INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT

Analysis of the Advertisement on Windows® Phone 7 based on

Basic Perceptual Framework

Krishna Kumar
09BT01106 :: Batch A-4
Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation

headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops,
manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and
services predominantly related to computing through its various
product divisions.

Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for

the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer
operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by
the Microsoft Windows line of OSs.

Microsoft's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated four

billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from within the Microsoft
employees, placing itself among the world's largest wealth creators

Soon, enough Microsoft came to dominate other markets as well,

notably the office suite market with Microsoft Office.
 Microsoft through the ages.

Microsoft "blibbet" logo from 1982 until 1987.

Microsoft "Pac-Man" logo, designed by Scott Baker and used since 1987, with the 1994–2002 slogan
"Where do you want to go today?"

Microsoft logo as of now, with the slogan

"Your potential. Our passion."

New Logo for Microsoft with the slogan scheduled for use sometime in the future

"Be What's Next."

Microsoft Product Divisions
Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division
a) The Windows Client Platform
This division produces Microsoft's flagship product, the Windows operating system. It has
been produced in many versions, including Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98,
Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and
Windows 7

b) Online Services
The online service MSN is a part of this division.
It also includes Windows Live, the next generation of Microsoft online initiative including
services such as Bing! Search, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and others.
Along with this, Microsoft has also hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting
and Office Communicator

c) Server and Tool groups

Microsoft offers a suite of server software, entitled Windows Server System. Windows
Server 2008, an operating system for network servers, is the core of the Windows Server
System line. Other server products include SQL Server, Exchange Server, BizTalk Server,
Systems Management Server and Small Business Server .

Microsoft Business Division

The Microsoft Business Division produces Microsoft Office, which is the company's line of office
software. The software product includes Word (a word processor), Access (a personal relational
database application), Excel (a spreadsheet program), Outlook (Windows-only groupware,
frequently used with Exchange Server), PowerPoint (presentation software),and Microsoft
FrontPage (a WYSIWYG HTML editor).
Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division

Microsoft has attempted to expand the Windows brand into many other markets,
with products such as Windows CE for PDAs and its "Windows-powered"
Smartphone products. Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through
Windows CE for handheld devices, which today has developed into Windows
Phone. The focus of the operating system is on devices where the OS may not
directly be visible to the end user, in particular, appliances and cars. The company
produces MSN TV, formerly WebTV, a television-based Internet appliance.
Microsoft used to sell a set-top Digital Video Recorder (DVR) called the
UltimateTV, which allowed users to record up to 35 hours of television
programming from a direct-to-home satellite television provider DirecTV.

Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, including titles such as
Age of Empires, Halo and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. It produces a line
of reference works that include encyclopedias and atlases, under the name
Encarta. Microsoft Zone hosts free premium and retail games where players can
compete against each other and in tournaments. Microsoft entered the game
console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001, with the release of
the Xbox. The company develops and publishes its own video games for this
console, with the help of its Microsoft Game Studios subsidiary, in addition to
third-party Xbox video game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision, who
pay a license fee to publish games for the system. The Xbox also has a successor in
the Xbox 360, released on 2005 in North America and other countries.
 WINDOWS PHONE 7
Product Analysis
Windows Phone 7 is a mobile operating system developed by
Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division, and is the successor to
their Windows Mobile platform.

The reason behind Windows 7 :: Changing Consumer Trends

The Smartphone market is not what it used to be. Four years ago, Symbian ruled
the world—it was totally dominant in every market but three: Japan and China
both had strong showings from Linux, and the North American market was split
roughly evenly between RIM, Microsoft, and PalmSource. Worldwide,
Smartphone sales amounted to some 60 to 65 million.

Then Apple came along with the iPhone in 2007 and changed the world.

The iPhone did four things. It showed us what could be done with finger-based
user interfaces—that they could be easy to use, easy to type on, flexible, and
good-looking. It made smartphones mass-market, consumer-oriented gadgets,
breaking them free of their corporate shackles. It showed that smartphones were
viable web browsing platforms, just as long as they were equipped with a good
browser. And, eventually, it showed that there was a lot of value to be had in
integrating an online application store.

Windows Mobile was a solid performer in the old smartphone world, but it never
moved into the new, post-iPhone smartphone world. Windows Mobile 6.5,
released in May 2009, was a half-hearted attempt to bring the system up-to-date
with a finger-friendly home screen and Start menu-type-thing, but the interface
was crudely grafted on and plainly unsatisfactory. This wasn't finger-friendly,
consumer-friendly, modern Smartphone software, and everyone knew it. It didn't
halt Windows Mobile's marketshare slide, much less turn it around.
If Microsoft wanted to remain a player in the Smartphone market, something
would have to change and Windows Phone 7 is that change.

Windows Phone 7 is a Smartphone platform that's aimed first and foremost at

consumers. It's designed from the ground up for a finger-driven interface. It's built
to be clean, attractive, and consistent. The ambition is that it will finally give
Microsoft a platform that will enable it to take on the iPhone and Android phones.
Product Review
Windows Phone 7 is being seen by Microsoft and outsiders as its last chance in
the Smartphone space.

Windows Mobile is all but dead and KIN already is dead and buried, and if
Windows Phone 7 doesn't succeed, it's easy to see the company just cutting its
losses and abandoning the market entirely. "Success" is ill-defined for a product
like this, but a good start would be for Microsoft phones to no longer be regarded
as a joke (or a nightmare), and year one sales numbered in the tens of millions.

When the first rumors about Windows Phone 7 circulated, people were
astonished that Microsoft was completely discarding Windows Mobile and
starting from scratch. Not just starting from scratch, but releasing a product that
would be feature-deficient relative to everything else on the market. But it's not
clear that there was any alternative, and for a general-purpose, consumer-friendly
smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7 is, even with its flaws, streets
ahead of Windows Mobile.

Whether Redmond will win over iPhone and Android customers with this initial
release is hard to say—though it is known that a number of iPhone users who are
seriously considering the platform—but it probably doesn't have to, anyway.
Most existing mobile phone users don't have a smartphone. If Microsoft can win
them over, it doesn't much matter about other smartphone users. Yes, Microsoft
is late to the game, but it's a game that's still in its early stages.

The new interface is brave. The use of hubs in preference to dozens of discrete
applications requires a different way of thinking about the phone, and some may
find this change jarring. It all makes sense and has been implemented well,
though, so I suspect that anyone who actually gives the phone a try will get it. The
only thing that comes close to this aspect of Windows Phone 7 is webOS, and
even it does not take the unification concept as far as Microsoft has done.
The hardware is solid, and the specification is pitched at the right level: poor
performance and bad animations will tend to sour people on the platform, and by
pushing for a high specification, Microsoft has ensured that the user experience
will be as high-quality as the software. If anything, I almost wish the company had
been a little less conservative in this regard; something like the webOS touch
panel would have afforded exciting possibilities, even if it is somewhat exotic or
unusual.

The fact that most of the problems people have with the phone are things it
doesn't do at all (but which can be added in software updates), rather than things
it does do but does poorly, is that we think is an indication that Microsoft has
ultimately succeeded in its goals for the first Windows Phone 7 release. The
platform will not do well in checklist feature comparisons, but when it comes
down to human interaction and using the thing, this software is a winner.
INTRODUCTION TO BASIC PERCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK

Perception
Perception is the set of processes by which a person becomes
aware of and interprets information about the environment.

BASIC PERCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: Figure

Stimulus or situation

Confrontation

Registration

Interpretation

Feedback
MEANING OF BASIC PERCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Individuals face many situations in their life, and these situations vary from
person to person. Thus, their perception about the situations varies too.

“Situation” is a phase or a moment in which a person finds himself in a condition

or position. It is a general state of things; the combination of circumstances at a
given time.

“Confrontation” is a phase when an individual would face a challenge. He would

be in a state of disagreement with the situation.

“Registration” is the state where individual would certify the existence of a

situation in his mind.
“Interpretation” happens when the person would explain the identified situation
i.e. he would make a mental representation of the meaning of significance of the
situation.

“Feedback” means a response to an inquiry or an experiment. Thus, individual

would respond to the inquiry that he has in his mind about the situation that he is
facing at a particular point of time.

Factors influencing perception

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. These factors
can reside in the perceiver, in the object or target being perceived or in the context of the
situation in which the perception is made.

FIGURE SHOWING FACTORS INFLUENCING PERCEPTION

Perceptual organization

 It is the process by which we group outside stimuli into recognizable and

identifiable patterns and whole objects.
 Certain factors are considered to be important contributors on assembling,
organizing and categorizing information in the human brain. These are figure
ground and perceptual grouping.

Perceptual organization

 It is the process by which we group outside stimuli into recognizable and identifiable
patterns and whole objects.
 Certain factors are considered to be important contributors on assembling,
organizing and categorizing information in the human brain. These are
- Figure ground
- Perceptual grouping

PERCEPTUAL GROUPING

 Our tendency to group several individual stimuli into a meaningful and recognizable
pattern.
 It is very basic in nature and largely it seems to be inborn.
 Some factors underlying grouping are continuity, closure, proximity, similarity.

Shortcuts in judging others

Selective Perception :
 People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests,
background, experience and attitudes.

Halo Effect :
 Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of single
characteristic.

Contrast Effect :
  Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are effected by comparisons with
other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics.

Projection :
 Attributing one's own characteristics to other people.

Stereotyping :
 Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that
person below.
The Advertisement
The Campaign for the product includes a series of short advertisements, focused
around normal people going about their daily routines with their mobile phones
glued to their hands , and features a catchy background music. The Characters in
the advertisements don't speak unless, they are using a Window Phone 7 based
Mobile Phone.

The Advertisements shows two sets of people who are divided into 2 sets, the
ones with and the "other ones" without a Windows Phone 7 based Mobile Phone.

The advertisement focuses on some specific features of the Windows Phone 7

Devices, which are :
- Intuitively Designed User Interface
- Instant Social Networking
- Xbox live Integration
- Zune Media Player
- Metro UI

All in all, the main focus of these ads was to make the user believe that doing
their work with a windows phone is much faster and easier than any other mobile
device in the market.

With a few catchy taglines that go like this..

"It's time for a Phone to save us from our Phones"
"Be Here Now"
Perceptual framework analysis of the advertisement

According to the Basic Perceptual Framework described above, phases

like Stimulus, Confrontation, Registration, Interpretation and Feedback
are involved in the process of perception, along with the different
factors responsible for the perception process.

In this advertisement the Monotonous and lifeless expression of the

"others" compared to the efficient and full of life mood amongst the
Windows Phone users acts as the starting stimuli forcing the viewer to
organize the "others" and the windows phone 7 users into two very
different sets of people, due to the very different social and
environmental settings associated with them.

This is followed by a narrator who explains to the users that working

with Windows Phone is so easy and fast, that the users will have a lot
more personal time for themselves. This, along with the stereotyping of
the "others" into a dull lot, forces the viewer to interpret that windows
phone is really a better phone, and that is a lot more fun too.
# References
 www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/perception-theories.html
 James J. Gibson. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Ebook.1966.
 www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~mantiuk/papers/
 www.futureperspective.com/percep1.htm
 www.eurasip.org/proceedings/eusipco/.../papers/
 www.engadget.com/~windows-phone-7 -.../
 www.neowin.net/../windows-phone-7
 arstechnica.com/microsoft/~/windows-phone-7.ars
 secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Microsoft
 www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1875/
 www.metacafe.com/watch/5325838/windows_phone_7/