Month: November 2013

The title of Toby Kwan’s blog post “It’s Black Friday Friday Friday” is very suiting to the current issue I find is most prominent in the Black Friday promotion commotion. Black Friday is no longer just a one day event, rather, in attempt to cash in on Black Friday sales, stores are now extending Black Friday to three, four, or even five days long. While Toby argues that Black Friday is “not so much an event as a product in itself,” promoting the right message, to the right people, through the right media, I believe that with the recent Black Friday trends, the right message to the right people part of the promotional mix has become ambiguous.

Black Friday commercials invaded local radio stations a few days before the event. Listening to various stores advertise their three, four, or five day Black Friday sales as I drove home from marketing class, it dawned on me that while Black Friday has always been a successful promotional campaign, many store’s advertisements are becoming noise because of the lack of uniformity in its design. True, extending the sales is profitable and beneficial in helping consumers who are adverse to big crowds and long line ups, but when one store has a three day sale, while another has a four day sale, and another only has a one day sale… it just becomes a jumble of confusion in consumers’ minds.

Thus I propose the idea of a unified one day Black Friday event, with the option for stores to extend it to a three day event. Either one or three. Not only does this decrease the confusion, but it also cuts down the noise in the communication channels so that consumers will be better able to decode what sales each store actually has to offer. The question will be simple: Is this store offering sales on Black Friday, or Black Friday Friday Friday?

Visit Toby Kwan’s Blog at https://blogs.ubc.ca/tobykwan/

Each generation has different ways they absorb information to make decisions in their lives. Seniors nowadays aren’t the most internet savvy, however more and more are learning. Emma Livingston’s blog, “Do Seniors Process Information Differently?” mentions seniors “are less likely to make decisions based on factual analysis and research first,” and are more likely to respond to emotional factors. Thus, she proposes firms should do some research and appeal to the senior market using “enthusiastic lead users to act as advocates.”

A good example I found to add on to Emma’s point was the “Airport” commercial for Oceanic Cable using Betty White and the cast of “Hot in Cleveland.” Oceanic Cable is using Betty White to appeal to the senior market. When seniors see this commercial, they might recognize Betty White, a famous senior comedian, thus creating a link between the Oceanic Cable brand and the senior market. This is because when seniors see someone they know supporting a brand, they will automatically be more inclined to choose this brand amongst all competitors due to the emotional tie that is created by the advocate. Seniors will feel more trust towards this product and be more likely to purchase it.

Seniors are a tough market to reach because they often do not follow current trends. Commercials are a great way to reach the senior market because they tend to have more time to sit down and watch TV compared to younger people nowadays whose lives depend on high speed internet and wifi connection.