I am a huge LA Dodgers fan and was quite disgusted at their recent choice of spokesperson to represent the Dodger brand. The Dodgers went through bankruptcy not that long ago and they took on the new slogan “A Whole New Blue” to represent their change to a new team with new ownership that wants to win.

The reason that I do not agree with their choice of spokesperson is because the market that listens to Justin Beiber is not the market that the Dodgers are focusing on. There is also the fact that I do not like Justin Beiber and do not believe he has any more talent than any other singer or dancer that I have ever meet. Justin Beiber’s target market consists of a younger demographic and usually contains girls. The Dodgers have a much larger target market, but this does not quite often include children or young teens as they are not the ones buying the expensive baseball tickets to Dodger Stadium or signing up for MLB.TV. It would have been much more beneficial for the team to hire someone like Jay-Z or Rihanna or someone else who ALSO have a much larger target market that overlaps with the target market for the Dodgers.

Many other teams have chosen to have spokespersons for their teams, but these include high level rockstars. I have not met a single fellow Dodgers fan who thinks that this advertising is anything to be proud of and quite honestly I believe with respect to advertising, we have become the laughing stock of Major League Baseball. You would think that a team in such a high quality advertising location (Los Angeles) would be able to hire someone with some common sense.

http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63677-denny-s-from-roadside-diner-to-digital

This is in response to a blog written by Christopher Ratcliff on Econsultancy: Digital Marketing Excellence.

It is a blog about how Denny’s restaurant company has embraced the online world with its website. Chris gives Denny’s praise on its ability to target its older target market by having a website that is easy to navigate and user friendly. He also praises how the company is smart to create partnership with The Lord of the Rings Franchise to attract new customers to the company.

I agree with the author of this blog on his opinions on how Denny’s is joining in on the future of marketing. Denny’s is doing a great job of being active on social media, like Facebook and twitter, as well as interacting with its customers on its social media sites. It allows Denny’s some free or low-cost advertising to a large amount of customers, who would tend to be of a younger demographic. Denny’s has historically been about its 24-hour diner policy and has maintained a customer base who would see this as a positive aspect of the business. To ensure that the company continues to be relevant in the future with a younger generation, the company has increased marketing in areas where the younger generation will see the marketing efforts. As already stated, the company also maintained an easy-to-use website for an older generation that is still maintained as a major segment of the market for Denny’s. This type of segmentation and targeting that Denny’s has done with regards to its online presence will ensure that the company does well in the distant future.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kami/

I am writing a response to Kamila’s blog on the ethics of McDonalds advertising that is targeted towards children. The advertising on the blog of the baby eating the burger was quite eye-catching. It reminds me of McDonalds food, which instantly made me hungry for McDonalds and I had the instant urge to go to McDonalds and get some food. As Kamila noted, this may be one of the side effects of having eaten McDonalds from such a young age. I was one of those children who had birthdays at McDonalds and who grew up eating the food from a young age. I do have this certain affection towards the food that the company produces.

I do not necessarily see the negative side effects of McDonalds targeting children. That is as long as the children understand that it is not something that is meant to be eaten on a daily basis and that the food is not as healthy as many other types of food. As long as the parents are able to pass that message along to the children, then I believe from personal experience that it is not exactly unethical to target young children.

It is just like any other business that attempts to attract certain customers so that as those customers gain more income with age, they are more likely to retain those customers. Many other companies do it (we talked about the fridge company with college students), yet McDonalds may seem unethical because its food is not as healthy as other foods on the market. People make conscious decisions about where they go to eat and what they eat and it should not be blamed on McDonalds if someone wants to eat themselves to death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S-snuCDBXc (Southwest Commercial)

This Southwest airlines commercial is made to show that the customer comes first in its business model. This may sound weird as Southwest Airlines is an airline stuck under the title of “Low-Cost Airline” with brands such as Allegiant Airlines and Spirit Airlines. Southwest Airlines is more of a second cousin within the family, so sick of the other members in the family farting at the table and giving the family as a whole a bad reputation. Southwest’s customer excellence speaks for itself. It is the reason that millions of people have chosen to return as customers to the airline and make it the largest domestic US airline. This customer excellence even overshadows the airlines proud history of operational excellence. As they say, flattery is the best form of imitation, and Southwest has many other businesses attempting to imitate its business plan and has for years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XYtGYrQeV4 (United Commercial)

United Airlines on the other hand is an airline so bad in customer service that it can be grouped in with Air Canada (excuse the opinion). Even the commercial does not show the customers or emphasize the employees at the airline. That may be because they are not an airline know for good customer service. In fact, most of the United commercials that I could find are about there destinations or there size and not about the people.

My point being that maybe some of these companies that are lacking in customer excellence need to look at what some other companies like Southwest are doing. Southwest has been making profit for years, including the previous three years (through the economic downturn). United on the other hand had to merge with Continental Airlines a couple years ago to get away from bankruptcy. Customer excellence goes a long way and Southwest will show you that.

Ryanair has a long history of being on the front page of the news with some kind of hysterical statement or action, usually from its eccentric CEO Michael O’Leary. He has been known to be arrogant, eccentric, and outspoken. The main question is whether this is actually good for business or not.

The saying goes “Any publicity is good publicity”, and Ryanair and Michael O’Leary are true followers of this mentality. Brand Awareness for Ryanair is extremely high especially for the price sensitive consumer who can travel for as low as 14.5 Euros. When people choose to fly Ryanair, they know that they will get the ultimate no-frills service and will be forced to pay for any extra services, which include printing your boarding passes at the airport, having bags with you, credit card purchases, etc. This is especially efficient during times like this when there are still the lingering effects of the economic recession.

Michael O’Leary uses the newspapers to obtain free advertising for Ryanair with his outrageous comments. He has been seen at news conferences saying that his new business class will offer FREE BLOWJOBS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfIY24BErBE) and that the airline will begin charging money for people to use the bathrooms (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1263905/Ryanair-toilet-charges-phased-in.html). The newspapers and media outlets eat this up and he is constantly on the front page of the newspaper or Internet, thus receiving free advertising from these media outlets. I believe that because Ryanair’s competitive advantage over other airlines is its cheap fares, this free advertising is good for business. The people that want to fly Ryanair are people with a transactional orientation towards the company and only want to pay the lowest fare possible.

This marketing strategy has not pleased everyone as many people have boycotted the airline and thus do not feel that the abrasive marketing strategy is worth the money saved when they fly the airline.

At the end of the day though, this strategy must be working as Ryanair saw a 4% increase in passengers flown. They are Europe’s largest low-cost airline with around 80 million passengers flown annually (2012). The second largest low-cost airline, EasyJet, flew around 60 million passengers (2012). So this strategy may not work for everyone, but it is working really well for Ryanair and there market.