Derek Li's Blog

Just wanted to share a laugh.

So I was just trying to take a short break from the arduous studying I’ve been doing for my Econ final coming up and decided to go on YouTube (I just noticed how awkward it was to type youtube…). I clicked on one video that looked interesting and was anxiously anticipating the video to start playing when BAM an advertisement shows up. Instantly, I felt disappointment and was desperately trying to figure out if there was one of those exit button to move onto my intended entertainment. There was none. After failure to escape this brutal ad, I just patiently waited for it to be over to actually view the video I wanted to watch.

The point I’m trying to make is, YouTube has got it locked down in the advertising department. They know that with so many views each day, for a plethora of videos on their site, they can just sell the time while a video is loading to companies to advertise their products. Companies probably pay a sky high price tag just to get a piece of YouTube’s popularity but it is probably well worth it. Imagine potentially hundreds of millions of people each day watching all sorts of videos and each time before they can do so, your company’s ad is displayed first. Then they can only patiently watch and enjoy the marketing department’s hard work for that spot. Not only does this help raise brand awareness but also broadens the reach of the advertisement to not only tv viewers but the entire world through the inter web. Personally, I think that this is worth way more than a television ad during the Superbowl is since it can reach so many more people and people can’t get rid of it without not watching their desired video.

YouWin this time! Good luck to everyone else having to go through finals in these couple of weeks!

Today I just saw the newest Audi made ad in Berlin. So the company decided to spray paint a profile of their newest product, the A7. The amazing thing is that it was done on the side of a massive building, used 200 bottles of spray paint, and took 2 weeks to complete. The amount of money spent on this advertising probably does pay off as the artwork is right in your face all the time haha. It definitely is a nice advertisement which appears to have been done freehand by a group of spray painters. Check out a video of its making below to witness its proportions. Brand awareness at its finest.

On a side note, Audi has also allocated a huge amount of its marketing capital to buy a spot in the new American Superbowl advertisement time. Apparently, brand awareness and desire for their luxury vehicles have spiked after their ads were shown during the Superbowl. It was probably money well spent to gain this much attention as well as having record sales for the company as it places an ad during this sporting event for the fourth consecutive year. Now that’s efficient allocation of resources. What was once a brand second to BMW and Benz, is now stepping up to try and achieve top-of-mind awareness status.

I was thinking about Sales Promotion today and I was thinking about how the luxury car market does this. For a very long time, there was this stigma for luxury car makers to build cars that always needed to be repaired despite its sky-high price tags. Auto makers such as Audi and Jaguar have always been perceived as high-maintenance vehicles that users spend more time at the shop than on the road. Now of course as times change so do their way of doing things and I have heard good things about the quality of those automobiles nowadays. As a form of sales promotion, I believe that Jaguar’s all new Platinum Coverage is a great way to stimulate buyers to reconsider an investment in their product line. The original reputation of continuous fixes for the company is what swayed customers away from their product, but now this sort of Sales Promotion could act as the catalyst to boost sales. Also, this helps to build more value for the consumer as the Platinum Coverage offers to fix multiple problems free of charge. It also shows that the company has finally listened and answered to their loyal following’s prayers. Now that the problem is covered, why else would someone with the cash not purchase this invigorating beast?

Besides all the marketing done during Thanksgiving and especially Black Friday steep discount sales, there is some other company out there using thanksgiving to express their gratitude to the people. GM was the dying company during the financial crisis and received a controversial $49.5 billion bailout by the Fed in America. Now they are stronger, returning to profit and proving their sustainability by completing the world’s biggest IPO recently; utilizing the over-allotment option as investor interest went through the roof. In order to announce their thanks, they made a little ad telling everyone how each and every one of us falls but we can all get back up with a little bit of help.

It was definitely good marketing on their part to remind consumers of their presence and to appear grateful after getting bailed out and given the chance to stand back up, unlike many other people during the crash of 2008. Sure, some may see it as a promotional gimmick to win back people’s hearts after being given a lifeline by the Fed with taxpayer’s money and some may see it as a means of showing how it paid off finally, and that the people were not investing in a rotting corporation. Either way, it is relevant marketing at the right time. Enjoy the commercial below. Happy be-lated thanksgiving to our neighbors in the south.

Today, I was looking around for a blog post by my fellow bloggers on marketing and I stumbled upon Erick Yao’s post about expensive and lower price vehicles. I totally agree with his perspective of expensive and cheap cars where one should not say something is expensive or not since it all depends on the perception of the target market. Since BMW, Benz, or Audi is marketing towards higher income families/individuals, they are going to be priced relatively high but they are built with more prominent materials of course. So, one should not judge based on the price tag because it is based on your income bracket and if you could afford it, then it is not expensive. People need to understand that everything is relative. To a wealthy person, a luxury vehicle is not pricey but to an average person it definitely is overpriced. Only the intended target market will understand the marketing strategy and accept it as the way it is.

The only thing I would disagree with Erick’s post is when he says, “lower income customers would want a cheaper car that possesses minimum safety standards.” I believe that despite the limitations of disposable income, one will still WANT and CHOOSE a safe car and a safe car does not necessarily mean it is more expensive. Every automobile is required to go through rigorous safety tests by the government, and nowadays even low price tag companies such as Hyundai have very high rankings for safety. What I would say to add to his statement and make it more clear is that maybe the lower priced vehicles don’t have as much safety FEATURES, such as blind spot detection, rear-view camera, sensors to keep you within your own lane when you drift out of it, and sensors that stop the car if objects are in front of your car. Those features are the extras that you get for the higher sticker price that you pay. Maybe that is what he meant, I don’t know. Anyways, it was a great post that got me interested and got me thinking.

Blog to you guys next week, cya!

In my honest opinion, I believe that Audi has the best marketing ads in the business hands down. After watching some of their advertising campaigns, you can’t stop to think and then utter: Brilliant! This is not really a post I put a lot of thought into but just showing everybody the best I’ve seen coming out of the marketing department of Audi. Truth in Marketing. Enjoy!

The consumer is king. In today’s marketing environment, this very aspect of satisfying the consumer’s needs is the single most important factor in a successful product line. This is exactly what I witnessed after watching Mercedes-Benz’s new promotional video about how much they care about their customers (video below). The experiment the company carried out successfully incorporates modern-day technology with the constant search of what grabs the consumer’s attention the most. Benz has used high-tech glasses mounted with cameras that can track where people look and from there, determine what catches the consumer’s attention the most.

This attention to detail is what impresses me. This promotional video really does help market mercedes-benz’s motive to put the consumer first and that could help them generate many new customers who look for this care for customer’s needs. Also, it shows that the company is trying to improve itself and seeing whether or not they succeeded in the design department to be appealing enough for everybody. Plus, it helps them improve what they know of consumers and what they care about most in a car. Just brilliant.

Recently, another insight I have had from studying Marketing is that essentially everyone is part of marketing and everybody acts as a medium for marketing to immerse the consumers of the world. From the very topics we talk about with each other everyday to the blog posts that each and every person writes, is a form of marketing and acts as a platform for marketing to ensue. Word-of-mouth (C2C marketing) is so powerful as people all around us affect us in a social manner that influences all of our purchasing decisions. The review people write online and the posts other people around the world put up act as fuel to the ever growing flame of marketing.

Personally, I really don’t mind being a medium for companies to market their own goods and I guess its the best possible way to sell a valuable product. In fact, the magnitude at which it consumes our life with the ways we interact with marketing is quite intriguing. It seems as if any activity we pursue these days is directly or indirectly related to marketing. The cars we drive or the restaurants we go to tell people who we are and it helps to indirectly market those products or places in order to identify them and ourselves. Everybody seems content for now even if Marketing is so active in our lives and I guess it will be here to stay for the unforeseeable future.

Today I bring to you a problem I have with Chevy and its marketing tactics. As most of you have probably heard, there’s a new car on the street coming soon called the Volt, which is a self-proclaimed and highly marketed electric vehicle (EV). That’s what Chevrolet has been shouting out to everyone before. The company has been actively promoting their new vehicle as the turning point to emission free vehicle innovation, saying it is an “one-of-a-kind, all-electrically driven vehicle.” Now, the truth has gradually surfaced with Chevy admitting that the Volt has both a electric motor AND a gasoline one. That means its a HYBRID, NOT a EV. Hope that wasn’t too hard to follow (maybe it is for Chevy but not us intelligent consumers). Even the company itself is changing its marketing strategy with their newest ad (below) saying the car can go “up to 40 miles before it uses any gas at all.”

So, I am just dumbfounded right now to justify whether or not it was false advertising before or just bad marketing. There’s no point in telling a lie to sell a few more cars because once the consumer gets one on their hands, they’ll find out, since they have to pump gas in so the car doesn’t die after the battery runs out. Maybe I’m just being harsh but I expect a large company like Chevy to live up to what they tell their customers or else it will just steer them away from the Volt or any other car in their lineup in the long run. The perceived value of the Volt being zero emissions and great for the environment is going to go downhill from here.

That’s all for today, write to you all next week!