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Using celebrities to promote brands and their products to consumers is quite common. Many large companies and even some smaller ones, such as ClearlyContacts with Trevor Linden although they have grown considerably, use celebrities to align their brands or products with the self-concept or self values of consumers, as celebrities are held in high regard by society and many consumers identify with their image or style and feel it accurately reflects their own.

This is the new McDonald’s commercial featuring NBA superstars Lebron James and Dwight Howard

This is the original McDonald’s commercial featuring Hall of Famers Micheal Jordan and Larry Bird, note Micheal Jordan’s super trendy Bill Cosby sweater

While reading Raghava Gupta’s blog post on McDonald’s and the NBA, I agree with what Raghava wrote about how McDonald’s is trying to display how if Superstar athletes can eat McDonald’s and still be amazingly fit then why can’t everyone else. The commercial is actually a remake of another McDonald’s commercial that was quite popular featuring Micheal Jordan and Larry Bird. The original commercial was released in the early 90s when people were not as health conscious as they are now and McDonald’s did not have as much bad press for being so unhealthy. I think by releasing a remake of the commercial, but using current NBA stars, McDonald’s is hoping consumers recognize they are the same brand with the same great tasting products they have always had. Furthermore, by using a new era of athletes I feel they are trying to bridge the gap between generations and reach a younger consumer segment that may more familiar with Lebron James and Dwight Howard.

I read this post on Drew’s marketing minute blog about Dove and a marketing campaign they launched going away from their regular advertisements. This was the advertisement used for the campaign.

Drew’s blog post focuses on how marketing executives and senior managers are scared to be different and follow industry norms. He further states many potentially great marketing ideas are never brought to the public because of a fear of doing something that separates them from others in the industry and may be taking a risk. He praises the Dove marketing team for trying something different when they presented their idea which would take the brand into a different direction. As the marketing team used the daughters of the men who they had to pitch their idea to, this really drove home the message of self esteem in young girls and how the Dove brand could capitalize on this.

Personally, I think using the marketing directors/managers daughters to ensure they understand the concept and that it has great potential for the brand is a unique idea but I do not agree with some parts of Drew’s blog. I think most brands and companies know they have to market products differently and take risks to separate themselves from others in the industry. The post seems to hint many marketing directors and senior managers are out of touch and do not want to try knew things. As the Dove ad campaign is focusing on psychographic segmentation I think that the marketing directors would see the potential in the campaign and would not need to be overly persuaded by sneaky gimmicks. This is because if marketing ideas are brought to those that will approve or disapprove them and other factors are effecting their decisions such as using things from their personal lives or preferences it may decrease the objectivity of the decision they make. Even though this technique could help push projects through for some marketers it could also potentially help them get some not so great ideas green lit which could later hurt them and the brand.

I was reading Jane Park’s blog about the Burt’s Bees brand and how they are now owned by Clorox. While I do agree with Jane on the fact is it important to understand who owns these brands and their motives for acquiring them, I also  feel that these larger companies are motivated strictly by profits and because of that it is in their best interest to maintain the competitive adnvantage of the company they acquire. Therefore, some might see Clorox acquiring Burt’s Bees being negative but I think it is actually quite positive for consumers and for the environment that larger firms are looking for ways to diversify into organic and eco-friendly products. I say this because,they will have an incentive to continue creating products using environmentally friendly production methods and natural ingredients because that is what the Burt’s Bees brand have used to differentiate themselves in the market and create a competitive advantage. 

Furthermore, Jane also addressed the issue it is almost impossible for some brands to reposition themselves as environmentally friendly or “green” and that is why they try to buy a company or brand to achieve this. I do not feel this is done to trick consumers or the public as it is generally easy to find information about large company acquistions but more to do with economic and finincial factors. It can be much more efficient to buy a company that already has green production methods and goodwill toward the brand or company rather than try to renovate or update your own existing plants, which may still be quite profitable. Marketing campaigns to overhaul the image of a company can also extremely expensive so it becomes more of a strategic business move to acquire a company.

So even though large mutlti-national firms who buy smaller companies that have capitalized on “green” brands may not be doing it to help the environment or become more sustainable but rather to increase there shareholder value or bottomline they will have to operate these companies sustainably to retain consumer confidence in the brand and therefore it does not matter if who owns or manages eco-friendly brands or companies as long as the culture and objectives do not change.

While walking to class today I was given a free sample of Halls new product called Halls Refresh. This new Halls is being marketed as a healthy hard-candy instead of their traditional cough drops. I expected it to taste somewhat like regular Halls products but with more flavour and that is what it actually tasted like when I tried it. As Halls is trying to branch out beyond the cough market segment I do not think many people will be looking to this product as a viable substitute to a pack of gum. It still has flavours that make you feel like you are taking something for a cough or sore throat so I don’t know how this will appeal to people besides those looking for cough relief.

A few weeks ago Nike released a commercial focusing on NBA stuperstar Lebron James’ controversial decision to leave his home-state Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat. Lebron James is arguably the biggest basketball star in the world right now and he has own line of shoes and also clothing made by Nike. After making the decision to leave Cleveland Lebron James was ridiculed by many different people, from other players in the league to almost every fan that did not support the Miami Heat. It takes a big start for fans to get together and burn his jersey to show how unhappy they were with his choice.

With being such a disliked public figure I was curious to see if Nike would ignore the elephant in the room and release the next Lebron James commercial focusing on the product but they chose to address the situation directly and hit back against the most public and outspoken figures that criticized James, those being Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. With almost no reference or product placement in most of the commercial, it can be seen as a public relations advertisement, something a politician would have rather than an athlete promoting a product.

In this commercial, I think Nike is using psycographic marketing as Lebron James repeatedly asks, “Should I….”  Most people like to have the option of choosing what they want to do with their lives and with this commercial Nike is clearly giving Lebron James the stage to let everyone know he should be allowed to make his own decisions and that he should not be created into something he is not by media and other public figures.

With the commercial being released before the start of the season I do not think it was the best time to do so because if Nike had waited until the season had begun many fans would watch Lebron James do what he is best at and everyone appreciates amazing athletes and seem to forget what they may have done. But by releasing this commercial some may view it as Lebron James having no regrets about leaving his poor home-town team along with the fans in the dumps and moving onto the sandy beaches of South Beach.

In recent times many auto-makers have struggled to have positive or growing sales even many luxury brands but this does not seem to be the case for the special-edition vehicles many large companies produce in relatively small numbers. As reported by luxist.com Neiman Marcus sold all 100 of the Neiman Marcus special edition convertible Camaros in their Christmas book in an astonishing 3 minutes! This strategy is further proven as Porsche recently sold its entire production run of 500 for the highly limited 911 GT2 RS, at a price of $250,000 each, before they have even been delivered to dealerships.

While this strategy of producing limited-edition models in low numbers may not be highly profitable due to the low numbers of units sold there are many positive spillover effects that come from the attention these models receive. As they usually contain better technology and unique styling ques they attract much more media attention than the regular offerings a car manufacturer might offer. Furthermore, as they are usually more expensive many auto enthusiasts may be attracted to the certain model but decide to settle for something that is more in their budget. These special-edition models also allow car-makers to showcase their technological advances in the short-term without having to ensure they are cost-effective, this helps attract consumers to the brand and increase brand reputation as many consumers associate certain innovations with the original companies that introduced them to the market.

Here are the links to check out the original blog posts on luxist.com

http://www.luxist.com/2010/10/24/porsche-sells-out-entire-run-of-911-gt2-rs/

http://www.luxist.com/2010/10/24/neiman-marcus-sells-all-100-camaro-convertibles-in-3-minutes/

Firms work very hard to develop competitive advantages and for these advantages to be sustainable or at least difficult to replicate it is important for companies to keep information in-house. With the top 1000 U.S. companies now spending an estimated $1 billion a year on competitive intelligence-collecting and synthesizing information about their position with respect to rivals, it comes as no surprise a leading auto-maker such as Porsche has banned all of their employees from using social-networking sites such as Facebook. 

Porsche reps claim they are trying to mitigate against “industrial espionage”  and this is just a measure to protect the company as they do not want foreign surveillance to capture any sensitive information about future projects or their technology. It seems to be a little harsh to ban employees from connecting with friends and family on-line. Furthermore, as social-networking sites have become heavily exploited marketing tools for many big auto-makers such as Ford, who was awarded Marketer of the year by Advertising Age magazine, it may become difficult for Porsche to justify to their employees that it is acceptable for the company to use but not for employees.

When you hear the term double-down many people immediately think of blackjack or some other type of gambling related activity but that is not the case here. KFC has introduced their new sandwich called the Double Down which instead of buns has two chicken filets and between those pieces of chicken the sandwich contains cheese,bacon, and sauce. For those wondering how fattening or unhealthy this new sandwich is, KFC proudly displays the nutritional facts of the Double Down on there website and it is not hidden in tiny print.

With the global trend towards being environmentally friendly, exercising regularly, eating healthy, avoiding fatty foods, and smoking becoming taboo in many places-as it is highly restricted in public places in Canada and other places in North America. There seems to be a small revolt among many people who still feel they are being forced to conform. Furthermore, KFC seems to beleive that although many people try to find healthier choices in there diet, that there is a large niche market for people who still want to eat a big sandwich and forget about how many calories it has or the amount of sodium in it. The fat and the sodium content are displayed right beneath the sandwich on the KFC website in quite large print so they are not trying to hide anything but rather promote the sandwich as an alternative to all the fat-free salad filled items many other fast-food retailers seem to be offering these days.

The people that buy this burger may be just hungry individuals but I feel they will be consumers who are sick of having to be health conscious and watch there diet all the time. Something along the lines the joy a smoker would get if they could just light up in the middle of a bar or restaurant. As there are other ways to eat unhealthy or show that you do not care about what you eat, by walking in and ordering a Double Down some people may feel like they are showing others who cares life’s short enjoy yourself and Double Down!

With the success of the Ford Fiesta movement Ford Motor Company has decided to continue using interactive marketing. The  majority of the consumers of entry-level vehicles being relatively young and tech savvy Ford is hoping to once again use social networking to engage them and introduce and market their product well before its release-date.

Ford will be teaming up with the creators of television show The Amazing Race to create an online show called Focus Rally America where six teams of 2 people each and one Ford Focus vehicle will compete for the chance to win a grand price of $100,000.  To maximize potential consumer participation viewers of the show can help their favorite teams via online support to navigate them through the course and the top ten biggest supporters of the winning team will be awarded with brand new Ford Focuses.

I think Ford has found a successful way to penetrate the younger demographic of car-buyers as many people extensively research online to learn more about the potential car they are looking to buy. As a vehicle is a very large purchase it is viewed as a risky purchase and prospective buyers usually look to family and friends on what their past experiences have been with certain auto maker brands. By creating a show with Ford’s car being driven for 5-weeks by everyday people and not celebrities in staged commercials this helps consumers relate to the product and more confidence in what they are buying. Furthermore, it provides an alternative way for people to learn about a car and its capabilities while also being entertained.

For the second consecutive year the National Football League and its players will wear pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Players wear pink accessories such as towels, tape, and special edition shoes; these will be auctioned off at the end of the month with proceeds going to Breast Cancer charities. As NFL players are seen as some of the strongest, toughest, and aggressive athletes in the world it is a great gesture from the league to show there support by donning notoriously feminine colors to support a much greater cause. One of the key supporters of Breast Cancer Awareness month and the man responsible for getting the NFL and their merchandisers so involved is star running DeAngelo Williams, who’s other is a breast cancer survivor.

 The NFL is very dominant in the United States sports market, with a very large following as the sport is viewed by fans as part of the country’s identity. This makes it a great way to spread the message of Breast Cancer and induce participation from a male audience that may not be actively participating. For example, when fans by there team’s gear they are also supporting Breast Cancer charities and as NFL players are role models to many people it is something men may rally around.

Other leagues like the NHL and major soccer leagues in Europe, such as the English Premier League, which have massive fan followings should also follow in the steps of the NFL. As many teams and leagues do strongly support charities or have their own foundations off the field, the NFL is the first league to actively promote a cause on the field and force fans to take notice.