The following are examples of jobsintown.de’s extremely creative ad campaign. The whole set of posters (designed by Scholz & Friends Berlin) can be viewed on the website. I know there are a lot of creative ads and posters out there, but for some reason, these ones just amazed me. They’re clever, meaningful and entertaining. This is definitely one of the best campaigns I have ever seen.
Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love
— and it all ends up here.
The Hype Machine aggregates the most recently posted songs from a selection of music blogs (about 1,500 blogs) and lists them on the website‘s main page. Essentially, it keeps track of and promotes the music bloggers write about. The creators of Hype Machine succeeded in finding a way to empower and promote bloggers who are passionate about music, while at the same time also promoting the songs they write about.
The website has a music player that shows up on the bottom of the screen when you play a song which is designed in a way that you can keep listening to songs while browsing the site for other tracks. By creating a free user account it’s possible to favourite songs and music blogs which all show up on your profile page. You can create playlists and limit your searches to your favourite genres.
The Hype Machine doesn’t let you download songs for free, but they provide links to purchase the music from places such as ITunes or amazon.com. Users are encouraged to enjoy the music online and support the artists by purchasing the songs afterwards. Each download supports both the artist and Hype Machine. This is a great place for upcoming artists to gain exposure, there is no catch or hidden fees, and you don’t have to pay for anything if you don’t want to. I really admire this type of marketing, where it is clear that the creators of the site are doing it for their love of music and not for the money. In 2009 the site made it to The Guardian’s (a British national daily newspaper) list of 100 essential websites.
After watching this commercial for the Porsche 911 Carrera, I was surprised to see that I could relate to it several of the marketing strategies and concepts that we have talked about in class. It is interesting to realize that I’m starting to look at advertisement differently, always trying to figure out what the creators were trying to achieve by making it.
The first thing that captured my attention about this commercial was how they created a story, it wasn’t just like any other car commercial with the vehicle speeding down a highway or showing young, attractive individuals driving it around the city. It definitely had an affective influence to it, the story of the young child seeing the car for the first time and knowing that that is the car he wants to drive for the rest of his life. The music is perfect and the voice of the speaker is very powerful. These all contribute to the feeling the advertisement tries to create, and for me personally, it left me wanting more. There is also a cognitive element to it, the ad gives plenty of information about the car, and a behavioural element that is very settle as it doesn’t explicitly tell you to go and buy it, but it creates motivation to do so. The car is portrayed as the prize for those who work hard. The creators also recognize the buying power of children and building long-term relationships with customers. The idea that Porsche established a relationship with the young child who will then 20 years later become a buyer seems very personal and meaningful. The commercial does an excellent job determining the right balance of functional and psychological needs that best appeals to their targets. With this ad Porsche also moves away from its image of being a luxury car for cool, rich, high-class society people, because of the suburban setting it can now also be seen as a car for established working parents who like to drive to work in style (targeting).
“Porsche. There IS no substitute” – and now I believe it.
I find it very interesting how airlines use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to their advantage. They use it not only to promote their services or advertise their deals, but also as a customer service tool, a way to collect information about their consumers and to help address problems. It can be used to simplify and speed up customer contact and response, which saves time for both parties. Even though it’s not much help for fliers who have complicated requests or problems such as lost bags or late flights, it can be very useful when dealing with simple questions or inquiries.
For instance, on one occasion, a Twitter user pinged jetBlue at 10:49 a.m. asking, “I am flying on a red eye flight with my wife tonight. Are you charging for pillows and blankets?” Six minutes later the airline responded saying “Our Pillow and Blanket kit is $7 and includes CleanRest pillow, fleece & $5 coupon to Bed Bath & Beyond.”
In another case, a Porter Airlines passenger found herself waiting in a long line that wasn’t moving so she tweeted her dissatisfaction from her phone. Not only did all her contacts see the message, but the airline was listening too. By the time she got to the front of the line, the staff was ready to directly address her complaint.
It doesn’t require a huge effort to respond to customer questions through tweets and it is definitely beneficial for the airlines. It gets the online community involved, motivates them to travel and gets them talking about the airlines…be it positive or negative feedback. In the airline industry where everyone essentially sells the same service, airlines that use social media to turn disappointed customers into happy ones are already setting themselves apart and building customer loyalty.
Working on my application for exchange really forced me to think ahead and plan the next two and a half years of my life. I don’t like to think that far ahead, but what I realized is that even though I’m almost there, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I love this picture but I never seemed to find an appropriate place or time to post it. Now, however; seems like the right time : )
The first time I heard about the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly II Safari Elite (pretty long name for a shoe if you ask me) was when my 18 year old cousin, who currently lives in Hungary, asked me if I could find out how much they are being sold for in Canada. Since I’m not really up to date with Nike’s newest products, I quickly searched what the long name was referring to, only to find that it was a pair of soccer cleats. A $400 pair of soccer cleats that is. According to Nike’s design team, they worked closely with players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Pato to create the perfect pair of cleats. In the video below Ronaldo claims that these are his favourite boots to play in.
Upon further research I came across the fact that the “Safari” part in the name came as a result of the shoe being part of Cristiano Ronaldo’s new Safari line, marketed with the slogan “designed to the exact specifications of Cristiano Ronaldo”. It would probably be pretty hard to find any young soccer player who wouldn’t want to play or be like Ronaldo. This is something that Nike is well aware of, and therefore is able to charge a ridiculously high price for them. Finding the right person to promote this product and the right way to communicate it to customers was crucial, and Nike nailed it. Not only is Ronaldo (arguably) one of the best soccer players in the world, he is a celebrity who is always in the public eye.
To me, these are just a pair of animal print shoes, but when I asked my cousin why he wanted such expensive cleats he answered “these are my dream cleats”.
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