Crazy cool marketing blog

Today I’ll be referring to a marketing blog written by Drew McLellan. To give a quick rundown of its content, Drew discusses how a client requested a new logo because he didn’t “like” it. The client complained that it didn’t tell  the company’s story and that it wasn’t attractive.

Drew rejected his requests with the following points:

• No logo is going to tell the whole story of your business
• You have over a decade of equity in your current logo
• Your current logo isn’t costing you any customers or any money (no one’s not choosing you because of your logo)
• Your current logo is fine.  It’s not perfect and we’d be able to come up with something better.  But not so much better that it will line your pockets.
• Remember a logo cost is far beyond just the cost of designing a new logo.

The point that really struck me was how the client has over a decade of equity in the current logo. If I were the client, this would be the reason why I’d be most reluctant about changing my logo. The logo is like my face, if I were to change it, my friends would not recognize me without further investigation. This fact trumps all the other issues regarding cost.

It’s true that an unattractive logo may not grab the attention of more notable logos, but with more effort, the ‘unattractive’ logo can build enough brand equity to be extremely valuable. If this were a start-up company, a logo change would be reasonable but a logo change for a company that’s been building equity for over a decade would be questionable.

The other point that also stuck with me was how to logo change costs will be more than the surface costs of redesigning the logo. The logo costs would also include changing the legal costs to register it, re-print all of your business cards, redesign staff’s uniforms and trucks with the logo on it, etc.

I came across an interesting blog by a man named Seth Godin who commented on how “any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved”. His statement was due to the appalling yet non-exaggerated statistic concerning deaths from coal.

This image startled me because it was not what I had expected. Seth comments that the variation between reality and expectations may be from “deliberate story telling by an industry” or advertising.

His blog had got me thinking about how much marketing truly changes our perspective of things. And the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became! To alter peoples’ perspectives and insights on specific topics is the core goal or many marketers. Whether it’s to exaggerate and beautify the ‘benefits’ their product offers or to make competing products seem to pale in comparison, marketers deliver ideas into a consumer’s mind to change how they perceive things.

If we’ve been exposed to marketing since we were children, to what extent have our perceptions been manipulated? How many of our ideas are truly ours rather than planted in our heads through talented marketing tactics? The power of marketing can be illustrated through the deviation from reality and our expectations.

This blog will be a response towards Winda’s blog regarding Victoria’s Secret in which I will elaborate on some of the points. I fully agree on the points she made about the appeal these advertisements hold on its viewers of both sexes. In my opinion, these advertisements capitalize on every shallow, insecure, and ‘desire to be sexy’  fiber in the consumer’s body.

In order to capture a larger market, Victoria’s Secret has made efforts to entice men who have a significant other to purchase their product. For example, last year Victoria’s Secret teamed up with renown director Michael Bay (director of movies like Transformers) to direct a commercial (link below). The commercial combines the attractiveness of the models with helicopters, luxury cars, pool tables, fire, knives and trademark explosions. All of these factors generally appeal to men and grabs their attention. Another thing that I noticed from the advertisement is that the phrase “Fantasy No.” appeared, implying that women dressed in Victoria’s Secret lingerie is a fantasy.

For women, these advertisements may leave a bad taste in their mouth due to their inability to relate to these models as well as their criticism towards superficial ‘unhealthy’ models. Either way, women everywhere cannot deny that these advertisements does the job. It’s able to associate words like sexy, desirable, fantasy and attractive with Victoria’s Secret products. Although these advertisements may not appeal to ALL women, there’s still a large desirable market of women who do want to be associated with those words and are willing to spend the money to achieve it. As Winda had stated in her blog, by purchasing Victoria’s Secret, women may feel more confident with themselves.

Today, I will be reviewing a blog written by a fellow COMM 296 classmate, Mandy Chow. I agree that Apple’s marketing tactics appeal to various audiences; their success illustrated with their numerous advocates. I’ve personally seen the ad that Mandy has posted on TV maybe twice and its message impacted me enough for me to remember it.

I also agree with the needs that Mandy has listed which has been satisfied from the advertisement. However, the one which I believe is most substantial and noteworthy is “Love“.

As time goes on, society continues to spiral into a busier lifestyle where leisure time with the family is extremely limited. Most parents do not get the luxury of spending a lot of time with their children since the work industry is getting so competitive and time-consuming. This is a known fact, and Apple has recognized and taken action against this dilemma that many families face.

Since FaceTime ultimately grants users with the ability to communicate as if they’re face-to-face, Apple launched several advertisements which demonstrated different types of people using FaceTime and the benefits they derive from it. This is brilliant because consumers can see how they can benefit from FaceTime .

In the case of the advertisement between father and daughter posted on Mandy’s blog, there is a very clear sense of ‘love’. Consumers would see this heartwarming advertisement and associate FaceTime as the key that they need to make-up for lost family bonding time. Parents would be able to talk “face-to-face” with their loved ones during coffee breaks and effectively achieve a greater sense of intimacy relative to if they were to speak over the phone.

FaceTime delivers many benefits to consumers, but it’s ability to provide a greater sense of intimacy between users is what strikes the core desires of many.

As a student, I have my backpack with me most of the time each week. With most backpacks, there’s often an elastic material on the side that allows the owner to place a  water bottle inside. What’s the length  of these water bottle containers? Usually a couple inches long on average to accommodate the average length of a water bottle. So why would a student have any incentive to buy OGO if it won’t properly fit into the backpack’s elastic pocket? The elastic pocket is designed for long-cylinder-shaped containers, not wide-short-sphere shaped containers.

But wait, is there a chance that the student would still buy OGO to consume on non-school hours? It’s possible, but highly unlikely. Why would a student purchase 2 brands of water? For example, let’s assume I buy Aquafina so I could bring them to school and OGO to drink at home. Water bottles are usually purchased in large bundles. Wouldn’t it be more convenient to purchase just Aquafina since the purchase will give me a large quantity anyways?

When I go jogging, will holding a wide sphere shaped bottle be convenient for me? Or would a lean water bottle that could fit in my grasp with ease? Obviously, I would choose the latter. If I were to go to the gym, most equipment have bottle containers attached to them– all of which are designed with the average water bottle container in mind.

So this begs the question, other than physical attractiveness, what incentive would the average consumer have to purchase OGO water? They’ve clearly differentiated themselves in this market, but whether this innovative design does more damage than help them is unclear.

Bottled water is as plain as it sounds, water in a bottle… there’s nothing much to it. Bottled water is as bland, boring and widely used as, for example, tissue paper. Billions of people consume it, yet consumer loyalty is hard to capture given how hard it must be to differentiate bottled water. Do people lose sleep over choosing between Aquafina and Smartwater? Unlikely. A consumer can be easily swayed to purchase a different brand of bottled water.

OGO water is displayed in highly unique and distinctive packaging. The main benefit that I could see from it’s packaging is its uniqueness and physical attractiveness. The company behind this design must have been desperate to differentiate themselves from their various competitors considering how hard it must be to capture consumer loyalty in the bottled water industry. The packaging is clearly unlike the common bottled water shape: tall and lean. OGO water grabs peoples’ attention.

…. But that’s about it. In my opinion, that’s all it’s good for. I do not speak for billions of people, but as a consumer who drinks ~2 bottles of water a day, I would not purchase this. The reason is mainly due to it’s inconvenience. I could care less about how innovative and eye-catching the packaging is if within minutes I would be finished with the water and dispose of the container.

Allow me to expand on this point: if OGO was to spend so much money designing this unique package, why would they put it in such a small container if that effectively leads to the consumer disposing of it faster? If you want to make an attractive package, give consumers time to admire it! People aren’t going to carry around an empty OGO bottle to stare at because the packaging is so different, they’re going to recycle it when they’re done. After it’s recycled, the consumer wouldn’t spare another thought about OGO’s unique packaging because it’s out of sight.

To be continued in next week’s blog due to word limit…

The launch of Xbox Kinect was said to change the gaming industry with its innovative full-body motion sensor. This idea  went beyond sensational Nintendo Wii’s motion sensing controller. Xbox Kinect took a giant leap forward towards every gamers’ desire to be more involved. The ultimate and most likely final step, would be achieving virtual reality gaming where the user is actually in the game.

Xbox Kinect was launched in North America during the Fall of last year, so it’s relatively new and in it’s introductory stage. Xbox Kinect, aside from its regular game console competitors like Nintendo and Playstation, doesn’t really have many competitors. There isn’t another large gaming corporation who’ve launched a full-body motion sensing console, Xbox Kinect is the only in the market. Xbox’s main competitors, Nintendo Wii and Playstation, have come close with their motion sensing controller. As Nintendo Wii was able to boast about their innovative motion sensing controller when it first launched, Xbox Kinect can now take the throne.

However, being the first also has its problems. It’s been reported that the Xbox Kinect is ‘laggy’ and unresponsive to some gestures. Xbox needs to deal with complaints and figure out how to fix all the bugs themselves without having anything to refer to.

Customers who purchased Xbox Kinect were clearly curious with the innovative concept. However, these numbers are not great as everyone knows that a new product like this would come with its bugs and glitches. Many people, such as myself, would rather wait a number of months to hear to product reviews first before making such a purchase. Consequent to consumer behaviour, Xbox Kinect naturally wouldn’t experience too many sales. In order to try to counter this, Xbox Kinect offered their product in a ‘bundle’ pack where the Xbox and Kinect games would be provided. If it were just the Kinect game for sale on its own, it would most likely experience considerably lower sales.

(picture taken from xboxkinectdeal.com)

There’s a Youtube channel that I’ve been following since 2008. Like many channels, most Youtube videos only get a couple dozen views at most when they start. In one year, this channel would rack up an average of 100,000 views per day. Today, the each daily video gets over 400,000 views on average within the first 2 days of posting.

Whether you’ve heard of this channel or not, it’s the SHAYTARDS. A man decided to pick up daily video blogging a few years ago, simple family videos. His success and popularity was not intentional. Shay Carl never expected his videos consisting of his family and daily life to gather so much traffic. Since his video blogging days began, Shay’s family (who used to struggle with living pay check to pay check), now owns a large house, paid off all their debt, gets paid for making Youtube videos, and receive free gifts from sponsors(eg. flip cameras, Google TV, candles, etc.). Shay also partnered with other Youtube stars to make videos and now works his dream job.

Shay never marketed for himself in any way. All he does is upload videos, and the rest does itself. So what could explain the overwhelming popularity for his vlogging? Youtube and word-of-mouth, in my opinion. Youtube has helped the SHAYTARDS grow in ways other than simply hosting the videos. Every time a SHAYTARDS video would hit the main page, the  video views would skyrocket to 700,000-1,000,000+ views.

The other factor, word-of-mouth, also helps bring in traffic. For example, I’ve shown my friends the videos and here I am writing a blog about it. I’ve ‘liked’ their official page on Facebook, so my Facebook friends could see it as well. Shay never asked me to do this, I do it because I love his Youtube videos so much.
I’d say that this is a perfect example of crazy loyal advocates marketing for free. It’s clear to me why companies aim to capture loyal customers so that they could swim in the benefits that word-of-mouth can bring.

Twitter’s a rather new sensation that swept through mostly teens and young adults. It’s a viral and innovative tool. Twitter is a website that provides the function similar to a Facebook status update. Twitter addicts would tweet about their every action, as insignificant as it may be. Many celebrities and influential figures joined Twitter shortly after, effectively updating fans and giving gossip sites more juice to gossip about.

So when did businesses join the circle? With it’s growing popularity, it’s no wonder that many giant retailers and businesses would see Twitter as another opportunity to market their goods and understand their consumers better.

Starting off from the homepage, a company could search up what Twitter users are saying about their brand by simply searching up their company name or brand name. This simple function gives anyone the ability to gain knowledge on multiple opinions instantly.

The company could also update their Twitter followers constantly with any changes or interesting news related to the brand. If they wanted to see what potential consumers would think of a new feature to their product, the company could receive instant feedback from Twitter users. The ability for the company and it’s followers to chat back and forth at such a fast and easy level allows the company to create a relationship with it’s market and answer any concerns quickly.

Furthermore, it helps the company secure it’s brand. If the company were to use the brand image as it’s ‘avatar’, it would help Twitter followers associate the brand image with the company. Such a seemingly trivial act will force anyone who stops by the company’s Twitter page to make a connection between the brand and the company every time they see the logo outside.

The key to Twitter that should appeal most to marketers, however, is it’s ability to allow communication and connection between thousands of people. A perfect place for marketers, in my opinion.

I’m sure that most people know about Youtube.

I can’t remember how long it’s been since it’s been implemented, but for a while now, Youtube has placed ads before the actual video plays. This doesn’t happen for ALL Youtube videos, but I do come across a video that has an advertisement preceding it at least twice a day. Basically what happens is, when you click on a video, a video advertisement will play (usually ~20 seconds in duration) before the Youtube video you intended to watch. You can’t stop the ad or skip the ad. The only way you could ‘avoid’ it, is if you mute the player and alt-tab.

Thankfully, these ads don’t appear on most Youtube videos. I usually see them on viral accounts that has a lot of traffic (example: vevo accounts that play official music videos).

Although these ads are annoying to me, I have to agree on their effectiveness. It forces viewers to watch it. Only way one could avoid them, if they were to stumble on one, is to mute and alt-tab/refresh. But how many people would actually put out that much effort to avoid video ads EVERY single time?

I’m thankful that Youtube has not implemented video ads for every single Youtube video. If they were to do so, many viewers would be irritated and I’m sure that a substitute giant video sharing website would emerge.