Junie Chow's Blog

Image from topics.info.com

In this day and age it takes a lot of effort to attract potential consumers to an advertisement. So marketers are always coming up with new methods of advertising that are hopefully effective. New and effective advertisements need to stand out from the crowd of regular formats; they need differentiate themselves. How about using the crossword puzzles in the daily newspapers?

Now you probably are wondering what I mean by this. Well it’s pretty easy. What you do is just simply have the word associated with a company or product or whatever you want to advertise be the answer to one of the riddles. So this way people must see (and write) the ad if they want to completely and correctly solve the whole crossword. Creative isn’t it? This is exactly what a company did in Brazil, as mentioned in a recent article in adweek.blogs.com/adfreak. The advertisement was for a department store called “Magazine Luiza” and it was mainly targeted to seniors to announce to them of the relevant benefits that they can receive in the store. In Brazil, as the article states, retirees make up the majority of people who do the daily crosswords. So, this is a smart tactic in regards to where the ad was placed, since placing the ad in the crossword will reach their target group better.

I think it’s an effective way to get the store’s name into a person’s head (and retrieval set) because they actually have to write the store’s name rather than simply reading it. However, the ad wouldn’t work if the person couldn’t figure out the answer from the clue. Overall, this method is unique and it’s always interesting to see new ways of advertising.

I just love seeing companies come up with promotions that actively involve consumers. This week I stumbled upon an article about one such promotion from Dairy Queen. The company is promoting its new “Mini Blizzard” dessert through a contest on Facebook. This contest requires contestants to upload a video of them doing good deeds forsomeone else, as they say, in a “Big Mini Blizzard” way.  I’m not really sure what DQ means by in a “Big Mini Blizzard” way, but it will be interesting and fun to watch how contestants interpret this meaning in their videos. In the end, only the top six videos will win and their prize will be a brand new 2011 Mini Cooper Countryman! Wow, they are actually giving away six cars!

Along with this announcement of the contest, there were multiple videos uploaded showing the Blizzard spokesman, Chad, promoting the new Mini Blizzard. The videos show Chad and his team of “Treatsmen” surprising people on the street with free gifts. In one particular video, Chad appears behind the counter in a Dairy Queen store giving away free Mini Blizzards, as well as tiaras, teddy bears, baseball caps, and flowers to unsuspecting customers. For a few lucky customers Chad even hands over keys to the brand new Mini Cooper Countrymen. The videos, although it could have been staged, felt real and natural to me, and this realness helped to achieve what I thought was an effective promotion tactic. It felt as if that could happen to you too if you randomly

walked into a Dairy Queen store. Not only is Chad delivering great customer service with his energetic and friendly personality, he is also aiding DQ in generating a good brand image in the eyes of customers that will hopefully last in the long term.

Images from dairyqueenwest.com and http://ksrubyredslippers.blogspot.com

Have you ever Jinxed anyone before? Well according to an article from Adfreak Kraft Macaroni and Cheese has cleverly incorporated this “Jinx-ing” game and calling it “Mac & Jinx” into their current promotions on Twitter. So basically how it works is whenever a person on twitter sends a message with the words “mac and cheese” the system matches that person with another twitter-er who recently tweeted out a message with those same words as well. After being matched by the system, this lucky pair is sent a message containing a link offering free Mac and Cheese, but there’s a catch as this offer is only for the person who responds first!

This is an example of one company adapting to the new technological environment as it is tapping into the world of social networking. What a smart move this is, since a huge chunk of their current and potential customers are online using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I find this promotion tactic to be such a fun way to engage people and to spread the word about their Mac and Cheese product. The “Mac & Jinx” game might be that little pick-me-up gesture at the end of a tedious workday, schoolday, or any kind of day that’s filled with stress. This is also one of those Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) that I talked about in my last blog post, and consequently will boost Krafts’ image in the minds of their consumers.

image from lunch.com

Sometimes I notice that people nowadays are more closed in than before. In the Fifties it seems like people were very close with their neighbours. It was a time when you would say “Hi, Mr. Johnson” while taking a stroll around the block, or greet your local deli person on a first name basis, or even welcome a new neighbour into the area with a warmly baked cinnamon apple pie. What happened to that? It seems society today, at least the North American one, has shifted from that kind and open neighbourhood image to a “keep to yourself” one. Today I believe people have become more sceptical and have a belief that it’s hard to find real “Random Acts of Kindness” or (RAK) in society.

This sceptic view that many people have leads to an opportunity for businesses to incorporate a strategy that involves these RAKs  that will hopefully impact a person in a positive way. I think people need and want to be proven wrong that there are real random acts of kindness out there and that people actually care about one another, specifically, that companies care about others. I was inspired to talk about this topic after reading  an article from Trendwatching.com about this potential opportunity for companies. The article spotlights several companies on board with this strategy. For example, when someone in the UK tweeted on their twitter that they were tired, “Biotherm” replied to her message acknowledging the person’s fatigue and that it was going to send the person free samples of their “Skin.Ergetic” product. Another instance was when Spain based airline “Spanair” surprised its passengers with a personalized present delivered out on the luggage carousel on the eve of Christmas. In the end, many companies now are using this strategy as consumers are finding more value linked to the company’s products. Also, with more companies taking this approach consumers view companies and society in general being more kind and caring, and that’s how we can start to go back to those good ol’ days.

Image from http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

This week I crossed by the path of a Coca-Cola video on www.brandchannel.com, promoting their new “Happiness” theme. A red Coca-Cola truck filled with many of its drink products drove through the streets of Brazil and the Philippines serving the people outside. Although how it serves people is the interesting part of the story. The bright red truck would occasionally park itself on a side street, and from there it awaits its first customer. This was not your typical “ice-cream truck” style of service, but more of a “large vending machine” kind of style. On the backside of the mysterious truck is a round protruding button with the word “Push” written on it, and below this button, to the left, is a small rectangle opening. The most remarkable thing though, is that this vending machine truck charges its customers nothing for its products! Once the first customers, led by their curiosity, discover this incredible service, crowds of people start lining up for the free bottles of coke. After a while, the truck even starts spitting out random items not related to Coke products, such as teddy bears, fishing rods, foldable chairs, and also a surfboard! The truck, after fulfilling many customer orders, drives away while a message on the top of the truck can be seen saying “Where will happiness strike next?”

I thought this was an ingenious strategy for coke to pursue. Giving out your product for free to consumers enables them to try the product and to hopefully become loyal to the company. In response to Coke giving out other products along with their own products, well, all I can say is who doesn’t like free things? In the end, Coke hopes that whenever a consumer thinks of Coke they will associate the brand with “Happiness”.

Article can be found here http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/02/24/Viral-Video-Watch-Coca-Cola-Happiness-Truck.aspx#continue

Many companies choose to rely on celebrity influence to aid in marketing their products or services. It is especially useful when that celebrity is a major trendsetter and has a large fanbase.

This leads to a CNN video about the Korean market for cell phones that I saw a while back while surfing on the kpop blogging site, Allkpop.com (http://www.allkpop.com/2009/10/big_bang_and_2ne1_on_cnn). It features mainly two big cell phone giants, LG and Samsung, which were dominating the Korean market at the time the video was posted. The video stated that two most popular phone models in Korea from these two companies were the “Samsung Haptic” and the “LG Lollipop”, due to heavy marketing efforts with very famous celebrities in Korea.

For example, LG promoted its “Lollipop” model with a very colourful music video featuring Korean boy group “Big Bang” and the yet-to-debut Korean girl group “2NE1”. At the time “Big Bang” had become a national idol group with thousands of loyal Korean fans as well as thousands of international fans. On the other hand, “2NE1” was relatively unknown which roused a natural interest regarding the group. This growing interest for the new “2NE1” group, along with the catchy tune of the music video and the influential trend-setting powers of “Big Bang”, no doubt contributed to the success and popularity of “Lollipop” phone. Also, the cell phone market in Korea is predominately led by teenagers and young adults, and the decision to use “Big Bang” and “2NE1” in the phone promotions is because of the singers’ appeal to these target groups. In general, people just want to be like their beloved idols.

Due to the overwhelming success of the “LG Lollipop” phone and the “Lollipop” music video, Big Bang returned again to promote the “Lollipop 2” phone.

CNN Video

“Lollipop” Music Video

This week I read Felicia Firdaus’ blog (https://blogs.ubc.ca/ffirdaus/), about Walmart’s new “Geo Girls” cosmetics line for tween girls between the ages of 8-12 years old. This is not something new as there has been make up products available to tweens before, such as the “Stuff by Duff” line by Hilary Duff.

Image from perfumezilla.com

Felicia brings up a good point/issue regarding the appropriateness of selling the “Geo Girls” line, or make up in general, to such a young audience.

I agree with her statements on the implications and problems that arise from selling the product to young girls. Certainly there are many media influences that young girls are especially susceptible to that make them feel not pretty enough and insecure about their looks. There are models in ads who are covered with pounds of makeup and young girls may aspire to become like them and this often leads to girls thinking that “looks” are everything.  These are some reasons why young girls might start using makeup and I’ve noticed in recent years there are a growing number of girls wearing makeup at a very young age.

I find it shocking though for “Geo Girls” to target eight year olds, that’s a third grader!  I believe makeup is something that someone older uses to look younger. So I don’t think there’s much use for an eight year old to look any younger than they already do. I mean how much younger can they get?

What I think is that “Geo Girls” should advertise to the parents and not to the tweens through mediums such as ads on a kids tv channel. It should be the parents who determine whether their tweens should use the product; parents should have the final say in the decision.

I had recently taken a look at a blog by Minwoo Choi, a fellow comm 296 classmate of mine (https://blogs.ubc.ca/immin03/). The newest blog article was about the different kinds of marketing strategies that department stores use and I found it really fascinating. For example a department store would place washrooms on higher levels of the store in order to give customers more chances to see the large selection of products that they’re offering.  Another strategy is to have no windows and clocks, as to keep customers from knowing the time of day and to keep shopping. Reading the different types of strategies on that blog stirred up previous shopping experiences in my mind that backed those claims. I remember shopping at “The Bay” and “Sears” in the past and finding myself having trouble locating a washroom on the first floor or a clock for that matter. As for windows, either there were none or they were tinted black.

I’m also beginning to see other strategies employed by stores, such as situating magazine, candy and chocolate stands near or next to the check-out counters. This makes sense because customers waiting in long lineups not doing much make excellent targets for product marketing. When a customer starts flipping through the pages of a magazine while waiting in line, chances are they will take the magazine with them in the end and buy it. I find this very similar to newspaper stands at bus stops, however instead of waiting to “check-out” people are waiting for the bus.

So I’m thinking back to the concepts that I’ve learned from class, and situational factors come to mind, in particular the “shopping situation”. I would think that these strategies are part of the situational shopping factors as they influence the consumer’s decision process.

It is a true statement when said that advertising is everywhere, especially in a particular case of ads being displayed in public washroom mirrors and in another case where the ad actually follows your every movement. These two cases were highlighted on http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/ by authors Tim Nudd, who wrote about the moving remote-controlled ad, and David Kiefaber, who wrote about the mirror advertisements.

Retrieved from http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/

First, about the mirror ads, companies “Clear Channel Outdoor” and “Mirrus” have collaborated to bring these mirror ads to some U.S. airports, like “O’Hare International Airport” in Chicago. David Kiefaber made clear his own opinion on the original article from http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0121-bathroom-ads-20110120,0,708194.story, stating “I don’t want to live in a world where the Geico gecko can watch me pee.” I agree with him because I feel that there’s a bit of inappropriateness to all of this. Though I can see the marketing opportunity to this as public bathrooms receives a consistent stream of people each day, I like to think of the bathroom as a private room separate from the outside world.

As for the other story, where Belgium shoppers were followed by a moving ad for “Alfa Romeo”, I find it totally ridiculous. I understand that the company wants the ad to stand out, because usually, in my experience, if that ad were not moving I would probably not see it. The moving aspect to it greatly increases the chance of potential consumers to pay attention to the advertisement. However, as shown in the video, it seems like the remote-controlled ad would become a nuisance to some people resulting in negative feelings for the company.

These are two examples of new advertising methods, which I feel are a bit too much, but there are probably others who think otherwise and view them as effective and unique.

I’ve started to pay attention to the type of commercials that are on certain television stations. There are channels on tv called “W network” and “Viva” that air shows most adult females would be interested in watching and I’ve noticed that the commercials were mostly geared towards that adult female audience. They showed products such as, “Pantene Pro-V” shampoo, anti-wrinkle cream, baby products, and healthy food/drink items. Another observation I picked up was that it seemed like most of the actors in the commercials were of the female gender.

I also remember my younger days as a child watching cartoons on the YTV channel. The commercials on that channel were mainly advertising for toy products, but there were also several ads promoting awareness for the need to live an active lifestyle. I still have a distant memory of the toy commercials being very lively, with cheerful kids playing with a product, like a Barbie doll or a superhero action figure, and acting as if they were having the time of their lives.  Those commercials were quite effective for me because I remember always wanting the toy afterwards.

Before I didn’t give much thought about the commercials on my television screen, I just thought of them as fillers for the break from my show that I was watching. I kind of just zoned them out as I was waiting for my show to return. Now I realize there’s a reasonable amount of effort and planning that goes into bringing a commercial into the public environment, like choosing which tv station to air a commercial in order to appeal to a target audience.