Month: October 2010

Over the past month leading up to my birthday I have spent probably over 10 hours weighing my choice of a new phone. The Blackberry or the iPhone. My hard work in weighing the costs and benefits started when I became unhappy with my current phone the LG Neon

I absolutely hate this phone, it is glitchy, slow, drops calls, turns off randomly, all in all it was a very very long year to spend with this phone. Luckily I wasn’t on a contract so switching phones wasn’t a problem. The problem was however the CHOICE.
I began to weigh which one a liked more, iphone had won this, its form, reliability (warrenty), apps, capabilities, and over ll sexiness beat out the Blackberry for me. However the fact the the iphone 4 is back ordered till January then and is not as affordable and I pretty much didn’t want to buy the 3Gs if I could get the iPhone 4. But what I really needed to consider and figure out is what am I actually going to use this phone for? the main aspects were email, browsers, planner, and couple other cool things for on the go and my busy life. So I made my choice between the two: BLACKBERRY.

Which one though? I was intent on getting the Bold at first because I thought it was the best. But I figured my best bet would be to compare on the Rogers Website the Specifications of each phone. I found that the Blackberry Bold was actually the worst of the 3. So my choices narrowed between the Torch and the Curve 9300. Both very similar, their specifications were almost identical. But in the end I figured hey if I’m going on the 3 term plan I might as well get a hella good phone for that time. I also talked to so many different people and got opinions from iphone users and blackberry users and many people said that if they hadn’t got the Curve when it got out they would have gone for the Tourch.
However, my main point of this blog is that half way through my intense search for the right phone I went through and ENTIRE customer decision process. I went through the entire diagram from start to finish. (well almost finished) I just gotta get it this weekend.
So Ill keep you posted with the review of my final choice of the Blackberry Torch.

–Ash

When thinking about what I wanted to blog about I began searching funny or interesting commercials on Youtube. There happens to be a lot of interesting ones on there. However, the one that caught my eye was this Condom Commercial, mainly because it was Balloon Animals and one was pink 🙂 I like pink. But anywho, so I click on the Commercial labeled “Best Condom Commercial In History” and this funny thing pops up.

So I watch the Commercial and I laughed like crazy. It’s kind of ingenious making the balloon animals out of condoms, I thought it was pretty cute actually. But the main point I’d like to take from this commercial is that they way that they marketed the Condoms was by showing them throughout the Commercial, out of package and the different colors of their product that they offer in this particular way. Also they chose to make it light-hearted and funny to watch unlike some commercials where is steamy and sexy this one was actually cute. (and it didn’t make anyone feel awkward as I watched it with a few friends in Econ Class)  😀 But all in all I thought it was a good way to market a product that many consumers are shy, quiet, awkward/ don’t talk about  into something that when you see it you laugh. Therefore I think this type of marketing to consumers was effective because it took off that edge and made you think about the product with little negativity.

— Ash

Nissan is a well respected Car company across many countries. I find that Nissans Advertisements are similar to others but have something particular to them that sets them apart. For other car companies such as BMW or Porsche the class of their companies are very different compared to Nissan. Therefore the type of commercials that they produce do not play up the utilities and capability for carrying items that a family may use, they play up the class, prestige, speed and beauty of the cars. However for Nissan they use concepts that play on the utility of trunk space or having some quality family time. In the Nissan Rogue commercial the lady is loading the trunk with an array of items for her family and then it cuts to a picture of her laughing with a drink in her hand. This is a good marketing technique for the modern family or even for a young couple who lead active life styles. Although the Nissan Rogue is in no way similar in class to the Porsche Cayenne the cars are ultimately the same. Both are modern SUV’s that can be used to carry many different things as both have a similar amount of trunk space and seat space. However the Porsche Cayenne commercial displays class and prestige of Porsche not the utility factor of an SUV. It displays a middle age man who is driving the car at night, simply showing of the status, speed and beauty of the Porsche not the actual utility of it. Therefore, it is easy to see how Brand and Commercials can display essentially the same car but in very different ways. The cars even look very similar minus the logo of Porsche or Nissan. I also would like to point out in BOTH commercials that the emotions that the actors display are both joy, contentment, happiness, and other similar feelings. Therefore promoting the idea that “If you purchase this vehicle you will feel this way” However this is a similar tactic used in many different car commercials although none the less effective on the human Psyche. If you look at the two commercials differently Porsche plays up the idea that “If you purchase this vehicle you will look, feel, and be similar to this happy man. Do you want to be like him?” and for Nissan they play up the idea that “Oh these people are having fun with family in friends because of all the space and luxury of this affordable young family car. Do you want to take more trips in a car like this one?” So they both make the consumer feel something different but in the same fashion about similar products. However, my major point and opinion is why would you bother buying the Porsche Cayenne if you’re not going to use it for actual SUV purposes such has holding a range of different items or you have a family of younger children? Why would you pay over $20,000 more for a car that I would use less of. It doesn’t make sense because you are basically paying for a Brand, which I’m sure many people are willing to do.

— Ash

Hello Fashion Lovers!

There are very few high end clothing brands that pertain to “larger” or “real life” women. Most of it is based on Celebrities with the perfect body or malnourished models and let alone do these fashion companies advertise their product regularly. It the fashion world, not only plus-sized women but ANY-sized women are severely under-represented. Not all of us are a size 2 even if we try. However, some more forward fashion opportunists have taken a leap of faith in a world of size two and have made their mark on T.V. Reitmans Clothing has used a marketing plan that is relevant to mothers and “real life” women ranging from ages 20-60 as well as both sizes petite to 14-plus. This marketing plan has done well. The reason I wanted to blog about this is because of their entertaining commercials. Also similar to Dove they make women feel better about themselves the way they are. I find that the commercial is so successful because there is both humor and well put slogan that makes me want to go to my nearest Reitmans and see if they have anything for me. Although it says nothing about the prices the slogan “designed for real life” also means “a real budget”. As well on their website http://www.reitmans.com/en/index.cfm they also have the slogan for certain wardrobe classics called “designed for everybody and every body” which is something many women look for when going into clothing store or looking online. How many times have you asked yourself “will that look good on me?” or “Can I pull that off”.

The commercial starts out with a typical scene of which you would chose a certain outfit for. Such as a lunch date, walk in the park, etc. A typical scenario in which a woman would want to be noticed or look presentable for the occasion. However, the parody is that they first dress a model up in High Fashion and have her walk through the scenario. Of course it is disastrous because almost all of high fashion although interesting on the run way are in NO WAY wearable in reality. So as the commercial goes on the “Reitmans” model walks out and goes through the scene perfectly. The best part however is the scoring at the end which is always “Reitman’s 1, Au Couture 0” and finished off with the slogan “Designed for real life”. I thought in general the commercials were well done and I always stop to watch one if it’s on T.V.

Here’s an example of the commercials:

P.S. I love the part where the dog “fetches” her hat thing in the “park” commercial 😀

-Ashley