Month: December 2010

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?