Sarah Manifold's Blog

It’s no secret that Adidas is correlated with sports, their product lines range from footwear to sports equipment to sportswear. So, you can imagine my surprise to find out that amongst a list of athletes appearing in their new advertising campaign, Katy Perry was also going to be featured. Normally I wouldn’t have been interested in the ad, but because of Katy Perry and David Beckham, I found it online and watched it.

Relative to AIDA, they clearly caught my attention with the simply mention of Katy Perry. After watching the ad, I definitely became more interested in their products. I had thought that they only had sportswear geared towards such sports as basketball, football, and soccer. Since they showed not only Katy Perry dancing, but also highlighted their street wear. – I started to investigate their products.

Their website is eye-catching and modern but easy to use. Through searching their website I found that in addition to their regular sportswear they also have apparel for yoga as well as an entire line designed by Stella McCartney – needless to say desire was there.

Now I have yet to go buy any new Adidas products, but I do have my eye on several items. Clearly like Katy Perry, David Beckham, Lionel Messi, and Derrick Rose – I am “All In”

Now are you thinking about summer and swimwear? Excellent!

For a retailer, making an online presence is a great way to attract new customers as well as maintain your loyal customers. Now I may be bias because I work there, but I believe that Swimco has made an excellent presence online – they have a fantastic website, facebook page, twitter account and not one but two blogs!

On Facebook, in addition to keeping customers informed with what’s going on at Swimco, they have been recently posting albums of some of the recent bathing suits that have arrived in stores – giving customers a chance to look at styles and trends before shopping. Customers are also using the facebook page to its full advantage by posting any questions they have regarding their already purchased swimwear, as well as commenting on incoming styles.

The blogs are also great. One blog, Feel Good Half Naked, is written by Lori Bacon, the President and Owner of Swimco. This blog gives readers a chance to see upcoming styles and trends as well as a look into her life as the Owner of Western Canada’s premiere Swimwear Retailer. Lori’s son Brett writes the other blog, Swimco’s Man Down Unda. This blog focuses more on the male customer with stories from his adventures in Australia (where he is currently living), as well as it includes posts about the surfing world.

The facebook page and blogs are all linked together through Twitter. Swimco tweets about updates to all three of these pages as well as news from the swimwear world.

Start planning for summer and get informed – “like” Swimco on facebook, “follow” them on twitter, and read their blogs.

Those are just some of the words I would used to describe this product. When Tracy Chan’s blog was shown to the class last week, you all got a quick peak at what I believe to be the best lip balm ever.

The evolution of smooth sphere shaped lip balm has not disappointed in the slightest. As Tracy points out it

claims to be 95% organic and 100% natural, with shea butter and vitamin E, keeping your lips moist, soft, and super smooth.

Like Tracy I couldn’t agree more.

This lip balm has all of the girls I work with hooked. It all started when one girl got it in the states, I fell in love with it and found it in Canada (at RW&Co), and now the majority of us have it. What surprised me though was when one of my friends said she got hers 2 years ago! How have I not heard of this amazing product sooner!?

One reason could be the distribution. In the states it can be found at virtually any drug store – such as Rite Aid and Walgreens. However, in British Columbia it is only at RW&Co, not the place you’d expect to find lip balm. The distribution In British Columbia is super exclusive and because of that they can charge a premium. The EOS lip balm retails for approximately $3 dollars in the States, however in BC it is around $5.50. Not to mention that RW&Co only carries three of the five flavours available.

Even though it is over $6 with tax at RW&Co, I would definitely say it is worth it. It lasts forever (my friend still has hers from two years ago), it actually works, and it smells amazing.

RW&Co is always sold out so you better hurry.

I decided that this blog post would relate to an outside blog. When searching for marketing blogs I came across Forbes: Best of the Web Marketing Blogs, a list of recommended marketing blogs. It was here that I found the link for Wonder Branding by Michele Miller – what started as a blog has now upgraded into a full on website focusing on the female customer. Today the feature post was about Girl Scout cookies; not being able to resist, this has become my topic.

As a former member of the similar organization, Girl Guides, I am all too familiar with selling cookies. Twice a year, winter and spring, Girl Guides go door to door as well as set up tables outside of shopping areas selling cookies.

It is very rare that someone needs to go searching for Girl Guide cookies – they find you. Their distribution is convenient and personal. By going door to door, the consumer doesn’t even have to leave their house to receive the cookies. By setting up tables outside of busy grocery stores and shopping centres, they are able to capture impulse buyers.

Another reason Girl Guides have been so successful is their adaptability. Michele Miller recalls a situation where the Girl Scouts suggest buying a box and sending it to the troops overseas, since the customer was on a diet. As Michele Miller puts it,

this is a terrific example of thinking beyond your organization in order to overcome objections and make the sale.

The Girl Guides are also adapting by having their cookies produced in nut free bakery as well as reducing the trans fats in the cookies.

Both Girl Guides and Girl Scouts have been successfully selling cookies for years because of their convenient distribution and adaptability.

Last week I came into possession of quite possibly one of the greatest creations of this century – OPI black shatter nail polish. Now, for those of you that have never heard of black shatter, let me give you a brief description. Black shatter is an OPI nail polish that was released with both the Katy Perry and Serena Williams lines, you paint your nail a base colour and after it is dry, you paint black shatter over top – the end result, a unique cracked pattern.

My fellow comm 296 classmate Rebecca Abel also wrote about this nail polish in her blog post “Fine, Fresh, Fierce”. Rebecca’s approach to obtaining this nail polish was to purchase it on eBay after

weighing the compensatory rules like financial and performance risks against the rarity and fantastic quality.

Prior to making her decision to purchase the polish on eBay, Rebecca researched the availability of the product by talking to friends as well as using the Internet.

My approach to obtaining black shatter was initially similar; I talked to friends as well as looked on the Internet. However, my final decision was to purchase the polish in store as opposed to online. Finding the nail polish was a different story, I searched the mall for weeks until finally finding it in a bundle with another colour.

To me this other colour, a gold colour, was not something I would normally buy. However, since it was bundled with the fantastic black shatter, it was worth it for me to pay the increase in price. By bundling black shatter with a less popular colour, OPI is able to sell more of their inventory while maintaining a profit.

Well done OPI, Black Shatter = my new favourite nail polish.

Don’t forget to check out Rebecca Abel’s Blog!

February 17, 2011 marked a very important day in music history, the true Queen of pop released her much-anticipated music video for her hit single Hold it Against Me. I would say Britney’s back, but let’s be honest she never really left our hearts.

If you look past the awesomeness of this video you may notice that several products are being promoted. The main products are the dating website Plenty of fish, Sony, Make Up For Ever, and Britney’s own perfume, Radiance. It is reported that Britney earned approximately $500,000 for having those products in her video.

The brands are using Britney as a social influence over potential consumers – much like the Got Milk campaign from my previous blog. I believe that product placement in music videos is a win-win situation for both the artist and the product’s company; the artist is able to make a bigger budget video and the product is being viewed millions of times as well as being associated with the celebrity.

The placement of the website Plenty of fish is a perfect example; they paid to have their website displayed/featured in the video and TMZ reports that Plenty of fish had “a 20% spike in traffic the day after the video premiered.”

Now that we are all aware of product placement, how many products can you count in the music video for Telephone by Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce?

For more information on product placement in music videos check out this New York Times article.

Every week I go through the same process of trying to figure out a new blog topic and this week was no different. I found my topic after reading fellow classmate Rebecca Abel’s blog, in her most recent post “GLEEK 4 LYFE”; she mentions the Got Milk campaign, which is my topic this week.

Once decided on my topic, I went to the Got Milk website to research their marketing campaign. Some background knowledge first, the Got Milk brand was formed in 1993 by the milk processors of California who all agreed to give 3 cents of every gallon of milk sold to go towards promoting the consumption of milk. Since they have been advertising for well over a decade, I decided to focus on their “Aaron Burr” television ad and their famous milk mustache posters.

This famous Aaron Burr commercial, I say famous because it won a lot of awards and was even listed as one of the top commercials of its decade (1990’s), was the original ad for the Got Milk campaign. I would say that this commercial is affective. It makes the viewers feel somewhat compassionate towards the guy trying to answer the question, but at the same time it makes them laugh because the whole situation is rather funny.

Moving on to the milk mustaches. Everyone has seen the posters; they feature celebrities ranging from the Olsen twins to David Beckham and from Beyonce to Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Using celebrities act as a social influence over potential consumers. Most people have a celebrity, be it an athlete or a musician that they aspire to be like – celebrities act as an indirect social reference group.

The obvious question taken away from their advertising is, do you Got Milk?

As you all know part of this blog assignment requires us to mention an outside blog, so I thought this week would be a good week to do so. Since I didn’t know of any marketing based blogs, I simply googled “marketing blogs” and found the blog shape+colour by Jeremy Elder. Now, I felt that this blog was more of a personal opinion and not really focused on marketing, but it did give me an idea. In Jeremy’s most recent post, he mentions the effects of good cover art and that got me thinking of the famous saying:

I know this saying does ring true on many occasions, but whenever I find myself looking at CD’s or books, I am constantly judging them by their covers. Since my sister works at the library I decided to ask her if she still judges books by their cover. Instantly she says that she always judges books by their covers.

I believe that covers act as packages for the book, which is the product. The product itself is a key part of the marketing plan and is responsible for creating value. Along with price, placement, and promotion, products make up the marketing mix – an eye-catching cover will attract potential consumers and possibly turn them into buyers.

As Jeremy mentions,

I might have passed over Glasser if I hadn’t been stopped dead in my tracks by the gorgeous cover.

Clearly, I am not the only one who is influenced by cover art. Covers are the first impression a consumer gets from a book or CD, so to anyone who is planning on writing a book or releasing a CD, make sure the cover is outstanding.

After the Steelers and Packers won their conference titles on Sunday, Super Bowl mania has been in full force. Each year, the Super Bowl is watch by approximately 100 million people, making the three-hour game a prime time for advertisements. The networks are very aware of this fact and charge the low price of 3 million dollars for a thirty second commercial. The main question here is, is it worth it? I would say definitely. Super Bowl commercials are remembered for being spectacular and even after the game they are watched countless times online. To prove my point, I asked my sister if she remembers any commercials from the superbowl last year.

Clearly this commercial was memorable since it is nearly a year later and she still remembers what the commercial is selling, as well as what happens in the commercial. When analyzing this commercial I would say that Bud Light is using two types of influences on consumers: affective and cognitive.

• Affective: The commercial is affective because it makes the viewers laugh. Having an enjoyable commercial to watch is going to associate laughter and thus a good memory with the product, Bud Light does this perfectly.
• Cognitive: Bud Light’s commercial is cognitive because it tells the viewers information about the beer. Merely saying, “refreshingly smooth” is telling future consumers about their beer.

The Super Bowl is a prime time event for advertising, and hopefully companies will continue to provide some comedic relief for the viewers with their commercials. I will definitely be watching on Sunday to see the commercials.

With the recent news of Starbucks changing their logo, I was reminded of this past October when Gap briefly changed their logo.

Gap’s logo changed from the navy blue box with the capitalized white name to a simple black name with a smaller blue box in the top right corner. According to Gap, the reasoning behind the new logo was to help them appear more modern and trendy instead of their usual American style. When the logo was revealed, criticism was immediate and wide spread. The majority of disapproval could be found online; people blogged, tweeted and used facebook to share their negative thoughts on the logo. While the new logo is not a graphic masterpiece, the original was very simplistic as well. However, due to the large amounts negativity towards the new logo, after one week the original logo was brought back. To me, the Gap logo has always been an iconic symbol and even though they had good reasoning behind changing the logo, I fully agree with their decision to go back to the original.

What I wonder now is how the Gap will be able to transition into their desired market? Will they ever be successful in breaking away from their traditional designs? Or will the general public continue to criticize their attempts?