Whether you support the Kony 2012 cause or not, you have to admit that they have done a pretty good job at sending their message out to the masses. They have taken advantage of the accessibility to a significant audience that social media in our society provides, and have used it to literally broadcast their message across the nation.

The company behind the entire campaign is Invisible Children, a non-profit organization who are passionate about stopping Joseph Kony, the head of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. They created a 30 minute video that they released on YouTube in the attempt to raise awareness of the horrible crimes that Kony is committing in regards to the enslavement of children. Their goal is by releasing this video and having it go viral, it will convince the United States government that the citizens are in support of keeping troops in Uganda to try to stop Kony.

I’m not sure about the result of their campaign in terms of it directly helping to stop Kony, but I do know that from my perspective, their video has gone absolutely viral and their message has been heard loud and clear across the nation. Their powerful video uses emotion and personal accounts to reach out to viewers and inspire them to become passionate about this cause. Over the past month since the video has been released, the video and reactions following it’s release (both supportive and critical) have taken over my Facebook news feed and filled twitter with comments using hashtags including #Kony2012.

All in all, I believe that Invisible Children have done a phenomenal job developing this campaign, as it has gone viral across the nation. They have sent their message out to the world through effective use of social media, and their message was received loud and clear across an astonishing amount of viewers, also creating a lasting effect on those who have watched it, as support for their campaign grew exponentially with the release of the video.

Instead of creating just another TV advertisement promoting the benefits of their product, BMW decided to think outside the box and take another approach to how they get their brand name across to consumers. It is what they call “flash projection subliminal advertising” and quite frankly, it’s remarkable.

BMW developed the ad and tested it in Germany on an audience. The result, as you can see from personal accounts at the end of the video, was that people were truly impressed with this innovative idea.

However, this concept of subliminal messaging can be deemed extremely controversial in whether it is moral or not. It is delivering an image to the audience without them being fully consciously aware of it. This calls into question how ethics are and should be embedded in marketing, as my classmate Chace points out in “Ethics in Marketing” by stating “With rampant advertisers secretly blending sublime messages of sex and other decadence into their ads to increase sales, should the legal law be the only boundary for these advertisers?”

Yes, in BMW’s case here it is a very minor image and message, but it opens up potential for all kinds of subliminal messaging to be created. It is the start of a concept that could change the way company’s advertise from being so direct and what some consumers would consider “annoying” and straightforward, to indirect advertising and delivering a message to consumers without them even being fully aware of what just happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is an unreal idea, and I was amazed when I watched the video for the first time. The concept takes advertising to a whole new level, creating the opportunity for TV marketing to become more appealing to consumers instead of creating an advertisement that will cause the consumer to think “it’s just another ad” and change the channel.

Society’s technological advances are amazing and constantly improving, but we can’t lose track of realizing what it is that we are really doing when we employ them in marketing.

Reference: http://digitaljournal.com/article/301598

Anyone who has been on a recreational sports team knows the dream of playing in a rink or stadium in front of hundreds of screaming fans, cameras documenting the whole game, and live commentary announcing each play. Budweiser connected with consumers for their commercial for the upcoming Super Bowl by making that dream come true by surprising two rec hockey teams.

As Zane mentioned in his blog, advertising during the Super Bowl is going to be a “battle of creativity and composure on the grandest scale.” I believe that Budweiser has developed a marketing campaign that not only advertises their product, but leaves a lasting impression on viewers. It advertises their brand and connects with a huge portion of viewers in a unique way. Instead of making a commercial that is witty to try to catch viewers’ attention, Budweiser focused on creating a personal connection with the audience.

Budweiser takes this opportunity to segment their advertisement to a lifestyle psychographic segment. Because the commercial is to be aired during one of the biggest sporting events of the year, they take advantage of assuming the audience will mostly be sports fans, and therefore most likely have played some form of recreational sport at some point in their life. By focusing their commercial on something sports related, they are more likely to create a stronger connection with viewers.

I know that personally, this commercial will leave a lasting memory on me that is associated with Budweiser since they created this once-in-a-lifetime experience for these hockey players. The commercial didn’t necessarily promote Budweiser’s specific product, but rather communicated Budweiser’s values, which can prove to be just as effective.

While procrastinating by being on the all-too-distracting Facebook, I came across a link to a marketing blog that contained 20 “cool and creative” marketing campaigns. When I think of a marketing campaign, what usually crosses my mind is another ploy by a company to try to convince me that their product is the best – which sometimes can become annoying as they become redundant, unoriginal, and almost seem to be everywhere in society.

However, this blog captured some of the most creative marketing campaigns that I have ever seen and definitely caught my eye, including using consumer’s bodies, sewer drains, and garbage as billboards. You may be wondering how that’s possible – seriously check it out. As a consumer, I believe that some of these techniques would actually be extremely successful. Advertising on a sewer drain is out of the ordinary and would catch my attention and remain in my mind – essentially the goal of advertising, so that the next time I am going to buy that product their brand is in my mind.

Marketing is becoming a battle of creativity with extreme growth as consumers are given more and more brand choices when buying a product and companies are being forced to compete to get their name out there in society and on the minds of consumers. As winning consumers’ attention becomes increasingly difficult thanks to the hundreds of advertisements they are presented on a daily basis, companies need to keep up, justifying funding advanced marketing teams and funding campaigns in order to stay at the top of the market.

All in all, I believe that the marketing campaigns presented in this blog would be successful based on their originality – they catch consumers’ attention by advertising their product in a way that most consumers have never seen before, making a lasting impression.