From the beginning of time, advertising agencies have researched and discovered the many ways to interact, persuade and connect with the audience, in hopes to find a method that will linger and trigger their desires to purchase and consume its products. It began with logical persuasion, where the company would practically word vomit advantages of their product to your face in hopes that its customers would believe them (like in this vintage Coca Cola commercial).

Then, more recently, through the realization that in the battle of logic vs. emotion, emotion triumphs indefinitely, the endless emotional, heartbreaking, inspiring campaigns began. Many of such emotional commercials, due to the uprising of youtube and the internet, became viral, international sensations that escalated the impact  and desire for more advertisements that simply “tugged at our heartstrings”. Some of the most prominent commercials include P&G’s “Thank you, Mom” campaign commercials, Thai Life Insurance’s commercials, and the Dove Real Beauty Sketch Campaign. Even now, these commercials still allow customers to deeply immerse into the emotions, and thus tying the connection between these feelings/concepts to the brands itself.

Now, with TiVO and streaming shows on the internet, consumers and their interaction between media commercials have  slowly diminished, and TV/Radio/print advertisements are becoming less and less efficient. As well, people are continuously becoming non-believers of traditional advertisements, claiming that the ideas and concepts that ads are portraying are fake, digitalized, and exaggerated. and marketing agencies have began to search for more effective ways to connect and interact with its target market. Now, companies are becoming more and more “interactive” with its customer base, creating campaigns such as Lululemon’s #sweatlife campaign, or DDB Canada’s “Our Food, Your Questions”, and Canadian Tourism Commission’s Keep Exploring Campaign. Interactive marketing allows customers to truly witness, for themselves, what the company values and believe. It not only allows its target market to observe a more realistic and genuine view of its advertisements, but it also helps its consumers, in a sense, “create” the company’s brand.

Ever wondered what it would feel like to be watched by the advertising agencies and have them cater their ads to your hobbies and interests? To stand in line, or wait for your gas to fill up and look at advertisements that are specifically shown to you? Well, now you can.

Tesco PLC, a british grocery superstore and the second largest retailer in the world, is currently in the midst of introducing in-store facial recognition machines at their gas stations and convenient stores. Amscreen, the company that is working together with Tesco to create these digital screens with built in cameras that will detect and study  customers’ facial features to determine one’s approximate age and gender, allowing advertisers to then customize the ads presented to them. According to the company, these new innovations will not store or record any data, as it purely uses characteristics of the individual’s face.

However, the idea as a whole sits slightly uneasily with me. Although the new technology allows for more specific and efficient advertisements, and will allow marketers to cater to a more specific target market, as this innovation begins to mature, companies might begin to evolve the original idea and manipulate its usage to detect personal data, and store  personal information. Similar to the ability for the government to toggle with our phones and electronic devices, this new innovative concept, if pursued, might end up giving the government and other technologically inclined individuals to penetrate our world a little more than it already has via our electronic devices. Ultimately, as our generations’ technology advances, our own privacy begins to depreciate.

Read more here.

Reading through a fellow classmates Tatiana Mawani‘s blog post about Nutella faking its health content in its commercials triggered my memory of a vaguely discussed topic when this news had been exposed; I decided to read further on the topic, and read more articles that confirmed and supported Tatiana’s post (Here and here). This provoked my interest in finding out what other lies advertising agencies and companies have fed consumers through their various marketing campaigns and schemes, only to find out the honest truth – this wasn’t an irregular occurrence.

Sketcher’s shoes doesn’t help people who wear them lose weight, Classmates.com cannot actually help you find your classmates, L’oreal face cream doesn’t help “facelift” (or Lancome or Olay for that matter), Gas isn’t “cleaner” if it’s crystal clear, Hoover’s “free trips to america” were free but non-existent, Rice Krispies doesn’t protect children from immunity, Listerine is not equivalent to floss, fast food actually doesn’t look like what it does on advertisements (shocking, right?), or the older campaigns that states cigarettes have great health benefits; the list goes on, and on, and on.

It may be common knowledge for people to only take advertisements with a grain of salt, and that advertising agencies aren’t the most honest people in the world. However, to this day,  it’s still a common occurrence for consumers and target audiences to fall for the many subtle and seemingly insignificant “facts” planted in advertisements. We are constantly reminded not to believe everything an ad says. Is this what companies must do in order to attract attention –  to brand its products with false, pleasing facts and benefits in order to lure consumers into buying the good or service? Ultimately, it’s a scary thought to realize; if we can’t really trust the millions of advertisements we are faced with each day, what ARE we supposed to trust?

With the rapidly growing world of social media, it is no surprise that companies have sought after ways to incorporate the world of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, @mentions and #hashtags into their marketing strategies. These campaigns usually aim to target the increasing population of Generation Y – the generation of the internet, social media, and Facebook lifestyles, where a computer or a smart phone is always found in the hands of the youth.

Lowe’s, an American chain of retail home improvement and appliance stores, were one of the few companies to successfully attract attention through the means of apps and current social media trends. Through one of the fastest growing mobile app “Vine”, along side the trending usage of hashtags, they created the marketing campaign #LowesFixInSix. Using Vine, an app that helps users create 6 second videos that could be easily shared to various internet platforms, Lowe’s made countless creative 6 second home improvement videos using stop motion animation, and used the hashtag #LowesFixInSix to promote their videos.

With a trending concept of “life hacks” being shared online, #LowesFixInSix catered to that idea quite well. Soon afterwards, these videos not only caught the attention of the press, with countless articles (for example: DDB Canada marketing blog discusses this, here and here) discussing such an inventive campaign, but they also successfully reached their target audience – Generation Y. When one of the most popular canadian marketing agencies, DDB Canada, recognizes and discusses the success and innovation of this marketing campaign on their website blog, you know you’ve done a stellar job advertising the campaign. The hashtags and videos have not only been a popular find on Vine, but it has also reached the some of the largest social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to name a few. Ultimately, #LowesFixInSix has sparked endless discussion over its appliances and ideas, and triggered a spike in its brand recognition worldwide – making its newest marketing campaign the smartest, most innovative and trendiest ones yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0atgOxcxqwE

In the world of business, specifically in regards to marketing, the exploitation of sexism and stereotypes used to attract attention is definitely not a new concept. The commercials above clearly allude to the popular stereotypes of blonde girls, and although many may find these commercials witty and amusing, is this strategy truly necessary? In my opinion, using such unethical practices of advertisement not only undermines the victims of such false accusations, but it also directly damages the standard and reputation of the company and its members. There are countless other methods by which a company can attract customers and trigger word of mouth advertisement, but such exploitations of stereotypes continue to be used as a gimmick.

In a business class last year, we briefly discussed the topic of Business Ethics, and how crucial it was for business owners to start out with the correct mindset. We were told to write down a set of our morals and principles we believed in, and are reminded to abide by these rules even as our business success grows. For instance, in internationally known companies such as Apple or Mercedes Benz, business ethics are constantly being ignored; it’s a wonder if the never-ending strive for profit and success truly diminishes company principles. If companies were to pause from the hectic whirl-wind of competition and profits, would they be able to assess and correct their behaviour? Would they be able to look at their marketing strategies objectively, and analyze whether or not they’re crossing any ethical boundaries?

Ultimately, the world of marketing is a complex one, and we can never genuinely understand why a company selects a specific marketing scheme. However, what we can do is to not give in to the invisible pressures of such unethical marketing strategies; if we truly believe they’ve crossed the line with their advertisements, we could consciously decide not to support such actions, even if it simply means not purchasing the good/service.