Emir Purbo's Blog

Companies nowadays have an alternative method in gaining brand awareness of their product. It’s not by bombarding commercials during your favorite TV Shows or movies, instead, they just put their products in those shows or movies! One of the reasons why companies have minimize commercials on TV is probably caused by two reasons; Companies know that people or audiences do not normally watch commercials and they know that the investment made through television commercials won’t generate a significant return. Therefore, it would be easier and somewhat safer for companies to just subtly sell their products through movies or television shows.

Most TV series and movies are now part of a marketing strategy for companies to indirectly sell their product to their audiences. Examples of such TV series are CBS’s Hawaii Five-O and AMC’s Mad Men. Hawaii Five-O, a police procedural-drama series  is actually a remake of an original series that aired from 1968 to 1980. The remake version of Hawaii Five-O premiered on September 2010 and it is still an on-going show. Mad Men, an original show by AMC tells a story of  “Mad Men”, a term coined in the 1950’s that’s usually directed to the advertising executives of Madison Avenue, New York. Both of the TV series are slowly trying to sell products to their audiences. How obvious or how subtle companies are trying to sell their product can be seen through these short clips.

Let’s see how obvious Subway has made their product placement in this Hawaii Five-O episode

In that short video, Kamekona (played by Taylor Wily) is an enormous Hawaiian restaurant owner (the big yellow shrimp food truck) who is trying to lose some weight, and his solution is by eating the Subway’s famous Footlong sandwich. Kamekona implicitly stated that by eating Subway sandwich can lead to healthier life and possibly losing some weight. Kamekona even made a reference to Jared Fogle (click to view full story), a real person (not a character), who was probably as big as Kamekona (Taylor Wily) who went on a Subway diet and eventually losing a lot of weight. Here’s a picture of before and after:

This is an example of how Subway is trying to send a message to the audiences that eating their sandwich or doing the “Subway diet” can give a huge contribution on how an oversize person can obtain his or her ideal weight. In that Hawaii Five-O episede, Kamekona also mentioned how tasty Subway sandwiches are. Ideally, a person who is trying to lose weight, he or she has to compromise the flavor of the food, meaning that they can only eat salad or even unseasoned meals (no salt and pepper). However, through this product placement, Subway is also trying to send a message that people who are trying to lose weight do not have to sacrifice the flavor of the food. As Kamekona said it “But this Subway sandwich… So Ono.” (Ono means delicious in Hawaiian). Subway has disregard subtlety in this product placement, they literally want the audience to feel and think that by eating Subway sandwich can lead to an enormous weight loss.

Moving to another TV series, Mad Men has brought a message regarding Lucky Strike’s tobacco quality and how they are different compared to their competitors

In that video, Lucky Strike is trying to convey a message about their cigarettes through the character of Don Draper, an advertising guru. As the people from Lucky Strike are confused on how to advertise their cigarettes since their’s are linked to fatal diseases, Don Draper used this as an advantage to come up with a new Lucky Strike identity. As one of the people from Lucky Strike said “It’s Toasted“, Don Draper used that phrase as their slogan. Hence, Lucky Strike is trying to convey that as their competitors’ cigarettes are toxic and poisonous, Lucky Strike’s cigarettes are toasted.

Here’s another video of how Lucky Strike used the character of Don Draper to sell their cigarettes.

That clip comes from the first episode of Mad Men. The portrayal of Don Draper, a well-suited advertising pioneer back in 1950’s, has a certain panache of how he smokes his “Luckies”  as he said it on that episode, and that is how Lucky Strike wants the audience to see their product, as a cigarette for the wealthy and successful. An article written by the UK’s Daily Mail (click to view full article), the Mad Men series has influenced people around the world to buy Lucky Strike cigarettes. The sales of Lucky Strike rose to 33 billion packs from 23 million packs in 2007, the year which Mad Men first aired. This shows that sometimes product placement in television series does work, and now Lucky Strike can enjoy their revenue that they get from all those 33 billion packs purchased worldwide.

Besides television series, movies are also used as a medium for companies to promote their product. The Iron Man movie series (from Iron Man to Iron Man 3) has a strong product placement from Audi. Through out the Iron Man series, Audi has put a strong product placement.

 The picture above shows Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) coming out of his Audi R8 in the first Iron Man movie

The pircture above shows Tony Stark is driving his Audi R8 in the Iron Man 2

And the picture above shows Tony Stark is driving his Audi R8 away from the reporters.

Through the Iron Man movie series, Audi has given the image to the audience that Audi is car built for wealthy individuals since Tony Stark portrays an extremely wealthy scientist/businessman.

To use media such as TV series and films for companies like Subway, Lucky Strike, and Audi is a method for them to create a bigger and wider brand awareness to the public. There are many more movies that contain product placement (usually one movie may contain product placements from different companies) that are not mentioned here. Subway’s Hawaii Five-O, Lucky Strike’s Mad Men and Audi’s Iron Man movies are examples of how strong product placement can be. I think that TV series and movies has a strong influence in helping companies sell their product as those media can be enjoyed worldwide and creating a worldwide brand awareness.

Over the past 3 months or so I have learned how the job application system works. It’s not only about searching for available jobs in the market but also the process to be able to get the job interview.

In comm 299, I learned how to make a professional job CV and cover letter. Before, I have no background on how to write a cover letter, in fact, I don’t even know what a cover letter really is until the Professors and TAs in comm 299 taught me what it is and how to create one.

As far as I’m concern, I think that this subject has taught me the most important lesson in life, and that is people are not going to wait for you. The result was that I missed my job interview even thought I did not miss the dead-line. However, the bottom line is that in 3 to 4 years from now, I will be applying for various job vacancies. But those people will not be waiting for me to submit my application. There will be thousands and thousands of people applying for the job that I want, and whoever goes first, will get the job interview.

Who would’ve thought that beer and sport could work together.I guess, those two contradict each other don’t you think. Sport makes you healthy, beer, well beer creates “beer belly”.

Well, that does not occur in the business world. Beer, in the sporting industry, is a huge thing.

There are two major brands that are involve in the sporting industry. Carlsberg and Heineken.

Both of them are hugely involved in the football (soccer) world. Heineken is one of the main sponsor of European Champions League, and Carlsberg, used to be the sponsor for one of the English Clubs, Liverpool FC.

They have dominated the sporting industry in such a way that it influences the people that sports are now enjoyed with an ice cold beer.

Obviously, by having that influence towards the society, Heineken and Carlsberg would not have any problem with their sales, since the sporting industry is now on its booming phase, a lot of people would watch sports weather it’s live or it’s on tv.

If there’s a, for instance, a champions league game, and for some reason you want to go to a pub. Instantaneously, you would order a pint of ice cold beer.

That’s the influence that heinken and carlsberg brought to today’s world.

On June 1 2009, a giant auto-mobile manufacturer declared for bankruptcy. And yes, the company is a 101 years old company that represent the “heart and soul” of the United States.

General Motors filed for chapter 11 (or a term that’s being used these days to declare that your company is bankrupt) because the company had some financial matters that were not dealt with poise.

GM was given a bailout (government intervention type of help) of billions of dollars to regain its prominence in the automotive industry.

Couple of months after GM paid all their debts to the U.S. Treasury and Canadian government with $4.7 billion and $1.1 billion dollars respectively, GM made the initial public offering (IPO). It is their first time in offering the company’s share to the public.

In my opinion, GM is currently making a wise financial decision as they will get more capital from offering stocks to the public. It means that GM has more capital to regain its distinction as one of the biggest auto-mobile manufacturers.

Now since GM has bigger capital it means that they will also have bigger stake in their hands. They should not get careless with the financial matters as they now currently holding on to the public’s money.

On the previous post, I mentioned that Jamie owns restaurants around the globe, two in United Kingdom, and one is in Amsterdam, Holland . All of the restaurants are named fifteen (I don’t know why he named both restaurants “fifteen”).

All of those restaurants were established by the Jamie Oliver Foundation. Those restaurants however, are different to any other conventional restaurant. Those restaurants are employed with chef that have no culinary background.

Then, what’s the point of hiring them?

Jamie Oliver wanted to help the young adults who live in the projects, unemployed, and have no stable income. By hiring them, it helps them to have job, a stable income, and so that they will have better standard of living.

Jamie and all his staff taught the kids who are from the projects the tricks of the trade of cooking. They also taught them the proper manners and attitudes on being a student and a chef.

Thus, according to my understanding, Jamie can be considered as a social entrepreneur. He is an entrepreneur who cares about his society and want the society to have a better life.

I guess what Jamie Oliver did with Fifteen is what corporate companies usually call it as CSR.

When the class had a discussion on entrepreneurship, the name Jamie Oliver came to mind.

In my opinion, Jamie Oliver can be an example of an entrepreneur, and a very successful one. He developed recipes that become cook books, and developed cook books that lead to his own TV show, and from having his own TV show into owning restaurants around the globe.

An entrepreneur – according to my understanding does not have to be a person who developed sophisticated ideas. An entrepreneur for me is a person that could make a lucrative business using simple and yet very attractive concept.

What made Jamie Oliver stood out from the other renown chef is his ability to create and meeting the current demand in the market. Somehow Jamie managed to turn dishes that are using day-to-day ingredients into a very distinguished dish.

He did not make dishes as sophisticated as Ferran Adria, but somehow he managed to attract a lot of customer into buying his products.

His ideas are very simple. He has become a very important in this modern society as the person who influence others on how easy cooking really is.

Jamie is a person that defines what entrepreneur is.

When I had to do my comm 101 presentation, I suddenly realized that I am going to elaborate stuff on endorsement, so might as well blog about it.

Take a look at Nike, for instance. This famous shoe manufacturer have endorsed tons of athletes around the world. For instance, Lebron James, Michael Jordan, Carmelo Anthony, you name the rest.

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And for adidas, you’d see Kaka, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, etc.

So do you know who they are?

Those are athletes that made endorsement deals with shoe manufacturer such as Nike and Adidas.

Why would they want to do that?

It is simply because they want us, the consumers to buy their products.

Companies such as Nike and Adidas paid millions of dollars just for those superstars to wear their shoes. It is simply because of percepetion

Those companies want those athletes to bring an excellent brand image to the consumers so the consumers will have the perception that those brands are the best, since athletes always get the best and wear the best shoes.

Hence, endorsement is also an example where marketing meets finance. It is because these deals require a huge amount of money.

Then again, endorsement as a marketing strategy has worked pretty much so far for those two companies,

There has been an ongoing debate amongst corporate tycoons as well as the society on the cause of 2008 financial meltdown.  Some say that it was caused by the “unreliable” investment banking firms, some say it was because of the foreigners, and some say that it was caused by the individuals who could not return the money that they borrowed from those banks.

Everyone has the right to argue with each other. The 2008 financial meltdown did not only affect the Americans, but the affect was or maybe is globally. In America, billions of jobs have been gone “down the drain” due to this devastating occurrence.

“Chapter 11”, a term that indicates bankruptcy, has been filed by several major companies such as Lehman Brothers, Merryl Linch, and Goldman Sachs. Those three financial institution has gone busted probably due to the greed that people nowadays have. They want to have everything, but paying everything as the least they can do.

Now the world has been trying to get on its original track, waking up from a very devastating nightmare. How you might say? The answers, we should leave it up to those who are in the financial institution sector. As part of the society, the only thing we can do is not making the same mistake that we did.

The never-ending competition of the two beverage companies has growing immensely over the past years.  Two of these giants have been trying to bombard the market by intense marketing manipulation and advertisement. These can be seen through the product line that both companies provide to the market.

For example, coca cola has (so far) come up with product line such as Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and the list may go on. This way, Coca-Cola has the advantage to attract customers with different preference of the coke beverage. This method as well is somewhat efficient to attract potential customer where presumably, there are customers that have become more aware about their health, thus Coca-Cola may offer product such as Diet Coke and Coke Zero, where in the advertisement said that it has “zero” sugar.

Then, Pepsi suddenly came up with the similar product line similar to Coca-Cola’s. There are Pepsi, Pepsi Max, and Diet Pepsi. Those brands has the same purpose as Coca-Cola’s, which is to cater the needs of different customer’s preference.

Thus, up to this point in time, those 2 beverage giants are still competing against one another in order to gain the biggest market share.

This is an advertisement made by one of the biggest cigarette manufacturer in Indonesia called Gudang Garam or in English, it means Salt Warehouse. This company has established its brand in the Indonesian market as well as in some Asian countries.

By law, it is prohibited in a cigarette commercial to show men, women, or both smoking. Thus, the ads show implicitly that smoking is “cool”.

The commercial above shows one of the most talented soccer player, Fernando Torres. In the advertisement, it basically shows on how he can do anything imaginable under the huge pressure.

This advertisement thus implicitly wants the audience to have a perception that if someone consume nicotine, that he can do “anything” possible. It means that the company wants its consumers to have an impression that smoking is a way to relief your stress, pressure, and burden. Without having to tell the consumer explicitly that smoking is – lets say “attractive”, the consumer would already have the impression that smoking may release you from any physical and mental pain… where as in reality, it may be the opposite way.