Category Archives: Comm 296 Blog

Mark J Miller of BrandChannel wrote an article called “Sony May Reap the Benefits of Microsoft’s Broad Xbox One Intentions,” which highlighted the rivalry within the console video game market between Sony and Microsoft that has been established over the last decade. While Nintendo and its Wii has taken a different value proposition and target consumer segment, the Xbox and PlayStation has still gone head to head with their newest products announced in the 2013 E3 Conference.

Miller points out a valid point about how the PS4 has seemingly been established as the market leader in an intensive market. As XBOX has recently been marketed as a home-entertainment console encompassing the entire living room experience, the PS4 has stuck to its heavy focus on gaming.

I believe that PS4 has already made itself the front runner because of this; buyers want the product for its games, there are more efficient products on the market such as Smart TVs for entertainment nowadays. Sony has priced the PS4 strategically cheaper than the Xbox One, which was not the case a few years back when the Xbox 360 had established higher value and popularity than the substantially higher-priced PS3. In addition, they were able to successfully run logistics and distribution one week ahead of the Xbox’s release date and henceforth took the news with their first mover advantage coming out of the first 24 hours with over 1 million consoles sold. Furthermore, Sony’s prime product has been able to maintain its limelight moments due to their better analysis of their consumers’ desires from their product and its intangible features. The Xbox removed backwards compatibility from its system and also initiated a new method of prevent game sharing or using a single game on multiple consoles, which was taken extremely poorly by the general audience when the PS4 had upgraded its PSNetwork features and overall smoothness of its interface and gameplay.

Alyssa Leung’s blog post “Now Accept Cash, Credit, and… Squats?” comments on an article from AdFreak that showed guerrilla marketing that the Moscow Olympic Committee launched that would allow people to do a certain number of squats in exchange for a subway ticket, promoting healthy lifestyle and proactivity to increase publicity for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Alyssa points out how it was very clever that they had integrated multiple aspects of social media, which two thirds of the world currently in some way or form take part in using, to make convenient ways of marketing the olympics. It appears that the Russians have taken a book out of their Western rivals in North America by creative such a campaign that is quite rare and untraditional.

Although this is such beneficial idea to society and helped established a more positive branding of Russia to prospective foreigners, many of which still possess very stereotypical war-like assumptions, I question to what extent this is actually legitimate. It is one thing to admire a great idea and a creative campaign, but how effective was this project? The concentration of people who use the subway in Moscow is quite high in density, it would be a very costly project in a time when they are hoping to bring in higher profit margins by marketing the hometown advantage of the olympics. The fact that they went with this initiative means that they must have a positive result when analyzing the cost-benefit and ultimately realizing that most people will likely continue with their busy days rather than spending the time to stop and do 30 squats to receive 30 rubles worth of value. Realistically I am assuming this is one of those things people will stop and stare, smile, and continue with their lives rather than actually taking the time to stop and take part.

“I can already feel the definition!” – Shake Weight 2013

Infamous infomercials have always been the greatest example of filtering in marketing. Shake Weight, which heavily promotes through above-the-line promotional advertising that cleverly plays on the fact that the motion necessary to use the product can be easily misinterpreted due to suggestive shaking.

They even use attractive women, which is evidently a very effective strategy with today’s short attention span, and contrasting individuals who need exercise to those who are already strong in the demonstrate of the product.

I think the sales pitch is quite persuasive because the product doesn’t target a certain consumer group, but rather an issue that affects most people: their physical image, laziness, and going to the gym to work out even though the product itself will in the end not provide the results that make it a valuable purchase.

Shake Weight states that the exercises are more efficient in reducing fat and increasing muscle mass than common exercises for the upper body. However the muscle groups of the experimented individuals did not exert the 60% voluntary isometric contraction necessary to increase muscle mass nor does the product provide the full range of motion to properly develop the results marketed (Yahoo, 2013).

I thought the product was promoted well due to the commercial going viral and consumer-oriented focus. The strategy focused on transactional orientation by pitching that the product is worth the money using various marketing ploys rather than developing brand loyalty and relations. I’ve also realized that this business model is ironically becoming a great example of the opposite of what academia teaches in terms of marketing concepts and ethics.

References:

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/study-shake-weights-really-173600546.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/shake-weights-dont-work-2013-10

One recent cultural trend has been the shift away from over-processed and unhealthy foods. Chipotle does a very good job in trying to differentiate themselves from other fast-food names such as McDonald’s and Burger King by stating their points of difference. Recently Chipotle released a new promotional piece, “Scarecrow,” that focused on visual animations to direct a message to viewers rather than mass communication channel.

I really enjoyed the video as it was not only creative and sent a message across without words, it established Chipotle’s stance against big companies and abusive use of animals in processing, positioned themselves as the smaller business with true intentions against the ‘big bad business;’ it justifies its own ethical stance and corporate social responsibility on some of the most controversial and alarming trends within the industry.

Chipotle further differentiates themselves from other competitors and substitutes that use promotional pieces such as celebrity endorsements especially on television through this creative strategy. This video they released on their social media channels not only saves them the costs of above-the-line promotions such as TV commercials, billboards, but it also plays on another popular trend in business, social media and viral content. This video has reached the 6 million views on YouTube and over 300,000 shares on Facebook and similar social media channels. I would say it is well on its way to be considered one of the top examples of marketing.

Through the video, Chipotle even indirectly positions themselves as the right alternative; their logo of a red pepper is used by the Scarecrow when the melancholy dark atmosphere turns bright just as the Scarecrow picks up the pepper and decides to start a new food business that just so happens to be similar foods served at Chipotle.