A Research On Certain Questions Of Song Dynasty's Advertisement

The economic boom of Song Dynasty speeded up market competition. Every industry had its own specific business mode, so most merchants took advantage of"advertisement"to compete with each other. Merchants of the Song Dynasty had strong advertising awareness. The root reason lied in the pursuit of interests, while objectively speaking, that was because they were under intense market competition and influenced by the society, mindset and culture at that time. In order to stand out, they had to put more efforts on spreading information and enhancing their influence, so advertisement became their first choice. They made use of the advertisement's influence on viewing and hearing to attract the attention of consumers and arouse their potential desire to purchase things, prompting the buying impulse. Traders tried every possible way to do advertisement, giving birth to a series of advertising forms such as"sound advertising, merchandise display advertising, hanging advertising, medium advertising, holiday advertising, etc".Facing the changing demand and fierce competition, in order to stabilize customer resource and ensure long-lasting competitive edge, merchants followed closely the changes in market demand and gradually shifted their operation awareness to"putting people first"by analyzing customers'psychology and wisely applying operation means to satisfy customers'psychological demand to the utmost and thus obtain more market opportunities. Though no document clearly states that in Song Dynasty merchants had the concept of"consumer psychology", they indeed properly used advertisement as an operation means. Their merchandise not only satisfied consumers'demand of their material function, but also the demands of consumers'psychology, including"cultural, esthetic, practical and fame-seeking psychology". Consumer psychology was an essential factor influencing consumers'purchase decision. Therefore, without obvious record in documents, merchants of Song Dynasty have already understood the meaning of"consumer psychology"and known how to properly use it.Merchants of Song Dynasty wisely used operation means and promoted the development of its commodity economy. Economic boom in turn led to the unprecedented prosperity of advertisement.