Kevin Mason's Blog

My blog post below discusses my opinion of Darren Zakus’s blog post on 3D product advertisements in movie theaters.

Zakus’s post outlines how 3D commercials for commercial products in movie theaters (such as Cover Girl and the Blackberry Z10) are an overall inefficient use of financial funds – even remarking how half the theater usually doesn’t pay attention to the pre-screening advertisements anyhow. And to his point, I agree. For a theater, it seems a little outrageous to spend the extra money to have a 3D commercial that doesn’t have any more marketing effect than a regular commercial.

However, 3D commercials for these products may be more effective to consumers with changing technology. 3D televisions are becoming a more popular trend. Similar to the progression of standard definition to high definition televisions, I can see the quality of televisions changing in the near future as more people purchase 3D televisions. Once more people have 3D TV’s, it may be more beneficial for these companies to produce 3D commercials to broadcast on the television networks to catch the consumer’s attention. As more companies produce these 3D commercials, it may become a norm for TV commercials to all be in 3D; similar to how we expect our HD television programs to be followed with HD advertisements; a standard definition advertisement has a lower-quality appeal in comparison. It’s certainly something to think about with a new and changing technology.

Source: http://www.futureshop.ca/Projects/ResearchCentre/rc8753/header_en.jpg

Wow, this term went by so quickly! I honestly had a wonderful experience with this class and thoroughly enjoyed the course! Tamar makes the class engaging and enjoyable. I was consistently excited to come to class. This was definitely one of the best Commerce courses I have taken thus far!

Alright, let’s talk assignments:

Overall I thought the projects were a great way to apply what we were learning in class towards a bigger aspect of marketing. Personally, I found the reports to be the most effective. Our team was able to work well as a group to develop all the information we needed, and organized the report in a way that presented our vision in a clear manner. But the video project was another story. We had so much information, we found that we were cutting out all the important details that could have been added to enhance our report – our company had a lot of issues we found were crucial to its current situation. Not only that, but every minute of video was filled with hours of editing, script, and preparation in order to make it happen. So not only did we want to include more information, but we found we were overwhelmed by the amount of work that was necessary in order to complete the project.

In retrospect, the video was an engaging way for us to integrate our content and creative skills, and was rewarding after the fact. The next time I’m presented with a video project, I will be sure to start all of this preparation extremely early with the team so we can be more effective with our time management.

Overall, COMM 296 was a fantastic experience for me. As sad as I am to say that I will not be doing a marketing specialization (I’m enrolled as a Business and Computer Science student, BUCS) this course has helped me flourish my creative side, and encouraged me to continue educating myself on such a fascinating topic! It was above and beyond anything I could have expected, and I truly believe that Tamar was a major attribute/influence on the success of this course! If there is one course I would recommend to someone interested in business, this would be the course to take!

Congrats again Tamar on your promotion to a full-time instructor, and I wish you all the best!

Thank you AdWeek’s AdFreak for another terrific find! Sorry, correction: finds!

Increasingly the ever-so-popular “prank” ads have barraged our televisions and internet usage through hilarious pranks that promote a single product at the very end. These memorable commercials are a must see! But how come commercials like this go viral so quickly compared to others?

First off, it’s something new and exciting. The themes are so ridiculous they’re hilarious at times, and it creates a little bit of excitement in the viewers’ eyes to wonder “what would my reaction have been?”.

Second, though our eyes glance ad advertisements and logos at every waking moment, these ads go above and beyond the expectation we would have about the everyday advertisement! Take the NIVEA Deo StressTest for example; it would take a lot of effort for these marketers to arrange such an ordeal in an extremely professional manner to pull this off successfully. That’s what makes these commercials so outstanding: it’s their ability to make the viewer go “wow”.

Advertisements seem to get bigger and bigger as society and technology improves. And the most memorable and successful commercials have come from those who put the biggest efforts in creativity, dramatic/comedic appeal, and general ridiculousness. These prank ads and the Old Spice commercials are a prime example of these.

http://youtu.be/_gWk_yKtEdo

http://youtu.be/vs1wMp84_BA

http://youtu.be/RS3iB47nQ6E

http://youtu.be/Q5mHPo2yDG8

http://youtu.be/316AzLYfAzw

Okay, so after Tamar showed us the videos promoting the current “parent” generation to use minivans, I had to try and find something similarly hilarious. Then I found this.

I’m not going to lie, I became thoroughly excited watching this video. As Toyota and Honda change the way we look at minivans, Audi is redefining our view of the good ol’ station wagons. It’s cliche reliability and mother’s-dream-car is changing. With the new, bad-ass commercial that lives up to any man’s perfect fusion of video games and sports cars, the ultimate paintball duel is fought between two of Audi’s 450 horsepower, V-8 engine, hood-mounted paintball gun station wagons. But I assure you, after you watch this video, anyone can agree that these can’t be station wagons.

Haha so Audi’s commercial clearly worked. Targeting the male population towards purchasing a family station wagon through the use of their love of sports cars and video games. They’ve turned this lame loser-cruiser into an elongated, turbo boosted hatchback. I mean, come on, what guy hasn’t thought about having a paintball fight in cars or go-carts?

McDonald’s Trims Menu Items as Sales Drop

source: http://fungagz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/McDonalds_SuperSizeMe.gif

For the first time in 9 years, McDonald sales in the US have dropped. And even in different countries, McDonalds is expecting to see a decline in their overall sales. But instead of taking a financial approach as to why this is happening, I want to use this blog to evaluate a more social approach.

Let’s face it, times are changing. And while Miller spends the time in his article explaining how McDonald’s competitors are spending their time introducing new lines of “higher quality” products such as Angus beef and wheat or focaccia buns, he misses one key, underlying element: consumers are becoming more health conscious.

source: click photo

In a recent article, Jenn Tekin from Packaged Facts “estimates U.S. retail sales of nutritional supplements exceeded $9 billion in 2009, up 8% over 2008 sales. From 2005 to 2009, the market grew by a total of 26%, fueled by growing consumer awareness about health maintenance, in addition to pressure by the media and government to enforce product accountability.” This change of health consciousness is only expected to increase over the next few years.

Companies such as Nike and BodyBuilding.com have also promoted the idea of a healthy lifestyle through ads such as the ones shown (left Nike, right BodyBuilding.com). Both of these companies are changing the stereotypical idea from “sexy=skinny” to “sexy=fit”. What I find interesting about both of these advertisements is how it strongly relates to both men and women: women want to look attractive, and men want to look attractive to attract beautiful women (hey, sex sells!).

source: click photo

But what’s even more interesting is how advertisements like these are changing the way consumers of all age demographics (Gen X, Gen Y, and even Baby Boomers) are looking at a more health conscious lifestyle. My generation (Gen Y) are currently going through the trend of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, leading way from the unhealthy alternatives. The generation before me (Gen X) are also taking a lead in changing their lifestyle to become healthier in comparison to their high-fat, processed food diets as children as they begin to raise their own. Baby Boomers are also developing into a more health-conscious life as they experience a higher risk of diseases as they age. Their motivation to change their unhealthy lifestyle is again based on the resources available with the new trends.

Okay, so back to the original article: McDonald’s sales are dropping. Well after evaluating the health-trend that has been going on for the last 8 years it’s no wonder McDonalds is finally declining! The target segment is changing, and people are becoming more willing to take the time to spend a little more in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. And though McDonalds has tried to target this consumer by introducing “healthy alternatives” such as salads, these types of consumers do not look at Mickey-D’s as a meal alternative. These consumers would look at a hamburger as a “reward” for their week-long hard work; a little indulgence to satisfy the taste buds. But instead of simply removing products from their product line, McDonalds should engage in product development to improve the overall quality of the burger.

For example, if I decide to eat a burger, I don’t want to buy the cheapest one I can find, I want a high quality, savory burger that will suffice as a reward.

Hey, did you hear about that new Blackberry Z10? Oh wait, that’s not really the big news…

At its Blackberry 10 Launch, Thorsten Heins (CEO) shocked the world when he announced RIM’s new beginning as “Blackberry”. When the crowd simply expected the release of the latest smartphone, the company’s new slogan – “Re-designed. Re-engineered. Re-invented.” – opened up a whole opportunity for the company. After plummeting sales, Blackberry has made one last ditch effort to save itself; introducing new products, brand, tagline, celebrity spokesperson and Super Bowl ad. In Andrew Maia’s Blog, he comments that this will either be “one of the greatest tech revivals since Apple, or a last hurrah before the final drop in its monumental fall.”

I’d like to use this blog post to expand on Andrew’s quote.

Source: http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/7610277/DSC_0953-2_large_verge_medium_landscape.jpg

At this point, Blackberry has now put all of its odds in its product design. Its company image is 100% attached to their Blackberry products, and its outcome will completely depend on how well these new smartphones compete with Apple’s iPhone 5 and Android’s higher-end smartphones. In order to make a full revival, Blackberry will have to reshape its current technology – similar to what Apple did.So they released a complete touchscreen phone. Does it come with any new, ground-breaking features? Well, not really. It’s just a completely new look for Blackberry – which works, I guess. But if they want to revive itself like Apple did, it’s going to have to introduce something big to the world. Apple introduced iTunes and the iPod family – revolutionizing the music industry into a new digital age. It also introduced the iPhone, bringing in a completely new, revolutionary, user-intuitive smartphone into the market. And who did they target? Everyone.

Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/fgna/photo/40uiah6j/x7el8czm/large/BlackberrySmashed.jpg?1321294732

And maybe that’s Blackberry’s issue: they’re too focused on saving their brand image as “the business phone”. Apple and Android were able to overtake the “business phone” market by producing phones that were more intuitive, becoming attractive to both the general population and business professionals. Blackberry has stayed in its corner, focusing on the professionals instead of looking to the big market.Blackberry was certainly bold with its new rebranding. The only way I see Blackberry digging itself out is by changing its target market focus, introducing some new revolutionary tech/productivity breakthrough, and promoting its new brand at every possible street corner. Apple was able to dig itself out by being a marketing genius; but can Blackberry do the same?

In all honesty, I doubt it. “Research in Motion” seemed to be stationary for the last 10 years.

David Damberger: What happens when an NGO admits failure

After watching a recent TedTalk by David Damberger, who talks about failed Aid Foundation and NGO projects, it brought up an interesting ethical dilemma on the approach to marketing donations for people in need. These aid foundations communicate a specific
need – fresh water for example – and state that by simple donations they will provide the impoverished communities with the resources they require. However, after a year of implementing these multi-thousand dollar projects, the systems no longer work due to lack of maintenance. Nonetheless, these organizations continue to market the need of these people, gaining donations to implement these ineffective solutions in order to continue to raise money. As a result, the people in these poverty nations are not gaining the help they need. In fact, they’re being given unsustainable solutions that hinder their ability to progress towards a healthier nation. The result is completely opposite of their value proposition to help these poor communities.

In the video, David talks about his own failed projects after he thought the program saved the community. As I watched him speak, you can hear the shakiness in his voice and emotion in his eyes as he admits his failure to the audience. After spending thousands of dollars from donators for a plan to help bring fresh water to a community in poverty, and seeing the devastating result after all of their hard work, the organizations continue to promote a need for donations in order to implement unsustainable systems. This is rather unsettling.

How can an International Aid Foundation, striving to provide a better life for impoverished nations, continue to market this so-called “unsolvable” problem by scamming people to donate in order to implement unsustainable programs? David suggests that in order to overcome this issue, Aid foundations should communicate their failures to the population in order to promote more sustainable solutions. It may not be as provocative (or “sexy”) to market to potential donators, but it provides information of how the systems implemented will actually be maintained in order to provide a more sustainable solution.

Either way, Aid foundations need to re-think their revenue/marketing strategy in order to keep promoting donations and actually provide sustainable solutions that will help build the impoverished nations towards success. Donators want their money to go towards a solution that will help a community for a lifetime, not for a year and a half.

App Logo

Over the past few years, Google has made some rapid and revolutionary expansions. It’s no longer known as “just a search engine”. Google has become the most popular search engine, developed another high speed web browser (Google Chrome), introduced itselfe as one of the leading smart phone companies, and now it’s taking over the social media sector. But why in the world would it do that?

I was looking around for an external blog for this post, and I stubbled upon a short blog about how amazing Google+ is (see Blog Article link at bottom of page). So seeing there was another competitor in social media, trying to compete with Facebook, Twitter, etc, I had to check it out. Then I found these videos. They’re short, informational videos on Google+, and I have to say Google did an excellent job in developing this new innovation. From what it seems, it’s definitely up there to become one of the hottest social networking cites. It just needs some major advertising (like Apple usually does), and it has the potential to be the next Facebook or Twitter.

But judging Google’s record, it seems to be constantly ranking 2nd or 3rd. Another thing to note, is Google trying to expand too fast and too much? Should it expand to different markets like Microsoft? Or settle in a market niche as an search engine? Scrambling to try and expand to different industries could lead to it’s demise, but so far the company’s been doing pretty well. So long as Google continues with internet and software development, I think Google will remain one of the most successful IT companies. If it starts producing commercial products like a new “Google iPod”, it will lose sight of where it’s headed as an industry.

Leave a comment on your opinion.

Blog Article: http://mediatapper.com/the-number-one-reason-to-join-google-plus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-number-one-reason-to-join-google-plus

Videos: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

Google+

Tim Hortons’ new product line of lattes, cappucinos, and espressos seems to have come a little late. With the global expansion of Starbucks, Tim Hortons has had some major competition for a while. You would have thought they would have created new lattes, cappucinos, and espressos by now. They are in despirate need to catch up to the leading competition.

Source: CBC News

On a side note, the introduction of new lattes, cappucinos, and espressos is a huge benefit to the European market. For example, I have Spanish exchange students from Spain in my COMM 292 course. They constantly complain that there are no quick, small “coffee” shops. When I asked which specific coffee they were looking for, they were describing an espresso coffee. They would become very excited to know that Tim Hortons will be expanding to introduce signature Tim Hortons espresso.

However, everyone knows the Timmy’s quality isn’t the greatest. Their donuts have become more and more stale, their sandwiches are going old, and even their coffee is now being compared to a cheap version of McDonalds coffee. That’s right, McDonalds coffee! They may have expanded their industry, but in order to keep the quality, cheap Canadian Coffee Name, they have to continue the “quality” part of the bargain. Especially if the “Europeans” will become the new judges.

Darren’s Blog

I guarantee that within the last hour, if not right now, you’ve been on the world’s most popular website: Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is innovation. He had brought the simple social networking idea to a new level: connecting the world together. With the technology we have today, the world is already a lot smaller than it was 50 years ago. But with Facebook, Zuckerberg has made it that much smaller.

Source: Forbes

Most people our age have used it just as a social media device; uploading photos, chatting with friends, etc. However when I watched David Fichner’s movie on the creation of Facebook, “The Social Network” (2010), I didn’t understand how the original idea of a “university network” could have worked. That is, until I came to UBC. I began using it for communication for group projects more than I did talking with friends. I used it to connect with commuter students while I stayed in residence. After seeing how Facebook was “originally used”, I was able to see how ingenious the idea was. Facebook wasn’t about being a simple networking site, it was about connecting people together.

Zuckerberg (along with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for classic examples) is the definition of entrepreneur. As the QuickMBA article states, “an entrepreneur is a person of very high aptitude who pioneers change”. They create high amounts of wealth, innovation, and do so in a very short period of time. Facebook became a multi-million dollar business within 5 years. Jobs created the i-series which lead to Apple’s turn-around success. And Gates made the dream of having a peronalized home computer a reality. All of these people have changed the world because of their ideas (and because of their success they have attained a high amount of wealth/power). These are living (or recently deceased) examples of modern innovators. To be more specific, life changing entrepreneurs.