A Wider Perspective

Having seen and read numerous blogs of fellow marketing classmates, I decided to extend the search and look at some very well established marketing blogs – ones that made it onto Forbes Top 50 list!

The blog that really stood out to me was Church of the Customer.  The blog really focuses on what I think is the most interesting part of marketing – the  consumer!  Marketing strategies can be overly fancy and elaborate.  But, at the end of the day, they’ll mean nothing if they don’t resonate with their market.  In the blog’s latest post on April 1, they introduce a very whimsical idea that recently launched – FanAuction.  FanAuction is a marketplace where businesses and buy and sell their social media fans.  So for instance, twitter followers and facebook “like-ers”.  With the dramatic impact social media has on a company nowadays, perhaps FanAuction will be a big hit for all businesses since everyone is looking for more followers and a larger market!

Watch this to understand the blog post!

Hype and build up around a product is a good thing – it is word of mouth marketing and it creates motivation for a consumer to buy and try out a product.  However, a hype too big has reverse effects, especially if the product doesn’t live up to the hype.

My friends and I have a love for the TIM TAM SLAM! The sensation in your mouth when the chocolate reacts with the hot tea is this volcano explosion on your tongue that takes your taste buds to a whole other universe.  The other day, we introduced the TIM TAM SLAM to another friend of ours, she had no idea what it was.  Naturally, we hyped up the experience and made it comparable to no other.  We described it as “out of this world” and some of us couldn’t even finish out sentences.  The conversation went something like this “you have to try it, oh my gosh its the most amazing thing in the WORLD.  You just…oh my gosh its just so good!!!!”

The hype was there and when our friend tried her first ever TIM TAM SLAM and we all awaited in anticipation to see her reaction – she, much to our disappointment, said “oh that’s it? Its good but you guys built it up WAY too much”  Our excitement and slight overreaction to the product ruined the product and experience for our friend who tried the product with extremely high expectations.  Just something to think about and to keep our marketing minds rolling 🙂

Last week I fell into the trap of a marketing strategy.  I was picking up a few daily essentials from Superstore by myself, and not having brought any cash with me, my purchase was going to be billed on my debit.  In other words, straight from my savings account.  So being the money cautious university student, every dollar I spent mattered.  I undoubtedly did some serious price comparing.

Unaware of how much my body lotion usually costs, I was appalled at how much my mom usually spends on moisturizer that I use up like water.  I spent a good few minutes contemplating whether I should wait for a sale, and trying to decipher which bottle size would be a better deal.  My eyes scanned and without much wandering, landed on a medium sized bottle that was priced at probably HALF the price of what I first saw.  I grabbed the bottle right away and continued with the rest of my shopping.

After amusing myself at the self checkout, I went home.  And as I was packing away my newly bought items at home, I realized that I did not in fact buy Aveeno moisturizer.  Rather, I bought an imposter brand that looked pretty much exactly the same – the bottle shape, the colour, the layout of the label.  Basically, everything other than the company name was exactly identical to the Aveeno brand I’m used to purchasing.

And again, being the time poor university student, I gave the bottle to my mom for her to use, and she bought me the real Aveeno bottle, at full price.  The traps we all fall into…

After a week of midterms and assignments, I allowed myself to unwind and indulge in a guilty pleasure – watching beautiful people find love on television.  I’ll be the first to admit I follow the Bachelor series perhaps a little to closely.  But through all this television drama and romance, I managed to pick up a marketing trend – the importance of the target market.

The Bachelor/Bachelorette aims at an audience who want to watch a fairytale ending to a love story.  The dates they go on are filled with romantic surprises and the women are always prim and proper while the men are true gentlement.  On the fifth season of the Bachelorette, fans were introduced to Wes Hayden – the notorious bad boy of the show.  He was a blooming texas musician, who came onto the show to gain fame and fortune.  He played the heart of the Bachelorette who gave up everything to find love.  He made it to the top 4, all the while having a girlfriend and left the show saying “I’m in Spain..and ever’body’s gonna know ma name”.  Fans of the show hated on Wes as he didn’t fit the gentlemanly ideal that they are expecting from the show.  He was labeled as reality tv’s greatest villain!

However, half a year later, the Bachelor came up with a spin off called the Bachelor Pad.  In this show, popular rejects from the Bachelor and Bachelorette were placed in a house together to compete for money and perhaps find lust along the way.  The show was a “trashier” take on the Bachelor.  Wes was on this show as well, and wooed girls with the same song he used on the Bachelorette.  However, because of different expectations, he became a fan favourite quite quickly!  Viewers found him dreamy and swooned over his bad boy image.  His music career skyrocketed afterward as well!

So the importance of your target market really DOES make a huge difference! Not only in selling products, but in selling yourself..or someone else.  Nonetheless, lets end the post with the song that notorious Bad Boy Wes Hayden broke and won millions of hearts with:

I think we’ve all been let down by an advertisement before.  Its definitely not the greatest feeling in the world – disappointed and in a warring debate on whether to still purchase the item because you’ve waited a good while for it!

The topic of false advertising was brought up in my friend, Jordon Leung’s, blog.

He mentions the let down faced when eating KFC, the picture portrays an image of crispy tender chicken pieces.  But in real life, it is, for lack of better words, a muddle of grease and fat.  False advertising is really a turn off for consumers and decreases a customer’s loyalty to a company.  Having worked as a sales associate, I have been on the other side of false advertising and have seen the disappointment and anger of a customer.  I used to work at Aritzia and during Boxing Day, misleading advertisements are used extensively every year.  For instance, among an island of expensive hoodies and a couple of socks, there would be a huge sign saying “up to 30% off!” (the up to being in fine print, obviously).  In reality, however, only the socks are selling for 30% off, the high demand hoodies are actually only reduced by five dollars.  I’ve noticed the different customer reactions to such advertisements: some scoff and laugh at the sillyness of the trick, some are angry, while others unwillingly still pay for the product.  Either way, they’re not happy!

I completely agree with Jordon in that ethics should play a huge role in marketing.  Yes, there are legal boundaries, but the consumer should also be respected and considered beyond those boundaries.

Its no secret that all the second year Commerce students in Sauder were cramming, writing cheat sheets and all around fussing over their latest Statistics midterm.  We complained about not understanding funny greek alphabet signs like “miu” and “alpha”, to name a few.  Moaning and groaning about wishing we paid attention in class, kept up with our readings, and so on, we turned to outside resources hoping to help us.  A few students stumbled upon a website called Khan Academy – a teaching website that provides tutorial videos on various university topics, introduction to statistics being one of them.  This website covered every topic on the midterm and presented it in a simple and practical manner.  Soon enough, the beauty and power of this website spread like wild fire. Khan links were posted on facebook, students were playing the videos in class and during their breaks and links of the website were sent in lots of mass emails.

In addition to learning about statistics these last few days, I also realized the power of “word of mouth”.  The Khan Academy website didn’t have to do anything but provide a practical and useful service.  But because of their high quality service, their users did their marketing for them!  Students passed on the word and sold the website with phrases such as “Khan is God” and “I watched Khan and he saved my life!”.  Further, as a user of “Khan”, I have already found my self subconsciously recommending the website to other students and telling first years about the calculus tutorials they have.  Word of mouth truly is a powerful source, if marketers can claim advocacy in their target market, the rest should sort itself out.

It seems like google has been able to integrate itself quite successfully in every part of anyone’s life.  Talk about successful expansion plans! Its new initiative – weddings!  And just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Google has set up a specific google doc that plans every wedding from start to finish – save the date cards, wedding favours, invitation bookings.  You name it, they have a plan for you! Now all couples can have a wedding planner without forking out a couple thousand dollars, if not more!  Once again, google has come to save the day with its advanced and easy to use technology.  They have established an ever trustworthy brand name, and their constant creativity and innovation just expands their market.

An article summing this all up: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8317667/Get-married-with-Google-Weddings.html

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, EVERYONE!

After spending last night researching for my marketing project, I was reinforced that Lululemon has indeed built a culture and signature for its brand. Lululemon is more than the omega signed brand that sells perhaps the most comfortable and stretchy groove pants. It embraces and sells a culture, a lifestyle that almost everyone wants to be a part of. The brand gives off an image of a hip, healthy and athletic west-coaster. It doesn’t matter whether the consumer of these groove pants is a 20 year old yoga instructor in Kitstilano or a single mother of two. At the end of the day, sporting pants with that logo will make the individual feel urban and fit – an image that our society praises, an image that everyone tries to emulate.
So how does all this tie into Sociology? Sociology is built around two strong theories – socialization and the need to belong. In sense, sociologists believe that all humans start off as a clean slate. But as they grow and develop, they are “drawn on” by society, and through that, humans build their personality and characteristics. Further, all humans have a need to belong – a desire to be accepted, to feel part of a social group. They will act a certain way, talk a certain way, and dress a certain way. But how do we, as humans, know what is socially acceptable? Through marketing! Through channels such as the media and advertisements, we are able to gauge what will make us popular. If the marketing tactics for a certain brand or image is strong enough, it will be socially accepted. Thus, the majority of us humans with a need to belong will purchase anything (clothes, jewelry, underwear, etc.) to fit in and be socially “cool”.

It has been another week of marketing class.  And with every class, I begin to really feel the hands on element of this course.  Perhaps it is because we got to meet up with our groups and have started to talk about our first assignment – but also because there is a section of marketing I find relevant to my personal interests.  I find marketing ideas or philosophies fascinating – especially when it is used for a charitable cause.  MADD, Stay Active and Anti-Bullying are only a few of the campaigns that have really secured a stance in the media.

Last night, as I was surfing through Youtube videos, another marketing strategy related light bulb went off in my head.  I was catching up and re-watching some of my favourite WongFu Production videos and  came across “The Allergy”.  The short video is a non-smoking campaign.  In short, the storyline is as follows: the main character is dating a very attractive girl.  However, there is a catch.  Every time he smokes, the smoke fumes cause her to turn into nothing but an odd looking little Asian boy – giving the main character every reason to quit smoking.  The video ends with the line – “what’s YOUR reason?”  This video demonstrates how marketing can be used for charitable ideas and initiatives.  WongFu Productions used their resources of humour and film production to send an important message to their target market – youth and young adults.  With the peer pressure that youth face today, they can often be pressured into smoking.  However, by using the right marketing tactics, WongFu managed to make smoking unattractive, “un-cool”, and most importantly – stupid.

Marketing has an immense amount of power and effect on consumers – so why not use that power and gear it toward a good cause!

I walked into my first Comm 296 class, a week and a half ago, thinking that marketing was only about posters, advertisements – and selling products only through these select channels.  But then it struck me that these aren’t the ONLY channels of marketing.  There are lots of times I stumbled upon a product or store and decided to purchase based solely on the appearance.  A prime example of this is Anthropologie – a store that I first came across a few years ago during a visit to Las Vegas.  Being a truly Vancouver based shopper, Anthropologie, even being quite  large retail chain, was a foreign brand to me.  But their prime location in Caesar’s Palace’s Forum Shops caught my eye right away – their window displays was full of detailing.  And within seconds of entering the store, I was mesmerized by the homey appearance and layout and the soothing fragrances that filled the store.  The clothes and the decorations complemented in each other.  The clothing section was like being in a huge walk in closet, the baths section was like being in a fully equipped bathroom.  In sense, the store felt like an elaborate version of what I dream my house to be in the future.  And with some further research, I learned that Anthropologie doesn’t have a marketing budget.  Rather, the money that would go toward marketing goes toward store decorations.  And that really confirmed the point that, marketing IS indeed everywhere.  It isn’t just posters or ads, its about finding anything about an item or service that has selling value.