Blog Post #6 Reflections

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It’s now been 3 months since the first few days of COMM 463. There’s a lot to reflect on and a lot that has been learned. Specifically pertaining to assignment #3, well, put simply it was a lot of fun!

It was fun to see how my teammates from different areas of study approached the problem. Immediately the engineers jumped onto the electronics and gadgets: both of us were most excited to start playing with the camera and sound equipment. The others wanted to see a strong film come together with an entertaining plot and educational value and so started doing the script work.

The actual filming of our video was planned to take place over 2 days. Unfortunately, due to some poor lighting conditions we ended up adding a 3rd to re-shoot a couple scenes in order to satisfy the standards of our designated video editor! In my opinion that’s not too bad of a time commitment for this type of thing; having done one or two videos before I knew going the type of time investment required. In the end I think the work put in was roughly equal for all members of our group save our video editor. Having acted, written, directed, and edited the video, he clearly put a bit more effort in than the rest of us! I’m happy with the final result, however, and I think it was a worthwhile experience just to have fun with it!

It’s funny to me that I say that. Typically I don’t like group assignments. I find the difference in quality and writing styles from one person to the next makes for difficult reading and a disjointed piece. In the end, somebody always has to sink a couple extra hours to compile it all into one cohesive document anyways. This video project was a little more creative and definitely a lot more fun!

UBC Supermileage Team – Communicating the Value of a Non-Monetary Exchange

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After nearly 3 months of COMM 465 I thought maybe today would be a good opportunity to write about a topic much closer to me on a personal level. As I imagine most of you are unaware, I am a mechanical engineering student, and this year I became captain of the UBC Supermileage Team. We are an engineering design team dedicated to the design and development of super fuel-efficient single-occupancy vehicles. We’re a 100% student-composed team that competes in an international competition against over 100 schools across North and South America. Our vehicles last year achieved 1400 and 600 mpg. (Shameless plug: Check out www.supermileage.ca!)

 

Our Urban Concept vehicle took 2nd place last year!

 

More to the point, earlier this week I found myself crafting a sponsorship proposal to a manufacturer of bicycle hubs, rims, and other components. Our ultra-lightweight vehicle (the 1400 mpg one) uses bicycle hubs for its wheels. They’re incredibly lightweight and at a total vehicle weight of 90lbs, more than strong enough! When I was writing this proposal, I realized that our standard approach wouldn’t work. Typically we appeal to companies for support by pushing the value of training young engineers for the real world, highlighting environmental issues, and promising exposure through our community outreach programs. To this company, however, I realized almost none of these benefits had any appeal. The environmental aspect means little to a manufacturer of competitive cycling products; their industry is eco-friendly by its very nature and their target audience is more worried about performance than responsible community sponsorship. Secondly, the company is European and their closest office is in Colorado! It’s unlikely that their sponsorship would sway any of our members to seek future employment with them.

 

My approach was to emphasize the student learning through hands-on design problems and our location of Vancouver as a competitive biking hot-spot. We’re frequently featured in local print and televised media, so there’s a good chance many avid cyclists would spot their logo on our vehicles and consider their products. I also hoped that, as engineers themselves, they would see the value in helping students become better engineers through the tackling of real-world technical problems.

 

So what do you think? Could I have communicated the value of a sponsorship deal more effectively to this manufacturer? In what ways could I have made a more effective proposal?

Effectiveness of Online Paid Ads – Post 4

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Internet ads. Popping up at the worst of times, filling up space along the side bars, delaying Youtube videos for an inconvenient five seconds without fail. In fact, without the proper ad-blocking software installed it’s pretty hard to find a website that doesn’t have these ads displayed somewhere.With that in mind, I recently stumbled upon this blog by Oli Gardner regarding the effectiveness of these online ads.

My Facebook sidebar at the moment

Thing is, despite the constant bombardment, I can’t remember an ad I actually liked. The linked blog does an excellent job of explaining why exactly these ads aren’t working, and what can be done to make them more effective. In short, Oli Gardner claims there are two “pillars” of a successful campaign: Attention Ratio, and Message Match. Read the article to understand exactly what he means!

While I agree with a lot of what is said, I can’t help but feel it’s missing out on the biggest barrier to entry for a lot of people. Who actually clicks these things? The whole blog assumes the audience has clicked an ad and focuses on what they should be presented with after. There’s no mention of making an effective banner or sidebar ad. Meanwhile I can’t remember the last time I intentionally clicked a Facebook ad. It’s far too ingrained in me to regard these colourful distractions as potential entry points for viruses and spyware that I simply ignore them completely.

An example of a “good” landing page with little distractions or confusing options as given by Oli Gardner.

I did spend a bit of time looking for data or stats to back me up, but all I could find were articles detailing how well FB ads have been improving year over year…in percentages…so no help there. Truth is I don’t know how many people are reading or clicking on online ads, so the author could be spot on. In the absence of numbers however, my ultimate conclusion is that this article is well-meaning but off base; more benefit would come from making a more effective advert than a more streamlined landing page once the ad has been clicked.

Comm465 Oct 24 Post 3

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I leave this post in response to my classmate Maggie Lo’s October 8th blog entitled “Station Square’s Attractiveness”, linked to here.

When searching for a good piece to post a reply to, this one caught my eye for a number of reasons. First of all, purple. Who wouldn’t stop to look for a second with a background like that? The second and primary reason was the applicability of the content: the sudden explosion of high-rise condos all over Greater Vancouver.

One of the larger developments is happening at Station Square in Burnaby near Metrotown. Maggie explains the various ways the developers draw in customers for the new high rises:

  • Have mailing lists and pre-sale showrooms with sales agents on hand to build a relationship
  • Selling the condo units in phases rather than all at once.
  • Advertising a sense of community within the development rather than a collection of homes

I thought it would be worthwhile to point out that each of these tactics match up quite nicely with at least one of the Principles of Consumer Behaviour. The first point fits the commitment principle nicely. By having the customer on a mailing list for easy access and building an in-person relationship through pre-sale events, it makes them more comfortable with the sales environment and more importantly they’ve invested time into the relationship. The second introduces the scarcity principle. These are massive 35-57 story high-rises; there are plenty of homes. By selling them in limited quantities and emphasizing that they are going quickly, it creates an illusion that the customer must buy quickly. The community aspect reminds me of the liking principle. The developer emphasizes that there are people just like the customer also looking in the same area and will be living nearby.

Molson Canadian – Traveling Beer Fridge

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There’s something about a locked door in plain sight that just annoys the heck out of people. The mystery, the audacity, and the stubborn challenge it issues just begs you to take a crack at it. Maybe that’s why I found this recent video from Molson Canadian so interesting:

Molson Beer Fridge Ad

The beer company dropped bright red fridges stocked full of Molson Canadian beer in several large European cities. The beer was free, but there’s a catch: The fridge will only open once a Canadian passport is scanned. Security issues aside (would you scan your passport in a random vending machine in a public place?) I thought it was a cool promotion that brought a lot of different people together, if only for the time it takes to down a brew.

Molson is taking a page out of Coca-Cola’s book on this one. The soft drink company has been doing public installation and “feel good” entertainment stunts for years. If the edited video is to be believed, this type of stunt builds a social atmosphere between complete strangers, and generates an interest in the brand. The most interesting part to me, however, is that Canadian isn’t even sold very widely in the countries in which the fridges were placed. So why pull a stunt in a country that isn’t even a target market?

This brings me to analyzing the ad again. Watching it as an ad rather than a story, I realized that what Molson is doing is more along the lines of building homesickness in a customer that is already at home. The video is more about showing the happiness in the Canadian travelers when they get a little piece of home after being so far away for so long.

I believe Molson did a very good job with this promotion. Not only is it entertaining to watch and achieves the desired effect, but it fits right in with Molson’s current marketing strategy of tying itself to Canada itself. Installed “observational” ads are becoming more popular, and the Molson traveling beer fridge is a prime example.

Commerce 465 Blog 1 – Ethics

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The field of marketing is subject to intense ethical scrutiny. Realistically, that’s the way it should be! Consciously aware of it or not, marketing plays a huge role in how we perceive products, brands, and the world as a whole. Given this statement, is it ethical to advertise any and every product? Are there products which simply shouldn’t be advertised at all?

The most obvious case is tobacco, or more specifically cigarettes. Today, most forms of advertising for cigarettes are prohibited in Canada. Only certain forms such as print ads in magazines with a very low youth readership are still allowed, and even these must be featured alongside large health and safety warnings.

But of course, advertising isn’t the only form of marketing. Companies continue to build brand loyalty through membership programs, contests, and creating a sense of community. Our government has made it increasingly difficult for tobacco companies to find new customers, but what about their existing consumer base? Being that the harmful effects of tobacco are so well documented, is it ethical to market these products at all? By creating incentives for customers to remain customers, they are effectively impeding the consumer’s ability to make positive, healthy choices. The sale of the product has a direct negative impact on their life.

But tobacco isn’t the only example of a product with negative effects. One could make the argument that fast food advertisements should come with warning labels about nutrition and obesity. By the same token, can a car be ethically marketed without a label on the speedometer saying “Speed Kills”?

These are just examples, but the point is this: Marketing can be an incredibly powerful force, and those who influence its implementation and direction must be aware of the consequences of the product or service they sell.