Hey guys, I just wanted to share an advertisement that I think used fear both effectively and ineffectively depending on whether or not you are a smoker. The anti-smoking ad Im refering to is the one that aired a few years ago where an artery had the tar and residue left from smoking squeezed out ot if. For me it was effective in both recall and persuasion not to smoke becasue I haven't seen the ad in years but still vividly remember it. Ive never been a smoker but this ad definately doesnt make me want to start anytime soon. However, I think that the effectiveness of this ad depended highly on the fact of whether or not you were a smoker. If you weren't already a smoker then knowing that you could prevent damaging your arteries how the ad demonstrates is as simple as not starting to smoke and the ad helps scare you to do so. On the flip side, if you were already a heavy smoker you probably would not watch the commercial due to the severity of the threat being imposed on them (some of my friends and relatives that smoked refused to watch these commercials when they came on during commercial breaks) and you would just tune out the ad to avoid cognitive dissonance between what your actions are and the consequences you dont want to face.Check out the commercial on youtube and let me know what you think.. too graphic or effective?Sorry Im new to this and dont know how to post the video on here for you to watch... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCE6adNWw-4

Roger's wireless has its own magazine?...

I am not a magazine person, I would never go out and buy a magazine, or subscribe to one , and have it mailed to me, coming home i see a magazine in my mail box thinking its one of those little ad magazines that get sent out, however this one had my name and address on it, its UR magazine, it wasn't until i read the fine print at the bottom where it said "Exclusive for Rogers wireless customers" that I finally understood why i got that magazine. The magazine had to topics about upcomming phones "the curve with the verve" basically a better version of the blackberry curve, they talking about the Iphone, how to use your smart phones to get your "dream job" , Jay-Z, music, and related content. I think this is a good strategy for Rogers in the sense that some of the ads appealed to me such as the new purple blackberry curve I was really interested in it , since I am actually looking to get a new phone, and purple happens to be one of my favourite colours. However, I think Roger's should've asked there customers either when they were signing there contracts or through the phones to ask them if they would want to have that magazine mailed to them or not... I mean they never fail to call and tell you that your payment is due, so they can spare themselves sometime and ask customers or send out an email, or a text. Moving away from the topic however still talking about the same magazine at the back you see this big ad with Justin Timberlake and the GIVENCHY logo right above him and a picture of a phone, and I thought to myself oooo another designer phone, but really when i looked closely it said "THE NEW MEN'S FRAGRANCE" it is actually a cologne for men! that looks like a cellphone so i thought that was a very well put and postioned ad it fits perfectly in the magazine!
here is the link to the magazine if anyone's interested into looking at it http://urmagazine.ca/

Apple's "Get a Mac" ad: "Broken Promises"

I just recently came across an Apple ad on YouTube which I thought was really nice.

Its yet another Mac vs PC ad.

Here it is!

Watch and enjoy it

Brilliant Marketing Strategies - Part 2

If you've ever heard "A Diamond is Forever", then you've heard of De Beers Jewellery. I believe that De Beers is another one of those companies that came up with a brilliant marketing strategy and built up on it to make something incredible. De Beers spent $67 million on advertising in 1999, according to an article I read called "DeBeers Plays Up Details, Diamonds in Ad Push" by Christine Bittar. I've seen their ads hundreds of times and each time I find that they are getting more and more creative with every new release. So I can see why they invest so much money into their ad campaigns. I am talking mostly about their print ads, however most of their money is going to much larger advertising productions. Here I've included just a couple examples of some of my favorite print ads, and I'll discuss a little later more about the other ad methods they use. 




What makes these ads so brilliant to me is the fact that they are so obviously targeted to men in relationships and De Beers plays up on the stereotypes of relationships so well.

The idea that women will do anything and forgive anything for diamond jewellery is a pretty simple marketing strategy. One thing that seems to be ever prevalent in society is the idea that men will never understand women and women will never understand men. It's a generalization, of course, but it is still a pretty common theme among many movies, television shows, music, books, and other media. 
De Beers realized that women love jewellery, but advertising to women was not a profitable marketing strategy because women rarely buy expensive jewelley for themselves. However, jewellery is a great (and pretty common) gift for men to give to their girlfriends or wives. De Beers used the theme of men making women happy and coupled it with a down-to-Earth sense of humour to create advertisements that appealled to men who needed that "last minute gift idea" or a healthy reminder that "diamonds are a girl's best friend". 

While many of these ads are comedic and play off of stereotypes against both men and women, you might think some of the ads could come across as offensive. In reality, no one has really complained about these advertisements from what I've read and seen. In fact, I personally find them hilarious and, being a woman, I take no offense to any of the ads I've seen. This is of course my own personal opinion and how other women may feel is not necessarily even close to how I feel about the ads, but, as I've already said, I haven't heard of any complaints yet. 

Other advertising tactics used by De Beers includes an installation set up in August 2008 an placed in Grand Central Station using 25,000 roses (image left), to make a point that, unlike roses, diamonds last forever.

This was not only an expensive installation, but also a seemingly successful one. There was a lot of hype given to this installation, and there were even a number of case studies done about it. (I did try to read some of these studies but it would appear they are only available to subscribers).

The next advertising tactic that I thought was really impressive was the "Unbreakable Kiss" installation. This was done in a New York City park in 2008. This installation allowed couples to document a kiss in a 360-degree video. Couples could kiss underneath mistletoe (shaped like the diamond logo) for a $5 donation to the Elton John AIDS Foundation for World AIDS Day. 60 cameras photographed them from all angles and the photographs were then combined into moving video images.Not only was De Beers able to raise a considerable amount of money for the foundation ($50,000), but it also allowed men to give a very unique Christmas gift to their girlfriends/wives while De Beers benefitted by building its brand name and overall awareness. It was very successful considering that De Beers website traffic increased by 94% versus the previous year. The videos were enjoyed by over 300 viewers (more than just the couples who participated were checking out the hype) and $4.6 million worth of free publicity was gained for De Beers. You can read up more about this installation here.

While there are many more De Beers advertising examples I could go through, my point here is that these were all very brilliant strategies that have been very successful for the company, and also very enjoyable for the consumers. I highly suggest that if you haven't seen many of these ads that you look them up because some of them are fantastic. But please be wary of the fake (and sometimes very vulgar) ads that have also been put up, and know that they are not from De Beers.

Pagers changing TV ratings game

Hi everyone,

First, I'd like to extend my appreciation on behalf of the class to the two individuals who have posted to the blog so far.  While most of the class is now registered, active participation is what will make this useful for everyone.

On a more substantive note, in class last week we discussed how TV ratings are derived.  I indicated that this used a (more or less) representative panel of viewers, whose behaviors are then extrapolated to draw inferences about the population.  This was traditionally done with diaries, where panelists would write down what they watched and when -- problematic because people would often get it wrong, overestimating how much of some shows they actually watched and forgetting to log other shows.  This changed when Nielsen introduced the PeopleMeter in 1987 (see this article in the New York Times) and panellists were instead asked to log in to an electonic box whenever they watched television.  However, even this system had its problems, with people often forgetting to log off, or failing to log in when another family member was already watching the show they wanted to see.

Currently, a new technology called the "Portable PeopleMeter" is being rolled out.  The technology listens for TV shows within earshot, and recognizes the sounds (much like the Shazam iPhone app) to track what a panellist is watching.  But as this Globe and Mail article notes, this has led to substantial shifts in the ratings being reported for Canadian TV channels.  The big loser?  The Weather Network.  And, of course, a big problem for advertisers and media companies alike remains the fact that younger viewers are downloading shows and sidestepping the ads entirely.

New Media and Marketing Communications

This year I am taking a PR course through the school of Journalism through which we work with real life clients to create a public relations campaign.

The client I am working with is a not-for-profit organisation that works with CIDA to provide funding to women's rights organisations in developing countries. As a not-for-profit with a declining donor base, the organisation is struggling mightily to survive. The staff are overworked and underpaid, so their budget for the campaign is $0. Naturally, their idea was to use our generation's proficiency with the Internet to capitalise on free forms of social media.

I think that this idea is common with a lot of small businesses or organisations who have very little wiggle room with their money. They think they can develop a brilliant communications campaign through facebook, twitter, and a sub-par website - all for free.

What my organisation does not want to admit is that while twitter and facebook may not require a fee, to use them sucessfully still involves lots of costs. For example, this overrun staff is never going to find time to blog, tweet, and update their website. Moreover, no one on their paid staff feels comfortable with new media, and it is hard to count on volunteers to keep updating and monitoring all of these sites.

My PR team is really struggling to convey all of these challenges to the organisation. Our client is clinging to the idea that they can reach all these people for free, which makes them very unwilling to allocate any kind of budget to the campaign. They see that facebook comes without a price tag and don't understand why they will need to allocate resources to be successful.

In this class we recently had a guest lecturer from Delta Media talk about how many groups are abandoning PR strategies and simply signing onto facebook. Do you guys think social media is the new face of public relations, or will these group become disenchanted with all their "free" options and look again at advertising and more traditional communications to reach their publics?

Brilliant Marketing Strategies (Part 1)

I recently read a blog about the new Shreddies marketing campaign for "Squares vs Diamonds" and it got me thinking about other advertisements that I have seen over the years that appeared to be particularly brilliant to me. As I started to think back, I realized how these "brilliant" advertising campaigns really stuck in my mind and had an affect on me.

When I was younger, I always enjoyed the Buckley's cough syrup commercials and advertisements because I (at that time) had never perceived advertising as a particularly honest form of media. Yet, Buckley's was telling us (as their potential customers) that they have the worst tasting cough syrup. I don't think Buckley's could have done a better job of building up a relationship with consumers; by being so brutally honest about the awful taste of the syrup in their advertisements, they allowed the viewers to gain trust in them. So, when Buckley's uses the slogan "It tastes awful. And it works." The consumers believe that it will work because the company is so willing to admit that it tastes terrible, therefore the product's effectiveness must be worth the taste.
This campaign has proven to be effective, on Buckley's website they admit that "The bad taste campaign increased Buckley's market share over 10% in the Canadian cough & cold category and has won numerous advertising awards." (http://www.buckleys.com/about/history.htm) This comes as no surprise to me; Buckley's created an image for themselves that said "Hey, we aren't going to sugar-coat anything. This is going to suck, but you'll be glad you did it."
I think it's safe to say that when you're sick and you're coughing up a lung, you want something that is going to WORK. This is why Buckley's appeals so much to consumers, they know it will work even before trying the product just because of the way Buckley's advertises so honestly.

I personally think that this was a great strategy, and it really allowed consumers to embrace Buckley's as a household name, I doubt that the company would have had as much success without the use of the bad taste campaign.

I'd like to know what others think about this campaign, and if you agree with the idea that the campaign is more or less the backbone of Buckley's tremendous success.
 

Registering for the Blog

Before you can post to this blog, you must be registered as a contributor. Simply send your Gmail address to Prof. Ritchie via ConnectMail, and you will be sent an invitation to join the blog.

Class Location - Fall 2009

Welcome to BUSI 3205!

For the Fall 2009 semester, we will be meeting in Room 4494 of the Mackenzie Engineering (ME) building (see map).

See you in class!