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Another Perspective

Having read through numerous marketing blogs to find something that truly caught my attention, I stumbled upon Paul Cubbon’s Blog. The variety of his posts offer different perspectives relating to marketing; however the post that caught my eye was one about a Sesame Street commercial.

Although the Sesame Street persona may initially evoke an era that has long died out, the video proves that Sesame Street is still culturally aware and on top of current trends.

Cubbon’s post, “Sesame Street meets Old Spice”, examines Sesame Street’s ability to reproduce a parody of the popular Old Spice commercials.

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As Cubbon notes in his blog, Sesame did the video “just right”, avoiding any innuendos that are too sexual or too adult. Sesame Street and Old Spice have both successfully expanded to an audience beyond their target market.  The Old Spice commercials have attracted more than just their male-dominated target market by creating humorous commercials that people want to watch repeatedly.

Additionally, as Cubbon explains, Sesame Street has entertained their Preschooler market with Grover and tapped into the adult mind by parodying the ever-popular Old Spice commercial.

These ideas relate to similar concepts discussed in class pertaining to target markets and audiences. As we have examined, the “Baby Carrot” campaign had multiple types of packaging which was geared towards a variety of markets.

Ultimately, Cubbon’s discussion on the Sesame Street viral video proves that the ability to differentiate your marketing to attract different groups is an important factor in contemporary marketing.

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The Competing World of Social Media

In light of discussion regarding the use of social media as a marketing tactic, I found that the following article conveys a few of the topics discussed in Comm 296.  The article “News Corp looking at spinout or sale of MySpace” discusses MySpace’s fall to the ever-growing Facebook and what the website’s future holds.

I would bet everyone’s heard of MySpace, but who actually has an account? Obviously not that many people, because the company (News Corp) recently laid- off 47% of their employees and now are looking at the company’s life expectancy in quarters, rather than years.

MySpace didn’t see that one coming.

MySpace was geared towards people under the age of 35 interested in up-and-coming musicians and internet icons like Tila Tequila. This focus on musicians and D-List celebrities generates a much different edge than that of Facebook. This makes me wonder if MySpace figured they were different enough from Facebook to sustain in the ever evolving world of social media.

Ultimately, MySpace’s marketing strategy would have been greatly influenced by its immediate competitors including Hi5, Bebo, Nexopia and the reigning Facebook. However, did MySpace think that they were invincible to their competitors? Or maybe the company failed to clearly define their marketing strategy in regards to their competition?

It makes me wonder, will there be a prevailing website to take down our current social media giant, or is Facebook here to stay?

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