Dominika Krupa's Blog

So, here it is. End of term. It hardly feels like a week has passed, and already it is time to say goodbye to my Comm296 blog! It’s been fun using it, I learned a lot about marketing, consumers, brands, strategies and how to manage them. I met some fantastic people (Team #12, you rock!), got to study from some very talented instructors (both Elaine and Scott, thank you!) and discovered some secrets of a multi-billion dollar industry that is marketing.

With all that knowledge about social media and the awesome experience of studying at UBC, I want to use this last post to spread the word into the world about the greatest LipDub ever made:

For those who just went: Lip what? I recommend watching the video before you ask questions, as a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video has 24 of them per second! The team creatively used the current phenomena, like the Old Spice guy (Look, there’s a unicorn!), a certain bi-winning TV celebrity, and many many others, to create what we hope will become another viral video. So share it, whether it be with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers and Blog readers, or your actual friends, fellow students or coworkers and family, and marvel at what technology, creativity, hard work and enthusiasm can give us. While promoting the best school in the world!

In the last class we talked about ethics in Marketing, and how it affects consumers’ lives. From a personal perspective, I think that because advertising and Marketing in general is so influential, the need for upkeeping highest standards is even greater. Since science can invent more and more effective ways of affecting our choices, even without our knowledge, I hope that there is someone overseeing it, so I don’t end up waking up one morning thinking that if I don’t drink enough Coca-Cola I would die.

But creating demand for a product is not the only way a producer can employ unethical marketing. The very 1990’s, very eloquent video we watched had a lot to say about “downsizing” – a way in which we are fooled everyday in those aisles at the local supermarket. If they can sell a slightly smaller quantity for the same price, in the same packaging, they win, we lose, right? More money, less resources. But the example of American women, who boycotted Tampax after they downsized their product, shows us that however tiny one consumer might be, together they are the driving force of this industry. Wow, this sounds lofty. And sadly I think that although it’s great that sometimes dishonest producers get punished, in the majority of cases it’s the client who has to pay the (higher) price. Think about it, how many times have you been angry at Nescafe or Captain Crunch for selling you a box full of air instead of coffee or cereal? And how many times have you switched to the competing brand because of it? Not that often? Yeah, me too. Should we feel better about it knowing that people around the world battle the same issues? Probably not, but still it gives (me) some comfort that in this dishonesty, manufacturers maintain consistency. Is it a good thing? I don’t know. But at least the grass in my overseas neighbour’s yard is not greener than mine!

As I was browsing through some of my classmates’ blogs in search of inspiration, I stumbled upon a post by Andrea Lee on packaging, and how, as it was in the case of bananas, it can be sometimes overdone. This thought accompanies me constantly on my trips to Safeway, where I see mountains of plastic and paper used to catch consumers’ eye, offer information on the product, or simply take up space on the shelf.

The differences and benefits of primary and secondary packaging are well covered in the textbook, which states how the former is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, and the latter’s primary purpose is to be informative and easy to store and display. Both are important tools in creating brand equity, but unfortunately it’s not all they create. Every time I buy grocery, clothes, cosmetics or electric appliances I always struggle with the vast amount of material I neither want nor need.

With the rapid deterioration of the environment I would sometimes be happy to give up some of the comfort of transportation or additional information on a product for making sure I do not pollute the planet more than I have to. What’s more, there’s possibility there for creativity in marketing this approach by the producers! Why not reposition your competition by pointing out their ignorance of sustainability, highlighting your own eco-friendliness? That would definitely be something new on the market.

And because I love Glee! and absolutely couldn’t resist, here’s a nice example of how a major media company uses their wildly popular product to campaign for civic responsibility and environmental sustainability:

What are you doing for Earth Day 2011?

So another April Fools’ Day has passed. Of course it means we’re all one year older, but it also means that companies and marketers have treated us to some exciting new ads, some more truthful than others of course. Some meant to inform, some meant to make us laugh, but all are produced so that the issuer gets noticed and talked about.

One of the best ads I saw this April Fools’ was Google’s new feature: Gmail motion.

Gmail motion was created to make keyboards redundant. To be honest, I am quite looking forward to this development. It would surely help with the current health issues like lack of exercise. Furthermore, it would correspond nicely to Nintendo Wii’s idea of making people addicted to technology physically active without involving the stereotypical sports.

The ad itself is quite clever. It follows Googles style of presenting simple pictures on a clean, white background and using Gmail interface to convey the messages. The person presenting the motions and the corresponding actions is hilarious. The “experts” try to further convince us that Gmail motion is actually happening. If the subject of this clip wasn’t as incredible, I wouldn’t be very surprised to see it on TV or hear on the radio.

More on Gmail motion can be found on Gmail’s official blog here.

It would seem that all I recently blog about is heartfelt (at least I hope they are heartfelt) attempts at advertising, which either failed or are just too offensive for words. The video below is no exception I’m afraid.

It has been 10 years since that dreadful morning happened, but I still have to question WWF’s motivation behind using this kind of iconography in support of their ideas.

The ad seems to have been created to reinforce the message of nature’s enormous power over humans, but is there much more to it than shock value? Does it actually sell the point it wanted to sell? I seriously doubt that. Because my thoughts after seeing this video were:

1) That’s super disrespectful

2) Many people died tragically at the beginning of the XXI century

3) … And that is pretty much it.

It doesn’t make me want to go to rallies for their cause,  join any kind of environmental organization or even recycle my trash more often. It just makes me sad. And I am quite sure my sadness does not help the planet. In fact it may  actually make it worse off with all the extra chocolate packaging I’ll be disposing off.

So after coming up with an idea for an ad, one should always ask oneself: does it serve my purpose? Does it invoke the feelings I want it to invoke? To refer to the AIDA model, does it push me towards action? No? Then it’s back to work for you, guys!

I say hello to you, World, while I take my baby steps in writing my first blogpost and sending my humble thoughts to the contemporary root of all knowledge, the almighty Internet.

As it turns out, it really pays to read your class prep instructions carefully. Because your level of enthusiasm might drop considerably, when you find that although your head is overflowing with ideas and comments on the absolutely fascinating chapter you read in the textbook the night before, you’ll be able to use none of them in class (at least until the next week of course), since it’s not the chapter you were supposed to read! Figures. So, as long as I keep confusing 4’s with 3’s, I will have to keep my head down, listen carefully, hope not to be called to answer, and get myself a good pair of glasses!

But, in order not to waste all that intellectual energy, I researched the idea of CSR on some corporate websites, and found to the surprise of absolutely nobody, that Hipocrisy is not the name of a Greek goddess, but something that lurks around every corner.

As it turns out, certain brands of fast food are very big on social responsibility when it comes to recycling paper, or eco-friendly restaurant design, but don’t mind dropping a sea’s worth of salt into a serving of fries.

not_dropping_any_names_mind_you

While I absolutely support the former, I would hope they decide to do something about the latter.