In a continuing effort to gain market share in an area that is no longer growing, promotional activities are key. Recently, a promotional opportunity arose in the form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for Coca-Cola.

In the Canadian Marketing Blog’s article “Defining CSR, One Company at a Time” it talks about the importance of CSR and how one of the difficulties companies face is deciding with whom to partner.

This problem was solved for Coke through, although it may sound harsh, the planet heating and ice in the arctic melting. Coke’s long time symbol and mascot, the polar bear, has become endangered. Coke jumped on the opportunity to show what a socially responsible company it is by coming to the aid of their lovable mascot.

Coke partnered with the World Wildlife Foundation to help raise awareness and money to save the polar bear. Coke plans on switching its can from their original red to white, in order to raise awareness.

This campaign will most likely be very beneficial to polar bears. However, the big benefit that Coke will see is that consumers will see them as a responsible company and this should boost their brand status even higher.

Another brilliant piece of marketing: brought to you by Coke.

As noted in Brandon Tracey’s blog Advertising: Revolutionizing the TV Medium, “One of the main goals of advertising is to get your brand out into your target markets eye, but usually you have minimal control as to who actually sees your advertising.” However, there are some specific mediums to ensure your add reaches the target market. I’m going to address one of my favourites.

Urinal ads. A great way to reach males is through advertisements placed above urinals. To be more specific, young males, who enjoy their drink, would be found at sporting arenas.

There are a few reasons I think this medium is so brilliant. First, it is an unwritten rule that while at a urinal one should do their best not carry on a conversation and to keep their eyes up ahead. What is up ahead? A perfectly placed advertisement. With nothing left to do the individual is engaged with the ad. Second, this type of ad would appeal specifically to men and may cause some women to roll their eyes. However, this medium reduces the negative impact it might have with people outside the target for they do not see it.

While I find these ads rather clever and good for things such as sports, they can also be useful for much more serious issues affecting our society, like drunk driving. The ad above a bar urinal serves as a good reminder to any man leaving to think about the consequences of drinking and driving.

While companies can’t hand pick everyone who sees their ads, there are mediums that certainly help target them.

Customers know that celebrities are being paid a large sum of money to endorse these products, which significantly reduces their credibility. As Shayla points out in her blog,

Using Celebrities in Ads is Not fulfilling Expected Return

people have become wise to these tricks.

I agree with this to a point. While simply having a celebrity endorsing a certain product may have lost its affect, celebrities who actually use a company’s product should be an effective marketing strategy. I am not as up-to-date on my facial creams as maybe I should be, so I’ll stick with what I know. Sports. Simply talking about how good a brand is might no longer be effective, but having athletes who need the top performance from their product using them speaks volumes to those of us who are looking for the same type of performance. These athletes depend on the best products to enhance their performance.

I understand that having Vanessa Hudgens say, “Hey, you shouldget buy this face cream they paid me millions to advertise” might not make you run out to the store. Actually seeing the product used by athletes who I used to aspire to be like is much more effective.

So while paying a celebrity to promote your brand may have lost its effect, sponsoring teams and individual athletes to wear your products should still increase sales.

After talking about the success of the Old Spice body wash advertising campaign I started thinking about other ads that I think have been similarly effective. The first that comes to mind is Apple’s Mac versus PC ads. This series of ads is similar to Old Spice’s in a few ways: both have turned one commercial that had success into a series of commercials, both use humour to sell their product and both of them have people seeking out their commercials on youtube.

I love these Apple ads because of the simplicity of them. The general situation for these ads is always the same: two people, one representing a Mac and one representing a PC, discuss situations that deal with problems people have had with PCs and highlighting how Macs don’t suffer from them. With such a simple structure it is the humour that hooks consumers in and that is the reason people will go to youtube to watch these commercials. Being able to make the consumer laugh and still getting your point across should lead to very effective marketing.

One of my personal favourites.

The fact that these two sets of ads have had parodies made of them and that people go to view them on youtube is evidence that they are effective marketing tools. I think the success is linked largely to the effective use of humour.

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!