Go marketing!

The marketing strategy that I will be introducing today in my blog is art marketing. Art marketing is where a company will incorporate art to its marketing strategy. There are many methods a company utilizes art marketing – by buying a company gallery and being active in the art community, opening an art exhibition to promote the company, getting an endorsement or hanging up works of art all around the company headquarters.

Out of all these different strategies, the one I will be introducing is the most simplest yet effective – by using famous artwork in the commercials of the product.

A prime example of art marketing is LG’s TV commercials. By using famous artwork, the viewer’s will be watching the commercial and trying to figure out where they have seen the artwork before. By fusing the artwork and the LG product together in the commercial, the LG product will have a classic feel to them and the customers are able to see the famous artwork without going to the museum.

What kind of effect does art marketing have?

First of all, the target customers become bigger. Unlike in the past, a commercial has to engage and grab the viewers for it to be successful. Marketing cannot be successful anymore by simply introducing the product and listing out its features. By using such a bland tactic, it is hard to engage the customers and communicate with them. Through art marketing, companies are able to connect with the customers and engage with them by appealing to their emotions and senses.

Second of all, art marketing gives a level of class to the product. Many companies invest money into art-marketing so that it doesn’t become a one time marketing tool but incorporate it into the company’s image so that the company gives off an image of elegance and sophistication. By doing so, the customers view the company as more high class, culturally varied and more secure.

Art marketing has allowed art to become something that is not difficult and expensive to experience, and rather a part of everyday experience. Now is the time for people to experience art in everyday situations. Art marketing has allowed art to become more known to a large variety of people and has made art into something everyone can enjoy and learn about.

This week, I’d like to discuss the marketing strategy of the electronics giant, Apple. Apple’s marketing strategy can be broadly divided into four different sections

 

Firstly, simplicity and sleekness is emphasized in the products’ designs.

Although it was not a particularly creative marketing strategy, the simple and chic design and functions of the products gave Apple a big competitive edge in attracting people of all ages and occupations all over the world. Apple’s designs became so successful that it became a fashion icon to carry an Apple product.

 Secondly, there are millions of loyal Apple maniacs out there.

These loyal customers often possess most, if not all, of Apple’s products starting from the iPod first generation all the way to the fourth generation, to the iPod Shuffle, iPod Mini, iPhone, iPad, and the Macbook. Through references of Apple maniacs, more and more customers have rushed to purchase these must-have items.

 Third, Apple has successfully targeted two major markets – general consumers and businesses. Hence, Apple is not marketing products such as the iPhone or the iPad by themselves, but along with other businesses purchasing and selling Apple products and general consumers enthusiastic to possess these devices.

 As simple as Apple’s marketing strategy appears to be, there are several ingenious hidden details behind it all. I believe this to be a unique characteristic of Apple.

On June 6^th, 2011, 39 year-old housewife Jung-Hwa Lee, who has been married for 18 years, looks in awe at the wedding dress that she’s wearing.

 She chuckles at the mere sight of her husband in a tuxedo.

 After the wedding photo shoot, the couple heads for a hotel restaurant while enjoying a glass of wine in a luxurious limousine.

 The events of that day resembles a scene from a romantic movie, brought to you by Hanhwa Co., and is the marketing strategy that I’ll be discussing this week – culture marketing.

 Events such as the one described above are targeted for customers that have been married for over two years, known as the “Remind Wedding” event.

 Remind Wedding can be viewed as an “encore” wedding, allowing married couples to reminisce the happiness of the beginning stages of marriage. Some couples that didn’t experience the usual feelings of happiness at the initial stages of marriage often partake in the events with their children.

 The event package includes a studio wedding photo shoot, limousine wedding car, wine service, and a luxurious course dinner at a hotel.

 Afterwards, they celebrate their honeymoon at a special hotel room decorated with roses.

 This year, Hanhwa Co. has taken initiative to run a cultural program called “Dream Culture” to exceed customer expectations. Artistic programs such as jazz, a capella, movies, etc. are expected to take place, emphasizing the image of a cultural brand.

 In addition, apartments nowadays are not simply sold without any cultural branding. In order to find the common ground among customers and to fulfill their expectations, several cultural events are staged. In the case of the gallery for Apartment ‘H’, music, dramatic performances, latte art, and several other events are staged. Apartment ‘X’ also targets potential buyers and stages events such as musicals and other festivities.

 Hanhwa Co., through Remind Wedding and other cultural brands, have successfully taken the hearts of several customers.

 

The marketing strategy that I want to discuss today is customer reviews. It is a marketing strategy that is often employed by many businesses. For example, there are special sections on online clothing stores that allows customers to write reviews about the product they have bought or areas in a restaurant that allows customer to leave a short message or post pictures of themselves eating. For example, at a tempura shop in front of Hong-Ik University, the walls of the restaurant are full of positive customer reviews. The customers who walk into the restaurant for the first time will obviously be impressed by the wall full of “delicious”, “the best” and “see you for sure next time!”.

There are a couple of positive effects of customer reviews. First of all, sales improve. Customer reviews allow your product or company to stand out and come ahead of the competition with other companies. Second of all, as customer reviews increase, positive rumors will increase and move around through the customer themselves. Thirdly, the pride of the employees toward the company rises. One employee states that after receiving a motivational or touching customer review, they feel a slight tingle run through their body. They say that happiness runs up to 2 to 3 days when working.

Fourthly, you can gain unique advice from customer reviews. If you carefully review customer reviews, you will often find parts where the customer is inspired or touched. If you are able to utilize those reasons and why they were moved, you are able to use that your advantage. For example, if someone said they were often lonely and depressed while they were running their business but was inspired by the speech, one could incorporate that into their advertisement for next time and state, “We will offer kindness and wisdom through our lectures when you feel lonely and depressed.” By using the customer reviews, one could incorporate the customers’ opinions on a more personal level when marketing.

Customer reviews, isn’t it a relatively simple but incredibly powerful strategy?

Smell is often perceived as a sense that remains in the memory. However, scents have a rather direct effect on us and before we can even think about it, our brains will impulsively react, sometimes bringing back comforting memories related to that certain scent.

 Smell is a direct sense that can bring back memories and other cherished moments and by utilizing it effectively, it can become a powerful marketing tool – hence, scent marketing.

 Everyone has the experience of being drawn by the sweet smell of a bakery or the meaty smell of a McDonald’s.

 Animals and plants alike are vulnerable to particular scents. Men, specifically, often are captivated by the scent of a woman’s perfume and often turn their heads around and even go chasing after them. These women are likely familiar with scent marketing.

Also, men often give the gift of flowers to their significant other as a symbol of their love. Flowers contain a pleasant scent that stimulates the nose as well as the eye.

 Scent marketing, often a method of marketing oneself, is part of a larger sphere of emotion marketing.  Emotion marketing stimulates consumers through matching certain information or products in accordance to their emotion. This enhances their consumer experience and targets their emotions in a way that would make them psychologically and emotionally happy.

That’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed my writing.

Hello everyone.

Today, I’d like to discuss the marketing strategy of department stores. These giant shopping facilities are located in many cities around the world and are recognized as, not only top tourist destinations, but high revenue-generating sources. There are evidently several well-planned and detailed marketing strategies behind this all. Now, let’s take a close look into the secretive marketing strategies of department stores.

Firstly, most department stores do not have a washroom on the main floor as an effort to lure in customers to the upper floors. For example, men’s washrooms are located on the men’s wear floor, and women’s washrooms placed on the women’s wear floor in order to attract the appropriate customers.

Second, your regular department store has no windows to view the outdoors. By this, customers will not know how dark or bright it is outside, resulting in them shopping with no hurry. In addition, stores do not have clocks for similar reasons.

Third, the strategic location of top brands within the store ought to be noted. In order to maximize revenue on these items, top brand and luxury products are usually located near crowded escalators.

With such detailed marketing strategies, department stores lengthen customers’ shopping time, while deliberately placing certain facilities in strategic locations in order to have direct product-to-customer contact. There are so many other strategies that I’d run out of space attempting to write them down.

Today, more and more department stores are taking an alternate route by installing washrooms on the main floors and installing clocks in order to offer a better shopping experience for customers. I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide which strategy would be more effective.

That’s all for this week and I hope you guys found this post interesting.

Hi everyone, this is Minwoo Choi.

As an avid hockey fan, I would like to discuss the success of the Vancouver Canucks hockey club’s marketing. During recent times, the Canucks have been incredibly successful not only financially, but on the actual ice as well. However, their performance on the ice, no matter how successful, is not sufficient for their sell-out streak of more than 200 games.

The fact is that the Canucks were not even able to make the playoffs just two seasons ago, as well as several other struggles in between. Other clubs in the National Hockey League such as Philadelphia have seen enormous success on the ice, but not necessarily so in terms of marketing.

Vancouver was not a large sports market from thestart, but rather developed into a large sports market through the innovative and effortless marketing under former General Manager Brian Burke. The junior scouting team under his management was deemed to be the top in the league at the time, among other things. Nonetheless, his most critical contribution appears to be his awareness of the surrounding sports markets in general, and not just hockey. For example, he has intensely collaborated with the BC Lions football team, as well as playing a key role in opening the path for the Major League Soccer to expand to Vancouver through the Vancouver Whitecaps. He was also a supporter of Vancouver’s bid for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. I believe all these sports market, in collaboration with each other, was able to produce the successful hockey market that is Vancouver today. Hockey is also simply Canada’s national sport, an obviously effective catalyst in the Canucks’ market success. All in all, the successful development of the general sports market in Vancouver resulted in the Canucks’ incredible success.

-Minwoo