Karen Young’s Real Authentic Marketing

First of all I would like to thank you Karen for posting such interesting blog. I wouldn’t have seen the video if not of the blog. I partly agree and partly disagree on Karen’s opinions on “Authentic Marketing”. In her blog, Karen stated that “For me, it all boils down to the entire purpose of marketing. The thing is, marketing isn’t ‘real’. The purpose of marketing is to showcase your brand in the best light so consumers see value in your product or service and are willing to pay the price for it.”, it is absolutely true that marketing is to display the product/brand in a way that would get its viewers to do whatever things that the marketer is wanting for. However, this does not mean marketing is not “real”. In fact, with the topic of “marketing ethnics” being discussed earlier this term, I strongly suggest every marketing has to be real.

If marketing is not “real”, then it is just a lie trying to trick its viewers into believing something that is not true. McDonald’s can’t advertise a burger that they will never sell realistically. If McDonald’s uses a bigger burger in their advertisements to persuade consumers to buy that burger only in a much smaller size, then that is not right. Because it is lie more than a way to showcase the product in the best light since the product never exist.

I would actually be much happier if companies can get their marketing strategy to be more and more authentic so that I won’t have to do trial and error to get the products that I want while wasting time and money. Marketing is to get targeted consumers to do what the marketers want, but the bottom line is, it has to stay true.

This is an advertisement at bus stops from Starbucks earlier this year.

I found it to be an interesting advertisement because it is very similar to the positioning statement method mentioned in class. Which is “For (your audience), (your product name) is a (category name) which provides (main benefit) unlike (primary competitor) which provides (competitor’s main benefit).” Although the statement from the ad is not a true positioning statement, it is very similar to it. As it says “For (Canadians), (Starbucks Blonde Roast) is a (Starbucks coffee) which allows (Canadians) to like (Starbucks coffee).” The statement implies this product would change the views on Starbucks coffee of Canadians who don’t think they like Starbucks coffee.

This is a product-focused advertisement that intends to inform people about this Starbucks Blonde Roast coffee and hence generates sales on this particular product, instead of promoting the Starbucks brand image as a whole. Personally I think this is a very well-designed and effective advertisement. Since the advertisement is targeted to Canadians that is not part of the Starbucks’ current market share, promoting the Starbucks coffee shops image would not have much effect as the image is already well-established and further promotion on it would not the consumers’ decisions of those Canadians. However, being an ad that only promotes a particular product that is said to be specifically designed to these targeted consumers, it would bring interests to those consumers and would be very persuasive in suggesting them to give it a try. I believe this ad did generate extra revenue from this product due to the good marketing.