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.