JunMing's blog

Before writing the post of this week, I really spent sometime on browsing other people’s blogs. Many of them introduced some of the ads they like and also why they like them. It’s really enjoyable to watch all these recommended ads by following the thoughts of persons those recommend them.  After watching some ads, i actually found that they do share somethings in common, something that make people fond of them and even recommend them, and I think, this is what all the advertisers try to project into every advertisement to draw people’s attention.

Successful ads usually contain creativity. Thanks to global trade, we are surrounded by a variety of similar goods, but there are only a few brands that successfully catch our attention and form an impression of their products deep into our memory. (By the way, that’s what we call evoked set) How do they catch our eyes then? It’s creativity. I really like a sentence in a post from my classmate Ng, Mei Chi,”For me, something simple and creative is much more newsworthy and memorable than a poster with a billion reasons urging me to buy”(https://blogs.ubc.ca/itsmeichi/2010/10/04/if-its-not-cute-then-i-wont-look-at-it/), and she gives a good example of Coka Cola’s billboard that has a 3-D straw. It is simple, and creative, and already Coka Cola jumps into our discussion from nowhere just because we are talking about one of its ads. How amazing it is!

Secondly,  I think some ads are successful impressing audiences because they involve fashion elements they they promoting their product. Check out the funny ad recommended by our classmate Chad(https://blogs.ubc.ca/chadmargolus/2010/09/23/chads-blog/) The commercial dilivers a promotion for Flea Market Montgomery with a creative rap song, in which they keep repeating their slogon,”its just like, its just like a mini mall”! when people browse among various commercials, the idea of the rap song will easily catch people’s attention and it’s fun and easy to follow up, in this way consumers will memorize the place, and their products. That’s exactly where the commercial try to get to.

There are many other similar commercials that are considered good ones for the same merits illustrated above. I just picked the ones that are representative.

I am sure many people understand the importance cultural diversity. Different cultures are shaped based on factors like religions, nationalities, geographical locations, races, castes and so on.  Culture has a dramastic influence on they way we life, the way we think, and the way we act. therefore, when it comes to marketing issues, culture is a critical and sometimes the most decisive  element of consumer behaviors. It helps us better explain why people choose/not choose a particular product or serivice at a particular time and location. 

for example, most asian people use chopsticks to eat, whearas most western people  use folks&knives to eat. Nevertheless, Idian people eat with bare hands. This is cultural difference, so, if one had an idea selling chopsticks to India, the market of a  population of 1 billion seems tempting, but everyone knows the idea won’t work because the cultural difference is so obvious, and it’s decisive on the success of the business idea. Same thing happened in history where the British tried to sell night attires to Chinese and dreamed that the 400mil Chinese market might keep the spinning machines in U.K. running 24/7  before the outbreak of the Opium War. It turned out a failure because there is no such a concept of wearing nightclothing in Chinese culture at that time.

When we take a close look at the consumer purchase decision process, we will discover that culture may affect every step of the model. firstly, culture affects demand, which the  examples  above has clearly demostrated. Secondly, it affects the way do info research and also how we evaluate the alternatives. For example, when it rains in Vancouver, international students from China would like to use umbrellas because they are used to heavy rain in China ,while locals would generally prefer to wear water-proof hoodies.

In addiction, according to a blog post of Mr.Tej Kohli”What affects consumer behavior“(http://www.tej-kohli.com/tej-kohli-blog/2010/08/03/what-affects-consumer-behavior-by-tej-kohli/),  under the culture diversity, people’s consumer behaviors are also affected by the social class of that particular culture, which is determined by factors like income, education and occupations. Thus, if we were to target a particular group of consumer,i.e. students in Japan, celebrities in NYC, we shall study what their culture is and how it affects their buying activities. rather than simply applying the general customer bahavior models of the society these group of people belong to

Since I recently made a presentation on COMM 299 regard to ethical ads, I would like to discuss marketing ethics in my first post of COMM296 blog. In marketing class, we discussed that when we make a marketing campaign, we shall always start from a firm’s mission. Mission gives us a overall image of an organization and it also tells us what the organization would try to bring to its target customers. In this sense, this is all right. however, some firms might come up with some over-stated mission statement. for example, Kuoni Group, a globally active Swiss leisure travelling agency, delivers its campaign slogon as” Holidays that make you forget EVERYTHING!”  In my opinion, it is understandable that Kuoni wants to convey the idea that they provide classic leisure travelling service, but the statement is too good to be true. In a sense, people talk big usually when they are unconfident about their ability, in this case, their service. thus it would deliver an adverse image to customers that Kuoni lies about what it can do. So, what I am trying to say is, it’s ethical for organizations to set up goals and directions that are practical; Even though the mision statement would tend to be fancy, it’s better to make it achieveable, then people will think the firm are actually striving for excellence.

This is important because every marketing  campaign starts with its mission. if you go in a wrong direction, your customer will never get to hear what you want them to hear of.

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