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10 min posts

sparklies, segmenting for strongly bonded carbon atoms

Source: www.tiffany.ca

I was reading Vivian Leung’s blog post “What a girl wants? What a girl needs?” earlier about diamonds and how big brand names like Tiffany & Co. influence the attitudes of consumers. I agree with Vivian, indeed, the woman in the video appears to have it all with her euphoric smile, a seemingly well-dressed man in the peripheral, a blue (a colour which is sometimes associated with royalty or luxury) ring box… the commercial appeals to many classic female desires and needs.

Diamonds, as everyone knows, are very pricey, but even then, they have various price range and sizes that can appeal to different segments. Focusing on diamond rings, here is a quick analysis of possible segment bases and variables:

Demographics: Age, marital status, and income are likely two key variables given that engagement and marriage rings have come to be seen mostly as a necessity in a girl’s life, and marriage in turn is highly associated with age. These days, though, it seems there is a little more variance in the age at which people get married. There is probably a common time in life where many people tend to get married again after a divorce as well. Income can be categorized into different segments for say those who might only be able to buy a simple band, or those who can afford to buy an intricate ring inset with a high clarity and beautifully cut diamond designed by someone famous.

Psychological: The way the diamond is perceived, for example, to add worth to the customer, or degree at which the customer perceives him or herself to need to have a diamond ring (or from a male perspective, likely to give one more than wear one himself), the attitudes that Vivian describes in her blog post, how diamonds can “define a woman’s social status, importance, and self-confidence.”

By segmenting their market using these bases and variables, companies can connect their research and analysis with ideas, leading to hopefully successful marketing.

Here’s an older commercial by DeBeers. “A Diamond is Forever”

YouTube Preview Image

And more recently, tying the strength of love with their “A Diamond is Forever” slogan as well as the design of the jewelry – the Everlon Collection which, unless burned in a fire, will last ever long! 🙂 Thus linking a diamond, one of the hardest materials in the world, with love and romance, intangible and seemingly soft and brilliant but also strong.

Source: http://www.adiamondisforever.com/downloads/Everlon_PaveRing_1024x768.jpg
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10 min posts Reference to classmate's blog

Commercials: SuperBowl’s beliebing and Old Spice’s I’m on a horse.


Source: http://www.starandstyle.com/justin-bieber-and-ozzy-osbourne-starring-in-best-buy-super-bowl-commercial.html

On the 27th, my friend Benson wrote on his marketing blog about Super Bowl ads. His post was titled, “Superbowl ads: are they worth it?” Altogether, with Bieber and Osbourne, the commercial is sure to cost a lot. Will that be offset by benefits? Since Best Buy is going with it, it appears they’ve concluded it will.

This commercial will associate Best Buy with the Super Bowl as well as with Bieber and Osbourne and in turn, potentially the values associated with both. For example, Bieber’s youth, popularity, passion. If the commercial becomes well-received, it may enhance Best Buy’s brand.

Justin Bieber and the Best Buy SuperBowl Commercial
(Source: http://www.shoppingblog.com/blog/1261116)

When buying products, an interesting or memorable commercial (and posters, fliers, online postings) could push Best Buy into a Consumer’s retrieval set of possible choices. And if that memory was a positive one, push Best Buy into the evoked set and eventually be purchased. Once the commercial comes out, many Beliebers will likely watch it repeatedly just to see him and others might just to see what the fuss is about.

Another memorable series as Benson mentioned was the Old Spices. So far, I haven’t met anyone who actually bought Old Spice because of it. The commercial’s fun and seems slightly random (though in fact it links Old Spice to many values through the objects and scenery). Jason also wrote about it, mentioning that he hadn’t bought it despite sharing the commercial. In response to his question, I would say he’s not an advocate since he’s not actually promoting the product or brand (not quite bad word of mouth either). Most memorable for me personally was the end of one with “I’m on a horse.” The first thing that popped into mind was the idea of prince charming (I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what they aimed for anyways, the White Prince Charming).

“I’m on a horse.”
(Source: http://thegloss.com/culture/why-dont-old-men-like-the-old-spice-ads-is-it-because-they-are-bad-people/)

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extra marketing posts

sidepost: more on Retailer presence on Facebook

About an article I read regarding how Retailers should approach making and maintaining their online social presence: 8 Best Practices for Retailers on Facebook Pages on insidefacebook.com

Overall, I agree with their points. Traditional methods such as television commercials and magazine/newspaper advertisements often cost an inordinate amount. Facebook, on the other hand, is bound to cost much less than, for example, a tv commercial. And how do smaller retailers compare to larger retailers on the Facebook platform?

Many large retailers have already been successful in gaining more than a million fans to their pages. But how many of those fans actually participate (whether passively or actively) in that community of consumers? After all, you can adjust your news feed to ignore posts by certain people or pages. Without the news feed appearance, pages fall into the background very easily. But despite this, I still think it is important for retailers to make an online presence on social platforms anyways. Friends may like or post something about the retailer and can link that to the retailer’s official page. And even without contests and promotions, Facebook is very widely used. Given that, retailers should make their presence known on this online community too. It might even be a need and not simply an opportunity for most retailers anymore.

From an article posted in December 2010 - "JCPenny's Becomes First Retailer to Open Complete Store on Facebook"

As the article mentions in its eight points:

The Facebook user interface itself is fairly simple, usually requiring only a little bit of thought on the user’s part to understand. An example of failure on this point was made in my previous post about Walmart’s attempt 4 years ago. But they’ve clearly revised their approach since then. The Walmart page on Facebook now boasts of 2.99 million users.

An additional point to add, though, is to ensure security even beyond what Facebook offers. There are several retailers’ pages which incorporate online shopping. However, for customers to actually utilize that function, they must have confidence that their information and privacy will be protected. Facebook has addressed the issue of security recently (a given since Zuckerberg’s fan page was hacked) – certainly not a good sign for retailers’ pages. They recently posted a message title “A Continued Commitment to Security” just yesterday on The Facebook blog. It can be found here.

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