Throughout the semester, my team has been working closely with Peqish to develop their digital marketing strategy. After our initial meeting with the co-founder and operations manager, it was evident that their biggest issue is being able to generate content for their online pages on a regular basis. This led me to wonder if the problem is one that applies to all small businesses or if this is a unique obstacle for Peqish.

From what we have observed, it seems that insufficient resources such as being able to hire marketing staff is one of the main contributors to the difficulty of content generation for smaller businesses. Producing quality content consistently is more difficult than it seems and if a business doesn’t have the sufficient budget to allocate manpower dedicated to growing their online presence, this can take a backseat in the priority of operations.

Another issue that often arises is the difficulty in measuring ROI for content marketing. It can be hard to directly link a growth in a business’ social media pages to an increase in traffic within their brick-and-mortar store. This is something that Peqish asked our team to work on and is definitely something we have struggled with as quantifying a digital marketing strategy can be tricky if there are no clear content goals.

The diagram above is known as the ‘project management triangle’ where you will have to choose between two of the three factors when it comes to producing content – efficiency, price and quality. Many times small businesses may have to sacrifice quality for consistency especially because they will have to either choose between a heavy time investment required to produce consistently quality content or invest in hiring an in-house content marketer. Therefore, it seems the Peqish’s issues with content generation is definitely something that many smaller businesses struggle with and is actually a common obstacle for many.

In light of the recent ISIS attacks in Paris, the world has been on guard with many cities being placed on the highest level of terror alert. Recently, Brussels was placed under this category due to ‘serious threats’ made upon the city, causing the entire city to come under lockdown as schools, universities and public transport systems in the city closed down to protect citizens. In a more humorous turn of events, the Brussel federal police force sent out a Tweet requesting that the public remain silent on any counter-terrorism operations on social media to help prevent terrorists from gaining access to this crucial information.

The people of Brussels and around the world banded together to not only fulfill this request, but also took it a step further and showed their sense of unity in the face of fear and terror. Users on twitter flooded the site with the hashtag #BrusselsLockdown with funny cat memes, effectively burying any intelligence on police movements that may have been shared. Examples of the memes that users were posting included:

It is well-known that ISIS is notorious for exploiting social media (in particular Twitter) to recruit new members and spread their propaganda. This is why the #BrusselsLockdown movement has been so refreshing to see as it is far rarer for us to witness social media being used for good in the war on terror. Through this example set by the people of Belgium, hopefully the rest of the world can follow suit in the face of adversity and use social media to spread positivity when needed.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/23/europe/paris-attacks-brussels-lockdown-cats/

I was immediately intrigued by my fellow classmate Jessica Pan’s blog post on “Phones Before Wallets” because smart phones nowadays play such an enormous role in our everyday lives. We use our phones as a map, camera, music player and even as a flashlight!

Apart from all these uses, mobile phones do indeed have a significant impact on how consumers make their decisions because of their ability to connect people globally through online forums or review sites which consumers can access in order to help them make their decision. People can share their experiences with others whether it regards a hotel stay, the pros and cons of a new speaker or the latest lipstick from Revlon. These online discussion platforms give consumers an additional source to find more information on what they are buying from objective viewpoints rather than information from the company itself.

Jessica mentions that “a company must be prepared to spend more money and effort on making itself phone-accessible”, which I completely agree with as the statistics from MobiThinking show that 105.8% of the US population are subscribed to a mobile service. This massive percentage of mobile users highlights the extreme importance of companies focusing on interacting and accessing consumers through their phones.

The universal saying ‘a diamond is forever’ originated from the De Beers Mining Company in 1947 and has since been called by many ‘the best advertising slogan of the 20^th Century’ (American Mosaic, 2007). Sixty-eight years later, this advertising line has a recognition rate of 90% in America, reflecting just how effective it has been over the years (American Mosaic, 2007).

De Beers essentially created a billion dollar industry from the ground up through the ingenious ploy of marketing diamonds as a universal symbol of love and commitment pioneered through strategic product placement. As industry demand declined in the 1930s due to unfavorable economic conditions, the De Beers Company launched a campaign bombarding the public with images of movie stars and celebrities sporting glamorous diamonds on various mediums. Not only did they utilize film and TV product placement, they also pushed the inclusion of their products in magazines, newspapers and radio programs. Through the success of their marketing plan, sales of diamonds increased by 50% (American Gem Society, 2015).

By the year 1965, 80% of U.S. brides wore diamond engagement rings and the idea that diamonds were an everlasting core symbolic item linked to romance, eternal love and emotional sentiment became deeply ingrained in Western society (American Gem Society, 2015). Through the marketing of an idea instead of a product, De Beers was able to build a multi-billion industry in which they dominated for almost a century.

For as long as I can remember, I have always associated diamond rings as a representation of marriage. But with the rising rates of divorce and separation, have younger generations become skeptical of romance? Perhaps it may be time for the diamond industry to move on from their carefully crafted image of love and marriage and begin to focus on other modern values such as personal success and achievement.

Consumers have to filter out all the different types of advertising and marketing campaigns thrown at them because we simply just can’t handle it if we tried to take on board everything. Therefore, it becomes even more important for companies to think of unique and creative ways to spread their message and grab the attention of the public.

An example of this is UNICEF’s guerrilla marketing campaign where they placed vending machines all over Manhattan with various disease-infected water options instead of the usual different varieties of soda. People were intrigued by the idea and wanted to see what the water looked like so they were willing to pay $1 out of curiosity. In return, the $1 went to charity and provided a child with clean drinking water for 40 days.

Not only was this an effective way of increasing awareness but it also provided an incentive for people to donate. UNICEF made the donating option extremely accessible for passersby as they were able to contribute through the vending machines or via SMS/online. The project was far more successful than UNICEF had anticipated which shows exactly how effective a creative and attention-grabbing marketing campaign can be.

To find out more about this project or to see more pictures, click here.

L’Oreal has had a long history of being linked to rumours surrounding the subject of animal testing and it’s ongoing battle with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has created much bad publicity for the company. Many animal activists feel so strongly about this issue that they called for boycotts of not only L’Oreal but also The Body Shop, which was bought by L’Oreal in March 2006.

There have been claims recently that L’Oreal is undergoing a new campaign of reaching an end goal to become “cruelty-free” by 2013. This has resulted in the company donating $1.2 million to the US Environmental Protection Agency in order to help improve the testing of safe chemicals, an act that could be seen as a strategy to improve their brand image. While this move was welcomed by welfare activists, some animal rights groups felt that more could be done by the company to fully terminate all animal testing processes that are occurring in L’Oreal labs currently. To find out more about this case, click here.

It can be seen from this example that business ethics and corporate social responsibility is becoming more and more important for companies to maintain, especially as the current citizens of the world are becoming increasingly aware of these issues. Business ethics can be paramount to the success of a business in the sense that it can help companies increase their consumer base if they have a strongly positive ethical reputation.

(Source: http://blog.sticky9.com/post/11095149810/happy-birthday-instagram-hard-to-believe-its)

The billion-dollar photo sharing social media platform turns five today! It’s growth since 2010 has been profound, now boasting approximately 400 million users on the app. This article (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/instagram-birthday-how-old-a6682021.html) talks about some of the trends that have been established through Instagram, one of which is that a large number of influencers including celebrities and political figures have begun to take to Instagram instead of traditional media outlets to make important announcements. Whether it’s an engagement, a new addition to the family or big career moves, people have started to use Instagram to directly communicate with their audience and fans to let them know first-hand any changes in their lives.

Another interesting trend is that the top three accounts on Instagram all belong to women (Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and Beyonce). We can see that Instagram may be helping to perpetuate the concept of ‘girl power’ and it seems that users are more interested in following women than men. Another statistic is that the most liked photo on Instagram at the moment belongs to Kendall Jenner and racks up a total of 3.1 million times. That alone shows how wide the reach of this platform is and how much engagement is possible through the usage of this platform.

Personally, Instagram has always been my favourite social media platform compared to others like Facebook or Snapchat as Facebook has a tendency to become too cluttered and noisy while Snapchat is so temporary. Instagram has become almost like a visual diary for many people including myself and I am grateful that it was birthed 5 years ago as a tiny San Francisco startup with 13 employees.

Happy Birthday again, Instagram!

As part of the millennial generation, it is interesting to see how the advertising industry has adjusted to meet the needs of consumers similar to myself. In an article featured on Forbes highlighting a company called ‘Fanbytes’, this topic is explored further in depth by considering alternatives to traditional forms of advertising that have been around for longer than millennials have been alive.

Fanbytes is a company that helps brands including Go Pro, Adidas and Nickelodeon collaborate with social influencers on channels such as Youtube, Instagram or Vine. These platforms are popular amongst millennials and this 16-24 year old demographic is seen as the largest current market for many brands. However, there has been a need for brands to change the way that they engage with younger consumers as millennials are particularly resistant to obvious, disruptive forms of advertising. They are cautious of product placement and will reject advertising that seems artificial or unnatural. Therefore, companies need to find ways to shift their blatant advertising methods into native content.

Fanbytes connects these companies to the influencers that would fit their brand image and would be able to reach a large audience while staying believable and authentic. An example of this is a highly successful campaign that they arranged for Go Pro in which they teamed up with a Youtuber called Kieran Brown with 150k subscribers who specializes in creating videos featuring freestyle football tricks. Fanbytes tends not to use Youtubers who are too popular because a lot of times they have entered the ‘celebrity’ category in which anything they advertise tends to lose authenticity. I think that this is definitely a more effective way of advertising as it is incorporated more subtly into content that is already engaging consumers. Instead of forcing consumers to be receivers of information, this opens up an alternative in which consumers can actively seek out ‘advertising’ from companies and not feel like they are being advertised to.

For more information on Fanbytes, the article I referred to earlier can be found here.

This Sunday, the moon will be ‘encapsulated in a total lunar eclipse’ from 8PM with the eclipse peaking at 10PM. The annual supermoon will appear to be 14% larger and 30% brighter before it is engulfed by the eclipse, a rare sighting that will not occur again until 2033 according to NASA.

An occurrence like this wouldn’t be complete without social media. The supermoon will be visible from North and South America as well as Europe, Africa, parts of West Asia and the eastern Pacific. We should be able to have a perfect view of the event here in Vancouver but there are options available to watch it free online. NASA will be streaming a video on NASA TV with a live feed from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and observers can ask questions directly to NASA experts using the hashtag #AskNASA on Twitter. The usage of social media has provided greater access for people who are restricted geographically or otherwise from participating in this global event.

Following the event, we can expect social media platforms to be abuzz with photos and videos of the blood moon as can be seen from reactions to past supermoons. To see if your region will be able to see the eclipse, take a look at the diagram below. This kind of lunar eclipse doesn’t happen very often so it’s definitely well worth staying up late this Sunday night to witness this spectacle.

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/23/world/supermoon-eclipse-irpt/index.html?sr=fb092515supermooneclipse230pVODtopVideo