I love that little clip, mainly for the satire, but also as a perspective on how to not handle stressful situations. (Really, cutting off your hair and throwing it at the problem solves absolutely nothing, in any and every situation)

However, this clip also shows insight into how public relations should be handled, and the lack of it during the oil spill of 2010. 

As James Herring put it in a Time Business Article

“It’s left people in the p.r. industry scratching their heads.”

“What should have happened? Well, from a … PR stance, the exact opposite”

Another fact: I have been vegetarian for the past 15 years of my life, and a wanna-be vegan for the past two  (I have a legitimate cheese addiction, so being it isn’t the easiest thing). One of the questions I often – very often – get asked is “Well what do you eat? Lettuce?”

Yeah actually, and quite a lot of it.

However, I never really put much thought into where my salad greens come from. Sure, in the summer time they come from my Grammas garden (talk about a direct marketing channel), but the other nine months of the year it is simply “Capers”….

…and truth be told, I wouldn’t have thought of it either until I read The Omnivores Dilemma this past summer .

Some little known facts about the distribution of lettuce

1) It requires an indirect marketing strategy

                Though there are typically less than two intermediaries between the consumer and the lettuce producers, there is no way you can go to an industrial lettuce farm and ask to pick your own lettuce. Though an organic company such as Earthbound may grow and package their own lettuce, most other farmers sell the lettuce before it becomes packaged.

2) It Is a conventional marketing system

                In the case of Earthbound Farms, the farm sells to the wholesaler (Costco), or to retail stores (Whole Foods) before the product reaches customers.

3) Organic lettuce distributes selectively

                While lettuce may be available for purchase at most grocery stores, Earthbound tries to stay selective by selling to stores that are moving in the organic direction. Do we see Earthbound at the shady convenience store down the road? Probably not. Do we see it in the produce department at Safeway? Yeah, generally.  

4) Organic lettuce stays at a temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit, from the moment it is snipped until the moment you put it in your shopping cart.  

               To keep lettuce fresh, while it is transported from farms across America to grocery stores across North America, lettuce is kept at a temperature of thirty six degrees Fahrenheit from the time it is cut, to the time you put it in your shopping cart.

 One last tidbit to chew on – it takes fifty seven calories of fossil fuel per one calorie of  lettuce energy. With this in mind, it goes to show that the distribution channels for lettuce everywhere could be made to be more efficient.

I think I just realised the point of this blog. And by point I mean how this blog is ever going to be extremely useful to me (providing deep meaningful insight into my life is great in theory, but you get out what you put into a blog). Somewhere, between catching up on Kim Kardashian’s divorce and trying to figure out just what Direct Labour Variance is (apparently accounting, whiiiich there is a midterm on Thursday), it came to me,

I’m probably a little slow on the bandwagon, but I am going to do a blog post about every chapter! Genius right? Never thought of before, right?

With that, I will leave you with this:

My favorite advertisement, mainly because Diplo is my favorite DJ… if only I had a blackberry so we could BBM….

stress stress stress

midterms, papers and projects oh my. It’s the season, and this season is never any fun. Having just recovered from strep throat myself, I feel like no matter what I do and how much time I spend doing it, I can just simply never ever do enough. All I need is some magical product or device to save me. I could spend my time reading websites like this one or even this one but that would mean spending even more of my valuable precious time. I could stop going out on the weekend nights, but even if I am stuck at home I end up watching tv shows like this (or even worse, this)

There are always just so many better options that sitting down and reading my economics text book. Like blog posts and updating my linkedin profile.

Here’s another little confession….

I love reading the New Yorker.

Weird for a commerce student? Kind of. But it’s been a dirty secret of mine since grade 12, when the great Mr. Kingstone (papa K) would read us such gems as “The Cursing Mummy” and having us analyze  fun little stories (those of you who may have ever picked up a New Yorker knows that the majority of the articles are over 3 pages long…)

However, one article was able to cross the boundary into the realm of business (partially because the article section was titled World of Business)

Famous Names, by John Colapinto talks about the power behind a name, and the process by which famous names were created, as told through a company called Lexicon. Ever wonder how the BlackBerry earned its moniker? Or how come all brands developed in the 50’s ended in ‘O’ aka Brillo and Brasso?

Names are powerful, and yet we highly underrate their importance. In Keli Gwyn’s Blog post Build a Brand Name, she reminisces about how her most powerful self-marketing tool is her own name.

Was Juliet (of Romeo fame) right….

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

…. or in this world where we are met with 3,000 advertisements a day, do we need Names to create calm out of the chaos?

Since I am dreading studying for my Russian Test that I have tomorrow, and since this blog is technically homework, I figured I would post about another Campaign that I felt was very effective in a non-traditional way.

And yes, I may be a sucker for cute men doing cute things, but at least I am being honest!

The Real Man Campaign launched June 2010 in London, right before the FIFA world cup event took place in South Africa. Statistically, domestic violence rises during major sporting events. The Campaign, which features many famous Soccer and Rugby players in tee-shirts claiming “I’m a Real Man”, is aimed at reducing that sad statistic. Cosmo magazine ran the photos (see below), and the movement has been growing bigger ever since.

I guess I have never really thought about domestic abuse, since I am lucky enough to have grown up in an extremely stable and open family. I have never experienced physical abuse from anyone, so when I read the statement on the front of the Real Man webpage that states “Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime” (a statement taken from the UN Commission on the Status of Women 2000), it was unnerving.

I believe that, though this campaign is not widely known in North America, it is gathering momentum. With the Shirts, Pledges and Pins available for purchase, and many a famous athlete backing this campaign, I have hope that domestic violence can be brought to society’s attention and completely erased from our culture.

Since this is a marketing blog, I thought that it would be fitting for my first post to be about my favourite marketing campaign. the Old Spice Campaign featuring Isaiah Mustafa

It’s true, growing up it was only ever my Grandpa and my Deda (Russian for grandpa) that used Old Spice , and the smell of the original Old Spice still reminds me of them. However, since this Campaign premiered in 2010, Old Spice has been able to reinvent their image and appeal to the younger generation. In fact, when I just walked into the bathroom that I share with my 14 year old brother, there was an Old Spice Ocean Spray deodorant sitting on the counter.

The secret to their success was a Social Media campaign storm, that directly interacted with the younger generation in real time. Apart from having hilarious commercials and clips (which strategically only ran for a few short days on very specific channels to keep interest high), the ‘Old  Spice Guy’ directly communicated with his audience via Twitter. Even better was Isaiah’s Youtube feed, which responded to users interpretations and questions immediately with more home-made clips (there are over 175 Youtube clips on the Old Spice Channel).  It’s been over a year since the campaign took the Internet by storm, and yet Old Spice is not losing steam. Though Isaiah has since stepped down as the Old Spice Guy, after a very public “dispute” against the stereotypical heart-throb Fabio, a new video was released two weeks ago that claims you can “Smell better than yourself” with a hot girl telling the Old Spice captain to “Not tell her nose” that he isn’t a captain with limitless treasures. Simply Genius.

All I know is that I would kill to have Isaiah Mustafa bake me a cake in the kitchen of my dreams that he built me. Thank you Old Spice for heightening my expectations of the perfect man!

I got some of my information from here

For those who doesn’t know me, my name is Katie Dergousoff and I am a second year Commerce Student at the Sauder School of Business. To those of you who do know me….. hey!!

Apart from Comm296 being a mandatory course for all Sauderites, I’m taking intro to marketing because I find the fields of marketing and advertising to be a fascinating and fast-moving environment. I remember being young, sitting with my Gramma and laughing over the old-fashioned ads in her old magazines and newspapers, comparing them to the commercials on TV….

While I am a firm believer that marketing applies to everything that we interact with and every one we interact with, I will be focusing this blog particularly on marketing within the fashion and makeup industries. Since I currently spend most of my marketing skills on promoting my own self, I believe that this is a good place to start, and a great way to share what I have learned in my intro Marketing course! I also apologize in advance for when I wander off the marketing theme, I guess this is my first whole-hearted adventure into blogging!