I agree with my classmate Brenton’s blog that mobile phone marketing is very  important in a society where smart phones are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and marketers need to find ways to successfully advertise their products on these devices.

But is whispering the targeted ads directly into the user’s ear the way to go?

This is what a tentative Google phone service plans to do. Through a voice recognition software, the service can detect key words in users conversations and then verbally suggest products or services as needed. People who get this feature would get their phone bills reduced and their phones nearly for free. While this sounds great considering cellphone bills tend to be very high, I can see many concerns arising with the launch of this service. This automated whispering advertisement seems very intrusive, I wouldn’t want a second voice talking over me while I’m trying to talk to someone else. Also there are safety and privacy concerns to take into consideration as people would feel they are being recorded or their conversations being kept in databases.

Another cost-cutting service google is looking into is a software that calls members from your phone’s contact lists and delivers them with advertisements in a voice that mimics your own. This is just plain weird… it’s like automated telemarketers except that with your voice.

Although these are a very direct and personalized way of advertising, I believe it is ultimately a bad idea and marketers need to find other creative forms of reaching their smartphone-clad audience.

Looking at my classmates’ blogs I came across Wereda’s blog post about Sparkles, a Beverly Hills- based bakery that dispenses cupcakes the same way an ATM machine dispenses money, just with a swipe of a card. I think this is a very interesting and creative marketing concept; not only is it convenient and appealing to customers, but it reduces costs for Sparkles as they don’t have to pay rent and utilities for a shop nor pay for personnel to operate it. Sparkles main concern would only be having appropriate distribution channels to make sure inventory is re-stocked and fresh every day.

Interested with this strategy, I started researching other companies that might be doing the same, and I found Redobox. They are an American company that specializes in the rental of DVD and blue ray movies and video games through automated retail kiosks located in pharmacies, and convenience stores across the country. The machines are stocked with around 600 DVDs, so you select the the movie you want to rent, pay with your credit card, get the dvd dispensed, and then you can return it to any kiosk when you are done watching it. Simple AND cheap, as the rental price are as low as a $1.

This trend toward automated retailing provides a huge opporunity for companies to access customers that are looking for a new interactive and convenient way to shop, and I can only imagine that this trend will become even more popular in the future.

I found Simrat’s blog on Toddler’s and Tiaras and I agree with her that it is very unethical to target young children with messages of wearing revealing clothing and makeup or being thin. This creates an unhealthy body image at a time they should be worrying about coluring inside the lines and not on how they look. Reading further about related topics I came across an article that said how girls as young as five where admitted to the hospital to be treated for severe anorexia. FIVE! That is just so appalling to think someone so young is so concerned about their eating habits. I don’t even remember what I did at age five, but it would be something along the lines of playing with dolls and stuffing my face with chocolate or any other sweets I could get my pudgy hands on. The question here is who’s to blame? Is it the parents or the media?

While the parents carry most of the fault (like the psycho mothers on ‘Toddelers and Tiaras”), the media piles fire to the problem.A prime example is this is a book I found “Maggie Goes on a Diet” that is listed in Barnes and Nobles to be aimed at  6-12 year olds Not to judge a book by it’s cover or anything, but it seems like a VERY bad idea to market this book to such a young crowd! Who in their right mind would buy this for their six year old?

As many other examples show, media has a huge influence on girls and thus advertisement should be more careful of the messages they indorse and be more aware of the negative impact they have on young impressionable minds. Things like “Maggie Goes on a Diet” should be banned so it would never reach any bookshelf.

While you might be thinking something along the lines of Dorito’s or Cheetos, the answer in this case is CARROTS! As we saw in class, carrots have been started to be marketed as junk food… a very healthy one, that is.

Because this, looks more attractive than a carrot packages found in the vegetable aisle in the supermarket…

Marketing is all about looks and packaging. You can practically take any regular thing, place it in a nice box or bag, put up some ads that makes it attractive, and BAM the product sells. Take carrots for example, who wouldn’t want to eat carrots if they were cut into french fries or ritz cracker shapes, even if at the end they are still simply carrots? Another option is packaging them into chip-like bags, to give customers the similar feeling of munching on their favorite junk food snacks.

Another product I found with a similar marketing idea, are these gourmet freeze-dried fruit and vegetable snacks with no preservatives or chemicals added called Eat Your Heart Out. With a punny tittle, these snacks also appeal to the idea that eating healthy can be fun and have marketed their product in an eye-catching package design that could be confused for junk food. Here is their website.

With increasingly more health conscious individuals, this might work! Marketers of these products should target young children as well as their mothers and promote it within schools so that they are included in their lunch menus. By “sugar-coating” fruits and veggies to seem fun and hip by creative packaging, children and teens will be more willing to eat healthy, instead of looking at it as a chore. While this blog goes too far by saying that baby carrots might replace candies and other fattening snacks in trick-or-treating, we are very far from that and marketers should be content to limiting them for stuffing lunch boxes, not halloween bags.  Regardless, this trend might pose as an interesting opportunity for fruit and vegetable farmers and distributors to differentiate themselves from their many competitors.

While cookie monster wouldn’t agree to the idea, this trend toward healthier snaking is definitely the way to go!

Hi!

My name is Elena and I’m very excited to be taking Marketing! Even though this class is a requirement that everyone in the commerce program has to take, I would have still taken it as I am very interested in marketing and have even considered pursuing a marketing career. I’ve always been fascinated with the whole psychological aspect of marketing; taping into human thoughts and desires to extract what products different people need and would buy and how to market these products to them. I’m also very creative, and I randomly find myself creating ad ideas, slogans and even jingles. Unfortunately I haven’t had any job experience with marketing, only as a consumer, but I would really like to intern in either a marketing or advertisement firm. Still I feel that everyone has worked and has personal experience with marketing, but not necessarily for a job. For example, in my opinion, each of us is a ‘product’ and we strive to market ourselves to look good to others, whether it be for a job interview or a date.

We have been bombarded with advertisements since a really small age, and with the progress of technology, through various different distribution channels. Taking this into consideration, I think it would be EXTREMELY hard to tell you which ad is my favourite or which ad has had the biggest impact on me. I can only say I tend to like funny, witty or very creative ads and commercials that grab your attention immediately; those you actually enjoy watching and even maybe make you giggle.

Here are some websites were I found some ads I thought were clever, not that I have seen any in real life

http://funny-advertising-pictures.blogspot.com/

http://weburbanist.com/2010/01/11/creative-billboard-advertising-campaigns/

I also enjoy ipod commercials. They have a geniously simple concept, but its really catchy and they were very effective.