Word of Mouth, is 93% offline! Basically, word of mouth (WOM) is one of the most effective, credible methods to spread a message about your brand. Word of mouth is very strong and especially since it comes from a influential figure, like Oprah her self. Whatever Oprah says, it must be true right? Oprah had a show-out show in Vancouver this following Friday and Vancouver Sun reported that Oprah praised Vancouver for their cleanliness.

“I’m really, really impressed, she said. “You guys are already living your best life”.

Even though, not publicly stated but Vancouver just received very strong , and free advertising from Oprah.

““It’s nice when somebody as popular, famous and influential as Oprah says that because it affirms what we already know and have a reputation for,” he said”

It does seem that Vancouver receives many appraisals for being one or top cleanest cities of North America but with Oprah’s stamp of approval, Vancouver may as well be one of the cleanest cities! Oprah ranked 16 out of 50 media’s most influential women. There’s something called the “Oprah Effect”with everything that Oprah touches, turns to gold. This might be a bit exaggerating but companies and publishers have been fighting to have Oprah take a glimpse of their product. Even a casual mention of a product, exposed to 44 million weekly viewers is a boom for the company that makes or sells the products . Several companies from the 2009 Inc. 500|5000 have been so lucky as to score a spot on The Oprah Winfrey Show over the past three years, perhaps accounting for a great deal of their growth during that period.(Hornuckle, 2009)

Amazon Kindle released in 2007 is a e-book tablet that allows you to download, shop, browse and read  ebooks, newspapers, magazines, etc. Amazon Kindle was very popular when it first released, selling out in mere hours but that slowly died down when other competitors, Hp released their tablet in late 2008. In January 2009, Oprah featured the Amazon Kindle on her show, creating a lot of attention. The graph below shows the impact of Oprah’s word of mouth, attracting half  amillion visitors and 2.5x as many online consumers as the week before.

 

photo credits: http://blog.compete.com/2009/01/07/amazon-kindle-oprah/

Can advertising be considered art? The definition of art is different for each individual. Is art defined as a skill, craft man ship or expression of one’s beauty, meaning, opinion? For me, I consider advertisement to be considered a form of art. The models in couture magazines dressed in Chanel, Gucci, luxurious brands are trying to sell the brand but their expression, posture, beauty, purpose in the picture shows more than just “selling that dress”.

Toronto is a city plastered with ad’s: on every post, building and sidewalk. From what I noticed, advertisements seems to have become a form of art. Companies have become very creative with their advertisements. Last summer in Toronto, I noticed there was a Cadbury advertisement of this 20 feet cadbury, with miniature people trying to climb it with a rope. This was all mechanically made but I was admiring it every time I walked past Dundas Square. It tempted me to go into the closest market  and buy a Cadbury chocolate bar. Back to the question, “Is Advertisement art?” I do think that advertisement has evolved from its 2D shape to a 3D form that people walking around the street, stop and connect to the product.

 [Dundas Square, Toronto]

I wrote this blog several months ago but learned in marketing class that this form of advertising is called “creative outdoor media”. I like this type of advertising because it captures my attention and having the image jump out of the picture into real life.

Marketing ethics refers to the moral or ethical dilemmas that might arise in a business setting (Grewal,Levy).  An ethical issue that will be address in this post is corporation’s marketing strategy towards children. The percentage of child obesity has been continually increasing , causing society  to question social responsibilities of corporations. Corporations spend millions of dollars creating marketing strategies targeted towards children, because they perceive them as an easy access to their parent’s wallets. For example, McDonald offers a “Happy Meal” option for children, accompanied with various toys that suits a child’s palate. The toy can make a child’s day, but the calories of a Happy Meal can expand their waistline. With the uprising of an obesity epidemic, McDonald has responded by  offering healthy alternatives to their Happy Meals; apple slices with caramel, homogenized milk cartons but still paired with their french fries, cheese burgers or mcnuggets. Have we reached the point that the terms “healthy eating” and “fast food” are no longer mutually exclusive?

Advertising to children is inherently delusive because children takes things seen in the media literally. Media plays  large part of children’s lives: shaping their thoughts, opinions and influencing their food preference which encourages them to ask their parents to purchase food seen on television. Children are drawn to the music, visuals carried by the messages, aka toys that come along with not only Happy Meals but other culprits of the fast food industry. Advertisement has the potential to cause harm to children. Corporations may not be the cause of the obesity trend, but they are certainly contributing to it through their allusive commercials that draw children in.

 

We’re not just eating fast food, we’re becoming fast food !

 

Sources:

Media Smart. (n.d.) H0w Marketers Target Kids.  Retrieved from http://mediasmarts.ca/marketing-consumerism/how-marketers-target-kids

Business Ethics. (n.d.) Marketing to Children: Accepting Responsibility. Retrieved from http://business-ethics.com/2011/05/31/1441-marketing-to-children-accepting-responsibility/