Jared Stern's Blog

Just this morning in class we were talking about brand and brand equity, and I couldn’t think a brand that screams brand equity more than Tiffany and Co. It doesn’t matter what the piece of jewelry actually is, as long as it comes from a little turquoise box it’s special. As I’m writing this right now, my girlfriend has that famous turquoise bag with little black lettering sitting on her desk. Talk about a brand that fully exemplifies everything that was taught this morning. It creates a strong, if not one of the strongest, emotions and reactions.

Tiffany and Co. makes promises and follows through (to the lady’s). As I said early it DOESN’T matter what the product is, as long as it’s Tiffany’s it is all right. Finally, consumers are definitely willing to pay a premium for the brand as long as it’s Tiffany. The brand is so powerful it has a effected products that it doesn’t even have any part in. For example, the limited edition Nike SB Tiffany Dunk, which is the sneaker shown below. This is a collaboration between Nike and a company by the name of Diamond Supply Co., and has absolutely nothing to do with Tiffany. However, it features the same turquoise coloring and the same exclusivity. And for this, consumers are willing to pay upwards of $800(!!!) to get their hands on a pair of these. Talk about brand equity.

With the internet, social media, and smart phones gaining huge popularity amongst marketers, TV ads have fallen to the wayside, with the exception of the super bowl. The super bowl is still the almighty marketing giant. With record numbers of viewers surpassed basically every year. This year was no exception, with two of America’s most popular football teams the Steelers and the Packers. Over 100 million American’s tuned into watch the game as well as millions of Canadians (although we don’t get the excitement of most of the great commercials seen). Companies pay outrageous amounts of money just for the air time, not to mention production costs. How outrageous? Well, how about $100,000 per second of air time!!! And if you’re planning to pay millions of dollars for air time, you’re not going to waste it on a pathetic commercial, which is why we see such great and creative commercial’s on super bowl Sunday. It’s the big show – football players strive their whole lives for the spot and so do marketers. Even if sales don’t automatically increase, a funny, creative, and catchy commercial will definitely stick in the memory of the consumer, and as we know all companies want to be in the “evoked set” of their consumers. At the end of the day that is the most important thing.

Here are a couple of my favorite’s from last night.

According to some research I have done over the past week, it seems that companies are unwilling to bring over diesel powered cars because of the economic threats and political restraints. On the economic side, gas is much cheaper and in a higher supply on our continent. People in the UK basically pay 150% of what we pay for gas, and because of this they are forced to buy cars with better fuel economy (diesels 30-40% more efficient). Adding to this point, diesel equipped cars are generally more expensive coming from the show room, generally $1500-$2000 more, and some people are unwilling to pay this premium. On the political side of things, there are two things that restrain the development of American diesel cars and the importation of them. The first, which also ties into economic, is that diesel is taxed more in comparison to gas. Tax is high enough as it is, people don’t want to be taxed more for fuel. (that’s expensive enough too for that matter) The other government policy constraining diesel engines has to with emissions and more specifically, nitrogen oxides. Without getting into to much detail, basically diesel engines require an expensive ‘high-pressure fuel injection system,’ which adds to the already expensive MRSP.

We want to be greener, the government claims they want to be greener, so why have they rejected the idea of more efficient diesel engines? Only 3.6 of cars offered in America have a diesel engine. My honest opinion on the matter is that American car manufactureres don’t produce diesel powered cars and the government needs to step in and allow them to compete. Therefore, there is a more expensive tax on diesel making the cars more expensive. From a marketing perspective, it is pretty impossible to present a product, that is going to be more expensive with the governement taxation, to a group of close minded people. Marketers of this product have to break the reputation of soot-shooting, oil burners of the past. Even though this reputation has been broken down in other parts of the world. Just look at the Jetta TDI for reference…