Month: February 2011

I’m sure we’ve all taken public transit. I’m also sure we’ve all notice the green and white advertisement, with the initials UNBC on either a bus or train.

Yes, UNBC stands for University of Northern British Columbia, in Prince George. We might have been observant and noticed what it stood for, but have we looked at the ad clearly?

UNBC’s main strategy is comparing it’s geographical location with Vancouver, and seemingly their campus with UBC (or any other campuses here in the Greater Vancouver Region). They have a clear position they want to establish in our minds; an easy to remember tagline, and a very strong brand. UNBC is Canada’s green university.

Their location, choice of color, lifestyle etc, resembles a laid back country life, strongly contrasting with UBC, and probably other universities here in Vancouver. They also emphasize on their size, their closeness with nature and “the great outdoors”. Furthermore, they try to promote the advantages of their characteristic towards people in the city, and that’s probably the reason why they place their ads in train stations and buses.

What makes it even more obvious is a huge picture of their campus, over seeing a lake, with miles and miles of trees in the background. A scene rarely seen in cities, unleashing the outdoor side of anyone who looks at the ads. This is how UNBC positions itself, and this is how they compensate for their deficiency in academic competency (UNBC is very research oriented).

I’m sure many had heard of groupon. It’s an interesting idea actually. Deals are negotiated, and then confirmed with a certain amount of people buys the “coupons” to these deals. They frequently come up with videos describing themselves and what they do.

Their videos are humorous, except for this one:

Clearly, this video has not been receiving much “likes” from Youtubers who claimed that it was racist and inappropriate.

People in North America seem to be very passionate about what’s going on in Tibet and shouting “Free Tibet” every so often. They usually have no knowledge about Tibet and just follow whatever is being spread and said on the internet. I won’t go on commenting, this post is not about that.

Anyway, marketers often seem to integrate their products with hot topics that are going on during the moment. This video is an example, some tweet about Egyptians hearing rumours about a new product line of some season from some fashion firm is another. These marketers make serious mistakes. Firstly they probably know nothing about these global issues that people around care so much about, and second, these “advertisements” often back fire and create a huge mess.

There are so many more ways to make people remember your brand and product besides using a political turbulences in other countries. To be honest, the US and Canada aren’t very peaceful nations as well. No one is in place to judge or criticise another country, culture or group of people, especially for the purpose of marketing.

As we all know, PETA (People for the Ethnical Treatment of Animals) is an animal rights organisation.

Over the years, they’ve promoted themselves, and animals rights in a soft sell method. Such as revealing how animals are slaughtered in brochures, informing people that millions of chickens and cows can be saved if we cut our meat consumption by 50%. Many of us would subconsciously group these campaigns with other marketing campaigns and somewhat pay no attention to them. This is normal.

I guess PETA realised that they have to come up with a better method to attract (lots of) people’s attention. After they’ve done that, they’ll have to persuade them not to eat meat. And of course, just like anyone that keep up with the modern world would know that there’s no better to do this than a viral video. Below is a video released by PETA, showing how animals are dealt with before they’re served in Mcdonalds or KFC or wherever they’re shipped to.

This video caught so much attention when it was first released, though I know some people are not affected, I actually know friends who turned vegan after this video. Whether this video converted people into vegetarians is not the point. What makes this campaign successful is the amount of attention it received, and ultimately, raise awareness. Would you turn vegan after watching this video? Maybe not, but it does make you think twice before ordering a double sausage McMuffin, or not finishing your chicken burger.