By the end of this term, I have learned many things about marketing, especially through the Marketing Plan assignments.

• What did you learn about teams, yourself, and marketing?

I learned to never give up no matter how unfavourable the situation might turn into, as the success of the team only comes from the commitment and hard work of all members. Also, I realized I have a tendency to coordinate the group immediately whenever I sense the group is not rganized as I naturally feel it is wrong to not have a direction when accomplising a task. In terms of marketing, I find that this field puts a much heavier emphasis on understanding customer’s perspective than I previously thought.

• What skills did you enhance or develop, if any?

I enhanced my researching skills through the help of the librarians at the research help desk who directed me to the type of sources I should look at for certain topics. I also used many marketing research websites from the recommended library sources which gave me a better idea of the type of sources marketers use for their research.

• What would you do differently next time?

I would try to find a way to guide my group in a more organized way so that we become more efficient. For example, I should quickly observe each member’s working habits by reflecting on their performace from each assignments and use this information to find their weaknesses that I can help with, and strengths that I can bring forward to the advantage of the group.

• What are your top takeaways?

My top takeaway is that I found the marketing field to be interesting and making marketing plans might be something I would enjoy doing as part of my career in the future.

Promoting a product that is highly associated with a specific market segment towards a different target market would require marketers to work twice as hard. This is especially true in the beauty industry, which mainly appeals to the female market. But what about the male demographic? Many beauty companies are now introducing product lines specifically for male. Yet, the promotion for these products can be challenging as the product’s common association with the female market means that it will not be easy to attract the male consumer’s interest as they might automatically ignore the product once they know what kind of product the promotion is representing.

However, Dove’s recent advertisement has cleverly found a way to gain the male consumer’s interest towards it Dove Men+Care Shampoo product.

In this video, whenever the male employee moves, his long hair always move in slow motion to show how immaculate and shiny his hair is. However, the boss actually associated this with a girl’s hair instead, which reminded the employee of the women shampoo he used. So the male employee ran towards a supermarket to buy Dove’s  Men+Care shampoo and took a shower with it. His hair immediately went short to a typical men’s hairstyle.

Not only do I find this video quite funny, but it’s also very appealing towards the targeted market segment. Dove strategically captured adult male’s interest by recognizing their need for a good quality hair treatment, just like the female demographic. However, Dove also showed that they don’t have to go as far as using the ‘female’ product, which will deprive their masculinity. So they provided a hair care solution that still allows them to be a ‘man’. Thus, this showed to the customers the masculinity image of the Dove Men+Care shampoo.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/use-doves-shampoo-men-and-dont-have-lustrous-flowing-hair-woman-148162

Have you ever crossed upon an advertisement that you just don’t quite get it? Have you ever found an advertisement’s message to be unclear or with a confusing direction? That’s how I felt when I watched this video from Amazon promoting its Kindle Paperwhite e-reader.

In the video, a man is seen struggling to read through his Kindle at the beach as the screen lighting does not adjust automatically for the outdoor sunlight. Then a woman walks in and showed then new Kindle Paperwhite would be the best solution for him because the built-in light feature is makes the device suitable for reading at the beach. However, after the man purchased the new Kindle and suggested to celebrate it together with the woman, she hinted at him that she has a husband and in return, the man also told her that he has a husband too.

I completely understand the product Amazon is selling. But I have to agree with what AdWeek said. Why does the video suddenly have a reference to the gay community? There’s really nothing wrong with that. But the placement of the reference in this video seems a bit out of place as the video’s purpose becomes blurred between trying to sell a new product or building Amazon’s image to the public. Plus, since the reference was very short and placed towards the end of the video, it made it seem like the reference was ‘forced’ into it so the idea didn’t flow well with the video plot. Thus, one thing I learnt from this video is, make sure an advertisement does not have too many messages that it tries to deliver.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/amazons-gay-kindle-spot-nice-surprise-or-little-forced-147758

I read a blog post by my fellow team member, Nancy Huang, about the use of sex appeal in marketing. This topic reminded me of an article that I recently read, which talks about the growing trend in Japan of companies rent advertisement space on young Japanese women legs.

The article mentions that this marketing idea was based on the notion that “a good advertisement should be put where everyone’s eyes are drawn”. Basically, these women will wear short skirt or shorts and get their legs stamped with an advertisement. They must keep it on for at least 8 hours per day and post a picture of themselves with the ad on their leg to their social network account (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc). However, it  also mentions that only women above the age of 18 can participate.

In her post, Nancy explains that such promotional tactic becomes unethical when it shows too much objectification. The advertisement has crossed the line when it treats a certain gender as an object only to sexually attract its target market. Not only would this seem rude to some norm and culture, but it also has been increasingly attributed towards lowering self-esteem and increase body-image issues especially to the vulnerable teens and children demographic. I personally believe that the negative impact of unethical sexual marketing can also damage the company’s reputation. The association of a company’s brand or product to poor sexual advertisement can lead the company towards a deteriorating reputation as it is deemed unprofessional, which then leads to a loss in the public’s trust and a potential PR crisis.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2281826/Enterprising-firms-rent-ad-space-young-Japanese-womens-bare-legs.html

Marketing for a non-government organization can present a unique challenge in itself. With our ever increasingly busy lifestyle, it’s always hard to grab our attention. This becomes increasingly harder when we want to get someone to not just make a purchase, but a lifetime commitment to support a movement. In this advertisement, the Rainforest Alliance really understand their target market’s hectic lifestyle and used this knowledge to their advantage by suggesting them an impactful action that can still suit their routine.

In this video, a typical young father’s routine life has made him a ‘good’ person. Then, his life is suddenly shaken as he found out how desperate the deforestation of rainforests is. Yet, ironically enough, we are then shown what he would NOT do. He left his ‘old’ life and embarked on a journey to save the rainforest. He moved to a Nicaraguan rainforest and tried to start a movement with the native tribe. But he actually failed tragically in his attempt to change this situation single-handedly. So instead, the organization provided a more realistic solution by suggesting the watcher to JUST buy products that have the Rainforest Alliance certification on it.

I think the Rainforest Alliance has done a great job at researching their target market & incorporating their lifestyle into their marketing strategy. They were also able to reach a specific demographic by portraying a typical person from this target segment. Because of these factors, they were able to be relatable to the adult male demographic who would still like to ‘make a change’ but can’t afford to change their life drastically. This ultimately led to their successful promotion of the campaign.

As we all know, different types of industries are subject to scrutiny from the public for certain issues they are associated with. In the fashion industry, a common issue among the retail business is body image. For example, an ad campaign to promote H&M’s Marni collection received wide criticisms for using a model who looks extremely thin.

From the photo above, the model already looks very thin from her body proportion. Yet, this unhealthy image is amplified through “her pale complexion, hollowed cheeks, dark eyes and unkempt hair.”

This campaign have received backlash from different parties, including from the health professionals and H&M’s consumers. A general practitioner have commented that “This model looks very unwell, almost corpse-like. Her skin is grey, you can see prominent veins in her hands and she has huge eye bags.” Meanwhile, a mother of a 15 year old teenage girl said she is now going to think twice before letting her daughter shop at H&M as she believes this photo would set a standard among teenagers that looking that gaunt is deemed attractive by society.

Although H&M’s main goal would be to deliver fashion forward clothing at reasonable prices, it still has a high ethical responsibility towards the public. This is because the majority of their consumers are volatile teenagers and young adults who’s perceptions of body image is still easily influenced by the media and other external forces. Potraying an unhealthy image of models who these consumers look up to could lead to insecurities issues which would force them to start extreme dieting and have eating disorder problems.

H&M claimed they actually have an advertising policy which prohibits them to hire “significantly underweight” models and the modelling agencies they work with are always made aware of it. However, if they did reinforce this policy, this campaign disaster would not have happen as the model looks extremely underweight to begin with. Therefore, H&M should have a stricter policy which changes H&M’s definition of “siginificantly underweight” based on the public’s feedback. If they believe they wil lose a competitive advantage by renewing this policy, then H&M should also encourage other retail giants to adopt similar advertising policy so that the fashion industry can be more ethical without losing its profits.

Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2112617/Marni-H-M-collection-campaign-uses-model-shes-called-corpse-like.html

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