Category: Uncategorized

Like most things, every product has a lifespan. From its introduction to the market and its withdrawal from it. In between, the product experiences growth, maturity and then finally decline. However, what if a product can extend its lifespan, cheat death and continue to live while others die out? Probably driven by the same inspiration that pushed mankind’s deep and dark history of searching for immortality, marketers have found ways to delay a product’s withdrawal from a market.

Ok I exaggerate a little bit. Many companies actually do this, it’s called Product Life Extensions. A good example of this strategy, is releasing new and upgraded versions of previous products. This includes, slightly altering the existing product and repacking it. When Diet Coke was first introduced in 1983, it gave Coca-cola a much needed boost in sales as many of the consumers were becoming health conscious. By doing this Coke delayed its decline of the Coke brand. Coca-cola continued to this many times in the following years, an idea of infusing different flavours with the original coke saw the rise of Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke and several others. In this case, Coca-cola saw that there was an opportunity to capture more demand for a different tasting soft drink and therefore regulate sales for the coming years.

There are also other ways to extend a product’s life. The price reduction of a product can be used at the declining stage of the life cycle, just to squeeze a little bit more cash out of that product. However, this seems like a more short term strategy as in most cases, the cause of the decline of a product is because it is starting to become obsolete. Entering new markets can also be seen as an extension.

However, I would sometimes like to question the ethical decisions made by firms regarding product life cycle extensions, particularly in the case of the electronics industry. It has become aware amongst consumers that electronic companies like Apple, Nokia, and Samsung do not release their latest capabilities on their newest products. For example, the lithium battery that we used in mobile technology were readily available for production years before its eventual release. More recently, Apple chose to install i7 processor technologies for their newest Macbook Pro 15 and 17 inch laptops, one and a half years after its original release. I mean, why couldn’t the original come with the i7 processors. Surely, it was available to such a technological advanced company like Apple right?

I think it is fair to suspect that companies such as Apple retail products that do not offer the best capabilities that they CAN offer. Eventually, they systematically alter and repackage some products to strategically capture more profit from the consumers’ pockets, by means of product life cycle extensions.

So the other day in class we were discussing about product placement in different movies. The first movie franchise that came up in my head with a huge focus on product placement was the James Bond series. In particular, the last two movies with Daniel Craig saw a massive display of product placement by Sony. James Bond must have used his Sony Ericsson phone at least 6 times in Casino Royale. Every Laptop and camera were also Sony products, including such product lines as the Vaio and Bravia.

In some cases, Sony has even chosen to reveal some of its new products through the James Bond films. The new limited edition Titanium silver C902 Cyber-shot™ was first seen in Quantum of Solace.

..and it doesn’t stop there. The James Bond series is also known as an outlet for famous brand names such as Aston Martin, BMW, Gordon’s gin and Smirnoff Vodka. The appearance of an Aston Martin car even dates back all the way to the days of Sean Connery’s portrayal of Mr. Bond.

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.” – John Ruskin

I am a man… and I am a man who understands the importance of quality. In Daniel Castillo’s post on the most anticipated PC game of 2010, Starcraft 2, he effectively communicates the value of making a very good game in that particular industry. Dan argues that the reason behind Blizzard’s enormous success and history comes from their one promise to the customer: When you buy a Blizzard game, you will buy a good game. And that promise has been met with every single game Blizzard has released. This is also evident with the incredibly long production lengths Blizzard assigns to each game. Starcraft 2 took 10 years.

Dan also compared the products and business strategy of Blizzard to another video gaming company. Non-explicitly,  He criticizes EA for not ensuring the quality of each game released and also for not following through on games that were initially great ideas. This mindset of churning games out with minimal effort is inferior when stood next to Blizzard’s quality assurance.

When a product is good it will sell.

I grew up playing ‘soccer’ and I am one of the most fanatical followers of the sport anyone can speak to. Back in high school my friends and I would regularly show off new soccer cleats to each other. We were very particular about the type of boot and the perks we perceived each had. Speed, Comfort, Accuracy, Power, and Touch were words associated with different boots. In this market, Nike and Adidas are main competitors and both command a huge majority of the market share, mostly due to the amount of effort spent on differentiating its boots from one another. For this post I have chosen to look into Nike’s line of soccer boots.

Nike’s Mercurial Vapor lightweight material promises consumers speed and agility.

Nike markets its Tiempo line as the ‘classic’, providing touch, class and comfort. After all, players play at their best when most comfortable.

and finally, the T90 Accuracy is marketed as a precision tool. Giving consumer’s the ability to place a ball wherever they want it.

Theres no denying that Nike can market its product well and that they have. These products have been around for almost a decade and consumers now are very familiar with each product brand. Players who prioritize speed will go for the Vapor, and players who want accuracy will go for the T90. Nike has actually created these images in the consumer’s head so well, that most players firmly believe that real abilities and skills like speed, strength, precision all come from a boot. A very good example of this marketing strategy is when Nike sponsors certain players with different boots. The very quick, agile Cristiano Ronaldo loyally wears the Vapor every single game and dead-eye strikers who rely on accuracy like Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres are users of the T90. When consumers see real professional players who use different boots to accommodate their personal and individual skills, consumers can sometimes be mislead to believe that these skills come from their physicality rather than the shoe. I mean, come on, will the Vapor which weights half a T90 actually give you much more bursts of speed? Doesn’t the direction of a moving ball depend on the contact spot and not on what a shoe is made of? The only boot that I believe in is the Tiempo. I believe in it because I feel that comfort does affect your performance on the pitch and Nike has done very well on getting that message across to me.

Sometimes marketing can be so powerful that it can sometimes further consumers away from practicality and reason when maybe they should just base their strategy on a realistic selling point. But hey, i’m not the rest of the world.

In one of his marketing posts, Pedram Mohseni questioned the practicality of the traditional use of books in today’s new modern age. With technology rapidly moving forward without an end in sight, Pedram argued that the recent releases of  Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s Ipad and other portable digital media screens have begun the eventual extinction of real books. He also mentions that Universities, high schools and other institutes have started to move in that direction in the past few years. Assignments, exams and even lectures can be delivered through media.

Personally I agree that the recent advancements in classroom technology suggests that books and papers will eventually become obsolete. Not long ago CDs were the only way of getting music albums to consumers. After the development and public embrace of itunes, many consumers now download their desired music of the apple application. This is proof that mankind will always  favour the most convenient way to access what they want. Furthermore, this new direction that the academic industry is taking will encourage economic and environmental sustainability. I predict that publishers will eventually realize that they can capture more of the market’s demand by distributing books through the internet channel instead. Consumers will never have to go to the bookstore to pick up the new copy of Dan Brown’s new mainstream novel again as they can easily pick it off he digital shelves of itunes and other websites. This completely bypasses the need to use natural resources to print millions of copies of hardcopy books for sale.

So I came across Michael Fleischner’s rant on the new feature added to google search.

He complains about the new google preview feature, which gives you a brief snapshot preview of a website before actually clicking and entering it.

He argues that it is a pointless new addition and that it only encourages people to be lazy, ie the website is only a click away. I however would like to respectfully disagree with Mr. Fleischner. Sometimes, search engine users can be quite paranoid of the websites the enter. A quick snapshot of the website before entering in gives the “putting your toe into the water” option, it allows people to feel safer when browsing the internet. Also, it helps users to ignore and skip through websites that look sketchy and not legitimate. When I do my research, one thing I absolutely hate is bumping into websites that aren’t good enough sources for my work. One way to tell about a website’s legitimacy is it’s layout.

To my knowledge, Yahoo, MSN search, and other search engines do not give you this option. And I think google’s decision to improve its search engine this way only reinforces the fact that it is truly the king of the market, to consumers.

*Warning*- I might have been extremely personal and biased while writing this post.

I absolutely can’t stand it when people are so caught up with their mobile phones all the time, particular when their not alone and in the company of other people. It is absolutely disgusting and vile when a person is constantly checking on their text msgs/bbms/emails when at the dinner table/bar/party or whatever social event. It’s stupid, it’s rude and it’s disrespectful. People nowadays are too easily distracted by mobile networking and I feel that it is reducing the genuineness and more importantly, purpose of socialization. Unfortunately, it seems like more and more people are starting to do it. Am I the only one who gets severely annoyed when a friend decides to juggle conversations with several other people over dinner or over a drink at a bar? Could be just another one of my pet peeves but certainly it isn’t irrational to claim that such abuse of mobile technology is destroying the very fabric of human interaction. It is like chewing the leftovers of pig feed, rinsing it with sulphuric acid and sewage water, and then spitting the contents into the face of everything that is real and pure in existence.

Maybe I took it a bit too far there, but you get my point.

ARGH!

ARGGGH!

Gawdaamit!

Anyways, I brought this topic up because I recently caught the commercials for the new windows phone.

In a highly competitive mobile technology market, branding is key. Microsoft tried to differentiate the image of its new product by setting it apart from other mobile phones. It touches the issue of cellphone over-usage, which was what I briefly touched on before. Microsoft has identified that many mobile phone users *aherm* (blackberry users) spend way too much time on their phones rather than in reality. Realizing that many consumers also feel the same way, the new windows phone is designed to get you in and out of your phone swiftly so that you don’t waste too much time on it. As a result, a simple yet stylish touch-screen interface that resembles the ‘dashboard’ on a mac was created. It displays everything you need to know on ur phone. It appeals to the simplistic and the ‘time is money’ minded fellow, and not so much to the ‘eventhough I don’t use many of my cellphone’s capabilities, it’s nice to know that I COULD’ type of person.

Personally, I think Microsoft does a great job setting the product’s image apart from lets say a blackberry or Iphone (both of which promote the never-ending functions of each phone) in the advertisement. However, I am skeptical of how successful the phone can be in that sense. Does less truly mean more in the technology industry? I mean, limiting the capabilities of a phone, and then making that a selling point seems like a contradiction. I think that most consumers would still be likely to purchase a blackberry or an Iphone or whatever that is out there in the market that is more technological defined and advanced than a windows phone.

Aside from that, I think that most people do not realize or agree that excessive mobile phone usage is really that big of a deal. Many consumers would disagree that such a problem actually exists (especially those who are avid bbm users). Some might even be repulsed by the windows 7 commercial. All in all, my first judgement, although quite quick, of this positioning scheme is that its target audience might only amount to a small bit of the overall market. Not many people are ready to believe that less is more in a phone.

I have a confession to make. I have a strange obsession with many things retro. Retro posters, apparels, musical instruments, lifestyle, food make up a small bit of a long list. This week I decided to look at more retro ads from the past, except this time around i chose to look at more controversial ones.

I came across a particularly shocking vintage ad from way back in the day.

What were they thinking right? What does that mean? Could it mean that African American children can be used to improve a costume someone could wear to a costumer party?

The answer is, yes.. if we were to read it in the today’s context. However, the answer is no, if we were reading it in the correct timeframe.

This ad clearly relies on the play on words used. At the time, ‘colored’ was a term used to refer to African Americans. ‘Kids’ was a slang for Kidskin boots, very much like the use of the word ‘kicks’ in modern times to refer to shoes. However, ‘colored kids’ also literally meant black children. So the wordplay then, is blending the real meaning ‘dyed kidskin boots’ and the alternative meaning ‘black children’.

Another condescending aspect of this picture is how the black children are portrayed playing with a rodent tied to a string. Does this suggest the lower, poorer and unsophisticated status of the black community? This, coupled with the fact that the white women is wearing relatively upperclass apparel, the answer is certainly a strong yes.

Reading this ad in modern times would obviously elicit angry and offended responses. However, back in the day it might have been a different story. This ad was probably released in the end of the 1800’s, or more realistically, in early 1900’s, and society’s view of racism wasn’t what it is today. The public in that timeframe were not as aware of the harm racism can cause. That, and the lack of rights the African American community suffered from allowed for such ads to be used. Presumably, there was a non-existant fear of public revolt when this ad was created. The majority of its target segment was most probably white, and this probably gave the marketers reason to act insensitively.

Now, in the beginnings of the 2000’s, no such racially provoking pictures would be dared to be released anywhere. Marketers have learned a long time ago to adapt to political changes in society, in this case it was the abolishment of racial discrimination and the least we could do is thank God that mankind have made positive steps in terms of racial equality.

The summer has passed, but what a summer it was. One of the key summer highlights for not just me but also for the entire world was, of course, the World Cup. The world cup is the most anticipated world-wide sports competition, more than the olympics I can safely say (I know the WC isn’t big here in Canada, but trust me, it is definitely has more emotional impact and carries more weight to any other country outside North America, although I could be plain biased).

So anyways, this was Nike’s primary commercial on television during the WC and was first aired months before. First of all, I think its a great advertisement as it concentrates on not one but a few current footballing idols. This way it appeals to many more demographic segments. They video first focuses on Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba, Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro, England’s Wayne Rooney, Brazil’s Ronaldinho and finally ends with Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, each of them arguably the finest footballing talent from their respective countries/continents. Furthermore, Nike manages to incorporate the different cultural backgrounds of each player by exhibiting not only their locations, but also certain characteristics of the player and the people that surround them in the video, for example, Wayne Rooney’s street-boxer determinism/british guile plus grit and Fabio Cannavaro’s extravagant ‘self-admiring’ over the top celebrations. By doing this, Nike is able to connect to wider segments all around the world and sell them the same idea, which is what the World Cup does, it unites people with common grounds.

What is Nike actually trying to sell in this video? Well, I like to think that Nike sells ideas rather than actual products in their commercials. In this particular one, Nike isn’t selling a tangible product, it is selling the motion of achieving success through the use of Nike products, ie Nike will provide your guidance. This video attempts to sell the idea of freedom, the freedom to write your own future, to orchestrate your own success. It is obvious that they are trying to position themselves as some sort of guide or medium that takes you to where you want to be.

I feel that it is worthwhile to notice that extremely brand conscious companies like Nike spend millions of dollars in advertisements that do not even mention any particular product like in this video. However, that isn’t what they were looking to do, the main point of the ad is to reinforce their position and brand image as a global sports company that does not only provide customers with quality sporting goods, but also something ‘more’ that helps you achieve your goals. This is how value is created.

So the other day I was looking through some retro ads on youtube. I came across this iconic coke commercial from back in the 70’s. Its the one with legendary American football player Joe Greene. As ‘Mean Joe’ limps towards the locker room, a kid following closely behind offers him a bottle of coke. Joe finishes the bottle in one gulp and smiles toward the camera. As the kid walks away, Joe lets out the famous line ” Hey Kid! Catch “. He throws his jersey to the little boy and the little boy replied ” Wow! Thanks Mean Joe”.

This commercial is still referenced and talked about in the entertainment industry today, 30 years after its release. Isn’t it amazing that a soft drink company had the power to make a short clip like that become so memorable. I wasn’t even alive in 1979 and I know of the scene. This is proof that advertising is vital to any company’s future success and that marketing is not something that should be overlooked.

Here’s the classic commercial: