Dev Patel's Blog

After reading Anoushka Patel’s blog on how sex appeal sells, I thought about the marketing assignments that we had to do over the term. My group focused on Axe products, and I was quite surprised at the level of sex appeal that is used with Axe.

We are all used to the advertisements that play on TV:

This is really not that bad. Campaigns like ‘Boom Chicka Wah Wah’ are to be expected from a company like Axe. However, if you go deeper and have a look at the community website ‘the Axe effect’ you start to see advertisements like this:

At first I was really surprised at the double entendres that filled this advert. I did not expect a company as large as Axe to have such sexual connotations in their advertisments. However, after reading many journal articles about these commercials, it is clear that they actually do sell. Why? It has to do with the target audience. From the second commercial it is clear that their target audience is young men who are interested in their self-image. The reason that most of these men are interested in their own image is primarily to attract whoever they are attracted to! What better way to do it than to create commercials that point out the blatent truth, and get right to the point for the target audience!

Today we discussed Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ campaign during the FIFA World Cup 2010. We discussed whether it was ethical to intensively advertise Nike Football before the World Cup to divert attention away from $184 million sponsors, Adidas.

Building on that topic, a very similar thing happened between Pepsi and Coke. Coke was the official sponsor of the World Cup and just like Nike, Pepsi released a campaign including the biggest names in football to retaliate. The difference between Adidas and Coke was that Coke did a great job in fighting back.

Coke based their entire campaign around the ‘Waving Flag’ song which shot K’naan to superstardom during the World Cup. While it was a beautiful song which encompassed everything that the FIFA World Cup represented, the campaign lacked brand associations with big names in Football. When your target audience includes football fanatics all over the world, representation of the biggest stars needs to be clear:

Even before the World Cup began, Pepsi capitalized on the lack of Coke’s brand association (Pepsi has had long term contracts with the biggest Football superstars for decades). It was only natural for them to launch their own campaign that included relevant brand associations as well as music artist Akon, which sparked much more interest to the target audience!

 Was this ethical? As far as Pepsi is concerned, it was superior marketing. While it was Pepsi’s intention to divert attention away from Coke, or even capitalize on the gap in their campaign, Pepsi was well within their means to do what they did.

I was at home, in Thailand, during the World Cup and I will be honest – Coke was nowhere in sight. Pepsi ruled the build up to the World Cup and even during the World Cup, Pepsi was on everyone’s mind. However, Coke moved past the concept of ethics, and launched a retaliation. They built on K’naan’s success and continued their Waving Flag campaign. A ‘Waving Flag’ song was released in every Football fanatic country, in THAT language. Coke began to target specific markets of Football lovers, making Coke’s campaign a cult hit as opposed to a one hit wonder! 

I think the misconception of ethics in all advertising is well demonstrated here. Sometimes it is a company’s intention to ‘do bad’, but if it is within their means and they are just capitalizing on a mistake from their competitor – I believe it is okay.

The whole issue of advertising during the Superbowl is a phenomenal topic to study from a marketing standpoint. Most North American companies wait for that one day in the year to spend millions of dollars to buy  a 30 second time slot, and put together the best possible commercial they can do.

However, in India, a chance like this happens even more rarely. Last night, in the Cricket World Cup 2011, India and Pakistan faced each other in the semi-final. In case you were wondering, the rivalry between India and Pakistan (especially in a cricket match) is so intense that India’s economy completely shut down for the day. So the fact that these two teams were to face each other in a semi-final of the biggest stage of Cricket was something that ESPN-Star Sports HAD to capitalize on.

They priced a 10 SECOND TIME SLOT at $38000. That is close to a 400% increase from the regular price of a commercial time slot. Why would they do this? Those commercials would reach over 175 million households only in India, with millions of more viewers worldwide.

My question is: what types of companies and advertising would be used in this situation? Only companies that can afford this huge fee can afford to buy out a time slot. Companies like Pepsi, Vodafone, Aircel and appliance brand Whirlpool actually brought out the big bucks and also used their brand associations with some of India’s top stars in order to make the most of this time slot.

All of these companies have been leaders in their respective industries for years and their products are peaking in the maturity stage of a product life cycle. Sure enough, after viewing these advertisements it was clear that each company was using persuasive and reminder advertising, and used this time slot to get into the heads of the 175 million households around India. I know after I saw the Pepsi advertisements during the game, I was craving Pepsi so much that I actually went out of my way to buy a bottle! Companies like Pepsi will have to wait for the numbers to come it to find out exactly how beneficial those time slots actually were.

In the last couple of weeks there have been numerous events that have shaken up the world including the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan to the unrest in Libya. However, Rebecca Black has shaken up the entertainment specifically. Her viral video has over 30 million hits, and it has only been up for a week or two maximum. I am almost certain you have heard this song already, but for your viewing pleasure:

How does this relate to marketing you might ask. Well, the corporation behind her interesting claim to fame is called ‘Ark Music Factory’, and according to mike1980b’s blog Ark Music Factory benefited phenomenally. In an industry that is as competitive as the entertainment industry, particularly in North America, the best way to succeed is to build your brand and make sure that it is well known. Well, after seeing Rebecca Black’s shocking number of followers around the world it is quite clear that Ark Music Factory has managed the Rebecca Black brand VERY well.

Ark Music Factory’s methods of making super hit pop songs may be debatable, as seen through Gabe Meline’s analysis of Ark Music Factory in his recent blog post. Their primary target is teenagers and they basically produce the most catchy song possible to make them famous. The brand that has been made for Rebecca Black has made an entire new market for parents whose only wish is for their young child to make it big in Hollywood and in the entertainment business. Her brand is one that is so well known (and perhaps also very well managed) that in today’s society, that no matter what you think of this viral video… Ark Music Factory won!

Distribution is a fundamental aspect for all businesses and can often be the deciding factor of whether a business succeeds or not. This summer, I was lucky enough to work in a local Thai company called Thai Agri Foods Public Company Ltd. which exports canned Thai ingredients to countries all over the world. These products are sold in supermarkets all over the world. For example, if you ever walk into T&T Supermarkets in Vancouver you are bound to see some products that look like the cans below. Thai Agri exports to over 70 countries world wide and has built strong relationships in many top importing countries.

For Thai Agri Foods, distribution is the most important factor to be successful. As they are dealing  with food and beverages, which are perishable goods (no matter how well preserved) it is important that the distribution is perfect. The products were well conditioned and regularly maintained so that problems such as rusting and expiration were avoided at all costs before being shipped out. If there was even one problem with the product, the client would not pay and likely would not order from Thai Agri Foods again.

For Thai Agri Foods is important that the points of contact are minimized due to the nature of the product. Thai Agri Foods produces their goods in a factory right next to a large warehouse that also houses efficient transportation routes out to the shipping yard. Both the factory and offices are geographically located quite close to the port which they use to export their products. This system works efficiently so that the right product is sent to the right place within the right time frame. The entire time I worked at this company, I saw many shipments being carried out almost flawlessly!

After reading Helge Ratvik’s recent blogpost “Prestige Pricing in Advertisement“, I was interested to see how prestige pricing for luxury cars differs in different countries. Coming from Thailand, I have noticed the glaring difference between the types of cars you see on the roads in Vancouver compared to Bangkok. In Vancouver you see Audi A4’s, BMW 7-series’ and Mustangs – all of which are common, and certainly do not fall under the same category of prestige pricing. In fact, in Vancouver a car that falls under prestige pricing would be that one Lamborghini Reventon I am certain I saw downtown!

However, in Bangkok, seeing a Lamborghini would be a dream come true for all motor buffs. It might be the roads or traffic, but it is definite that in Thailand even Lamborghini would not bother with spending lots of money to target their cars to Bangkok – even if they did use prestige pricing.

Lamborghini on Thai Roads

In Thailand, the car companies that enjoy prestige and luxury are not quite the same as in Vancouver, however they do follow a very similar pricing strategy of prestige pricing. Prestige pricing is adjusted relative to the country, however it is definitely apparent in car companies such as Mercedes and Porsche.

Mercedes is so prestigious in Thailand that hotels like the Marriot use Mercedes cars as private taxis for customers

The promotion strategies for Mercedes, both through television commercials and through the annual Bangkok Motor show clearly isolate Mercedes as a much more luxurious product and as Helge Ratvik mentioned in his post: a product that pays itself. When you go to a Mercedes show room compared to a Honda show room, the prices are astronomical however relative to the cars on the road in Thailand, the luxury is worth it – for those who can afford it.

A company’s logo defines who they are and what they intend to do. Companies spend lots of money trying to perfect the logo and make it stand out. Some successful logos go beyond simply being the image of the company, but also become an effective marketing tool. For example, if you look at the logo for Coca-Cola, there is something about it that makes you thirsty.

Logo’s like these go beyond defining just the company, but also become the symbol of the industry. Another example is if you think about the Vodka industry – your mind immediately jumps to Absolut or Smirnoff. There are thousands of companies that make vodka, yet your mind jumps to these two companies because their logo’s stand out so much.

Sometimes logos are so effective that they need no words indicating the name of the company or the name of the industry. Think about the Nike “swoosh”. It is a simple tick that does not have any words on it and does not even have a little line under it saying “this is a sports company”. The company has done such a good job in branding itself, that the second you see the “swoosh”, you think of Nike.

Now Starbucks is trying to do the same thing. On Tuesday (the 40^th birthday of Starbucks Coffee), they will unveil their new logo that does not have the words “Starbucks” or even “Coffee” on it. In an industry that is much more competitive than the sports industry for Nike, or the computing industry for Apple, it will be difficult to see what the outcome of this marketing plan is. Starbucks may be able to popularize the logo to a point where the mermaid, or two-tailed siren, defines the coffee shop industry. Or it may be a disaster, like GAP’s attempt at changing their logo.

In light of the social trend that has moved millions of people all around the world towards social media, LinkedIn has recently enjoyed an advent of fame and has become a significant tool for people regardless of their occupation. In Jordan Sandler’s article on the Canadian Marketing Blog, ‘Are You LinkedIn to the Max?’ the countless useful tools are described in order to show how beneficial this site is for people to get jobs and to be connected in a professional sense.

One of the tools which attracted me to LinkedIn is the resume builder tool which allows you to list your experiences and apply for jobs. From here I began to wonder what the difference was between applying to a job – and marketing. We have been discussing the use of STP analysis to target a market and position said market in order to successfully advertise a product. So what is the difference between Pepsico using the Superbowl to target the male demographic during the commercials, and me using LinkedIn to target a potential employer. In my opinion – there is none.

For example:

– Differentiated targeting suggests that Pepsico produces both Pepsi and Doritos, and both products were advertised in the Superbowl targeting different segments. I also see myself as someone who can offer many qualities, and I can target specific qualities to specific employers.

– The next step is brand positioning where Pepsico aims to position itself in the consumers’ minds and make itself desirable compared to its competition. Any student looking for work is also trying to position himself in a potential employer’s immediate memory and uses social media like LinkedIn to stand out compared to the competition – other candidates!

So whats the difference?

As Fumi Kimura mentioned in his first blogpost ‘Facebook: A new marketing tool‘ Nike Football has being spending a lot of money on using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to promote their product. I believe that this is a genius strategy by Nike Football to not only promote its product, but do what it is doing so well right now – promote the essence of Football.

If you follow these websites, you will see that Nike does the usual commercials which promote products using famous football players as brand ambassadors like below:

(That is Eric Cantona, legend of 1980-90’s football introducing the entire Brazilian starting football team from the early 2000’s)

But if you begin to research the meaning of the ‘Joga TV’ sign held up at the beginning, you see that Nike Football spends even more money creating short Youtube TV shows where they discuss the beauty, pureness and global culture that is football.

Nike Football targets young people with a shared interest in football and exposes them to the roots of football. These young people watch TV shows where they see their icons playing football in its finest form while using Nike products, thus compelling them to do the same and follow in the footsteps of the legends of football.

As a huge fan of football I can easily say that this form of advertising that uses brand ambassadors to show me the essence of football has truly hooked me, and I have not bought a football product that isn’t Nike since the launch of this campaign.

This is my favorite Joga Bonito video:

If you have ever watched a Bollywood film you will know that music, colour and festivity is huge in India, and also in the rest of South Asia! A group of the biggest music producers in India have carried on this theme for the World Cup and have created an ‘anthem’.

For a world event, this is a fantastic marketing stunt! The target consumers would be the cricket lovers all around the world, and this anthem would create an opportunity for the target market get together and share this song to show their appreciation for this huge competition. This anthem gives the ICC a chance to make this sport more exciting and they can certainly use it as a way to advertise this sport to countries that do not play cricket all around the world. But wait! Listen to the song:

If you watch the video above, you will notice that the song is in Hindi, Bangla and Sinhalese. For a world event that is meant to include 14 different countries, this song only really appeals to 3 of them. This segregates a market and will have unfavorable effects, even to cricket lovers. India is known to make a spectacle of world events that are hosted in that country despite the fact that many people do not appreciate it because it eliminates an entire portion of the target consumers!

Look at this comment from a video of this anthem on youtube: