Month: January 2012

While we were on the topic of Markets and Media in class on Monday, this advertisement came to my mind and it striked me how such a simple advertisement aptly catered to and addressed the target market. It all started with a video that went viral on youtube,which gathered 41 million and counting views. Visa then took the opportunity and rode on the popularity of this video – together with simple taglines “In Singapore without a dollar, In Japan without a Yen, etc” it conveyed the message that they wanted to give their viewers/target audience so clearly! At the end of the commercial – you know that Visa allows you to travel freely without having to worry about currency exchange. With such an advertisement which appeals to everyone, the young, the old, business people, families, it vastly increases their target market. In addition, since travelling is becoming commonplace in this globalised world, having a Visa card aptly addresses the needs of the people today. To me, I think a good advertisement must fulfill 2 objectives: 1) The message must be conveyed clearly across to the audience, 2) It has to appeal to the audience, and in my opinion, Visa did a great job on this one.

Through this, I’ve also learnt the importance of knowing and understanding your target market, doing the necessary research on them, as it will have an impact on the effectiveness of the advertisements, promotions and marketing strategies of the firm. The choice of advertising medium plays an important role too. Since their target audience is basically everyone who is of age to own a credit card, they showed it on television and uploaded it onto the internet which has a greater outreach as compared to newspaper ads/magazines.

Ending this post with the original video of “Where the Hell is Matt” – Matt Harding in 14 Months, 42 Countries

Hello!! Its strange how I’ve had this blog since last year but I haven’t formally introduced myself! My name is Elizabeth Zhang, 2nd Year Commerce student studying in the Sauder School of Business in UBC. I’m from a sunny island called Singapore, which is 10000 miles away from Vancouver! My hobbies include playing squash, iceskating, and shopping! The reason why I’m taking Marketing is simple, I want to learn more about it and what it requires, the brain behind all the advertisements we see on print media, how do we reach out to our target audience with an impact etc. If we take a closer look, we find that marketing has a strong presence and impact on our daily lives – the television advertisements, newspaper ads, posters we see all around campus. Being a consumer, I have been a victim of guerilla marketing strategies which urges me to buy things that I do not need. Apple’s marketing strategy intrigues me. Everytime Apple introduces a new product (eg, the iPad2), the way they market their product implants this “NEED TO HAVE IT” seed in the minds of their consumers and thus, their products sell like hotcakes. I hope to have a better idea of marketing at the end of this course and understand how consumers tick 🙂