Tim's Blog

Our team worked quite well together over the term. We did start out, as I thought, as not extremely comfortable with one another. As time went on and handed in Part A-C of the assignment we definitely did bond and start to appreciate one another’s talents.  I thought I had lucked out with my group since we were, for the most part on the same page with our thoughts, which made decisions in the group a lot easier. Each of the members in the group worked hard, everyone showed up to meetings, doing their part (if not more), and being courteous and conscious of other team members.  Moreover, even though we did function well as a team there were setbacks. For example for Part B of the assignment we had a hard time coming up with a demographic and our group had mixed opinions on the matter as well. We ended up doing not too well on the assignment. As a group we sat down after we received our paper, figured out what we did wrong and fixed it for our next part of our assignment. Everyone worked cohesively and for the most part without conflict with one another. Occasionally, there would be arguments about the direction of the case i.e. who is our target market, ideas for the video, the demographic were trying to appeal to, etc. None of the disagreements left the meeting, rather all were resolved and for the most part the group was happy with what was decided upon amongst the group. Our group worked very well together and I believe that the marks we received are reflective of our group’s ability to work well with one another.

Teenagers and young adults are redefining societal norms, and with that they are changing the way marketers go about doing their jobs. After reading Heidi Cohen’s article “5 things marketers can learn from high school students”, I agreed with some of her comments but also disagreed with one of her thoughts in particular. For example, Heidi mentions that cable television has become an obsolete method of marketing. I have to disagree with Heidi on this one, most households nowadays have cable television and teenagers still watch television shows, maybe not to the degree they did 10 years ago but it is still a viable medium for advertisements. Products like Netflix and YouTube have taken over a large chunk of cable television but it still plays a large role in the lives of teenagers and young adults, pulling from my own experience.  For the most part, Heidi Cohen does portray an accurate representation of the changing demographic of young adults. From my own experiences it is easy to see the shift from basically just cable television advertisements to now Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Vine, SnapChat, etc. Advertisements have evolved with the changes in technology but an important fact that Heidi pointed out was that many marketing agencies use the above mentioned social media devices to collect data rather than to actually advertise directly to the consumer. In my own experience I find that commercials I see on television have a greater effect on me to buy that good, rather than seeing that same advertisement on my mobile device. I am not sure the psychological aspect to it, but I almost correlate advertisements on television as more legitimate than ads on my phone. As a result marketers have picked up on this trend and more or less just collect data from those social media sites. Even though the world is changing to a more digital age some of the classics still remain in the marketing world. 

Heidi’s Blog

http://heidicohen.com/5-things-marketers-can-learn-high-school-students/

After reading Alexandra’s blog post about using sex/explicit advertisements to sell a good, I could not agree more. Alexandra used the example of a Calvin Klein advertisement where one women, who was topless, was being advanced on by three men. Does the sexual explicit content end just with this advertisement, magazine covers, or the internet? I think that these kind of explicit advertisements do reflect back on to society, if society thinks that being “sexy” is reflective of the advertisements of the clothes we wear it will drip down into other facets of our lives. For example, teens today see those ads and it may have affect on how proactive they are in terms of sex. Teenagers are naive and very susceptible to what they see in their favourite magazines or on the television show they are watching. Closer to home, for example, the string of sexual assaults on campus has been extremely disturbing but those events could also have been influenced by society. Society itself is what we make of it, and advertisements for clothes are in a way promoting this kind of behaviour in society. I know that is somewhat of a stretch but to a naive or deranged individual this could be a stepping stone for them to rationalize that society is promoting this kind of behaviour. Advertisements now a day are on the verge of turning in to extremely explicit ways to get someone to buy something. I agree completely with what Alexandra had said on her take of the image, and I hope marketers in the future start to tone things down a bit. I know that some of my ideas and thoughts are stretches to stay the least but I do think they have some role in what is happening to society in this day and age. What do you think?

Alexandra’s Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/alexmeisner/

MIley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, two child stars turned in to very rich, wreck less young adults? Or two marketing geniuses? Miley Cryus and Justin Bieber a few years ago were very innocent teen stars, yet over the past several months to a year they have turned in to an extremely different set of individuals. Many are fixated on their new attitudes, family problems, etc., yet the underlying fact is that everyone knows who they are and their product, music. Miley and Justin in my opinion have marketed themselves, maybe not in the most positive way, but have done so and now everybody knows about them and with that their music. Some may say that it is just a phase they are going through, young adults with loads of disposable income of, but I believe that it was a marketing scheme. Miley, for example, was an innocent teen singer whose music was not as well known as it is now. After some time and “publicity” stunts she is on the cover of magazines, playing in front on millions, on music videos, tabloids, everywhere. Justin Bieber followed a very similar path as well, going from an innocent singer, to an even more famous young adult, through his questionable actions that were broadcasted for the world to see. I believe that Justin and Miley are more than just artists but have marketed themselves into a household name, appearing in all facets of our media, and at the end of the day for the celebrities the more people that know about them the better. What do you think?

I watched a news clip (link is at the bottom) from ABC about a retail store in San Francisco that was using camera’s in its stores to gather information on its customers. The camera would be placed strategically in mannequins to gauge the facial expression from the customer, if they liked the clothing and anything else that could be read from that. It goes even further than that, the cameras also record the age of the customers that entered the store, what they bought, etc. Sounding a little intrusive? It gets a little more invasive, in my opinion. At the cash register the store records a photo of the consumer with a little bio of their customer including: age group, what they bought, how long they were in store and any other information that was gathered from their trip in to the store. As was mentioned in the video, the software and programs used in that particular store are extremely cheap and can and most likely will, be implemented into stores across the U.S. and most likely will follow suite in many other countries. In a matter of years stores will have a telephone book of its customers and this information will be passed around to other stores in the city, region, or even passed on to different countries. I do see the value in this for the producer and marketer, they are gathering information on the clientele and looking at ways of improving their marketing techniques and in developing future products. Where is the line in privacy, let alone ones personal space? I think that this is crossing the line, companies are gathering information on me then passing it around like a business card. I think this technology is going too far, what do you think?

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=9131638

Someone is always creeping

Fear is a very good advocate, either in the home, school, or workplace. This idea of fear being an encouraging factor has been in advertisements for as long as I can remember, from television, to radio, and billboards. The first place you think about fear advertising through fear is in cigarette advertisements, the fear of copious amounts of health issues scared off huge amounts of potential users. But is fear an ethical form of persuasion in advertisement? For example in the picture above by WWF, it shows a man that has become deformed because of global warming. It is trying to propose the idea that climate change will inevitably change us humans into fish people, which is of course unbelievable and misleading, to say the least. To the more naïve or childish individual, this could scare them in to being more climate conscious. But should fear advertising be allowed? Fear motivation is not very successful in the workforce or in the home, why then is it allowed to be an advertising technique? I believe that fear advertisement should not be allowed. For example in political campaigns constituents sometimes are struck into fear to vote one way or the other, instead people should vote on the leader says not what other people say of him/her. It would be very difficult to make a law to prohibit fear advertisements, but some sort of guideline should be implemented. Fear is a very swaying factor, but peoples decisions should not be based on idea of fear but ones own personal opinion. 

In our lecture the other day we had a guest speaker, James Tansey, and he talked about sustainability in a business sense. One of the things that had caught my mind and stuck with me throughout was the idea of products made in sustainable ways are not always the most profitable. After thinking for a time on this, I thought that in this day and age that it is possible to become more profitable and sustainable. People nowadays are trying to be as sustainable as possible. This is can be illustrated through types of cars being purchased, clothes that are made in sustainable ways, etc. The pro-environment trend has become huge in the past decade or so, as more and more people come the realization of the environmental trouble that we are in. Firms and companies can use this as a significant point of difference in their value propositions. If firms do have sustainable ways of producing their goods and advertise that and market that to its consumers, it could pull in a huge number of people to buy their product rather than their consumers products. In my own personal experience, my parents will go out of their way to buy products that have the little seal on them signifying those products were made in sustainable practices. My family and myself will pay the extra couple of cents or dollars for environmentally friendly products. From the firms perspective if there costs are a little more but will sell more products and take up more of the market share they will become more profitable than their competitors, while also helping the environment, it is a clear win-win.

http://creatingwhatmatters.co.nz/articles/10-ways-it-improves-business/

Jamie Oliver a food guru and a household name is known for his fantastic food, television shows, and successful restaurants. What many do not know is that Jamie is known for much more than just his cooking skills. He took his cooking techniques and used that to take on an ever-growing problem, childhood obesity. Jamie began a trek to ban unhealthy food in the UK and to substitute that unhealthy food with healthier alternative. He then took the initiative to try and change the types of food that was served to children in school. Instead of just dictating others to change the food to healthier options, he showed the school systems that there are cost-efficient ways to serve good and healthy food. Jamie Oliver’s approach to changing the food youth eat can be seen all over the place. For example even in my own high school, over the past years there has been a significant change in the food served in the cafeteria. It is great to see people who have skills and ideas that have made them rich, such as Jamie Oliver, use those skills to help solve or alleviate a problem that is prevalent in our world today. It clearly shows that those in business can have a heart and use their skills that made them successful in business to improve the world as a whole.

http://www.thenaturalrecoveryplan.com/articles/jamie-oliver-obesity.html

http://www.google.ca/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1437&bih=751&tbm=isch&tbnid=uOCG57O-iWkF0M:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Oliver&docid=iB_3Z1LHCjwmgM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Jamie_Oliver_retouched.jpg/220px-Jamie_Oliver_retouched.jpg&w=220&h=291&ei=LyWoUNbAKrH2igLr04GYCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=180&vpy=163&dur=756&hovh=232&hovw=176&tx=114&ty=105&sig=106010889264730636772&page=1&tbnh=128&tbnw=95&start=0&ndsp=31&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:132

Canadian Business is a website that also hosts a section a blogs on a daily basis. I found the blogs to be quite distinct and varied quite a bit. For example the blogs there talk about everything from how Apple is doing to the NHL lockout and the financial repercussions associated with that. Even though a business website and blog, there are still blogs on how to improve your speech in a business setting, allowing yourself to get rid of jargon in your speech etc. The blogs themselves do cover business in all different kinds of light and appeals to all people in business. Either you just got degree, are still a university student, graduate student, or even a seasoned business person there are different blogs for everyone. The blogs themselves are a little bit longer than the ones we write in COMM 101 but they are still short enough to capture ones attention for the time being.

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Hey take a look at Sandra Woo’s blog on Apple and its unfortunately unhealthy producers. I left a comment there as well, so click here and take a look at her post and my comment!