Chad's Blog

As the internet is becoming more and more widespread it seems that “viral marketing”  has become a very useful and effective method of advertising. There are many advantages in this type of marketing, such as extremely low costs in the distribution of the ads, word of mouth advertising and from a viewers perspective these ads are much more enjoyable and by choosing to view the media sources, consumers are more likely to be open to purchasing the product. There have been many extremely successful viral videos, which have increased sales greatly for many firms. One particular ad is the Old Spice man ads, which in a matter of days gathered millions of views on media sites, like youtube. This ad nearly doubled Old Spice’s Revenue, and even though they originally did pay for commercial time, what made their ad so successful was is “viral effect”. One ad I recently viewed, which is becoming a very popular video on sites like youtube in an ad for the new video game “Call of Duty”. Commercials usually do not have much of an impact on my purchasing decisions, but I enjoyed this ad a lot, and it did make me want to buy the game.

Here is the link to the Call of Duty ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pblj3JHF-Jo

Last class we discussed how different companies labeled and marketed a product that is pretty much identical, and ridiculously expensive considering the alternative is using a tap, for approximatively 1/500th of the cost. As a current resident in Vancouver, where we have some of the cleanest tap water in the world, it is inconceivable to me why people here believe that tap water is worse for you or not as clean as bottled water. If tap water really was unhealthy or unsanitary then why would the government allow their citizens to drink it. If I were living in a big city like New York I would admit I’d be hesitant to drink from public fountain, but scientist even tested five bottles of national brands of bottled water and a sample of tap water from a drinking fountain in the middle of New York City and sent them to microbiologist Aaron Margolin of the University of New Hampshire to test for bacteria that can make you sick, like e. coli and concluded that “There was actually no difference between the New York City tap water and the bottled waters that we evaluated”.

As I observed other people blogs I noticed that the majority of students chose some of their favourite ads and why these ads were successful. I have chosen a great commercial which I believe demonstrates a great knowledge of marketing and how to  connect with your consumers. Sammy Stephens creates a fun and professional commercial that you will remember. After first viewing this commercial, I immediately felt an urge to visit Montogomery’s flea market, which in reality is much more like a mini-mall.

To view this smart and effective commercial follow the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk