Nowadays, “LESS IS MORE” can be an effective motto that marketers should take into account.

The architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adopted this motto to describe his particular way of designing buildings and objects. The purpose was to highlight the beauty of simplicity over the exaggerations and the excess of the previous art movements.

Likewise, companies can benefit from a reduction in the dimensions of their offers. The starting point for such a revolution has to be a good understanding of the world’s economic conditions. The economic downturn has radically changed the spending patterns of people all around the world. Above all, the number of people that show the possibility to follow a free spending pattern has decreased. Every consumer is more careful in the product evaluation before purchases. Here comes the time to eliminate excesses!

According to one of Rohit Bhargava’s posts, the VALUE is what consumers are really looking for. Stressing and underlining the value offered is the only way to attract and create loyal consumers. The excess is not consistent with the real needs of the contemporary era. What’s more, the huge sizes, that even often sacrifice the quality, are no more appreciated. Thus, it is better to invest on quality research rather than wasting money augmenting sizes. A cut in the quantity of portions and a reduction in the broadness of the product line can help in decreasing costs. Indeed, carrying few different products should help firms to offer only those that customers really like. Consequently, marketers have the fundamental task to persuade the public about the real value of the offers. Then, marketers’ researches and surveys have now to be even deeper, in order to figure out the intimate desires and needs of buyers.

Furthermore, the advantages won’t be only on the economic side. Indeed, this approach would help in eliminating wastes, resulting in a more environmental friendly link to the nature.

In conclusion, once again, the key is to help consumer to understand these policies through meaningful campaigns! So, explain, explain and explain again!

The process that leads consumers to choose a particular product/brand is seldom rational. Being aware of this irrational component helps marketers to find effective strategies to influence consumers. According to this, emotion is a word that marketers have always to keep in mind. Indeed, people are more attracted by products that are able to create positive emotions and feelings in them. And, among all the emotions, fun is one of the most meaningful.

I agree with Bryn Green’s who entitled one of his articles “Humor sells”.  An effort to make advertising funny is always a worth effort.

I’m passionate about the automotive market and I think that it is one of the segments where marketers are able to create the most fascinating advertising. In the European market there are a lot of firms that use humor as an important tool to attract customers. Volkswagen makes the ads that I like the most for the emotions proposed.

The two emotions that VW marketers want to convey are passion for the tradition and love for the humor. These feelings are different but are both effective in order to consistently sustain the image of the brand. On the one hand, they want to appear as one of the most innovative and technological firms. As a matter of fact, it has always introduced brilliant solutions and revolutionary models. For instance, the marketing campaign devised for the launch of Golf V proposed the new model as the continuation of an icon, a myth. On the other hand, they use humor to attract new generations and to create positive feelings about the brand. This tendency toward humor is also linked to the desire of the company to create funny models such the Bettle (1938).  Anyway, among the recent VW ads, one of my favorites is the New Passat CC commercial, called “The nice try”.

“It’s good to know that advertising and marketing have such a positive social impact”. This sentence is the conclusion of the interesting article written by Saida Rashid.

I fully agree with her.

There are people who still think it exists a trade-off between business and socially responsible behaviour. A marketer who adopts this point of view is probably out of time. Nowadays social responsibility is an issue that firms cannot ignore, for at least two reasons. First of all, it’s always worth it and honorable to help needy people, solve critical situations and protect the environment. Secondly, these actions are always excellent free advertising for the companies involved.

Indeed it’s important to have a positive image because people admire more and more companies that make an effort to be socially friendly, and this can lead people toward a specific product and brand.

Let’s think about two different examples of social responsibility:

1) As the Nairobi Lamp Lady campaign, in some European cities there is a service dedicated to women safety during the night. It’s a taxi service offered by cabs driven by women that are available only for women in the late hours and during the holydays. The name of the campaign is “Pink Cabs” and the taxi companies that launched it have now a well-known brand because of the positive articles on the newspapers about this topic.

2) Nowadays the Italian government is facing a critical financial situation and the Italian cultural heritage risks to be unattended. One important entrepreneur, the owner of Tod’s (an Italian luxury fashion brand) has decided to take care of the Coliseum for ten years. This commitment helps Rome’s most famous monument to maintain its beauty and it also allows Tod’s to improve its public image.

Definitely, business and ethics can be complements.

Travelling is one of my favourite hobbies. I like to visit new places and discover new cultures.

New York. Summer.

The most exciting and cosmopolitan city in the world.

It was the first time I went to New York and I really felt impatient to see all the wonders that this city can unfold.

I don’t exactly remember the time, but I arrived there late in the evening. Everybody that has already been there told me the best part of the day to fly into NY is the night.

In saying this, everything was perfect to discover the big apple.

From the airport, my friends and I took a yellow cab to arrive at the hotel, which was close to times square.

A few minutes later my friend shouted. “There’s an arm hanging from the trunk of the taxi in front of us!”. I was scared by this arm.

“Perhaps we have to call the police” , we said to the driver.

Afterwards the driver started to laugh and he wasn’t able to stop himself. “It’s just the new Soprano’s advertising”, he said.

I think that it is an agressive advertising but I have to admit that it was able to capture a lot of attention! Someone was scared or disgusted about it but the idea of marketers was smart! During the next days I saw a lot of yellow cabs with this arm and a lot of people  walking on the street saw it as well!

The aim of this marketing campaign was reached. It grabbed attention. Everybody in New York knew that the new Soprano TV series was going to start the next month on HBO!