Journey of Random Observations

“Addiction is an uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its negative consequences.”

Everyday I get this need to drink coffee. I can’t control it. It makes zero sense. It makes my teeth yellow and makes me jittery throughout the day. I continuously keep drinking it though. This is an addiction. Coffee, though, has caffeine, which is proven to be an addictive drug. Okay, so a lack of self-control combined with some drugs has fueled my addiction.

But what about other “addictions”? There are points where I am in a shopping mall, I go in a store and buy something (even though I barely have enough for my rent), and then continue to buy things. Could shopping, and more specifically consumption be an addiction?

I really believe consumption is an addiction, with the negative consequences being reflected on our environment and our social happiness. People are replacing relationships with stuff and replacing the beauty of nature with trash. We keep consuming over and over again, even though most of these products are not actually meeting our true needs. Instead of consuming another chocolate bar, how about we have a fuller meal with loved ones that will fill us emotionally and literally?

“I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.” – William Shakespeare

I just read Diego’s blog post Let’s divorce marketing! , which outlined Microsoft Advertising Solution’s clever campaign. The campaign is basically all about how there needs to be a serious change in marketing, as it has all been about slamming random products in consumers’ faces without actually really considering them.

I believe this is a perfect example of a company realizing that value-based marketing is really what we need. As we learned in class, value-based marketing is about the customers needs as well as the needs of everyone a company interacts with (suppliers, employees, etc.). This type of marketer would only sell a product/service if it would genuinely satisfy customer’s needs in an interesting way and can work effectively with those in the supply chain.

I agree with Diego that a lot of marketing right now is just blindly giving out products without really considering the customer. Hopefully this can be the time for change where companies actually care about what they are supplying and how they do it.

“Be provocative. But be sure you ‘provocativeness’ stems from your product. You are not right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You are right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets.” – Bill Bernbach

I recently read Anna Bourak’s blog post called Age Defying Barbie. This brought up some more nostalgia for me, which seems to be a running theme for the past couple weeks. As a little girl, I grew up playing Barbie with my sister. You weren’t considered a normal girl unless you played with Barbie.

Anna made an interesting point in her blog about how these dolls have lead to these preconceived views about beauty, expectations, etc. She also demonstrated how if Barbie was marketed as her actual age or at a different weight, then no one would buy this product. I believe that recently Barbie has tried to change this negative aspect by coming out with more multi-cultural dolls and promoting the idea that girls don’t have to fit in the ‘cookie-cutter’ model.

An example of this is the following video, which shows girls can be anything when they ‘grow-up’, should believe in themselves, etc.

Barbie is still an important staple in our society, but as Anna pointed out, Marvel should be more careful about the important image it can enforce on kids today.

“If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?” – Quote from a t-shirt

So for my EOSC 312 class we had to watch a bunch of different videos including Ted Talks and a mini-series called “The Story of Stuff.” The latter really caught my attention, and one of the videos is my specific focus today (which will coincide with deceptive marketing).

Basically what the video says is that the majority of cosmetic and beauty products we use today contain a lot of ingredients that are toxic, and a lot of ingredients that havn’t even been tested. This video really impacted me because as we saw in marketing class, we use so many products and services throughout the day. I was just thinking of a list of products that could have potential toxic things in them that I use – deodorant, shampoo, makeup, etc.

This topic is heavily related to marketing, as many of these companies that use toxic chemicals in their products don’t really let the consumer know about it. Of course these ingredients are listed, but does the everyday consumer really know what ‘propylparaben’ is? Currently there are guidelines to protect consumers from misleading (or omitting important information) product  labels, but in lieu of this information I think there needs to be more. It cannot be presumed that people will actually know what toxins they are putting there body through, so it up to the companies to either tell consumers in simple language what is in their products or stop using these toxins all together.

A useful website on this topic: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com

This website has a lot of information on different cosmetics and their ingredients, and how these ingredients can affect those who use them.

“The best thing is to look natural, but it takes makeup to look natural” – Calvin Klein

Today I’m not going to be really talking about marketing, more about something that I’m excited about.

I am super excited for the new Harry Potter movie that is coming out later this month!! This movie brings lots of nostalgia for me because I grew up with Harry Potter. These books came out each year as I grew up, so I felt like I was growing up along with the characters in the books. Even though the movies may not be the greatest (the acting has come into question sometimes), they still bring great joy to me. The special effects are definitely what the best about the movies, as they bring the ‘magic’ to real life.

I guess to somewhat relate this to marketing would be all the hype about the movie. I of course am a loyal follower, so I am participating in this marketing, but as shown in the trailer above, this movie uses social media, etc. to advertise. There is also a new Harry Potter theme park (I think by Disney World) that can help promote it.

Go out and see the new Harry Potter movie! Maybe dress up for it too!

“He can run faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo…”

An interesting blog was brought to my attention by Vaidas Aleksejunas. He cited Kiwano Marketing, a Vancouver based marketing firm who has a really interesting blog focused on sustainability. I read a bunch of their blogs, but the one I want to focus on right now is about how UPS is sustainable.

I won’t go through all the details that they mention in the blog, but what I found extremely interesting was how a company/sector that is typically thought of as ‘polluting’ is doing so well and being so innovative. When you think of transportation, delivery, etc. you automatically think of cars on the road and airplanes taking up a lot of fuel. The most interesting thing I got out of this blog was that by cutting out left-turns, UPS has saved over 3 million gallons of fuel. Something that seems so simple like left turning created a wealth of opportunity for UPS and actually think for cars everywhere. Even though it may seem to be out of the way to only turn right, idling waiting for other cars/the light actually wastes more than taking an extra minute to turn right.

UPS has shown that something innovative and purely simple can be sustainable and pave the way for the future.

“Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.” – Jean Paul Ritcher

The main purpose of my blog today is to talk about Old Spice’s really popular and funny advertisements. I first saw these ads in the movie theatre, and ever since then they have become a phenomenon.

I think these ads are really effective for both men and the women who may buy/influence the buying process. Old Spice has even incorporated further social media usage by being active on Twitter, and also responding to Twitter posts through Youtube videos.

As you can see, this video has over 4 million hits on it! That is what I call a popularity phenomenon. What I find really interesting about these ads, though, is responses from other people.

My favorite response to these Old Spice ads is actually made by Sesame Street.

From what I remember from Sesame Street, they always did some pretty lame commercials that weren’t effective towards kids or parents. This is a huge leap forward for Sesame Street, as they are using modern technology and riding on the popularity of Old Spice’s ads. Good job for Sesame Street!

“Now that was television! Why can’t they do shows like that more often? Well it doesn’t matter ’cause I taped it and now I can watch it any time I want. I’m a lucky grouch.” – Oscar the Grouch

I just read an article in ‘The Globe and Mail’ about the possible ramifications of social media on our views on life. The article is called The danger lurking in the social-media shallows. This article caught my attention because of the metaphor the author, Ivor Tossell, used to describe the trend of social media. Basically he says in this article that social media causes us to perpetually be living in the world of the ‘now’, and forgetting what we did even a day ago. Social media websites like Twitter and Facebook reinforce this through having very difficult to access ‘history’ parts of their website (it is basically really hard to find on Facebook or Twitter what you posted a couple of months ago). All of this coincides with this trend that the author calls having a memory of a goldfish.

I think this trend is really important for a number of reasons. For example, as a marketer, you would want to know that consumers don’t even remember what they may have posted a month ago, which could basically mean for your product numerous opportunities to get on someone’s “good side”. There is the down-side as well, which is that consumers may easily forget about you, especially if you are new to the market. Another marketing advantage to this trend is that consumers may not remember how they got to know your brand (so if they got to know it through bad reviews for example), and therefore may be more inclined to trying it out.

Goldfish typically wouldn’t even remember if you tapped the glass of their tank and hurt them, and with social media laid out as it is, consumers may become more and more like this in regards to products. It is definitely something to watch out for!

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/ivor-tossell/the-danger-lurking-in-the-social-media-shallows/article1752572/

“Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events” – Albert Einstein

As business students, probably one of the most important things we can get out of marketing is how to market yourself. This is especially true in the current job market, where companies are probably being more selective and restrictive in their hiring practices. Your resume, cover letter, and especially the interview process are all key aspects in how to market yourself out into the business world, and hopefully successful marketing will land you the job.

Your resume and cover letter are the first things a potential employer will see about you, so they are the key step in your self marketing process that will take you from the ‘unknown’ to the desire-able ‘known’ category. I personally think both these documents should be tailored for each specific job (meanwhile traditional thought is just to change the cover letter). Even though this may seem like a hassle, changing the skill set you choose to highlight on your resume could be really helpful. Take me, for example. I currently work in a restaurant, so if I were to apply for another restaurant I would include my past work experience in other restaurants as well as highlighting that I have my Serving It Right and Foodsafe certificates. However, if I was applying for more business/marketing orientated jobs, I would highlight my education (BCom degree) first, then go into explaining how my part-time jobs have created team-working and time management skills.

Another step that I think is important in marketing yourself is going to networking events. Even if these don’t necessarily lead to interviews, it at least gets your name out there and hopefully gets people talking about you (in a good way!). Take for example, if you meet a really interesting accountant at a career/job fair, but have no intention of going into accounting. If you made a good impression on this accountant, he/she may go to their friends in other departments that you are interested in and tell others how awesome you are. Word-of-mouth marketing is still the most effective way to get your name/brand out there!!

The somewhat down-side to the fact that you need to market yourself is that potential employers (just like potential investors for a company’s stock) will always be keeping an eye on you. If you happen to slip up, one negative story can affect you 10 times worse (while a positive story will probably only get you 2 times as much feedback). I’m not saying that people don’t understand that everyone’s human, I’m just saying that you should probably try to keep a positive and semi-professional side to everything you do.

Market your self effectively and efficiently, and you’re sure to make a good impression, even in the very competitive business world of today.

The above picture is a fabrication of what I’m going to be talking about today, but it still gets the point across. A huge avenue for marketing (and specifically advertising) that many of us probably don’t realize even exists is in Hollywood blockbuster movies. I can just about guarantee that the next movie you watch will have some sort of discrete, or even in your face, product placements.

One example I want to draw on is the movie “Cellular” (Check it out on imdb – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337921/). Basically the movie is about this young fraternity type guy who gets a random phone call from a woman in distress, and he spends the movie trying to stay on the line with her while informing the police about the crime, etc. This movie is the spokesperson for Nokia. I swear that almost every 5 seconds you will see the Nokia brand name, or at least see someone with a phone in their pocket, hand, etc. Of course the makers of the movie probably didn’t care there was so many product plugs, because Nokia most likely had to pay huge amounts to get the whole movie all about them.

The above is sort of an extreme case of product plugs in movies. Other common ones include Coke and McDonalds billboards in Times Square.

This picture of Times Square is the kind of example that I actually really like. Its very subtle and yet effective. The viewer may just perceive a typical night scene of downtown New York City, but subconsciously they are internalizing that the feelings associated with this scene should most likely go with the recognizable logos. So for example, if there is an epic romantic ending of a movie in Times Square with a Coke logo in the background, the viewer is more likely to attribute the warm fuzzy feelings of the scene with Coke.

On a last note I wanted to show this Youtube video. Its from the show “Whose Line is It Anyway”. Watch at least the first minute and you’ll get the gist of what I was ranting about.

“Introducing Lite – the new way to spell ‘Light’, but with twenty percent fewer letters.” – Jerry Seinfeld