Article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/abercrombie-reputation-ceo-comments_n_3288836.html

WATCH watch?v=fwDTBEsdiVI (Ellen says ‘Fitch Please’)

source: http://cdn.madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/abercrombie-fitch.jpg

‘Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong (in our clothes), and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.’ After the interview with CEO Mike Jeffries went public, shares dropped and many complains were received.

It was originally a good idea to shape the business encouraging nice body shapes, together with hot models at shops, it made a great marketing effect. However Mike made a mistake by telling an unspoken secret- wrongly defining plus size women are not beautiful and Abercrombie doesn’t welcome them (ie. not offering XL & XXL women size), this argument was also brought out in another classmates blog youre-too-fat-to-wear-our-clothes, and both Tessa and I mentioned it greatly affected the image of the company and harmed their reputation.

Abercrombie lost the battle against H&M and American Eagle because they did not showed concern in balance of their ethics and value proposition. They succeed as a distinguishable brand for young and fit teenagers, however they are sending other customers away because they offended them by stating the wrong standard of beauty. Abercrombie would have made much more business if they amplify their shared value by showing respect to all customers.

source: http://24.media.tumblr.com/1863291972964b72a1b376c430cb6006/tumblr_mmicijbOKe1qzaot3o1_500.jpg

Article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/celebrities-on-miley-cyrus_n_4059851.html

source: http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/will-smith-family-vmas.jpg

Many of us are shocked by the Miley Cyrus twerking. From an innocent pop princess to a ‘twerk-loving’ lady, it may seem too fast.

For me, I see it as a good image transformation. Miley Cyrus is telling us she is no longer the Disney princess anymore, she simply needs to grow up and be a celebrity. Keeping a healthy image with Disney might perhaps capture some teenager’s heart, however this creates a hurdle on her career path. She lacks exposure to media and things for people to talk about.  What Miley is working on is not simply growing up, her ultimate goal is to transform her image to a more ‘profitable’ one. Through media exposure and dominating news headlines, she upgrades her music and popularity to a new level. Recall what Britney Spears, Madonna, or Lady Gaga is doing, they all went through the same process to reach new heights.

WATCH watch?v=Wq1b6k2QCzY (Interview with Kevin Hart)

I believe same concepts apply to other business as well, changing or modifying of image can expand your customer segments, which enables you to develop more product lines.

Article http://www.cnbc.com/id/101159548

WATCH watch?v=cnzbZ2RA4qQ (Crest Halloween Candy Ad)

As a company selling Dental Hygiene product, I think they made a gimmick which violates common perception however in lined with their value proposition- a dental health. From this, I learn that conglomerate development of products helps to build better advertising effect; people see toothpaste and candy contradicts, so they would be interested to know how is candy made healthy.

source: http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2013-10/enhanced/webdr06/23/20/anigif_enhanced-buzz-6127-1382574342-0.gif

Subsequently, I noticed the importance of sincere customer feedbacks. The usual practice of companies would be collecting feedbacks from the general population-any gender, age, background etc through massive online surveys. However, it is the most sincere comment that attracts potential customers to take reference from. In the case of Crest, they invited a few innocent kids to talk about what they feel about the healthy candies at a live studio, which a company analyst records their comments. It was funny and enjoyable to see children expressing their direct feeling about the product, and this is also why audience are interested to know what the candies will actually taste like. The feedback from children may not be positive to boost business, however it won the heart of all customers as they used the little angels as their indirect advertisement.

source: http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/526e6460ecad047030237800/crest-gave-kids-healthy-halloween-candy-and-they-hated-it-the-brief.jpg

Article http://www.cnbc.com/id/101169369

source: http://img3.joyreactor.com/pics/post/full/comics-superman-actiontrip-photo-808083.jpeg

This is the magic of Instagram. We can see people taking pictures every day, and putting them up on Instagram to get likes. It became a social trend.

It is popular for people to take photos of every bits of their life, but while we joke about them, you see a picture from another friend, who took selfie at a funeral, hash tagging #life goes on#…that would’ve been your most miserable moment.

Not to mention the immaturity of youngsters, the power of social media nowadays holds a strong force in the society. Photos are uploaded no longer because people wanted to share their happiest moments, but because of the function ‘likes’, the main incentive.

WATCH watch?v=la088KtPpyo&feature=youtube_gdata (taking food photos at restaurants- Vine)

In light of that, I believe many companies are making use of this powerful marketing strategy to boost their exposure opportunities, especially those who are arriving new industries, the first step they take would usually be conquering social media platforms. They made use of penetrating power- people stalking on others and things they like whenever they are free,‘liking’ and gaining ‘likes’.

Social medias such as Facebook and Instagram had partly changed the form and purpose of sharing, overloaded with all sorts of advertisements, they might possibly pollute the original function of social platforms, and the marketing effect may diminish.