It has been a long standing tradition that men propose to women when they want to get married. In the past, the men have had to ask the woman’s father for permission first, but nowadays women make their own marriage decisions. In the UK and Ireland there was a tradition that women could propose to their man on February 29th, a leap year. Scott Kay, the ring designer, certainly hopes that women will be proposing more often than that.

Here is an advertisement I found on the internet for “man-gagement” rings.
This is a very interesting marketing tactic as it appeals to the feminist side of all women as it encourages them to take charge of the direction of their relationship. Although this is a good idea in theory, because equality is important and this is a relatively untouched market, the world may not be ready for a trend like this.

I personally agree with this post by Lou K, in response to a Daily Mail article by Ted Thornhill:

“As for women proposing. I disagree with it. Most women are born ready to be wives and mothers. Once they’ve found the right man, it’s a no brainer. For males, it marks a massive turning point in their lives when they are ready for being a good husband and father – it’s a boy to man moment. Any man that takes marriage and fatherhood seriously will (rightly) see it as a huge responsibility. It’s very daunting for a lot of them. I think it’s disrespectful for a woman to take that moment/choice/decision away from him. When a man is ready to marry you, HE will propose. If he hasn’t.. well doesn’t that tell you something?”

Additionally, the article mentioned that 1 in 10 women propose, but three quarters of the women wished that the man had done it first. It’s a tradition, a beautiful symbol of love that women have dreamed of since they were little girls.

Is Scott Kay being smart by doing their research and leaping ahead by producing “man-gagement” rings and encouraging women to propose? I honestly can’t see “man-gagement” rings catching on nor do I think that women and men will begin proposing to each other in equal percentages. If it does manage to catch, then congratulations to them for being forward thinkers. If not, luckily Scott Kay designs engagement rings for women too.

Response to Jim Connolly’s Blog Post: Stupidity?

Jim Connolly keeps a blog with tips for business owners on all sorts of things from advertising to business development to general marketing and social media marketing to networking. In this post, Jim talks about how business owners complain about how their consumers are too stupid to understand their advertising campaigns. When really owners only claim that so that the responsibility of conveying the message gets moved from them to their consumers.

I agree that it is much easier to place the blame on other people rather than acknowledge the fact that our own communication abilities are faulty. But as we learned in our marketing class, when trying to communicate a message to end consumers, marketers must take off their blinders and try to understand the consumer’s field of experience. In other words, the onus is on the marketer or the business owners to encode their messages in a way that the receivers will decode it in the way that the encoder intended.

In his post, Jim suggests cutting the fluff from the message, which would help to cut down on the noise that may distract the receiver from the intended message, to use terms from the above diagram. He also suggests testing ad campaigns on small test groups to see how they receive the message. Personally I think that is a great idea, because who better to help you then the people who would be potential receivers. The only problem is the business owners would have to open to criticism and suggestions from these test groups. And not dismiss their recommendations as stupid and an inability to understand their genius.Lastly, he suggests explaining things through more media, ie pictures and graphs. I think this is a good idea too, but the encoder must be careful that the media acts to only explain the message because it is very easy for extra pictures, graphs, and medias to act as noise that distract from the real message.

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

I learned how much work goes into studying the immediate and macroenvironments. To be honest, I didn’t completely believe Tamar when she said she spent 45 minutes out of a one hour consultation appointment learning about a company’s environment. But now I can. I also learned the importance of not working backwards in marketing, because you won’t come to the best conclusions.

What skills did you enhance or develop, if any?

I developed by video making/editing skills as I learned a new program and finished the marketing video all in one day.

What would you do differently next time?

Next time, for assignment 1 I would research the industry’s environment, rather than looking into the company. For example in CDSTEP, I researched the company’s culture rather than the culture of the consumers.

What are your top takeaways?

My top takeaway is to do extensive research about the industry and the consumers first. Then come to conclusions. Don’t have ideas for change first and then try to work backwards.

This is a response to Melissa Lui’s Blog Post: For All Shapes and Sizes of Women

I agree 100% with what Melissa has talked about in her post about how advertisements (especially fashion ones) portray a warped sense of beauty to the public. I particularly liked the Levi’s advertisement that she included where all three women were practically the exact same size…not sure how that slipped through editing where the tagline is “hotness comes in all shapes and sizes”. In most ads, women are generally super skinny, with flawless skin, are photographed in perfect lighting often with wind blowing back their hair. Now, if they don’t look good enough after that, they are then photoshopped to someone’s idea of perfection.

As a woman, it was eye-opening to watch this video by Dove, called Evolution of Beauty – Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, where which all women saw that the level of perfection we were all chasing, wasn’t even real. This beautiful woman who walked on the screen at the beginning, was not considered beautiful enough (by whoever was in charge of the advertisement) even after she was completely made up and photographed in good lighting, that she had to be photoshopped before being put out there for the world to see! I remember when I first saw that video years ago, it occurred to me that ABSOLUTE PERFECTION did not exist – and that women should realize their own unique beauty and not strive to meet someone else’s definition.

This t-shirt typically retails at around $30 from Abercrombie & Fitch.

This very similar white v-neck t-shirt is only $6.95 from H&M.

From a university student’s perspective, the H&M t-shirt is more economical because I can get more wear out it as it is way more versatile and the price is much more attractive. On the other hand, Bloomberg Businessweek states that teenagers are moving away from logos because they strive for individuality and uniqueness rather than brand “uniforms”.

The clothes that one chooses to wear, says a lot about a person.

“Besides communicating about a person’s beliefs and nationality, clothing can be used as a non-verbal outlet to attract others. Men and women might adorn themselves with accessories and keep up with the latest fashion trends to attract partners they are interested in. In this case, clothing becomes a means of self-expression, and people can sense power, wealth, sex appeal, personality, or creativity just by looking at what a person is wearing.” – Maggie Pazian, examiner.com

This being another reason why consumers tend to shy away from branded clothing. Brands can say so much about a person, for example wearing Abercrombie & Fitch clothing may be a sign of money and good fashion sense in the eyes of younger generations, while older generations may not want to be caught dead in an Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie for fear of being judged for not dressing their age.

Another reason for this social trend may be caused by fashion advice websites that are promoting logo-less clothing for university students.The following photo was taken from College Fashion‘s Valentine’s day outfit page. As you can see, there are no visible logos on the clothes.

But then again there is the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? Is the fashion trend moving away from logos because fashion advice tells them to? Or are fashion websites simply reporting the fact that there is a trend and making recommendations for those who are behind?

It’s amazing how far toilet paper has come. From wet sponges to leaves, straw, hay, and grass to  catalog paper,  and from traditional toilet paper to the new flushable wipes, humans have come a long way in developing a product that is used primarily for the purposes of wiping one’s bottom after going to the loo.

Personally, I don’t put much thought into toilet paper. Yes, it is a necessity, but I honestly couldn’t care less about softness or absorbency or pretty patterns that supposedly make the toilet paper stronger. So you can imagine I was surprised to come across a site called The Toilet Paper Encyclopedia. It is dedicated to toilet paper history, its uses, funny stories about toilet paper and it includes surveys about how people feel about their restroom experience. Who knew! A fact I found particularly interesting was that 75% of people who took the survey, said that ’tissue texture’ was the most important factor for public washrooms.

Now I’m sure you’ve all seen these ads multiple times on the television, but I’ve posted a few here, just to refresh your memory:

Quilted Northern Soft and Strong Ad                                 Kleenex Cottonelle Ad

Charmin Ultra Soft Ad                                                   Purex Ad

From these ads, it would seem that these companies actually conducted market research about what their consumers wanted from their toilet paper and then designed the new product to meet those needs. Whether it be softness, strength (to stay together), the company’s community involvement, absorbency, environmental impact, and how the consumer feels after each use. It’s very interesting to see how much thought people put into deciding what brand of toilet paper to purchase.

And if you’re one of those people who uses the new ‘flushable wipes’, you might want to watch this video on Flushable Wipes as consumer reports found that they don’t do all that they promise.

According to Financial Times Lexicon, Ethical marketing is defined as: “a process through which companies generate customer interest in products/services, build strong customer interest/relationships, and create value for all stakeholders by incorporating social and environmental considerations in products and promotions. All aspects of marketing are considered, from sales techniques to business communication and business development.”

Using this definition, a company that would fit this criteria is Whole Foods. Whole Foods sets ethical standards for the company’s practices, and meets them (FarWest Capital). For example “last year, Whole Foods voluntarily purchased extensive amounts of green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use”, reinforcing their reputation of being a ‘green’ company (FarWest Capital).

However, to me ethical marketing has a much simpler meaning. I believe that ethical marketing occurs when a company/individual portrays one’s product(s) in an honest and truthful way.

Using my understanding of the term, I don’t believe it exists. Here is why. Everyday, the individual is marketing his/herself to the world. Girls put on makeup to make themselves more attractive, guys gel their hair. Profile pictures on social media sites (and especially dating sites) are the photo(s) in which one looks his/her best. How often have you said “Wow, they definitely don’t look like their picture”? On resumes, there is commonly a stretching of the truth to make oneself appear more suitable for the job. Certain qualities and interests are highlighted, while others are conveniently left off. So my point is: if we can’t even market ourselves in an ethical manner, how can we market our companies/brands/products so?