Social Media Marketing

It's funny how quick marketing tools come and go. When I teach any marketing course, I try to emphasize to the students that we are teaching what the current tools are but by the time they are in a marketing career, these tools will change. Just three years ago, Facebook and Twitter were the hot tools. Everyone had to have a social media presence - in fact, the social media presence was more important than anything else. We see today that Facebook is again trying to unveil a new layout to the social medium in an effort to make it more user friendly, and I'm sure bring in some more advertising bucks.

And no, I am not saying that Facebook is a thing of the past. Having a social media presence is still important for just about any brand - ESPECIALLY for those brands that don't even have a website. However, a brand should not rely on this alone. You need to figure out what the lifestyle of your consumer is - what groups are they participating in? What activities are they engaged in? Where do they spend most of their time? Connecting with them on a more personal level while not bombarding them with advertising (what some folks call stealth advertising or stealth marketing) is going to be more and more important in the coming years.

Pro-social advertising - where are we?

When someone thinks of marketing, I guarantee they will immediately think of for-profit marketing. They will think about the latest and greatest Superbowl commercial for a car brand (which, by the way, isn't it interesting the rapid increase of car commercials in the Superbowl in the last few years???). Or perhaps they will think about the many Coke, m&m's, or other various brands advertised throughout various mediums. Or those mostly tacky local commercials that get interspersed with the national commercials when watching TV.

But what about pro-social marketing? I am talking about those ads that are for and by non-profits. Ads that are really trying to help society. Obviously, non-profits don't have the ad budgets that for-profit companies have, but then that raises a challenge. How can non-profits compete against for-profits to get their word out there? BC's Children's Hospital Foundation is making a stab at indicating cramped hospital conditions with the ad above. Not a ton of money to communicate this message, but the more memorable the message (i.e., sometimes known as the Von Restorff effect), the more it will spread through word of mouth and other social channels. We all know that non-profits can't compete against the spending of large companies, but through creative tactics, pro-bono work from ad agencies, and free ad spots to non-profits, these non-profits still have the chance to make a great impact.

Superbowl commercials

Isn't it interesting that many of the most interesting and engaging commercials from the Superbowl had strong emotional appeals? Take the Dodge Ram commercial telling the story of farmers or the Jeep commercial telling the story of military members returning from war. Although many say that the Superbowl is targeted all at men, these commercials have strong appeals that apply to the woman in the room as well. It's clear that humor is not the overwhelming winner in Superbowl commercials now. Also interesting that both of these top commercials had religious undertones. In a time when the nation is claiming to be growing more and more agnostic, these top two commercials both mention God and religion. Why? Is their target market religious? Does stating them somehow state quality in the reputation and values of the company? Or rather is it just a strong match to the emotional pull of the commercials? In any case, nice job with the emotional appeals - many wet eyes during the Superbowl commercials this year.

Wedding dress marketing

I just went wedding dress shopping with a friend and was reminded just how much marketing influences our lives in so many ways. Not only in advertising, but sales personnel have a large impact on our buying decisions. We initially went to a store because of a sale (and anyone who has shopped for a wedding dress recently knows just how expensive this can be... thousands upon thousands of dollars). We got to the store and looked through the sale rack, identifying dresses that looked good on the bride to be. Then the sales attendant proceeded to show us the most expensive dresses, set up a fitting room for the bride to be, and proceeded to bring her the dresses that she wanted to try on. Of course, as you might guess by now, the attendant NEVER brought over the dresses that were on sale. Think back to the latest time that you were drawn into a store because of a sale and the sales clerk ended up upselling you to the next best item. Once you've tried on these more expensive options (especially for an important special day like a wedding), it's hard to go back to the cheaper, lower quality sale dresses. Very tricky, yet smart.

Coke and Anti-Obesity??

First off, just saying these two words in combination (coke and anti-obesity) seems completely incongruent. We know that Coke really doesn't care about reducing the obesity epidemic. If they did, they wouldn't be selling soda, placing it in the schools when schools have no choice but to accept in an effort to find funding for educational programs, and continue to push their product to consumers of all ages. Yes, the ad features skinny arms, but that's about it. If they really wanted to fight the obesity epidemic, they would make an effort to reduce sugar, make bottle sizes smaller, take vending machines out of schools, and encourage smaller consumption. However, that is not in their best interest financially. So what are they to do? The answer isn't banning soda completely or closing down all companies producing soda because a treat every now and then is ok. The answer instead is educating consumers for less consumption, not using soda as a way to fund educational programs, and emphasizing their healthier alternatives more often than their non-healthy bottles of fizzy sugar water.

JC Penny's marketing

We've all heard about JC Penny's marketing tactics over the last year as they decided to end all sales and instead go to a model where cheaper prices are available every day. I was just reading through an interesting Forbes commentary (read it here), and I must agree that JC Penny's success is likely to dwindle in the future. Yes, they did well recently, likely because they did institute sales over Black Friday that encouraged shoppers to visit the store. Had they not had a sale, it is more than likely that this last quarters earnings would have been down like all prior quarters. Consumers are used to sales, they expect sales. If companies drop these sales, consumers will be skeptical that prices could in actuality be lower. If JC Penny wants to maintain competition against it's greatest competitors, bringing back their sales model will be key to their success.

Apple do not disturb ad

Creative ad by Apple came out recently emphasizing the "do not disturb" feature on the phone. Although creative, I do question how relatable this is. Why would you dream of the williams sisters playing Ping Pong? This is attempting at a humor appeal, but it did not come across as extremely humorous. Top this off with the fact that Apple's "do not disturb" feature did not work for many over New Years when the ad was running, and this was not as great of a hit as many had thought.