating spreads in magazines, and do they read them?" I would then come up with questions that wouldn't give away what I am trying to find out, maybe ask 'what magazines do you read?' or 'what is your favourite food, or favourite dish to cook?' Again I would have to test these questions out first, to make sure I am receiving the information I am looking for. If not, then now that I have done a test run, I am able to see where I am going wrong, so it would be back to mind-mapping for me to change my questions. Once I have completed this stage I would then go on to do another test run of the questions to see how it would go this time, and again if it didn't work like I thought it would then it would be back to mind-mapping for me.


Once all my questions are complete and I am ready to ask people, I would think about who my target audience would be, and then start to brain-storm where I could find these type of people. I think I would make my target market woman of all ages. I think I would get some interesting answers from woman, as they are known to "spent most of there time in the kitchen" apparently and also I think woman are more likely to read magazines and the healthy food spreads within them.

I don't think there would be any problems with using this method, but I don't know that for sure until I try it out. Maybe one problem would be not asking the right questions like I mentioned before, but I know how I would resolve that, and that would be to do more mind-mapping and come up with new questions to suit what I am trying to find out. Another problem that I could come across could be not asking the right audience, If this does happen then it can be easily solved, I will make sure to have questions to ask if they say they don't like reading healthy eating spreads, so that they don't feel left out and also it would be good to receive this information to see why.

Overall I think the interviewing technique would work best with what I am trying to find out, peoples opinions on 'healthy eating spreads in magazines and if they read them or not' This would help me with my final design of my spread sheet as I will know why people read them and why they don't. Hopefully this information will help me create something different and will catch peoples eyes and make them want to stop and read it.

Bibliography

Berry, TR (2008) Getting to know the competition: a content analysis of publicly and corporate funded physical activity advertisements, Journal Of Health Communication 2008 Mar 13 (2), 169-80

Tamietto, M (2009) Unseen facial and body expressions trigger fast emotional reactions, Proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america 106 (42): 1766-17666

Assignment 4C

When discussing this project it was interesting to see what other people had come up with, and there interviewing questions and techniques.

What I really found interesting was one of the male interviewees said the last thing that he bought was a meal for his wife and child who was also a female, Then when I got down to what T.V programmes he watched, he said, he doesn't have any choice, meaning he watches what his wife and daughter watches. I think this is quite sweet.

Also another older woman said the last thing she bought was a birthday present, which was little boxes to keep jewelery in and also a chocolate hand bag and shoes that she got from asda, When I got down to the magazine part, she said she never read any magazines apart from the asda one to see what offers are on. I don't know if this had any influence on her purchase as I don't know what the adsa mag is like, whether it has everything in it or if it is just food and offers? Another thing is that her favourite website is ebay and apparently she will ask if anybody in her family needs anything and will go out of her way to look for it on ebay.
In this situation I don't really think she is influenced buy fashion magazines or gadget magazines, and has her own style, but i think she is highly influenced by cooking and food magazines.

Another one of the woman that I interviewed said she doesn't go out to buy magazines but if something appeals to her on the front cover then she will buy it. This again to me means that she is influenced buy magz, although she doesn't really buy them, but when she does it is for a specific reason as she has seen something interesting, whether it would be clothes or a story?

Personally I know myself that I only buy magazines if I am bored, or occasionally going to work, because I work in an office so I will sit and read it at my desk, or if I'm going on a plane, I always seem to buy 3 or 4 magazines for travelling to pass the time.
Its funny because in my work there is two drawers full of magazines that have been read buy everyone in the office, but this drawer never used to be there until this one girl started bringing them in, then all of a sudden everybody would be bringing one in. Its like she started a new trend. All the other girls in work were influenced by this one girl bringing in a magazine, and now they are everywhere.

From my research I found that girls tend to buy more magazines than boys as they said they mainly read the paper and don't purchase any magazines. and also the ladies have more links leading to magazines rather than the men.

I have to say that I have never bought something that I have seen advertised in a mag but I have seen a lot of nice things, Maybe I would of bought something that I seen and liked if i had the money, but most of the time I don't! I don't know if that's the answer or not?

Overall I feel that my experiment has shown me that magazines do influence people to a certain extent. More to woman than men but maybe if I had interviewed more people and had equal amounts of both sex then I may be wrong. This is something that interests me and I would like to do more interview to see if I would be right.

Assignment 4B

When it came to interviewing people once I had all my questions ready that I wanted to ask, I actually felt a bit nervous, I didn't want to just go up to random people in the street and ask them as I think I would of been a bit nervous and also I wouldnt like to be turned down. So I decided to go round my neighbourhood scheme. I never went to any houses where I knew the people, So when I did go to there doors I just explained who I was and that I stayed just round the corner and told them I was doing this experiment for uni. Everyone I went to was OK with that and never slammed the door in my face, which to be honest I expected it a little bit.

Overall I asked 6 people. I asked two males and four females and they were all different ages, I think. This is what I found out:

One of the houses I went to I asked both the mother and the daughter and when I asked the question 'are you planning any Major purchases soon', they both had the same answer, a trampoline, this tells me that the daughter isn't actually going to be buying the trampoline as she properly doesn't have the funds as she only looked about 11 or 12, but she seems to think that it is going to be her Major purchase as it is for her.

I found that all the females answers were all pretty much the same when it came to the 'What T.V programmes do you watch question?' It was the usual corrie and eastenders but one said Americas next top model, this tells me that she is interested in the fashion industry possible, she was also Nicely dressed when I went round, I wanted to ask her where her beads were from, but i never.

The two guys had pretty much the same answers, they both bought there partners something, and are not advised when shopping, where as all the girls I asked said they were.

I found this experiment really interesting and I wasnt as scared as what I thought. I really enjoyed it.

Assignment 4A

For this assignment we were giving topics ti choose from and to research into them buy interviewing people that we didn't know. For this assignment I decided to choose "How do magazines influence peoples ideas of taste and design" I thought this one would be most interesting.

I did some brainstorming and came up with some questions that I could ask people without trying to make it too obvious what I wanted to know. I found this quite interesting and more I thought about it the more questions I came up with which I thought wouldn't give too much away. Here are some of my Questions:

• can yo describe the last thing that you bought?
• can you describe the last thing that you brought for someone else IE birthday present?
• does anyone buy your clothes for you?
• are you advised by friends or family when you are buying something for yourself?
• are you planning to buy anything soon?
• have you asked for someone to buy you something for a birthday or event?
• what T.V programmes do you watch?
• what magazines do you read?
• what is your favourite magazine and why?
• do you read any newspapers?
• if yes, do you buy them or read them online?
• whats your favourite website?
• do you purchase your clothes from the Internet?

The coolest water bottle EVER!!

This is the coolest water bottle ever. I love it, I think it is brilliant. It is called Isklar and it is Norwegian glacial natural mineral water.

I think the shape of the bottle is just so different, It really works quite well with the whole glacial water. It almost looks like crystal, especially when the light hits off it. Another thing that pops into my head when I look at this bottle is ice, maybe that's what it represents?

I think that the packaging of this bottle may push the sales of the product, as it is very eye catching and not just like your regular water bottle. I know that the only reason that I bought this water was just purely because of the bottle, I didn't really care what water it was!

I LOVE IT!!

Assignment 3

For this assignment, I decided to go to the Glasgow rally. Thousands of teachers, parents and lecturers from across Scotland were marching in Glasgow on Saturday 6Th March in a protest against cuts to education budgets.

I didn't really know anything about this or even heard of it before until I was telling my mum about this project. My mum is a teacher and there was a bus running from her school to Glasgow on the Saturday morning, It turns out there was plenty spaces left on the bus so me, my sister, my mum and her friend all went, Although I wasn't too keen on get tin up so early on a Saturday morning. We wern't actually taking part in the march we were just going to see what it was like.

Whilst on the bus I didn't quite know what to expect. I didn't really understand what was actually happening, whether it was a parade like thing or if it was just a large group of people standing and protesting or if they were walking around Glasgow? I then found out that the March started at Kelvingrove Park and they were walking all the way to the SECC.

When we got to Glasgow I noticed large amounts of people everywhere. I also noticed that they all came prepared for the typical Scottish weather, as they were all wrapped up with jackets, hats, scarfs and gloves on, umbrellas and also everyone I looked at was wearing comfortable shoes. I recon if I was taking part in this experience then I would be wearing exactly the same, all wrapped up to walk the streets. Coming into Glasgow I actually felt a bit nervous, As I didn't really no what to expect, I had this vision of all these angry people standing shouting in rage waving banners about, I was right to a certain extent but it wasn't as bad as what i thought it would of been.

I found it really interesting to watch, although I was only watching for about 20 minutes to half an hour as they all passed on the road and I was amazed at how many people had turned up. Its not something that I would really take interest to and go and see because I wanted too but after reading some of the banners that were on display It changed my mind a wee bit. The campaign was entitled "Why must our children pay?"

There was people who felt very strongly against cuts to education budgets and were very loud but there was also people who not so loud and just walked holding up there banner but I don't think this meant they didn't feel as strong about it, maybe they were just generally quite people or tired from walking?

There was a mixture of males and female taking part in the rally I wouldn't say that there was more than one sex than than the other as It looked pretty even. This didn't really surprise me at all, I wasn't expecting to see more of one sex than the other.

Overall I enjoyed my day out to watch and observe the Glasgow rally and the people taking part in it. I was very interested to see how different people were reacting in different ways and it also made me more aware of the situation and the damage that cuts to education budgets could cause.