Derek Li's Blog

Facebook. The talk of the decade. The medium to practically all social media that people come in contact with everyday. While I was thinking about how people market themselves, I thought about Facebook. It is possibly one of the best ways to let people know more about you and also position them to perceive yourself in a certain way. From the things you “like” to the comments that you leave can greatly present the person that you are. You are now marketing yourself through Facebook without even noticing it. That’s quite amazing considering how much personal information one puts on that site.

So, if you ever change anything on Facebook, be aware of what you are doing and the image that you convey about yourself. It can be dangerous to market yourself in a bad manner. This is just a little thought that came across this morning, so I decided to blog about it. I’m out of ammo so until next week haha.

Today I was looking through a couple of marketing blogs and came across Calvin Kwok’s post on marketing. After reading the post, I immediately realized how clever it was to market in the bathroom, let alone putting an ad right in front of your face while urinating.

The marketing team for those companies really got Promotion of the Marketing Mix locked down. Imagine the amount of human traffic that goes in and out of the washroom, and add that to the time spent doing their business while looking at the ad at the same time. Plus, all those companies are targeting university students with the products they are promoting. Everything just seems to fit perfectly; message thoroughly communicated. The best thing is that no one really notices it (besides Calvin and the people looking at him take a picture of an ad in the washroom haha) so it just occurs naturally and unforced. WOW.

The magnitude of its effect on consumers could be substantial. Imagine a regular university student going to do his thing and was thinking about getting a new cellphone. BAM! Rogers advertisement is right in their face and telling them they could get some sweet student deals (even though Rogers is not known for that). Instant customer or at least it is now a brand part of his  retrieval set. Very interesting. Who ever devised this master plan should deserve a raise.

Post more after midterms, see you next week.

You know what really gets my attention in ads these days? It’s not humor or graphics, but instead I value creativity. The promotional video for Google Chrome really caught my attention when I saw it. The clip highlights all the major features of the new Google Chrome web browser with wildly captivating use of creativity. My initial thought was that they would use some highly advanced methods to present this new technology but instead, they use quite manual and primitive methods to present them. The sudden constrast really caught my attention and made it enjoyable to watch while learning every feature of the new Chrome. The parts that I like the most were the can firing to show the speed of the browser and the unravelling of yarn to show the tabs ahha. This really helped to position and solidify my perception of Google being the leading innovator in the business.

That’s all for this week. I wish everyone the best of luck for the marketing midterm tomorrow and any other upcoming midterms in the near future.

Hey everybody! Another week and another interesting advertisement that I found. This time it’s for the brand new Windows Phone 7 Operating System (OS). I just saw this ad the other day and found it to be quite amusing. Honestly, it successfully portrays the ever-growing bond we have with our smartphone in order to get past each and every day. However, after all the satirical humour dies down, you can’t help but notice how ironic the advertisement Windows made it out to be.

So what the video was trying to say is that we spend waaaaaay too much time on our phones and Windows is here to solve it. What leaves me dazed and confused is, do they NOT want us to use it and LIKE their OS? It seemed contradictory to me that they are trying to sell something but are actually mocking it. What they might be trying to say is that Apple or Android phones are too slow, that is why the Windows Phone is better and more efficient, so we can stop working on our phones all day. But, that is not necessarily true, since many who have used those products, know that they are both very competent OSs for smartphones. Or is it because people who use Windows Phone 7 are people who want to use less of their phone and get back to reality. Probably the latter situation is the better explanation.

Yet, isn’t it a good thing that people stay glued to their phones since the OS is superb? Are they trying to sell us a product that we wouldn’t want to connect and enjoy for long periods of time? Maybe I’m just thinking too indepth about it, or maybe I’m not making any sense at all to everyone. Either way, the advertisement is good and it catches people’s attention, like me right now trying to figure out what they are trying to pull here. It sure did its job of getting people to notice and realize their upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS.

Really, what do you think about this ad and would you really buy it?

It has been a busy week but still, I had the time to realize something very important. Nowadays, people all over the inter web love to hate or subjectively criticize products without ever trying them. This might sound like a bad thing for a company rolling out a new product, but what I realized is that it could be a good thing sometimes. The hate that people give to products sometimes act as a catalyst for a product to go viral or explode with popularity. The word of mouth from people and the amount of attention the product receives from the criticism could attract greater interest for it, which increases its upside for being known. Eventually people might realize that it’s not that bad after all and may be converted to love it, yet there are always those who love to loathe.

A great example of this would be Apple’s iPad. First things first, I am not a die-hard Apple fan so don’t automatically assume I’m promoting for them. What I do admire is the fact that the iPad beat all odds and overcame all those who despised it. The day it was announced, I can still vividly remember how it was being ridiculed. It would be made fun of from the name to its resemblance to the iPod to its practicality. Eventually, people realized its strengths and it instantly caught fire at start. Now, a report has stated that it expects to sell 45 million iPads for next year. Not bad for a year-old product.

All I want to say is that sometimes it’s nice to be hated, or rather to be noticed by the masses. This negative attention is useful at times and as long as the product is good, there should be no fear of it not selling.

Now I most humbly represent all those products who were hated on, with the utmost gratitude to all the haters hiding behind their computers and fueling the popularity of the products.

Have a nice long weekend everyone!

Hey guess what? If you buy the new Nissan LEAF you will get a free bonus hug from a real polar bear! That’s exactly how Nissan thoughtfully advertised its new 100% electric car (video below). To be honest, I was quite touched by the whole video. It started with a Discovery channel-esque documentary of the polar bear in their gradually failing Arctic environment, and slowly shifting to a modernized city somewhere. It shows the polar bear venturing throughout the city, as if it was in search for something. The polar bear then goes up to a man heading to his new Nissan LEAF and suddenly gives him a hug…Awwwwww.

The simplicity presented in this ad is what moves the viewer. The consumer easily comprehends the fact that the polar came all this way from home, just to thank the man with a hug for trying to save their crumbling environment caused by CO2 emissions from petrol cars. Sure, many can say that Nissan’s other cars are the main reason why the polar bear’s environment is breaking down; however, I say at least they are trying to push for a new and healthier world, despite their main intentions to sell a car. The marketing strategy here is quite effective, trying to appeal to a consumer’s emotional side and allowing them to reconsider the effects of excessive green house gasses.

Also, I completely agree with this blogger (http://www.futerra.co.uk/blog/846) regarding the cleverness of the advertisement. It truly does bring out the issue of global warming and the environment, while combining factors of emotion and conscience. The subtle effect of this campaign easily evokes a new and refreshing concept of the already exhausted and repetitive message of global warming. Props to the marketing team for Nissan’s new LEAF.

That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed this little video I found very interesting. Bye.

Man, Marketing is one scary thing. It turns out it has been lurking around us everywhere for the longest time. It’s something that you don’t really notice regularly, but once you’re aware of it, you just can’t stop wondering in awe about its effect on us.

Like many other average consumers, I just wake up and use the plethora of brand/no name products around me as I progress throughout each and every day. After reading the text and being in class, I just had a sort of epiphany as to how effective Marketing from various brands has changed the way we perceive things. I know for a fact that we can all instantly list a bunch of brand names that we use without much effort. It turns out almost everyone can name at least half the companies under Procter & Gamble, which are scattered throughout our homes, without knowing its all under the same company. Weird.

After doing some shopping, I started to understand the major influence of Marketing. It turns out it is very significant in how I choose what products and brands to buy. How I perceive the brand and how much information I know about the product, is so important to my decision. The product that I am most familiar with is the one that I would buy, as well as considering the amount of value it brings. The amount of work put into implementing these values and information to the consumer, to make us choose their product over another, is the after math of the unnamed heroes from the Marketing department. The transparency brought to the consumer through Marketing is what influences us to use one product over another.

Sometimes, I think that the Marketing people use Inception (like the movie haha) to plant the desire that we have for a good/service. In fact, I think that is what they do, but indirectly. Of course they are not messing with our minds or maneuvering through our dreams like the movie, but indirectly they are implementing these values and information about their good or service through advertisement and other mediums.

Well that’s all I have for now. As I continue my journey to learn more about Marketing, I’ll update you guys about the things that I have realized along the way.

Oh yeah, forgot to say hello to everyone… my name is Derek and this is the first time I have ever made a blog before. It’s a pretty cool way to communicate what one thinks and to have a domain to hold all their ideas I guess. Bye.