Adv 110 Introduction

Companies advertising hipe is all about Branding, getting their names in front of the consumers.  Miller/Coors Corp.  just unleashed an advertising campaigns for “Common Sense” that has been shown on television, the Miller delivery drive confiscating Miller products, and talking about “change”.  Miller’s senior brands manager stated that “campiagn” approach leverages the interest in the presidential election, and in positioning Miller’s brand.

But Miller is not along in this quest for brand recognization or re-recognization, fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger whom I don’t think we have heard from in years is also putting his Hilfer brand back into the public view with Tommy TV  a branded website hub.  I have been around for a long time it seems but I cannot ever remember any Tommy Hilfiger commericals. 

Does this means that these brands that were once household names are seeing slumping sales, and need to re-introduce their brands to the public, certainly sounds like that to me.  But Branding is not limited to these two companies, all companies will be forced to familarize consumers with their brands and the benefits of their brand.  Why?  Because these are old brands and their are new consumers that may have heard of these  brands but show no interest in the purchase of the brands.  Gen X’ers and Y’ers are the Ed Hardy’s, and Baby Phat while associating at Tommy Hilfiger as the clothes their parents and grandparent.    Instead of Miller beer these consumers are Grey Goose and Patron.

 Source:

http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=130167

http://adage.com/article?article_id=130141

My company has a slogan that says “We go where you go” for our military servicemembers.  An article that appeared in Adage.com states that cell phones advertising maybe the next frontier.  In today’s society we are all tied by the hip to our cellphones.  According, to the article, the cellphone advertising application will provide demographic data combine with online behavior data so for instance if a consumer online behavior shows that the consumer likes coffee when that consumer is near a coffee shop the consumer might receive and advertising for coffee with a coupon to purchase the coffee.

This makes you stop and think, this is a dynamic marketing tool for companies, yet I would feel uncomfortable with someone tracking my whereabouts.  I don’t care that you monitor my purchasing habits if I partonize your business but I have a real problem with you knowing my every move.    If my privacy is going to be invaded to this extent, will the next step be to implant micro chips in our bodies to monitor our move. 

Mike Elgan article on computerworld.com states that today’s mobile advertising is about to turn into a tidal wave.   I say that if we start tracking consumers whereabouts through cell phones what’s next?   Katrina was our last tidal wave disaster, and we still have not recup from that one.

Sources:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9097878

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=129895

Innovative manufactuers do not consider that the packing of their product as just a mens of protecting the product against the elements of nature or for transporting until the product reach the consumer.  Instead these companies understands that the product packaging if distinctive can be vital to the marketing of the product. 

When Hanes hoisery introduced its L’eggs pantyhose line, the product was packaged in plastic egg shaped container.  Another other example of distinctive trade dress was that is easily recognized by consumers was bottled Coke.

When we asked for water, and someone handed you a green bottle it was easily recognized as Perrier Water.  Jif Lemon juice that came in a container in the shape of a lemon. 

Godiva chocolate gold box packing sets it brand recognition aside from all others.  Anyone care for a Klondite Bar?  If the item was not in silver foil with blue print and a bear on the front, it may be an ice cream sandwich but it is not a Klondite Bar. 

Brand recognization through product packaging can increase sales and brand awareness.

Sources:

http://www.packagedesignmag.com/esolutions/22/articles/index.php

http://www.marketingmagic.ca/articles/Packaging.htm

In the spirit of the Olympics companies in a heated marathon as each put their global marketing strategies in action in the race for their own Olympic Gold in Global Marketing.

Visa has installed ATM’s decorated like porcelain vases at the Olympic venues, in the final leg of their four years marketing campaign to educate Chinese consumers about its Visa brand according to Advertising Age Normandy Madden.

While another US company Coke unleashed a global marketing blitz as the beverage giant paints Beijing red for the Olympic games. Coke has filled the busy shopping street with red trolley featuring the Coke logo. According to Craig Simon of Cox newspaper, Coke’s promotion includes a Coke Museum that is two- third as large as the World of Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta.

Ralph Lauren will outfit the US teams at the Olympics, Mc Donald’s, Adidas, Lenovo, Johnson & Johnson are all coughing up big money for sponsorship in the Olympic games. These companies are putting their brands in the faces of the Chinese consumers through brand awareness. Forbes commentary by Shaun Rein stated that the sponsorship of these US companies are a waste because Chinese consumers was not buying product based on the Olympic sponsorship instead the Chinese consumer were buying base on whether the product fit their image of idea life rather than sponsorship.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/23/china-olympics-sponsors-oped-cx_sre_0424olympics.html

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/coke/stories/2008/07/19/cokeolympics_0720.html

http://chinapaymentsnews.com/2008/07/visa-porcelain-themed-atm.html

We have all hear the controversy surrounding video games and rap music causing kids to become violent.  If as a society we truly believe the context of video games and rap music, consist of subliminals that alter the thoughts, behavior, desires, and dislikes.

Exactly what does this say about the Advertising role on Society?  Rather it is beer, cigarettes, cell phones, energy drinks, e-harmony, or sex lines.  Advertising is one of the most power tools of persuasion, regardless of the magnifying glass required reading for the dangerous warning, if the advertising campaign is a success consumers will buy.

Advertising role is to play of the emotions of society, by enticing, attracting attention, and being widely exposed.  Advertising can have both good and negative effects on people as stated in blog at Social Marketing.com, advertising is like leading horses to water but you cannot make them drink it if the water is not appealing.

The advertising delivery can affect society through the social comparison theory (Festinger1954) where people will evaluate their ability with those of others according to an article on Literature and Hypotheses of Social Comparison posted at findarticles.com

How easily are consumer enticed by advertising depends on each indivduals?  It all depends on the person, what is good for the goose may not be good for the gander.

  Sources: 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5516/is_200201/ai_n21323176

 www.social-marketing.com/blog/2006/09/leading-horses-to-water-role-of.html

Exposure to the e-commerce arena with the responsibility of procuring fashion merchandise prompt the scanning of varies e-commerce sites of competitors to compare the presentation of online merchandise.  Amazing the merchandise presentation for children clothing presented by some of the big chain stores was not what one might consider “eye candy”, attention getters or any of the other marketing and advertising terms conveyed by marketing experts as ways of enticing consumers to purchase products.  In fact is in most cases these presentations were far from the attractive merchandise presentation, as fashion product appeared wrinkled, shadowed resolutions, and photograph flat with all the distracting “white space” overpowering the product, without portrayal of the product’s true quality.

Seeing this type of presentation a person wonders rather retailers are of the mindset that the products online should not received the same visual presentation of those items featured in sales flyers and catalogs, if this is the case, why not? 

The increase of online shopping is superseding the amount of consumers shopping traditional brick and mortar stores for the past two years during peak selling seasons.  However, many retailers are slow to adjust to the changing technological environment by restructuring companies marketing budget to refine the appearance of  products online with the use of professional images and product in use images.  Lifestyle and product in use images ease the suitability fears of consumer according to a Getelastic.com article.

Months later reviewing these same online retailers again it was as if a spotlight went off in the minds of the Creative Designers, because not only were there lifestyle and product in use images on the opening category pages, but the usage of lifestyle images were sprinkled throughout all of the apparel pages.  There were still those unappealing shot as well however it was evident that adjustments were in the making and that someone in the Graphic department of these retailer had read the “Lifestyle verses product shots” by Multichannelmerchant.com.

Sources:

www.getelastic.com/images-in-context

www.multichannelmerchant.com/printchannel/list/marketing_photography_lifestyle_vs/product_shot

Picture this:  Christmas Eve at 4:30 p.m., you have just made it to the local mall that closes at 6:00 p.m. to purchase those Christmas gifts that you have put off for the last moment to buy, because you hate the Christmas crowd.  You have just entered the mall, gathering your thoughts on which store will you visit first and which present will need to be purchased there, when your thoughts are interrupted by excuse me we are conducting a survey on the rather garbage pick-up should be done by the City on Tuesday or Thursday.  Do you really care which day the trash is picked up as long as the trash is picked up when you are trying to Christmas shop?   Even worst you have just called your bank because they have made an error on your account; before you are connected to a real person, you are advised by a recording that at the end of the call the bank wants you to volunteer a few minutes of your time for a survey.  This is after you have already volunteered ten minutes of your time waiting to speak to a person.  I am already upset that I had to make this call in the first place, listen to the recording, placed on hold.  Do you really think I am going to remain on the phone to participate in a survey?  Do not count on it!  It is dinner time, perfect time to receive a telephone call to conduct a survey.  Everywhere you look, there is a survey, why is this, because surveys are the least expensive means of advertising research?  Marketer realizing that most consumers are not willing to participate in surveys offers, payment, free products, services, and gift to get the consumers to participate in surveys.  Online surveys have become the cream of the crop, because marketer do not have to wait for you to mail the survey back, online surveys provides quick responses. My question is why to do need me to tell you what you should already know about me if I patronize with your company.  In the technology society that we live comprise of mountains of software that companies have at their disposal to track anything they want to track about me, so why do you need to ask me if I want this or that item?  If you want to know if I will buy a product, make it available, if I buy it then you will know.   The best survey question of all times; how can we better serve you.  Exactly what does this mean?   If a company has to ask this question tells me one thing; this company gives little or no consideration to their customer complaints.  If a company genuinely addresses every customer complaint, and use the resolution each complaint company wide there be no need to ask such a question. For the most part, all survey questions stems from experiences, so exactly how many samplings are needed before the company gets the picture.   Here is a scenario:  Bob suggested to the president of the company in January 06 that Blu-ray priced at $29.00, would sell, but no one listened.  Bob and Bill suggested in January 07 that Blu-ray priced at $29.00, would sell, but no listened.  Bob, Bill, and Sue suggested in January 08, that Blu-ray priced at $29.00 would sale.   In February 08, the president approved the procurement of 10,000 unit of various Blu-Ray Disc the all sold that month, consider those same units by 24 months, and what do you have?  Companies that ask how we can better serve you.     Sources:

 http://www.marketingmindsresearch.com/advantages_of_web_based_research.html  

http://isurveynow.com/disadvantages-of-online-surveys 

http://www2.acnielsen.com/pubs/2005_q1_ap_surveys.shtml

Most of us can identify with advertising slogans, some are well constructed because it makes us want to run out and buy the product or get the service quick fast and in a hurry.  While other slogans make us sit back and say “duh” was that dumb or dumber, or yeah right! 

A slogan is a good slogan when people tend not only remember the slogan years after introduction, but also when you find yourself using it as a situational phrase.  Similarly, a bad slogan is not worth remembering and most likely the product or service is equally not worth remembering as the slogan.

There are bad slogans that we remember; one of those slogans that you love to hate.  The slogan that I love to hate is “Every kiss begins with Kay’s”.  My thoughts were yeah right I have been kiss so I am getting a diamond from Kay’s Jewelers.  A person can tell nothing from the beginning of a kiss.  It is how the kiss ends that matters, only then can you say if it was a good kiss or a bad kiss.  Does that mean that since a “kiss” ends with “S” I will go out and buy this kisser a SAAB?  I think not!

Ironically, I found that Andrew Tallman who has some interesting analysis on good, mediocre, and bad slogan shared my sentiments for this slogan. 

A good slogan to me is KFC’s slogan of “finger lickin good,” this slogan makes sense.  Chicken is often eaten by hand, and we have all licked our fingers as well savory the taste on something good.

Everyone has an opinion about their likes and dislikes of advertising slogans.  The advertising critics are no different.  Hexus Lifestyle has its list of top 10 best slogans, while Ad Age top ten slogan of century agrees to disagree, leaving us with different strokes for different folks.  View these slogans and see how many of them ring your bell.

Sources:

http://andrewtallmanshowtopics.blogspot.com/search?q=best+and+worst+advertising+slogans

http://adage.com/century/slogans.html

http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=10542

Emotions. We all have them. And as marketers we’re all taught that you have to appeal to your prospect’s emotions in order to get your most-wanted response. When you’re selling B2C products like health supplements and consumer newsletters, this is absolutely the truth. But in the B2B world, it’s not quite so simple. Here’s why…

B2B Buyers Have Conflicting Emotions
Eric Lynch states in his article True, the B2B buyer has emotions just like the average consumer. Only when you get her over the edge from “I need it” to “I want it” will she make a buying decision.

However, she is still an employee of her company. She must take into account her company’s needs when making a decision to purchase your B2B product or service. And her company’s needs don’t always jibe with her own. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Let’s say Sarah is a software development manager with a medium-sized consulting firm. The programmers that report to Sarah make changes to the underlying software architecture without informing their supervisors. This causes broken builds and missed deadlines. Sarah’s boss has told her she needs to buy a change management system for her company.

Sarah knows these problems have to stop, and a change management system will help. She has investigated her options and is leaning toward the market leader in the change management space. It’s got all the features her company needs and long track record of past success stories.

There’s just one problem…  While this solution is very feature-rich, it requires about 3-4 hours a day for maintenance and administration. Sarah knows her company cannot afford to hire a full time change management person, so the administrative burden will undoubtedly fall on her.

Sarah just had a baby earlier this year and already doesn’t get to see much of her family. Her job is too demanding and overtime-intensive. This causes her to seek other options that might not require such an extra duty, but she just doesn’t see any other products that meet her company’s change management needs.

Are you beginning to see why the B2B sale becomes so complex?

Selling to a prospect’s emotions is very important. But B2B sales prospects have two sets of buying needs that don’t always dovetail with one another. You must address both if you are to maximize your chances to sell big-ticket B2B products and services.

That’s why it’s important that you hire a B2B copywriter to understand this dichotomy and can address both sets of needs. Business, as well as personal. Very few copywriters can do both in the same promotion with an equal degree of skill. So when you find one who can, hang on to him: he’s worth his weight in gold.   Source: http://b2b.salesandmarketing.ws/2008/04/writing-emotional-b2b-sales-copy-what.html   

As I was researching this week’s chapter topic, I came across some interesting reading. I found this article from BtoBonline.com (Business to Business) to be interesting because listed in the B2B “Who’s Who in 2008” for business-to-business marketers was none other than Bank of America. 

If you have ever read Todd G. Bucholz’s novel “New Ideas from Dead CEO’s” one would have to wonder what A.P. Giannini is thinking about Bank of America today. 

A.P. Giannini, as the story goes was a banker of the people not necessarily for big businesses.  Yet, listed in B2B “Who’s Who in 2008” there lines the name and picture of Bank of America marketer.  If you read Bucholz’s novel you will surely see the irony.

 Does this means that Bank of America has changed its marketing strategy?  Well if this is true, they are not along.  More and more businesses are allocating more advertising funds   marketing other businesses rather than consumers. A joint study done by the Association of National Advertisers and BtoB according to Kristina Knight, researchers studied the use of blogs, podcasts, search and several user-generated content platforms. They found that almost one-third of B2B advertisers spent 20% or more of their ad dollars on new media while only about 5% of their B2C competitors did so. They also found that about half of the B2B respondents planned to allocate at least 10% of future ad budgets to new media. “The bulk of the budget dollars allocated to new platforms will go to the entrenched forms—the company’s own Web site and e-mail marketing,” said Frank Dudley, VP of marketing at Guideline, the company that performed the study.

However there are changes afoot. The study went on to find that more than 70% of B2C marketers said they would shift money from traditional forms of advertising into new media in the future. Only about 50% of B2B marketers said the same thing. That discrepancy could be because B2B marketers are already heavily invested in new media, but it is interested nonetheless.

Source: New Ideas from Dead CEOs. Copyright 2007 by Todd Buchholz

http://www.bizreport.com/2007/08/b2b_advertisers_are_more_aggressive_than_b2c_marketers.html

http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=whoswho