Word of Mouth

According to Hollie Shaw of Financial Post, Target will not have as great a success as the entry of Walmart in the 1990s. I agree with her in the sense that Target will not dramatically change the retail market, but I believe that it will affect the market share of the major retail stores.

I don’t think that Target will price-match with Walmart on the identical items, nor do I think that they need to. As we have seen in class, from the commercials playing during the golden globe to the artistic advertizement for their new store in Manhattan, Target is trying rebrand itself as a higher-class retail. Their new emphasis on style and trend differentiates them from Walmart who only advertizes itself as a low-price alternative. By simply being a US company, Target has the advantage in the Canadian market for no one knows their brand just yet. Therefore, it will be easier for them to create this new desired “stylish” image as oppose to changing it in the US.

If they successfully place themselves in the consumers’ mind as a more chic and yet still affordable brand, they have a great chance of taking market share away from their competitors such as Zellers, or even private brands such as Joe, clothing brands of Supperstore, who are targeting the same segment.

“ Sex sells”. That is especially true in the beer industry, from explicit commercials to implicit sexual innuendos in their advertisements. RAMM, a russian brewery took a step further in designing a most creative and controversial design for their beer cans.

As you can see on the picture, the design of the bottle once joining together with another, gives the illusion of a female body. The design is very appealing the to the predominant male beer drinkers and just simply amusing for the rest of us.

The innovative packaging makes the cans stand out from a crowd of beer cans. When consumers are shopping, the unusual package immediately capture their attention by appealing to the affective component of the consumer attitude. Being different could be a risky decision since most beer buyers just “grab and go”. The odd colour may confuse people about the nature of the drink. However, RAMM made sure to print the alcoholic percentage of the beer in the largest font, bigger than the company name to ensure people that this is indeed what they were looking for.

While most companies are spending big bucks on primetime commercials, RAMM found a cheap way of getting people to pick up their products from the selves and asking “ who made this?”