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As you all may have heard by now the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is coming soon! With the royal wedding approaching in less than a month, I’ve noticed a lot of random and interesting wedding paraphernalia to commemorate the wedding. These range from Pez dispensers, Kate dolls, stamps, Iphone cases, and even nail decals. There is a lot of PR going into this wedding since it’s the next big wedding after the late Princess Diana’s. Although I must say some of these items might not be very popular amongst the public, just publicizing all these pictures of Prince William and Kate Middleton has given their wedding a lot of publicity. Even companies such as GE are capitalizing on the royal wedding craze by producing a commemorative fridge with the happy couple plastered onto the doors. On the other hand, the soon to be princess has also contributed to sales of many items since whatever she wears soon becomes popular and nothing is better than free advertising from the future princess of England. People are even asking for her hair cut now! All these memorabilia items are a response to customers’ needs of feeling included in such a special occasion. I think that after the wedding many of these items will become cheaper due to sales much like all the Olympic paraphernalia here in Vancouver so then a few more people may be inclined to purchase them. However, I find a lot of these things just a bit too crazy and most people I know would not purchase them.

While I was browsing through some external blogs I came across Drew’s Marketing Minute and what he calls “The Most Brilliant Outdoor Campaign Ever”. I was intrigued by this because this week we discussed outdoor advertising. Drew talks about an old advertising campaign that told a story through the use of billboards put up every week instead of advertising through other mediums. As Drew said they didn’t promote a specific product or provide any information, it was simply a story to draw in consumers to associate the love story with the pub. It may also help the pub reposition them as not just any old pub, but an ideal location for singles to meet. Even if consumers don’t have a chance to view all 9 billboards they’ll still be intrigued about the billboards and wonder what’s happening at Garcia’s and after repeat exposures to these billboards they may think of Garcia’s as the first place to go for a beer or friendly gathering thereby raising awareness for the pub and possibly putting the pub in the consumer’s retrieval set of brands. However, this would probably not work if most people had never heard of Garcia’s before so it may serve better as a type of reminder advertising. I’ve never really seen a lot of eye-catching billboard advertising though. Maybe there just aren’t very many billboards where I go. I always love coming across non-informative and creative ads though.

Lately I’ve noticed that more and more things are getting a make over. Or getting more bling added to it. For instance, I came across a Lego brick necklace with a genuine Swarovski crystal attached to it for the price of $14.99.
Not too bad and quite creative I’d say but I’m not sure who would buy that. Actually it seems more like Swarovski is really into accessorizing common everyday items with crystals. These items include headphones and memory sticks as well, more practical than a Lego brick at least. This cute piggy bejeweled memory stick retails for as much as $100 while I can probably find one for a good deal for $10.

However, there appears to be a market for bejeweled accessories, primarily female, high income and in their 20’s-30’s I’d assume. Although I would say it’s unnecessary to own one of these, nonetheless it would be nice to have one (if I had the money)! By extending their products to include crystallized items that are not just for decoration, Swarovski is effectively increasing their brand awareness and product lines. When people see these other items that are decorated with Swarovski crystals they will be reminded of all the other Swarovski products that they typically sell such as jewelry, household decorations and are gifts. There are also no other competitors who would make similar types of luxury items as well. Swarovski uses prestige pricing so that customers will feel that their products are more valuable and not everyone can buy them. As for me, I will just admire them from afar for now.

I love marketing.

Starbucks is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this spring and has launched a promotion for these petites where if you buy any handcrafted drink between 2-5 on March 10-12, you get a free petite. Seems pretty tempting right? According to the Starbucks website, petites are “…new, perfectly sized treats. There are eight different ones, and each is less than 200 calories – making for a well-deserved afternoon reward.” These treats include red velvet whoopee pies and cake pops! I’m not even sure what a cake pop is and I want one anyway! Again, this is yet another marketing ploy to get customers to taste test their new products and if they like it, they’ll surely come back again to try these delicious mini treats. I think the purpose to these treats is to target more health conscious consumers because these treats are smaller in size and have less than 200 calories where as most of the other pastries are at least 300 calories. The problem is, maybe you can’t eat just one and the calories will add up anyway (for me at least). There seems to be a rush for fast food companies and such to roll out new and healthy options to their current line of food items. As Lauren mentioned in her blog, https://blogs.ubc.ca/laurennipp/2011/03/03/tim-hortons-introduces-smoothies/ Tim Horton’s has recently launched smoothies that boast a whole serving of fruits in each cup. This is also to compete with Starbucks and McDonald’s because both companies are already offering smoothies as well. I think that this is a good move for Tim Horton’s because as Lauren said, they can secure a higher market share if they can attract people who are non-coffee drinkers to their stores to buy a smoothie and then maybe they’ll pick up a tim bit as well. I must say that the Tim Horton’s smoothies do sound tempting because of their lower prices ($1.99/10 ounces) compared to Starbucks where smoothies are 16 ounces and offered for $4.45. However, Starbucks is not competing on price since they have established themselves as a premium coffee brand so loyal health conscious Starbucks fans are bound to buy it anyway.
More pictures and nutrition information to be found at http://www.starbucks.com/menu/catalog/product?food=petites#view_control=product

As I was browsing through some other marketing blog posts, I came across this one. https://blogs.ubc.ca/colettecheung/2011/02/02/so-whats-so-good-about-aritzia/ The title immediately made me think the same thing. What IS so good about Aritzia? I realized that once I got a part time job I had to get SOMETHING from Artizia. I just had to own something with their TNA logo or something like the bat wing cardigan because I assumed that if it wasn’t stylish, why would so many people be shopping there? Of course I didn’t want to miss out on anything. Because of their higher prices, I associated the products with higher value and convinced myself that a hoodie that cost $50 (on sale!) would last for a long time. If not, I would make it last since it cost so much! As Colette had mentioned in her blog, the desire to shop there was a result of social influences such as seeing many people at school or on the streets with the TNA hoodies, jackets or bags. Since there were so many people that were walking advertisements for Aritizia they probably don’t need to spend a lot of money on advertising since they have some well established brands such as TNA or Wilfred within their store already. One more thing that I want to mention is that the target market for Aritzia is well segmented by age and of course gender. In my opinion, it does seem slightly weird to see women in their 40’s and maybe even 50’s shopping at Aritzia and this signifies that they have clearly communicated and connected their store’s image to the younger generation of teenagers to people in their late twenties. To date, I own a few items from Aritzia, but I’m no longer obsessed with shopping there. Also my wallet would not be too happy if I did.

In the world of beauty and make up products, packaging plays a very important role to consumers. Whenever I see make up products that have beautiful or innovative packaging, I’m instantly drawn to it and want to find out more. Since these are make up products, it makes sense to make their packaging appealing too because the users will use it to beautify themselves. Even though most people do not need a myriad of products, they may be lured into purchasing things that they may not need just because of the aesthetic appearance of it. For example, I found the Urban Decay lipsticks very appealing because of the shiny purple tubes and the miniature silver sword stuck in the end of the tube (not removable unfortunately). Sometimes items with nice or interesting looking packages can jump off the shelves at us when we’re shopping to stand out which is why packaging is important. Besides being able to contain whatever product it is, it should also be appealing to customers in terms of appearance and practicality in shape and size. However, this would probably not work if you had no interest in the product in the first place and you were price sensitive because pretty packaging may be more costly.

Some packaging appeals to other consumers not just because of their appearances, but because of how environmentally sustainable it is. There is a growing social trend towards environmental sustainability and many manufacturers are working towards making their packaging recyclable. For example, the make up company Tarte has a customer recycling incentive program where certain product containers can be sent back to the company to be recycled and the customer’s incentive for doing so is a small discount on future purchases of similar products. They also include symbols on their products to indicate what type of materials/ingredients in the product may be recycled. For example, some of their products may employ the use of soy ink which “is more easily stripped from paper during the de-inking and recycling process.” Therefore customers may find that their eco-friendliness adds value to their products and may be more inclined to buy their products versus similar products. I definitely think that having eco-friendly packaging adds value to their brand.

http://tartecosmetics.com/reduce-reuse-recycle.php?rrr_id=15

Yesterday my friend Bernice told me that McDonald’s was offering free food! It was their new “fresh baked buttermilk biscuit sandwich” and they were giving each customer one for free and the promotion was for two days during their breakfast hours. This was their first new breakfast launch since the launch of McGriddles in 2003. Of course I felt enticed to go but sadly it would be inconvenient for me to stop by a McDonald’s on my way to school. I think that by offering samples to customers it would be a great way for them to taste test new products and spread the word to other people and use word of mouth marketing as well. Also, it may improve the consumer’s view of McDonald’s if they feel that they are being very generous in giving out these free sandwiches for two days. I’m sure most customers don’t mind picking up some free food once in a while! This may even attract customers that do not usually frequent McDonald’s to stop by and hopefully regain their business. Even though McDonald’s is already a very successful international restaurant chain, they still need to extend their breakfast line and create some new products once in a while in order to remain competitive. I did some research and found that McDonald’s gives away $2 billion a year in free food!

Another website I know of that gives away free samples is www.brandsampler.ca. If you sign up for an account, you can answer a very short questionnaire about your product usage/preferences and then it enables you to choose a few product samples that they will send to your home free of charge. I have collected quite a few of these samples now and they include things like shampoos, mouthwash, a teeth whitener strip and even a small sample of Pringle Stix once. The site is sponsored by Proctor and Gamble. I think that by doing the questionnaires, P&G can learn about the products that consumers are currently using and collect useful data on consumer consumption. Although a downfall of this is that consumers may never end up buying the products they have sampled, they may choose to do so one day or spread the word about it if they think it’s good or bad and thus giving the product some free advertising. It’s always nice to get free stuff so if you want a few extra shampoo samples for the next time you run out I encourage you to sign up!

Nutella 2010 ad

Today I came across this article as I was surfing the net for marketing news knowing that yet another marketing blog post was due. Right away I found an article about a lawsuit against Nutella for false advertising. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/nutella-faces-lawsuit-over-healthy-claims/article1893240/ This intrigued me because I am a recently converted fan of Nutella having discovered its existence not too long ago.  For those of you that don’t know what Nutella is, it’s a chocolate hazelnut based spread used for bread or as a topping for other products and tastes just like Ferrero Rocher chocolates! In short, the article states that they were being sued by a mother who said she was misled by the ads that claimed Nutella was “nutritious” and “part of a healthy breakfast”. The article states that Ms. Hohenberg says she was “shocked to learn” from friends “that Nutella was in fact not a ‘healthy,’ ‘nutritious’ food but was instead the next best thing to a candy bar.” Frankly, I don’t think this lawsuit is going anywhere not that I know anything about law in the first place though. First they will have to find the definitions of nutritious and in small amounts Nutella does contain nutrients that we need in our everyday diet. Furthermore, the ads just say that it’s PART of a healthy breakfast so it doesn’t mean that eating it will make you healthy right? Also, if you read the nutrition label carefully, you can make a judgment yourself on just how healthy the product really is. http://www.nutellausa.com/nutrition-facts.htm The fat content is pretty high I’ll admit! Of course, everything should be consumed in moderation and it doesn’t seem that Ms. Hohenberg really suffered any losses or damages. Out of curiosity I also YouTubed one of their ads. It contained a disclaimer at the bottom of the ad that detailed what the balanced breakfast was based on. I’m not sure if this can count as marketing towards children though because their target market seems to be mom’s because they are the ones that usually prepare breakfast in households so they are not violating any child marketing laws in that case. Watch some ads and judge for yourself! Image from http://www.solonews.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/nutella.jpg.

I’m sure many of us own loyalty cards to one store or another whether it be a clothing store or a food store. I have noticed that many stores offer perks with these loyalty cards in order to keep customers coming to their store. Other stores may offer things such as stamp cards so that for every time you visit their store and purchase an item, they will give you a stamp and after a certain number of stamps you can redeem them for a reward. A common example of this is at bubble tea stores where you can get a free drink after purchasing ten drinks (stamps). This seems to work well for small items such as snacks and food where it will be easy to purchase food items frequently and therefore make it easier to earn stamps. Stores such as Starbucks, offers cards that once registered, enables you to perks such as free syrups and coffee or tea refills and a free drink on your birthday.  🙂

Loyalty cards such as this one are a great way to keep customers coming back to your store if they feel that they are benefiting from free perks that other stores are not offering. Since some people might buy Starbucks drinks once a week or even once a day, they may decide to load a card and keep coming back for more. However, I don’t think that this works as well for clothing stores because not everyone buys clothes frequently and some people enjoy shopping at a of variety stores making it harder for these cards to appeal to these customers so the target market would be people who are frequent shoppers and have already developed brand loyalty.

Other examples of stores that offer loyalty cards or discount cards include Shoppers Drug Mart, Safeway and Save On Foods. For the groceries stores, they can expect most customers to buy groceries there for a lifetime and it is to their benefit that they sign up for these cards because some offer special discounts or promotions for card holders and after collecting a certain number of points you can redeem them for gifts. It’s always nice to know that every time you buy something you are working towards a reward for yourself one day even though it may take a long time to accumulate points so it encourages more shopping there. If a company establishes a loyalty card program for their customers, it may benefit both the company and the consumer because the company may get more business and the consumer may feel like they are getting extra value added to shopping at those stores. In the long run, establishing loyal customers will greatly benefit a company because they will be in the customer’s evoked set of stores. Some people may even feel a fulfillment of their psychological needs because they own a certain card to feel cool. Of course, all companies should do sufficient market research to see if they’re suitable for such a program.