For the marketing project, my group decided to choose Groupon. In the very beginning, I was the one in the group who probably had the least knowledge of Groupon as I am not a user of Groupon. However, this project really helped me get to know this company. As a group, we were able to apply marketing concepts such as the analyzation of Groupon’s competitors and consumers (immediate environment). Through the different assignments, our group did quite a good job at completing it on time. However, for our assignment 1, we were so concentrated on trying to cut down the number of words we had that we forgot to analyse the facts that we’ve gathered together, So that was a fail on our part.

After the first assignment, our work was mostly based on collaboration rather than each individual finding their own information. We found this way of working to be helpful as we were able get immediate feedback for the ideas we presented to the group and we were able to quickly generate ideas. When it came to the video project, our group was struggling to decide on what we should do first. At the very end, we thought of a concept that everybody agreed on and we started from there. Though the challenging part of creating the video was deciding what the contents that our videos should include, we ended up overcoming this block and created, what I think, was a great video (from an amateur point of view).

One of Tess’ recent blogs discusses how Kraft’s decision of dropping artificial dyes on their macaroni and saying hello to natural coloring will affect their customers in a negative way. What Tess is saying is valid, but there are still some things that can be considered and others that can be analyzed further as to whether customers would view this change negatively.

The first thing to be further analyzed is the health benefits this change will bring to the product. As Tess has mentioned, their product will “appeal to health-conscious consumers due to the reduced sodium and saturated fats”. Thus, if Kraft’s loyal customers are health-conscious, then they’ll view this as a positive change and may buy even more Kraft products. The reason they would buy more is because Kraft’s ‘Kraft Dinner’ can be viewed as a type of comfort food which is fattening, thus customers may eat it less often than they would like to. However, if their Kraft Dinners are now less in sodium and fat content, customers would buy more than they used to, knowing it can be consumed more often.

The second item to be considered is the extent to which coloration of the product affects the customer’s level of loyalty. There is much more to the product than the ‘orange-yellow color’ Tess speaks of that the customer associates Kraft’s products with. If the taste of the product is the same, generally speaking, customer loyalty shouldn’t change by much. This is due to the fact that loyal customers have generated an emotional attachment to Kraft’s brand and product; the customers may have grown up eating Kraft’s products. Through all emotions and events, Kraft’s products were always there with the customer. Thus, the emotional attachment created between the customer and Kraft’s products will be greater than the changes Kraft is making on their products.

After all, what Kraft is doing is just improving their loyal customer’s experience with their products, hoping their customers would introduce their products to generations to come. Change isn’t always negative.

Image Source: Kraft Dinner

After reading a blog post about twitter screening their users through identification, a couple of thoughts came to my mind. First of all, this implementation will really benefit alcohol brands, such as Bicardi as they would not be wasting valuable advertising resources on individuals under the age of 21. Alcohol brands’ target market are individuals aged 21+, thus, it would not make sense if the ad was being advertised to a 12-year old who, by law, is not even allowed to drink alcohol. This screening process can enable alcohol brands and create an incentive for them to further position their advertisements towards their target market as they know that individuals out of their target market will be unable to view their ads.

Secondly, it is important to point out that what younger audiences view on the internet can easily influence the decisions they make in real life. For instance, if a 12-year old sees an ad on the internet of their favorite celebrity endorsing the advertisement of beer, they may have the misconception that “beer is good” and would want to drink it though the law prohibits he/she to do so. Thus, it would not be a good idea for children to be exposed to this sort of advertisement. Overall, I believe what twitter is doing is a start towards the right direction and they have my full support.

Source: Twitter Identification Image

“The Tweeting Bra”—this is a new “advertising campaign in Greece” developed by Nestle Fitness. In order to raise awareness of breast cancer, Nestle decided to ask “Greek TV presenter” Maria Bakodimou to endorse this campaign for them. Of course, she agreed to do so; whenever Maria unhooks her bluetooth bra, there will be a tweet that “reminds women to do their breast self-exams”.

What Nestle did was very smart; not only are they taking advantage of the efficiency of social media, but they are also realizing the fact that Maria Bakodimou is a notable television personality in Greece which many Greek women probably look up to. If they follow Maria’s tweeting bra account, then they too will gain exposure to the tweets reminding them to have a breast check-up. If Maria is taking action to do self-exams, so would the women who look up to her.

As a female, I feel that this campaign is very useful and informative. This is a cause that many are exposed to on a daily basis but take very little action to raise awareness of it. Marketing this campaign through a bra just makes it that much more personal and many more women can relate to it rather than just promoting awareness through cancer walks and such. I believe that this campaign will lead to a positive consequence in the Greek society as more females will be doing self-exams more often to monitor their health and prevent the risk of discovering breast cancer too late. In addition to that, more donations will be going towards research for breast cancer. Because of the increase of donations, society as a whole may be positively impacted by new breakthrough discoveries which can eliminate the risk of getting breast cancer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1hSNg37K38

Source: Tweeting Bra Image

In recent news, Bell made the decision of collecting private data from its customers in order to serve “customized ads” to its users. The data being collected ranges from “websites [customers] visit” to “what phone calls [customers] make”. Of course, not too many customers are pleased with this new decision—given that their privacy information will be monitored and observed by Bell employees.

What this reminds me of is when BC Hydro implemented their smart meters and it was collecting customers’ usage information. This led to privacy issues brought up by consumers. Similarly, for Bell, private information being leaked may also be a concern for their customers.

To minimize the complaints or concerns they may receive, Bell gave customers the option “to opt out” if they do not want to participate in this program. However, what if customers were not notified about this new program? To my knowledge, only a “statement on [Bell’s] privacy page” notifying people that they’ll start using personal information of customers for advertisement purposes was posted. I don’t think what Bell is doing is ethical as they are trying to force this upon customers who have no idea what is going on. They are trying to take advantage of the fact that most customers won’t bother to opt out even if they are concerned with information leakage or customers who don’t even know about this. Through this, Bell is able to quickly generate a huge sample group to aid them in performing better in their ads, but is this the way to go? Maybe this strategy WILL attract more customers by adding customized ads but they may also lose customers as they feel like they are being betrayed and used by Bell. Maybe Bell should consider another approach such as consulting with their customers beforehand and generating a sample group through volunteers.

Source: Bell Image

Recently, Instagram decided to take advantage of their increasing popularity to implement advertisements into their current operating system. The objective of this update is to create a source of revenue for Instagram. With Instagram’s new layout, consumers are forced to view and scroll past advertisements in order to continue viewing other users’ content.

According to Instagram’s blog, they will “start slow” .  However, will this make a difference in consumers’ perceptions? Now-a-days, many individuals like jumping to conclusions after having the slightest bit of exposure to a new idea. It is understandable that Instagram is taking things slowly after seeing how Facebook’s dramatic changes impacted its consumers. However, an advertisement is an advertisement—little would enjoy them especially if they will be impeding the simplistic layout of Instagram. In addition, most people use Instagram for the sole purpose of posting or viewing content by other users. With the implementation of advertisements, users will just mindlessly scroll past the advertisements to view the content around the ad, which makes the ads useless. Regardless of users’ actions, Instagram would still be generating revenues from companies who place ads in this application.

The main consequence of this will be users who dislike the new look of Instagram may start using Vine, which can be considered to be Instagram’s direct competitor. Though some services are differentiated, most are similar—both programs allow users to post short video clips to share. If users start substituting Instagram with Vine, Instagram not only suffers a loss in consumers, but also a loss in future consumers due to bad reviews from previous consumers.  As a result, a cost-benefit analysis should be performed for this new implementation before creating further updates which makes it harder to go back. If it doesn’t work out, a new way of earning revenue should be sought.

Source: Instagram Image

A recent news article  about the marketing tactics of various companies caught my eye. One of the companies was AT&T. On September 11^th, they saw an opportunity to promote their company via twitter—they ‘tweeted’ a picture of an individual taking “a photo of the memorial at ground zero, where the twin towers used to stand” along with the words “never forget”. However, this commemorating ‘tweet’ eventually backfired on them. Following AT&T’s action, an abrupt commotion occurred among the twitter society—many responded negatively to this ‘tweet’.

This news article captured my interest as it is an example of marketing failure from a big telecommunications corporation. From my point of view, what they did can be interpreted as unethical marketing.  AT&T was attempting to take advantage of the public’s vulnerability by posting an image of a tragic event that impacted on many lives, but it was just another one of their marketing schemes to further promote their products. Inevitably, these marketing tactics will only damage AT&T’s reputation. 9/11 was a very intense and emotional day for many, especially for those who reside in the U.S. as it is close to home. What AT&T did frustrated and offended many of their customers as they had gone too using such an emotional event as part of their marketing plan.

As a consequence to this, AT&T should start evaluating all of the marketing decisions. What marketers must understand is that they need to consider the consumers’ point of view. I feel that they have neglected this aspect of marketing. This is one of the main reasons why this marketing plan has failed the moment it was launched.

source: AT&T ‘Tweet’ Image