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The biggest lesson I’ve learnt in regards to the marketing assignments is to not forget what the end goal is  – to create a brand that will drive sales. Something that Tamar said during class really stuck with me, and that is “If you don’t think it will work in real life, don’t use it”. All the theory in the world may sound attractive and intellectual, but ultimately if those fancy terms amount to little practicality, then it is rendered useless.

To me, what marketing boils down to is an understanding of human nature and how to leverage that with regards to a brand. I  used to only frame my view of marketing in terms of advertising, and did not consider how truly deep the roots of marketing go into the psychological and social aspects of a person. Its almost scary to think that we, as consumers, are subject to such manipulation.

For myself, I really like what makes things tick, and enjoy analysing what drives a company to success. To the extent that marketing fits into it, I realized that I have been discounting the marketing aspect of it all. By working in a team with others, I think they have shown me the value of marketing a little bit more, by coming up with creative ideas that I would not have thought of myself. I truly enjoy working in a team, and I believe that t it helps me to develop a more rounded perspective.

Through the course, I acquired the skill to analyse information around a framework, in order to help me logically sort out my thoughts and come up with a clear strategy. Also, I learned how to use video editing software (albeit just a snip and “insert a picture” here and there), but for my technologically challenged mind, I consider that quite a step up. If I had to do this again, I think I probably would not have come into the course with such a negative view of marketing before getting to know the material. I think it made me initially resistant to the course and impeded my learning in the beginning to a certain extent.

Till next time,

I came across this blog on Mashable which compared the different attitudes of the Baby Boomer and the Millenial generations by breaking down into their psychological motivations for purchasing a certain product, and the benefits they receive from owning a status item.

It was a particularly interesting read, given how the high end fashion industry is currently in a stage of reform. Companies in this industry have been struggling in the past couple of years due to the hit from the recession on average spend for a consumer. By employing an analysis on the factors that influence consumer behaviour, it has helped the company fundamentally readjust its strategy, so the formula works for the new profile of  consumers that are slowly entering the market.

An example of this is the Burberry Art of the Trench project, in which they encourage consumers to submit pictures of themselves or their friends wearing their Burberry Trench coat. Recognizing that the millenial generation recognize luxury as a derivative of how people want something and have a pack mentality, by collaborating with influential creative types such as the sartorialist to showcase  people all over the world who own and desire the brand, it helps to bolster demand for the product. Burberry solidifies its brand position through rooting the desire for their brand in the consumers psychology, thus making it more resilient against fashion risk.

My recommendations for Burberry going forward, is to approach influence leaders who are in the consumers aspirational social reference groups, and try to create a positive buzz about the brand from there. This can include fashion bloggers such as Karla Degas from Karla’s closet. By doing so, it effectively creates a community around the brand, and will help to further leverage the desire to belong to a certain social crowd to generate sales.

After reading Piper’s post about AT&T’s commercial, I was struck by the simplicity of this marketing tactic. This tied in with what I read on Forbes, that a marketing trend going forward in 2013 is that advertising campaigns are going to be decidedly alot more simple. I agree with what she said about the ad, that the message came across as funny, genuine, and most importantly, clear.

When it boils down to getting the right message to the consumer, our sensory channels are often bombarded with information about different brands everyday.

This can create alot of noise variables, and impede the communication channels. Therefore, despite how brilliant your marketing strategy is, it never gets registered in the consumers mind. By effectively differentiating yourself from the competition by creating a simple, easily understandable ad campaign, it reduces all the noise variables and gets the message to your consumer much more effectively. It’s nice to have a creative concept, like the Target ads during the oscars, but ultimately, if consumers aren’t able to grasp the purpose of the ad within a couple seconds, the advertisement is ultimately rendered useless. By focusing on one message and using integrated marketing communications to coordinated a unified message, I think it will be alot more effective.

I think in the study of marketing, we sometimes get caught up in super creative ideas and try so hard to differentiate our ad from the crowd that the message gets lost in the delivery. By looking at things from the consumers perspective, who often only has a couple seconds to spare to pay attention to your ad, I think one will be able to craft ad campaigns more effectively.

An ad campaign that is one of my personal favourites is the got milk? campaign. I consider its simplicity and humour to be charming, and this just goes to show that an advertisement does not need whistles and bells to be successful.

Walk into any whole foods store nowadays, or listen in on any sorority girl conversations, and it will soon become clear to you that coconut water is the latest crave that is sweeping the health conscious beverage market.

“It’s like a must have after going to the gym, you have to keep yourself hydrated you know? Plus it has like barely any calories” – said an unnamed girl at the gym after lifting 5 pounds for a minute and leaving .

The coconut water industry  is currently valued at $350 million dollars, and has seem to sprung up overnight. Dubbed as “nature’s thirst quencher”,with five essential electrolytes, more potassium than a banana, low acidity, no fat, no sugar, it is marketed as a healthy drink alternative to traditional sports drinks such as Gatorade. It seems to have caught on quickly with a particular segment of the market – the lululemon toting, yoga loving young active crowd. I remember that Tamar once said  in class that its not the product that a company is trying to sell, but that its more of a lifestyle and strategy that they are offering consumers.

This seems to be the case here.  Coconut water has been in the market for a really long time and is a fairly ubiquitous product. However, with the right brand positioning as a hip, trendy product, there seems to be some sort of brand equity that causes consumers to be willing to pay a premium for this product. I think the biggest factors in driving this change in perception of coconut water is the shift in companies in honing their target market more specifically to the youthful, active demographic, and effectively positioning their marketing mix to capture this market. Through the use of celebrity endorsements, like Rihanna with Zico water,  as well as a fresh new packaging that includes a cleaner look to appeal to the trendy crowd, Coconut water has essentially been able to move itself up the product lifecycle curve from maturity back to one of growth.

Click here for the article

When I think of educational entertainment, the first brand that comes to mind is LeapFrog. How were they able to weasle their way into the top of my evoked set and beat out the rest of the competition for the top brand in my mind?

Well, thats a combination of its carefully crafted marketing mix.  With its unique LeapPad, the indestructible tablet for kids, that features educational games, a camera, a music player and a video player, LeapFrog is well positioned to take on the trend of age compression happening in the toy segment right now. Kids are incredibly tech savvy nowadays, and as we can see from the video below, traditional forms of print media as well as toys are slowly going out of date. With the technology-centric LeapPad, the product innovation places the brand at the forefront of consumers minds as a company that is on the forefront of meeting the needs of its consumers. By extending their product mix to include tech-savvy toys, LeapFrog is able to create growing demand in a declining industry.

As well, promotion is key to LeapFrog. Their advertisements can be found almost everywhere, on TV, in children’s magazines as well as blogs with rave reviews about this new product. Their PR team aggressively pushes the fact that LeapFrog has won in numerous product categories, including #1 top learning toy of the year. To consumers, the accreditation by the business community sets a high standard for LeapFrog, and thus, the perceived value of their product is higher.

Lastly, placement is key. Everywhere you go, you can’t escape LeapFrog. They have major distributors, including Wal-Mart, Toys “R” Us and Target, and one can often find the brand in its own section of the shelf in stores. On Toy “R” Us.com, they even have a seperate tab purely for LeapFrog products, whereas the other educational products are lumped together.This makes LeapFrog stand out comparatively with other brands.

It’s interesting to me that the fight for my attention involves so many little details. By breaking down just why it appeals so much to me as a consumer, it helps me distinguish between what is real value and what is marketing fluff and get the best value products.

Think your Facebook is just for your personal rants or for posting 20 billion pictures of what you had for lunch that day?

Wrong.

In the past year, Facebook has teamed up with Datalogix to match facebook user profiles to consumer retail data, in order to better focus a company’s marketing efforts. That means that by liking “urban outfitters” on facebook, through the use of customer analytics, they are able to profile you as a “young, wannabe hipster”. This development has been used by numerous companies to gather data on their clients, and dances between the lines of ingenious and creepy.

Although Facebook claims that the exchange of information between them and datalogix is purely anonymous through the use of assigned IDs, there is still cause for concern that one is no longer in complete control of their identity. It’s akin to going on a blind date and having the other person know exactly everything about you. Disturbing? Yes. Wrong? Well, depends on whether we chalk it up to enthusiasm or misguided intentions. Either one, to say that you would be perfectly okay with this would not be true.

When it comes down to the wire, facebook analytics is a powerful tool in targeting your market segment. However, more importantly, is maintaining your customers loyalty and trust. The tradeoff between some information about your consumer’s living habits and a huge PR scandal that could forever damage your brand, might just not be worth it. Ethics in marketing should be viewed from the bottom (consumer’s perspective) up, in order to ensure wise decisions that could prevent a scandal in the future.

As for putting up every detail on your facebook page, please don’t. I don’t think my newsfeed and I care that you “made eggs for breakfast today”. It’s just protecting my sanity, and your privacy in the long run.

http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-is-tracking-what-you-buy-to-provide-marketers-better-ad-analytics-2012-09