Word of Mouth

On February 2^nd, 2011, my friend Ross wrote about his love for extreme sports and the genius marketing people working for Red Bull. He mentioned that by hosting and sponsoring all the extreme sports events and even having their own Red Bull athletes, the company has been able to charge above average price for their energy drinks.

I completely agree with Ross on the strategy that the company is taking. Red Bull has made the transition from a Proper noun to a common noun. For example, Kleenex is now used as a common word whenever someone is referencing to a paper tissue. Red Bull now has reached that state where people reference it as all energy drinks. I am not sure and in fact, quite intrigued by why the others have not tried to imitate them. Monster and Full throttle are the main competitors belonging to Coke and Pepsi respectively, they have access to great marketing budgets. Why have they not marketed themselves as extremely energized drink yet? Also, would they eventually take over Red Bull’s market share? By being the “face” for energy drinks, Red Bull took a lot of the hit form the negative publicity, ranging from accidents to death of teenagers from similar products. Which gave others a chance to be a head of the game and introduced new lines of drinks that are labeled as from “natural products”. This is something that Red Bull will struggle with for they have only one products with a very strong image to vary from.

This sunday will be the 45^th edition of the Football Championship in US. Over the years, Super Bowl has positioned itself in the sports entertainment industry for being more than just the final round of NFL. It is now a highly anticipated event for not only the sport, but also the halftime performances and especially the advertizements. Marketing firms compete viciously for the design of these ads and companies with big budget fight over each other for a 30 seconds slot.

Amount some of the most memorable ads is this Budweiser commercial form 2000 that marked many americans and is considered as being “THE classic Budweiser commercial”.

The commercial, simple yet amusing, caught the essence of what the consumers are looking for in a beer. First of all, Budweiser clearly established their target market by showing a group of single bachelors living together and enjoying the simplicity of life. They act as a reference group to other “sports and beer” guys who just want some relaxing yet good times with their “buddies”. Because beer is usually a shopping product, it is wise to create a commercial that makes a lasting impression on people so that when they stand in front of a fridge of different kind of beer, the name Budweiser will be part of their evoked sets, resulting more chance of purchase.

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?”