I don’t know about other people but I remember a time when I was a kid when there were games and toys that were so popular that everyone had them. For example Pokémon cards, Furby, Yugioh cards etc…What happened to these games and toys? Why are they not as popular as they once were? There are a few applicable terms I learned in my marketing class, one is an instant bust and the other is fad.

Fad

A fad is a game, a toy or something that was popular for a while then abruptly stops being popular. I noticed this happen with toys like Furby and Pokémon. 

Fads come and go and when a company makes a toy that becomes a fad the lifecycle of the product changes. This sometimes can be a problem for a company if they didn’t plan for that. There is a way to pre plan a products demise, that’s by having a pre planned obsolescence. This is where a company releases a product on the market and in 6 months they plan to have another product to replace that one. Apple does this well with their phones every year.

Instant Bust

Instant bust is when a company launches a product on the market and it does not sell. The company then lacks the resources to continue to market and produce the product. Many big companies have had instant busts one very popular one is Pepsi Blue. This product went nowhere in the North American market and cost Pepsi million of dollars.

I know that I don’t want to make a product that becomes an instant bust or a fad because either way in the long run you will lose money, and no business wants to lose money.

Ignorance Of The Law Is No Excuse… For a Marketing Manager

Are companies following marketing laws or just stretching the truth? Have you ever stopped to think about the savings companies boast in their ads and thought, can that be true? The truth is that companies are sometimes deceptive. There are several ways companies go about ignoring pricing laws.

One of the ways companies mislead consumers is by Misleading Price Claims (MSLP) (CMIA). This is when a manufacture suggests a price point to a retailer but the store sells it for a lower price and then has a sale. The retailer advertises that you save X number of dollars, but the number of dollars saved is from the manufacturer’s suggested price to their sales price.

For example: -Manufacture suggests product is worth 500$

                        -Retailer sells it at 400$

                        -Retailer has sale, and sells for 300$

 Then in the flyer retailer says you save 40% because 500$ to 300$, but it should be 400$ to 300$ which would be 25% savings.

Another way company’s trick customers, is the Bait and Switch (CMIA). This is where a company has a sale on a product, but has little in stock. When the company runs out of the product they show the customer a similar, but more expensive product. Most consumers fall for it because their already in the store and they wanted the product.

Occasionally, different companies with similar products have met with each other to set a high price, so no matter which brand the consumer gets they’re paying a high price for the product. This is called Price Fixing (CMIA).

Another method is Predatory Pricing (CMIA). This is when a company sets the price so low no competition can compete. The downfall if doing this is that the company doesn’t make a lot of money. This is illegal for companies to do, but it is really hard to prove.

All of the marketing methods above are illegal. Though these deceptions can seem inconsequential the company and consumer should be on level ground. The laws are safe guards for consumers so that they can make informed decisions.

This is a video of more marketing laws that were not discussed in my report that I found to be interesting.

www.google.ca

www.youtube.com (Guide to Money - Immutable Laws of Marketing)

Canadian Marketing in Action (CMIA) 8^th edition Keith J. Tuckwel

Mobile Media... Marketers Are Now Stalkers

Why is mobile media an effective means of marketing and advertising to a consumer? Maybe it is because there are over 3.4 billion people with active mobile devises. There are 3.1 billion unique owners of at least one mobile phone and subscription. Also, out of the 3.4 billion active mobile devises 1.55 billion devices received a form of advertising last year.

The reach alone for iPhone, Android, iPad and Blackberry applications is over 40 million people. This allows marketers to target a large percent of the population with ease. Now from social media it is easy to figure out a specific person or group’s interest. This gives a marketer the information needed to maximize impact with sophisticated targeting to allow them to market to a consumer with little cost.

Due to new technological advances, marketers are now using interactive ads to market products to consumers. A good example of such an ad, is a flash game called Chevy Cobalt labs. This interactive ad allows the consumer to ‘drive’ a Chevy Cobalt and choose certain design elements for the vehicle. After the consumer is finished an ad pops up that allows the consumer to go to the company’s website and potentially buy a new Chevy Cobalt.

With the advancement in the mobile media technologies, marketers can easily find out if their ads are working. By this I mean the success of the ads is measurable. Marketers can find out how many people viewed the ads, as well as how many followed the ads to additional sites of interest.

Based on the facts above I think mobile media is an effective form of advertising, because there is the potential to target billions of people and easily send the ads to them. Mobile media allows marketers to send interactive ads to consumers, and because mobile media allows marketers to easily see the effectiveness of the ads; this presents a direct marketing advantage for marketers.

These are a few websites I looked at:

http://www.greystripe.com/advertisers/?gclid=CM_DjY7RpKwCFQyFQAodbAhqBA

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2009/06/why-wildly-varying-research-on-mobile-advertising.html

8000$ for 150 Words or Less

Why is social media so popular? Maybe it is because 77% of the world’s population uses the internet on a regular basis as of 2010 world internet usage.  The internet is an effective tool for marketing a product to a potential consumer.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can be useful for marketing a product to a consumer. This can be done numerous ways. Some of which are celebrity endorsement, testimonials, and sharing your thoughts on a product or company for everyone to see. One of the more popular methods is celebrity endorsement. To do this on a social media website is different than on a television commercial. This is done by paying a celebrity to say something positive about your product on a social media website; this allows all of the celebrity’s followers to see the post. Unlike in social media, in a television commercial the celebrity has to interact with the product and this method can be costly.

The way the cost is calculated for celebrity endorsements is based on a number of factors; the popularity of the celebrity (so how many followers) and what is the product. The social media of choice is twitter.  A celebrity that uses this is Kim Kardashian. She has over 3 million followers and she charges 8000$ for a tweet (Kim Kardashian).  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Well, it works. Celebrities do it all the time. Also, this is an inexpensive method for an advertiser who wants a celebrity endorsement, but can’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a regular television celebrity endorsed ad. Now that internet and social media is becoming more popular, the celebrity tweets are on the rise and are sure to be for a while.

These are a few website I looked at.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/02/prweb8928438.DTL

http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm

I could not find a video for celebrity endorsements on twitter specifically, but this is a good video to show what celebrity endorsements in commercials are. This is a commercial for Nikon’s new camera with Ashton Kutcher as the celebrity endorsing the product. This probably cost Nikon in the 100 thousand dollars or more range to pay Ashton to do this.

Marketing Mindset

Lately I have found myself questioning every ad and every commercial while watching television. “But why am I doing this?” is the question I always find myself asking every time I notice myself doing this. I believe the answer is awareness.

What I mean by awareness is that I am slowly being trained by my teachers to think like a marketer/advertiser. I suppose that is their job, and I guess they’re doing their job well. I will find myself sitting on the couch watching television, but when the commercials come on, I feel the need to watch, unlike when I was a kid. I find myself enjoying analysing commercials for different appeal techniques such as lifestyle, humour, comparative, innovation, and product differentiation. I began to notice this action a couple of weeks ago, and I had a startling realization that, I might be becoming a marketer/advertiser.

As I wrote this blog I thought to myself, could it be? Could I really be changing and becoming a marketer/advertiser. My teachers always said in order to be a good marketer/advertiser you have to change how you look at commercials and people and start to think like a marketer/advertiser. If there is one thing I learned from writing this blog is that it’s working.


The easiest commercials to explain what I am trying to say are car commercials because most of them use every appeal technique possible to make their product most desirable

This is a typical car comercial that you may see on t.v. all the time. The appeal techniques used in this are product differentiation, comparitive, and innovation. This is a positive factual based comercial.

This is a volkswagen car comercial, this was also aired on t.v. and was very successful. The appeal technique used in this was humour. This is a positive comercial with no acts.

Generation X and no not the 1990s T.V. Show

Generation X is a period of time between 1965-1975, just after the end of the baby boomer period. Generation X is the off spring of the first baby boomers. Generation X is “perhaps the most overlooked generation, falling in the shadow of the powerful baby-boom generation” (Wilson, 2009, para. 6).

I am generation Y, but generation X is very different then me, but not just by time either. Generation X has a high education level and is highly aware of economic problems and due to this “like to save money” (Wilson, 2009, para. 6).

Generation X is the least marketed generation. This generation is very technologically savvy, and they like to save their money. This generation lives and breathes facts; you will not sell them a product without telling them all the facts. Their generation mostly has a very rational buying habit and is traditionally not brand loyal. They want to know what your product is and why it is a good value for them. Generation X is a very flexible generation (Bachler, 2008).

Out of all the generations, generation X is the most racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse than previous generations (Bachler, 2008). The challenge this poses is that marketers have to come up with new products and ways to market to the ethnical and culturally diverse population. As for me I’m generation Y and I don’t like to save money and as for marketing preference I love witty and imaginative outside of the box advertisement.

A chunk of this blog was part of a report I did for my media and cultures class and I thought why do I need to know this and how is this relevant to me. After thinking about it I realized that it is important because if I become a marketer this generation plus my own will be my target market. The report that I did taught me how to break down a target market and learn their needs and wants.





With the right knowledge and marketing strategies, the world’s wallet is in your hand.

These are some websites I looked at.

Bachler, C. (2009). How to Market to Gen X and Gen Y. Home Business Magazine.
http://www.homebusinessmag.com/marketing/how-guides/how-market-gen-x-and-gen-y

Wilson, E. (2009). Know Your Target Market. Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/202334

Gotta Catch Em All... Niche Marketing

In my media and culture class I did a presentation on magazines and their niche marketing strategies. A niche market is when you target a segment of a general population and specifically market to their needs and wants.

Magazines are good at marketing their products by using niche marketing strategies. For example if you like sports then magazine companies like sports illustrated would most likely target you.

The methods that are used by magazine companies to market the magazine is as follows; first, they must choose their niche market i.e. age and gender demographics and even psychographics, this can be based on the magazine itself. If, for example, it is a sports magazine you most likely are marketing to males with a wide spectrum of age. Secondly, you must choose your marketing strategy method (how you get the word out on your product).

There are 3 major methods to market your product. The shotgun method is aimed to hit lots of people and is typically expensive, to advertise for this would be a bulletin board. Profile matching is a method that tries to determine what a particular group wants by doing research on them then specifically target them.

Riffle method is another way to get your product known. This method targets people based on their interest and habits. This method has pin point accuracy at targeting their product to a specific group. The strategy most commonly used by magazine company is riffle strategy; it is arguable that they use profile matching as well.

 

The reason why magazine companies market to a certain group is because nobody is equal. Your needs are different than others. Now understanding this, marketers have successfully marketed their magazines to millions of people and magazines are one of the major methods of advertising.






This is a youtube video that explains what is happening to magaines now and their projections into the future.