Chloe Tarbet's Marketing Blog

Before I dive into my last blog post, I wanted to create a list of my top 5 favorite blog posts that I have written for this class:

1. Now Even Sodas Are Being Called Fat and Skinny?
2. That’s One Way to Get Attention
3. Stay True To Your Beliefs. And Back Them Up In Times of Controversy
4. Literally Lighting Up Your Advertising
5. Are Prizes On Candy Bars Getting Old?

Every blog post was so fun to write about, but I had the most fun writing those top 5. Damn, marketing is so endlessly interesting and innovative.

Now back to the current blog post. As this is my last post for my marketing class, I wanted it to be about something funny. Because I personally think marketing with humour is the best.

For April Fools’ Day, WestJet came out with a promotion in which customers could purchase any WestJet flight with 10% off. I believe Air Canada did the same. But what was different about WestJet’s promotion as opposed to Air Canada’s is that they really got into the spirit of April Fools’ Day. If you’re thinking “Oh, so the 10% off was a joke?” the answer is “No” because that would’ve made them look really bad. Instead, WestJet uploaded a YouTube video about their new “state-of-the-art” strategy of saving costs for both WestJet and its passengers.

I really appreciated the joke and I thought WestJet did a really good job with the video. WestJet has a brand personality of being laid-back, personable, and fun. This promotion and video just further enforces that brand personality.

So as mentioned before, this is my last post for my marketing class. I absolutely loved this class. Elaine and Scott, if you are reading this, thank you so much for making this class my favorite of the year!

For all other viewers, thanks for reading my blog! 🙂 Have a great summer!

So this may not be a post that many guys can relate to or will care about…but since when has that ever stopped us ladies? But that’s not to offend any guys reading this…Scott (haha)

When it comes to “feminine care”, many women have strong brand loyalty. We don’t like to experiment around–we stick to what we are comfortable with. Companies that sell these types of products have to try very hard to persuade us to change brands. This is why companies are constantly trying to differentiate themselves with new designs and innovation with their product.

Because the thing is, these products started out as fairly undifferentiated. They all had the same material, same look, etc. But as competition rose, the need to differentiate the product became increasingly important. Now, there are companies coming out with things like mini tampons (designed to be “portable”) and wipes that come with pads.

So what’s next? Well, Kotex has just launched the “Ban the Bland Design Challenge” where women (and I guess men too) can create designs for pads and tins (which is what some women use to carry around their feminine care products) on Kotex’s website. The website is bright with colors and it actually looks pretty awesome.

This campaign is definitely to target younger women, especially teenage girls who are starting to use these products. I think this is a really smart move for Kotex because their new colorful products will definitely appeal a lot more to these teenage girls. And like I said before, women have strong brand loyalty with these products so by capturing these teenage girls, Kotex is securing a lot of lifetime customers.

These products may bring in a new market segment: clueless boyfriends who are forced into going out to buy these products for their girlfriends. They are probably more likely to think that their girlfriends will like the pretty products best. Am I right? (This last paragraph was just for jokes…sort of)

The Globe and Mail recently wrote an article called “On hockey violence, Air Canada jabs, then ducks”. Air Canada wrote a letter to the NHL demanding that it needs to make changes in the game because it is becoming too violent and players are at great risk of serious and permanent injuries. Air Canada threatened that if the NHL does not take action, the airline will no longer sponsor the players. This is a bold and risky move for Air Canada since the NHL is a huge source of advertising for them. They currently fly all of the Canadian hockey teams as well as five U.S. teams.

The threat backfired on Air Canada as the NHL responded harshly to the letter, stating that Air Canada “[can] take its business elsewhere”. Since then, Air Canada has not made a comment and will not discuss it publicly.

It takes guts for a corporation to take a stand on a controversial topic and I found it inspirational. Violence in hockey is becoming an increasing concern. Players are not only suffering from more injuries, but they are injuries that are more serious. It is extremely scary to see a player take a blow to the neck or head only to immediately fall to the ice and lay there motionless. Air Canada is not the first to comment on this concern, and they certainly won’t be the last.

This is the hit that caused Air Canada to threaten the NHL. Watch the first few seconds and then fast forward to 0:37

But I now have a big problem with Air Canada. One moment, they gained a lot of my respect. The next moment, they lost all of it, along with their own credibility. I would have rather they didn’t say anything at all than say something and then back down. It’s frustrating, disappointing, and plain sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand their reasoning. They would lose a lot of valuable advertising if they lost the NHL. It is an extremely difficult situation to be put in.

BUT if you know something isn’t right, then change it. Figure out your values and once you have them, stick to them. Don’t back down. In Salim Visram’s blog post “A Model of Personal Branding”, he talks about retired Vancouver Canucks player, Trevor Linden and how he created a “personal “brand” and how by being an honest, caring, genuine person, both on and off the ice, Trevor has created a legacy that is second to none in Vancouver.” Trevor personifies a true leader, one who has core values and lives by them.

So when brands want to focus on their brand personality, they need to make sure that everything they do, both inside and outside the company, is aligned with their core values. Because if they don’t, the brand personality becomes weak and blurred.

And then credibility gets lost along the way as well.

A couple of classes ago we talked about Mercedes Benz and their questionable image of luxury. That, however, is unrelated to Mercedes’ newest initiative. Mercedes has recently been working on a different image other than luxury. The company has switched gears a bit (pun intended) and is focusing on building their reputability as a leader in car safety and innovation.

If I were to think of a car with high safety ratings, I immediately think of Volvo. Volvo has effectively marketed and differentiated itself as one of the safest cars on the market. Mercedes is now trying to catch up. The new video (launched just a couple days ago) promotes Mercedes’ Pre-Crash system by demonstrating what the system does, but in a way that most consumers can understand. The video was filmed in Germany on risky and high traffic intersections in which a view of the intersecting street was projected onto the white wall of a house thus allowing drivers to see “through” the wall for pedestrians and other vehicles.

By taking initiatives like this, Mercedes is firstly saving money on filming commercials and secondly allowing people to view them as a company that is taking an active role to prevent car crashes outside of their business. With this commercial, Mercedes is portraying themselves as innovators of car safety. They are using a growth strategy called market development, which means that they are aiming their current products at a new market. In this case, the market is consumers who greatly value car safety.

I really really love ethical marketing.

Headblade, an online store that sells innovative razors for the head, recently created a video on youtube that created a lot of buzz and interest. See here:

The video went viral with almost a million views as of today. It wasn’t released until a little later that the video was fake and that there is no such thing as a “Shaving Helmet”. They had used identical twins who switched halfway through the video when the camera was aimed elsewhere with one twin having hair and the other having a shaved head.

Headblade had hired a marketing agency called ThinkModo to create this viral video in order to get attention and to get Headblade’s brand name more out there. I personally think it’s genius. The video looks homemade, so the viewers don’t have any preconceived ‘No-I’m-not-going-to-buy-this’ attitudes as we often do when watching or listening to someone sell something.

The “commercial” was extremely effective. Headblade experienced seriously high levels of traffic on their website after the video was released. Thousands of people were asking how they could buy the “shaving helmet”. Even though the product wasn’t real, the video was able to get people interested and talking about headblade and probably convinced hundreds of people to buy the real headblade.

What a win for Headblade.

In response to the blog post title, the answer is “yeah, pretty much.”

Many candy companies seem to continue to promote “cool” prizes on their packaging, and in order to claim these prizes, you have to unwrap the packaging, navigate through their website, and then enter your secret 24 digit/letter code just to see if you were the lucky one in a thousand who won an iPad. Personally, I have never gone through this hassle because 1) the chances of winning is really low and 2) it is inconvenient for me to go through all that work and 3) I never save the wrapper. What I’m trying to get at here is that I don’t understand the pointless marketing for prizes on packaging, especially on candy. I personally never buy candy just because I have a slim shot at winning a car and I don’t know anyone else who does it either, not even kids. It seems as if many companies are missing a key procedure in marketing research–looking at their product through a typical consumer’s eye. Consumers do not buy these cheap convenience foods for the prize, so why spend a lot of money on hiring extra marketers and buying the prizes?

Seth Godin brought up a good point on his recent blog post “No one plays the lottery if there are no winners.” The main point that he brought up is that “your chance of winning is so vanishingly small it’s as if, from an investment point of view, there are no winners.” And I agree. With relation to my blog post, no one redeems their wrapper code because no one believes they are going to win. I don’t know about you, but I have never ever heard of anyone winning one of those prizes.

Can I also just make the comment that most of them say “no purchase necessary to win”, but you have to unwrap the candy wrapper in order to get the code…so you need to end up buying the candy anyways…

The companies that are effective with using prizes as promotions are companies like Tim Hortons. Their popular “Roll-Up-the-Rim” campaign is back with “even more prizes” and they guarantee that 1 in 6 is a winner. And the most important thing is that people have either seen other people win or they, themselves, have won. When people believe that they are getting more value for their money (aka they see a potential for a bigger return for their purchase/investment), they are way more likely to choose, for example, Tim Hortons over Starbucks specifically during their Roll-Up-the-Rim promotion.

You would think that young women have enough self-esteem issues in today’s society, right? Pepsi doesn’t seem to think so. The giant corporation introduced the new Diet Pepsi “skinny” can just in time for Fashion Week as a “celebration of beautiful, confident women.” What kind of message is Pepsi trying to communicate to the public? Pepsi’s Chief Marketing Officer stated “Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today’s most stylish looks.” He basically associated the word “slim” with the words “attractive” and “stylish”

Pepsi is already experiencing a lot of backlast from many females around the world. Bloggers are going ballistic over this new campaign. It’s interesting to think about whether or not Pepsi predicted that this would happen and if so, if they believed the positives would outweigh the negatives.

So why did Pepsi choose to go with this campaign? The new can is sleek and it is different from other pop cans. Most importantly, it is different from Coke. In a mature soda market, Diet Pepsi has successfully differentiated itself from Diet Coke. And at the end of the day, as sad as it is to say, it is true that many women aspire to look like models and celebrities. There is no doubt that soon enough there will be pictures all over the magazines and internet showing models and celebrities holding and drinking the new Diet Pepsi. It is almost guaranteed that the number of women who will become huge fans of the new can will outnumber the girls who will turn away from Pepsi.

I find that a lot of today’s “innovative” product designs are very confusing. In her blog, Megan Ritchie talks about how Starbucks recently came out with a new “Trenta” size, which is 7 ounces more than the previous largest size. Why can’t companies stick to promoting something….healthy (for the mind and body)?

As a young woman, it is disappointing and frustrating to see these kinds of advertising campaigns. In no way am I the world’s best citizen, but I definitely prefer companies like Dove who recognize that they have a social responsibility and that they can make a positive influence on the marketplace today.

We’ve recently learned about factors affecting consumers’ behaviours and one of them being perception. Related to the topic of perception comes the term selective attention. This term refers to the subconscious act of (or purposely) paying attention to certain things. As humans, when we are told to pay attention to something important, most of the time we listen and we do what we were told. One of my most favorite advertisements of all time specifically isolated this part of our human thinking process to make an extremely successful advertising campaign. Check it out

The advertisement told the viewer to selectively pay attention to one specific thing. And as humans, we understand and do as we are told. It is only at the end of the ad when you realize how they tricked us.

By successfully isolating one part of our perception, Transport For London was able to also affect our attitude. This ad was able to communicate its message clearly and because they did it in the way that they did, this ad is memorable. Transport For London targeted the behavioural component of our attitudes towards cyclists on the street and viewers who have watched this ad probably now have a different attitude towards how they drive and share the street with cyclists.

Also, a moonwalking bear? How is that NOT memorable? I think it’s absolutely hilarious

The youtube video had a recent comment made by bingerofdOOm who stated “If I were a cyclist I’d feel like everyone was watching me right now.” That, my friends, is proof that the advertisement was 100% successful

It is extremely difficult to enter a market when it seems like one or two companies hold the monopoly on it. This is the case with tablets. When Apple launched its iPad, it basically re-introduced the tablet market thus making it a fierce competition for other electronic brands to enter the market. In order to gain access to the market and survive, advertising is key. Motorola knows this, which is why they recently came out with a teaser ad for the launch of their new tablet.

Motorola released this ad at the end of 2010 in order to make consumers excited for the new year, in which their “revolutionary” tablet will be available to buy.

There are so many marketing techniques that Motorola perfected in this ad. Firstly, the build up to the Motorola tablet was great with the showing of what seemed like 10 other “tablets”. Secondly, I loved how they incorporated humour into the ad, which is an effective tool for keeping the audience interested in watching the ad. Finally, the addition of Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy tab was crucial in this ad. Motorola criticized the iPad and Galaxy tab with, again, using humour, but humour that most people understand. Because I, personally, also think the iPad is like a large iPhone and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing (probably more bad though). But by criticizing its biggest competitors, Motorola has successfully captured the viewer’s interest in their new product. Therefore, the key concept to take away from this is that Motorola has successfully entered the viewer’s evoked set for tablets. So if the viewer is considering buying a tablet, he/she will now consider Motorola’s new tablet and ALSO consider Motorola’s criticism with the iPad and Galaxy tab thus putting them at an even greater advantage than its competitors.

Every once in awhile you come across something that is so innovative and unique that it completely blows your mind, makes your jaw drop, makes you wish you were that creative, and mesmerizes you all at once. This is what happened to me when I first saw the new advertising done by Shikun & Binui Solaria.

I did a little research on this company and it is actually a part of Shikun & Binui Environment, which is a branch of Shikun & Binui of the Arson Group. This company is a “leading infrastructure, Real-Estate and Environmental Group.” It was founded in Israel but also works on projects abroad. Its core focus is to incorporate sustainability into business and is highly dedicated to being eco-friendly thus offering their product of renewable energy.

Its new innovative advertising was released this month and it caused a huge commotion in the blogging world. If you type anything related to the company on Google, you are guaranteed to find at least 10 blogs talking about the new ad. These blogs include marketing blogs, art blogs, etc. Shikun & Binui Solaria completely broke the norm of print advertising. It is interactive with the reader and it is definitely a memorable ad that the reader will remember even after flipping through a hundred other ads in the same magazine. The words “and see how you can benefit from it” that appear enforces their sustainable competitive advantage, which is that their energy source is eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable, and thus makes the reader believe that by using their renewable energy, the world and their lives will brighten.

Genius. That’s my conclusion to this.