speak your mind

Just the other day, I read a professional sports blog on Yahoo Sports entitled “Ball Don’t Lie“, which basically blogs about interesting news and facts around the NBA.  In this article, written by Kelly Dwyer, he briefly mentions Lebron James’ new logo.  Although it is a new logo, James is sticking with the old theme, reigning himself as “The King”.  Recalling from one the class sides mentioned last week, what Nike has to do now is create new awareness for this logo of his.  They need to remind the previous brand owners of Lebron to see this new logo, and allow them to embrace it.  By creating this brand awareness, consumers will then remember Lebron for this new logo instead of his old one.

New:                                                                                        Old:

For all those gamers out there, you probably know that Call of Duty just released the sequel to “Modern Warfare” which is called “Call of Duty: Black Ops”.  You’re probably also wondering, how does this relate to my blog about basketball and sports?  Well, if you checked out their commercial recently, LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant was featured in the commercial, promoting the concept that everyone can play this game.  The game is a violent game and by having Kobe Bryant be in this commercial, many fans have started to criticize Kobe and his choice on promoting on such a game.  Since Kobe is a well known basketball star and many kids who play the game of basketball look up to him, parents are raving about what he’s doing and questioning his morality.  If kids see their favouritebasketball star hold an assault rifle and fire bullets at other people, what would stop them from doing the same . . . in a game, of course.  People are saying it is completely “out of bounds” for Kobe to be in such an ad, and I agree.  When you have such high fame and status, one must be aware of what he or she does and says.  Celebrities always have their reputations on the line, and in terms of marketing towards the gamers out there, putting Kobe in the commercial was a bad idea.

If you haven’t noticed already, most of my blogs have been sports related articles, so why not stick to that theme?  I just read Gavin Li’s blog, and I liked how he analyzed one of Nike’s “Air Jordan” commercial. Last week, I remember Tamar mentioning brand extension and in this case, Nike did a great job of that.  Ever since taking Michael Jordan and using him as a symbol to extend their brand, the new “Air Jordan” brand has excelled and expanded worldwide.  Since Michael was and still is, a well-known icon, it is easy for him to sell his products.  In this case, so easy, that in his commercial, he does not even need to say a single word.  Instead, as Gavin has mentioned, Nike is pointing out that the game of basketball is “being played and appreciated around the globe”.  So without having to persuade the consumer into buying the products with the use of fancy words and dialogue Nike just lets their buyers watch.

I was looking through the class blogs the other day and I happen to take a look into my friend, Chase Lee’s blog.  In one of his posts, entitled “Nike turns NBA superstars into PUPPETS”, he talks about how Nike celebrates the athletes, as a players and as people with personality, like us.

I totally agree, because by doing so, Nike does not just focus on sports sports sports all the time, but instead they focus on the other side of athletes.  They throw in aspects of their personality, such as humour.  And by doing so, Nike adds a different aspect, a sort of twist in their brand, which then would appeal to a different target market.  This would also build up trust and commitment to their brand as they establish themselves worldwide.

On my previous blog, I mentioned and talked about Lebron James’ newest commercial, which revealed the process behind his decision making this past summer.  That commercial was meant to be targeted at those Lebron “haters” and intended for them to look the other way about his choice.  The city of Clevland responded, but not in the way I expected.  I think this shows that when you target a certain audience, don’t always expect the response you may want.  In this case, instead of turning the other cheek and seeing Lebron’s perspective, Clevland came back with their own video, saying it was inexcusable for what he had done.  Entitled, “Quitness”, fans in the city of Clevland speak out against him.

Nike just recently released another commercial last week, and I like how they directed it towards a certain concentrated audience.  With the use of witty lines and clever tactics, they targeted at those supporters who bailed on Lebron James recently due to the fact that he signed with the Miami Heat.  People called him a coward, a phony, a mistake; yet they did not know what he was going through as he made up his mind.  This commercial does a great job of using irony as Lebron asks “What should I do?”  By doing so, he lets the viewers that have judged him, see what he has gone through personally, ultimately, showing the hard process he went through this time.  Instead of living to other people’s expectations, he wanted to live up to his own and he lets people know about that.  If all goes according to plan, this marketing scheme should have fans turn their heads around and accept Lebron for what he did.

After talking about the established brand of Nike in the sports industry and the variety of consumers that it appeals to, I decided to do some research on my own and look it up. Turns out, Nike did in fact do a rather fresh commercial that implemented a simple idea into many different of scenes.  Taking the word “BOOM” and then applying it into the different segments that Nike shows that they can target many different viewers at one time.  They put themselves in a great position to market their brand even further.

One word CAN make all the difference.

Entering into the fourth week of marketing, the topic of consumer behaviour was mentioned and discussed.  It was a topic that covered many different aspects in terms of influences, ranging from psychological factors, social factors, and situational factors.  As I watching this recent commercial that was released just a couple days ago, I spotted one of the main teaching points I learned in class.

Here’s the video:

The ad above is marketing the new “Power Beats” headphones by Dr Dre.  Prior to releasing these new headphones, I knew that Dre had previously produced other types of headphones and accessories.  However, I do not think they ever had to market them in commercials because I assume consumer’s would just buy them, knowing they are from Dre, one of the well-known producers out there.

I hope consumers out there know that this commercial is all based on a marketing scheme that appeals to social factors that influence society.  In this case, this commercial is based on celebrity fame power.  By using producer Dr. Dre, all-star athlete Lebron James, and comedian Affion Rockett, they come up with a humorous commercial where it shows James working out with Dre.  Rockett basically just bugs and teases as they workout and that pretty much sums it up.  The problem I have with this commercial is that they did not say anything about the product.  All I know is that they’re called the “Power Beats”.  I do not know what sound quality they give off, the comfort level on the ears, and the list goes on.  The idea behind this is that by using a reference group, in this case, famous people that the consumer may want to emulate, they lure the customer into believing that just because these celebrities wear them, they must also wear them.  But the Beats brand label by Dr Dre already has previously established a connection with NBA stars that support his product, which gives it star power and value.  In additional with brand loyalty, these overpriced headphones will definitely attract the basketball players out there.  Needless to say though, I know I would not buy a pair . . . or would I?

So I guess when you have Dre, Lebron, and Affion Crockett in one commercial, it can’t be a bad thing.

With the NBA season just around the corner, basketball fans should be pumped and excited for a brand new fresh start.  For extreme ballers though, they should barely be able to contain themselves!   With the release of NBA 2K11 in less than 2 weeks, gamers will be able to play as one of the, if not, greatest, to ever play the game: Michael Jordan.  If that wasn’t enough, they even came out with a new commercial which I saw l the other day and I had quite a laugh. Take a look:

The commercial displays some of the new young stars in the NBA now reliving Michael Jordan’s greatest moments … in the game of course.  I find this commercial quite entertaining and eye catching due to the humour, uniqueness, and overall clever concept.

It starts off with a bunch of NBA players in a room playing the NBA game itself.  That is something in which I find quite ironic yet witty.  I have yet to see a basketball game commercial with the basketball players themselves playing it so has a nice twist to it. I had a good laugh when I saw Rose just cooking while everyone else was just playing around.  They also end up holding their own dunk contest and it just ends up really goofy.  Another ironic point here is that NBA players usually uphold themselves in a professional manner but in this case, we see the opposite side of that.  The commercial then just ends off with them finishing the game and Rose still prepping in the kitchen.

All said and done though, I think the commercial still contains a main focal point around the Jordan game play.  The game itself contains a new mode, known as “Jordan mode” where players will be able to play as Michael Jordan himself and relive all his glorious moments.  I think 2K sports did a great job of selling the game, while embracing it humour and comical scenes as well.

And who knew that Rose could cook?!