Month: November 2010

Being in that marketing frame of mind and with the holidays creeping up, I want to know what drives people to drop outrageous sums of cash  on gifts for others and themselves. Christmas is an obvious excuse to spend money, but why has consumption steadily increased over the past few decades? In the midst of a depression spending is relatively out the roof. Are advertisters taking advantage of these wintertime blues? Feeding us outrageous reasons to spend money even though our pocket change is dwindling? Maybe it has something to do with seasonal affective disorder? are we getting a little depressed in this gloomy season, giving us a reason to endulge in retail therapy? The possibilities are numerous. Who knows what it really is that gives people this sense that their pocketbooks are indispensable? Whatever it is, its food for thought and definetly has something to do with clever marketing.

Keeping it Market Savvy,

Shai

Taylor Johnston, a fellow  aspiring business student from the Sauder School of Business at UBC, has a fantastic and riveting blog that raises many key marketing concepts. (Look up tjthebizz’s blog here). In a recent post he claims to coin the term “self-marketing.” He is obviously slightly delusional, since this has a been a key concept right from the get go. I vividly recall our marketing professor, Tamar, on the first day say that even if you are not interested in majoring in marekting something to walk away with and that will help you in every endeavour is self-marketing. Taylor hits the concept right on the nail when he exclaims that, “you are the product!” This has become more evident to me even in the most non-business of settings. Say for example you are taking a beautiful girl on a first date, the way you greet her, the way you dress, how you smell, your body language, where you take her, and so forth all indicate a degree of self-marketing. This all accumulates to how you wish to be perceived by your date, and this is exactly what marketing comprises of; communicating value. Obviously the key components of this scenario can be transferred to a variety of different settings. This is why self marketing is such a valuable concept, because it applies to EVERYTHING you do. Keep this in mind at all times, and you are bound to be successful.

Keeping it market Savvy,

Shai