After the class about mobile marketing, I began thinking about my own electronic device usage.  It came to the conclusion that I had my phone with me more than 90% of the time, while my laptop was only active for less than 10 hours a day.  The reality is, my phone has become a part of my life, my sense of security. I can’t live without it, that is what is feels like. Although the idea of mobile marketing is still quite fresh to many businesses, the opportunities are endless.  The small portable device capture consumers in all three aspects of the triangle—time, place, and need.  This accessibility can potentially fill the gap of consumers’ behaviour to abandon shopping charts during their online shopping experience due to time constraints or other barriers that hinder consumers from completing their purchase.

I see the use of mobile marketing used in two ways: (1) Expand marketing campaigns, such as a new product launch or a spontaneous promotion (2) Generate brand awareness by creating a simple, yet informational mobile interface that educates consumers on brand products and services.

Expanding marketing campaigns will entail seamless integration of the same marketing campaign that is user friendly on different interfaces.  This will allow consumers to be in-the-know at all times about new product promotions, events, and contests hosted by companies. This will require more time in efforts to monitor and update multiple interfaces simultaneously.

Since mobile devices are screens are so micro compared to desktops, it is best to keep a clean and simple interface for mobile users.  By creating a general brand mobile interface, it’ll allow consumers to explore products, product features, and learn more about what the company offers.  A&W fast food restaurant does exactly this.  They have created a simple, yet informative mobile interface for consumers to browse, explore, and gain better insight into their menu items and locations.  While the A&W’s desktop website is dedicated to further product promotions.  This approach requires less frequent updates to their mobile website, while still allowing consumers the option to easily navigate through their company website on mobile devices.

Depending on company needs and goals, both mobile marketing incentives can help leverage brand name with the optimism of increased purchases.

The gap from being a millionaire to a billionaire, what differentiates the success of billionaire companies? Of course, the obvious would be an outstanding and knowledgeable management, which is the backbone of all successful companies.  However, the root of the cause lies in its marketing strategies.  A company that produces that most spectacular product or provides top-notch service is a company left in the back of shelves without recognition or promotion.  Marketing efforts began on traditional billboard and television ads. Companies’ ability to create catchy and flashy slogans to lure in their consumers is only half of a good marketing strategy. Essentially, they are their own brand’s advocates.  In hopes of triggering consumers’ desire to act, leading to a purchase. Along with company advertisements, user generated content has proven to be more effective in generating sales than traditional marketing efforts. The power of consumer words, either spoken directly to an individual or involvement in a company’s advertising campaign is found to be extremely credible to viewers.

For example, before the Super Bowl season, Doritos engaged consumers in a commercial contest to be featured at the games.  This encouraged many consumers to submit creative videos, which allowed a two-way communication and increase in brand awareness. Consumers love to be loved, to feel special, and receive attention.  There are many ways that companies can use this to their advantage.  By monitoring social platforms, company treasures can be lifted to the surface.  For instance, re-posting a picture or a comment that a users post is an effective way to promote products.  If there’s difficulty retrieving positive content from consumers, offer incentives for consumers to tweet, post, and share.  The marketing revolution is ever-changing, new ideas spur each day, you might never be ahead of the latest strategies, but always run along side it.  Right now it is the user generated content era; keep those loyal consumers nearby! (They might just be the bridge to the billion-dollar company).

Have you ever wondered how advertisements that appear on your computer screen are always relevant to you?  

“Think twice before you speak” were the wise words of our parents.  Anything that comes out of our mouths cannot be taken back.  Now, most of our communication happens through some sort of social media platform, like Twitter or Facebook, the wise words should be “Think twice before you [Tweet].”  In the same way, the content that gets published on social media cannot be taken back.

Along with that, companies have access to all the information that we post on platforms, one such as Facebook.  Users privacy is violated.  This violation of privacy can be due to various factors.  (i)Users are aware of what businesses can do with their information and don’t care, (ii) users are unaware of the power of social media platforms, or (iii) they are aware, but are simply helpless.  I believe that many people are aware that content, either in text or photos exposed on social media platforms are useful data that help generate revenue for companies.  It makes it easier for companies to understand their target market, thus, catering their marketing strategies in ways that appeals to them.  The data that is generated from social media platforms are powerful and if left in the hands of potentially unethical companies can be dangerous to some extent.  The consent and privacy of consumers are not taken into account.  Today, the only solution is to control what we, as users post, share, and like on social media platforms to protect ourselves and the ones around us.  Even more, what websites we visit, each click we make are all tracked and remembered. So, they can come back and get at you later, the ads and promotions that cater just to you.

The Tweeting Bra is an excellent example of the extent that companies have gone to take advantage of the power of social media and invade the privacy of individuals.  A company in Germany designed this pink bra to supposedly generate awareness of breast cancer, reminding women to get breast examinations.   However, the idea of an automatic tweet every time a woman takes off her bra is not a practical way to remind women to see a doctor.

Social media platforms are like friends you wish you never met. They know so much about you and take advantage of it.  Sometimes just wishing you could knock them to coma and start over on a blank slate (and think twice before [tweeting]).

Businesses are all trying to persuade consumers to do something. This something is generally an action.  For decades companies have tried to use various marketing tactics and/or strategies to get consumers to perform favourable actions.  Some have tired to provoke the feeling of fear or guilt to persuade viewers to donate to different causes.  For example, using starving children images to trigger those unpleasant feelings in viewers.  This depends on what a company is trying to market.   An airline has taken their safety orientation to new heights. The mandatory safety orientations that airlines have to give to passengers are standard and safe to say, boring. To opt out from the norm, Virgin America Airline has transformed their safety video into a source of entertainment, a music video.

There has been mixed feedbacks regarding their approach to differentiate its way of delivering airplane safety precautions.   The playfulness and humour used in the video catches the attention of viewers. However, does this approach lessen the seriousness of air safety issues?  Many companies have embraced entertainment as a new marketing strategy to capture the attention of their consumers.  There needs to be a boundary between entertainment and getting the right kind of message across.  Companies should be careful of overdoing the entertainment aspect in their advertising efforts and to not dilute the meaning of their message they are trying to get across. Poorly executed marketing campaigns compensate the meaning of the message to obtain the entertainment quality. It is easy to get carried away by online platforms such as YouTube to upload fast and cheap videos. It might gain consumer attention, but is it really the reputation a company wants to create for its brand?

I was taken back by this UN campaign. The issue of women’s right is still a lingering problem in our society whether we believe it or not.  With the help of Google’s hot search terms, it revealed the frightening reality of people’s perspective on women today.  This powerful and eye-opening campaign brings awareness of this issue, continuing to fight for women’s rights.  Aside from the serious message that this campaign ignites, the core of it all relied on Google trends.  Google trends can be applicable to all businesses.  The more a term is searched, the more likelihood that the term will appear on the automatic drop down list to evoke consumers to choose one of the following.   As we learned in class, the better content a web page has will likely result in organic search results. The organic searches are a result due to the relevancy of the search terms. Many companies strive to appear on the organic search engine opposed to non-organic search results, such as pay-per-click.   However, many companies fall short in their attempt to do so.  The following are tips to improve organic rankings:

• Research to see how competitive your keyword is
• Site content should be relevant
• Site should be easy to navigate
• Each page should have a specific focus

The higher the ranking of search terms will also translate to Google hot search terms, which will help drive traffic to sites.  Remember, the more relevant the content of your website is, the more pure (organic) your search results will be. Get out the advertisements and in with expert advice that users will go gugugaga about.

Many consumers are starting to enjoy the convenience of shopping at home via online shopping. In turn, retailers are taking advantage of this new trend to capture more market share.  Today, many retailers allow consumers to browse their products through an online shopping site that entitles consumers to purchase in a click of a few buttons. Frequent updates and advertisements on social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare consumers are encouraged to engage in online communities.  As a result of online marketing, retailers have enabled purchases to be made on the same page where consumers viewed the advertisement or help navigate consumers accordingly.  This sense of instant gratification is extremely tempting and satisfying to consumers on all levels of their wellbeing.

On the other hand, many consumers are skeptical to provide their credit card numbers online due to obvious reasons of security and testimonials of horrific past experiences.  For example, in the article, “Billing Blacklash Against Popular Online Shopping Site,” a young woman was charged with hidden membership fees that appeared on her bill a month after her actual purchase.  It is because of the actions of such retailers that many consumers have lost their sense of security to shop online.  With the online community becoming more dominant in all aspects of business, it is crucial for companies to be transparent and honest about their company policies in order to gain the trust of the established and building consumer bases.

Email Junk Mail Marketing

Companies that try to personify their brand through sending emails (email marketing) to consumer, as a friend would, is not ineffective, to say the least.

Do you feel more attached to a product that has your name on it? Consumer behaviour is often influenced by an emotional connection to a product or brand.  A consumer is more likely to purchase a product based on the degree of emotional connection to the brand, whether it be memories, or associations with the brand.  Many brands allow consumer to personalize/customize a product into to develop a deeper emotional connection with product.  It is proven that, if consumers feel more involved with a product, the likelihood of purchase increases. Personifying a brand, like how Professor Cubbon mentioned in class, also helps consumers create a sense of connection with the brand.

Today, we find more emails from headquarters of companies that are addressed to individuals. Being able to address someone by name, instead of sending out a generic impersonalized email leads to that deeper emotional connection with the brand that all companies long to achieve.  But somehow this “personalized” email, which businesses refer, as email marketing is somewhat disrespectful and intrusive.  Just because consumers leave their names and email addresses during a single purchase at the store, what gives them the right to spam them emails that they only bothered to change only one word of, the salutation.  The content of the email is evidently not catered to one’s individual needs, as her close friend received the identical emails. Companies should be strategic in the timing and content of their emails. I find it very misleading and humiliated to be excited about an email that’s addressed to me, but only to find out that, it was just  computer generated.  Retailers should either just send out generic emails addressed to the general public or spend more time catering content to valued consumers. For consumers who are not enthusiastic about companies that use email marketing, remember, there’s always the “unsubscribe” button, so make good use of it!

Social media is an expensive way to reach out to consumers compared to traditional advertisements. Video hits on social media platforms, one such as YouTube can attract millions of views in matter of minutes, or even seconds.  This low cost advertising is especially beneficial to non-profit organizations that have constrained budgets.  Through social media, these organizations can extend their messages to more people in a shorter span of time, with less cost, or virtually no monetary cost. A non-profit organization in Los Angeles has done exactly that. The non-profit is social marketing with social media.  The goal of the organization is to stop bullying by educating and empowering students to take action.  With the focus on cyberbullying, as more and children are gained easy access to online chat forums, which put victims at higher risks. Bullying has been reported as a fear in many children, their reason for not attending school, developing disorders and even committing suicide. Can the power of social media really put an end to bullying? Many people talk about bullying, but not many people take action. After just five months of launching the app for smartphones about bullying, it reached over 50,000 users. Be More Heroic is a program that helps create service projects with teaching focused on bullying, which has been implemented in schools throughout the U.S. and still continues to expand. At this pace of exposure, student empowerment to take action in issues of bullying will increase. It is amazing to see the power of social media, the ability to reach and educate individuals.

Many companies use animals in their advertisements to capture consumers.  For example, Telus is known for their animal presence in commercials.    While Charmin Ultra, a bathroom tissue brand uses cartoon bears as its signature logo, which also appears in commercials. These cute fluffy animals, do they really have an effect on consumers’ purchase behavior? Recently, Mercedes Benz used a chicken in its YouTube commercial to promote its automobile’s Body Magic feature.  A pair of human hands, left to right and up and down, contrived the chicken.  The 53-second clip made me cringe, as I doubted such a luxurious brand’s motive. Mercedes Benz took advantage of cheap social media advertising and manipulated a helpless animal. YouTube has helped Mercedes Benz attract over one million views in short four days.  The attention such advertisement received is quite disturbing. Some viewers may have found the commercial to be “brilliant,” but the use of a chicken to demonstrate the mechanics of a car is unjustified.   The time and effort, if any, that was spent on the idea and execution of the “Body Magic Control” TV commercial was indeed a novel way.  However, the manipulation of a chicken can’t be overlooked. Companies need to find more ethnical ways to advertise their products. Does watching a helpless chicken really entice consumers to purchase?  Has Mercedes Benz captured you?

I’ve never liked sending photos of myself to others, even upon request. I know once I send the photo, its pretty much under their possession FOREVER. This feeling for me is a daunting one. However, it wasn’t long ago when my friends introduced me to an app—Snapchat. This app allows users to take photos (or record videos) and decide whom they want to share it with. But what makes this app unique is that, you also decide on the length you wish to share the photo, ranging from one to ten seconds. Once the time is up, the photo disappears! Through this app, my friends and I have shared many “laugh till you cry” moments and kept one another up-to-date on daily happenings. Personally, I do enjoysending and receiving Snapchats. I think it’s the thrill and excitement of opening every Snapchat, even a short-lived five second goofy face shot can add another smile count to my day. Although Snapchat has the function where it allows users to take screenshots of the photos, but I’ve never had to worry about that. I think it’s just a common courtesy and respect amongst my friends that comes naturally.

However, like all other things, people will eventually abuse it. An intentionally friendly app can turn into a nightmare. There are links to pages where people post “leaked” Snapchats, which you could’ve guessed, inappropriate ones. As a result, Snapchatting has being a thing of worry to many parents. This NBC article addresses this issue and Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat reiterates the original purpose of the creation.
Ultimately, I believe that the users of an app are the ones responsible of destruction of it’s reputation, straying away from what the creator intended the purpose to be. It is the content that people choose to send, the inconsiderate actions, and upright carelessness that turns an intentionally good thing, such as Snapchat, into a “bad” thing.