Month: October 2010

Dyeing billboards, well actually they just bleed a lot.

I wanted to make this blog post in reference to my college Diego Attolini most recent post about a new road safety in New Zealand.

He talks about how New Zealand struggles with road safety in the rainy season and how one of the cities is attempting to reduce fatal accidents.

No, this is not the start of new ground breaking state of the art crash resistant car technology being put on the roads, nor construction of safer motorways. Indeed the method to this motorway madness is quite simple. They are attempting to create awareness with new “drive responsibly” billboards.

Diego further goes into descriptive detail about the nature of the signs, and after watching the video clip I too was shocked. To sum the billboard up in one sentence: “holy @#%^!”.

Being a motorist myself I have hands on experience of driving and find advertisements are continually taking too desperate of measures to capture my glance. Regrettably this is the world we live in; everyone has to stand on their heads in order to get a flicker of our time.

Diego further goes into questioning the safety of these bleeding billboards, and I can fully agree with him that they are potentially more dangerous than safe.

What we should be focusing on to reduce accidents is getting more cars off the road with alternative green transportation and raising safe driving awareness before we get into the car. Showing very intense images to drivers who are trying to concentrate on driving safely seems counterproductive. Remember very few people get into their car and decide to crash, but distracting a driver for even a few seconds can cause life altering repercussions.

Instead of eye catching billboards, simple sentences like “drive safe” or “slow down” would service. Also with all the money the city would save with cheaper signs they could afford a few more bike lanes or buses instead!

There is a vast space in the business world comprised of something small. However when thinking of business companies names like Rogers, Wal-Mart, Safeway, and many more brand names will pop into materialization probably because of their predominate claim to our hearts through effective marketing. They are not the focus. These larger companies like Rogers have been marketing in many different forms of media for years. Whats interesting is what we are seeing now is more and more small business are seeing that fit to engage in web based marketing as well. And rightly so, without this sort of channel it would be very hard to stay competitive.

When I was reading Journey to the Center of the Marketing Universe on http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/ I was informed that small business needs to focus on the web to “supplement their marketing efforts and create another potential channel for marketing messages.”

The writer talks about O²O businesses. That focuses on driving people online to drive them offline. What the writer means is the challenge of business these days you must capture that customer on the web in order to drive them to your store or business. It’s not enough to just be in a shop, you must have your shop easily found on the web in order for customers to find the business. If not someone else doing a similar job will likely have some sort of wed based contact information and beat you to the punch.



The Bloginator

Are we living in an overstimulated world? Do our lives constantly come into question from street advertisements, television commercials, radio ads, and brand name branding?

The answer is not just a simple yes or no.

Of course the questions above are simplistic in nature and definitely run the risk of over-generalized answers. But the fact remains there are few people on this earth whom have avoided marketing’s strangle hold. The very fingernails of the hand that feeds are forced so deeply into the flesh of society’s neck that realistically there is no escape.

However there are people who do avoid the strangle hold in certain dimensions. But certainly in some respect or another they will be subject to some sort of consumerism binge in at least one element of their lives.

I know for myself I continue to avoid being captured and enslaved by the many tantalizing advertisements designed to empty my pocket of every coin. I dwell not on the idea of being drained of money, because we have monetary means in order to make satisfactory and beneficial gains, but on the very usefulness of the coin given for the service provided. I think many people believe that they live their lives this way as well, but realistically most do not. That is because it’s simply impossible. Marketing continuously tricks our brains, preying on our weaknesses in order to completely exploit us.

For example you might think a recent purchase is a great product, even if it was a little out of a budget. However a few weeks down the road it may start to disappoint. Maybe not on the serious level of defect, but on a detailed level like premature wear and tear or. This in a sense is a rip off. We have all experienced it, even if unaware. And the only person responsible for the rip off is you for buying the product. Nothing is essentially wrong with the good or service according to law. We have grown to accept most goods as disposable goods, even when they shouldn’t be. It’s foolish. We are tricked day in day out. The best part is mostly the corporations aren’t even trying to trick us really. At least they know their selling junk.

These days far too much hype in the marketing and too little functionality in the product is incorporated. Example being: Baby Carrots, what a joke. The SAME product already exists. The re-invention of the wheel is a sour game. For one I’m insulted by such actions. What’s more insulting is how society has accepted this and buys into it like it’s not a big deal. Actions speak louder than word my friends.

I still haven’t found the answer to the overstimulated problem, other than burning our entire system to the ground and starting over. And somehow I think that could be a little counterproductive.

A well understood fact is my generation’s abilities to multitask the input of information. We are far superior to our predecessors in this field. To be overwhelmed is norm; in fact our brain enjoys it.  We have been forced to fashion defenses. Strong mental shields attempt to protect us from the overwhelming constant stream of information. Without these shields even our advanced multitasking brains would be in for a meltdown. May the best advertisement win.

With this constant desensitization the marketing world is always trying to bore a hole through our shields with new methods. Quickly we adapt. Or accept. I fear my shield is growing weaker with its holes.

The marketer’s knows if you shoot enough arrows from many angles even the quickest of souls will be pierced. But what really pisses me off is the single impale is meant to feel like a choice, and in many ways it is. Nevertheless in the choice lies an illusion and that is we feel it’s nothing but a choice when really it was a forced choice. It must be clear that the act of choosing between A or B is not the part being forced but the act of having to enter the whelm of choice in the first place is the real issue.

Even with these shields full of holes we are still victims of the consumerism until we die. The dealer always wins in this game.

I think I might move to Tibet. Or maybe pull a Calvin and Hobbes and trek to Alaska. I hear advertisements have a hard time growing on trees.

Marketing Blog 2

Myles Panz

I would like to focus my second blog on HTC. They are high quality cellular telephone manufacture that ships unit’s worldwide. They have been a hit in Europe and their new wave of android phones is washing up on North American shores quickly. They are in direct competition with Apple’s iPhone, all Samsung, LG, Blackberry, Sony, and Acer smartphones.

HTC has taken a few steps in their marketing and design of their smartphones in order to differentiate them. They use one solid piece of aluminum as the foundation of the phone. This creates outstand durability and doesn’t add much more weight than a conventional plastic injection mould. Another useful part to the Aluminum foundation is there is no sun damage or quick breakdown that plastics get. Also beautiful components like high resolution cameras and video recorders all come built in with every HTC smartphone.

Although they are deemed as a luxury product and thus expensive brand, HTC offers less expensive models with all the great features of their A-list phones. However users will find these phones don’t have the same edge as the more top of the line models. What I mean by that is although the lower level phones made by HTC have all the same great principles the company uses to build a phone. They won’t have the 8 mega pixel camera or the newest version of android supported or the fastest processor or the largest amount of storage space. They still will have the one piece of aluminum with a great looking design and cool crisp clean finish.  I like this part of the company because they try and give everyone the option of getting a high quality phone, no matter your price range.

HTC DESIRE HD

For more depth into HTC I want to take a look at their newest and most powerful android powered cell phone, the Desire HD. Release in early October for Europe, the Desire HD was a huge hit. Fans await its arrival in North America. This absolute brilliant piece of machinery is elegant and powerful, oh and it’s got an HD screen!

I like how on HTC webpage they say “Here’s an idea: Super-fast internet. Phones that give you an exhilarating browsing experience.” The reason I like this bold statement is because it gets the customer thinking “hey, that is what I want and it’s not totally unreasonable”. People sometimes need to see the obvious in order to be reminding of its existence.

HTC sense is a program like no other. It enables HTC customers to wirelessly control their phone. This gives practically unlimited options for the user. Say if you leave the phone at home. Simply log on to your Sense account and tell you HTC phone to forward all calls to your office number. That way you can stay connected even with your phone is under your pillow at home. Another useful part of the sense system is it allows you to lock your phone and post a reward message if it’s stolen. Or active the ringer to see if it’s close by (even if the phone was on silent), check mate Apple.

The 7 minute video clip on HTC website goes into great deal of advertising this Desire HD, it starts off with an amazing 3D image of the phone slowly turning around on the screen. The 4.3inch screen is impressive. The video goes into detail on everything you would need to know about this phone, which is spectacular for those nerds (like me) out there. However everything in the video clip is well explained so even the most technologically challenged individuals will be in the loop.

I would like to end by saying I really enjoy HTC marketing strategies. They are crisp and to the point, with little fluff or nonsense. In my opinion that is why they are effective. The informative, high paced advertising they do captivates me almost completely. This will defiantly be my next phone..even if I have to wait for December.

Link: http://www.htc.com/www/product/desirehd/overview.html