My response to Joe Littlewood's question

Question: What do you think product placements role is in television?

I think that product placement in TV is a necessary evil in a sense depending on how you look at it. First off, I want to say that I don't like product placement or shameless plugs for a product in a TV show or series. Whenever I see an obvious plug for something in my favorite show, I feel it can be distracting and even take away from the story of the show.

Take for instance the show "The Walking Dead".

This show is immensely popular right now and everyone is watching including myself but I find that the blatant product placements in the show draw away from the realism. It’s supposed to be a post-zombie apocalypse word where the main characters can scarcely find food, water or ammo and they are driving around in a sparkling new Hyundai SUV? Then you have the camera angels where the Hyundai badge on the car is framed to be right in the center of the screen? It seems a little ridiculous to me and reminds me that I am not part of this dramatic story but just some guy sitting on his couch watching a TV show that is trying to sell him a car. This kind of advertising can ruin the stories realism and the connection with the audience.

But on the other hand, these product plugs help the show in the financial sense.

The amount of money that Hyundai must be paying AMC to have the characters ride around in their new car must be huge sum of money which can be spent on improving the theatrical aspects of the show such as costumes, scenery or special effects. All these things help to improve the experience of the view and make the show more fun to watch. So while the product placements can take away from the show, they can also add to it in an indirect fashion. 

Are there any aspects or entertainment that isn’t affected by advertising? 

Marketing of Music

With all the different genres of music out there, it can be difficult to have a favorite genera that you like to listen to but that got me thinking as to what kind of marketing goes into the types of music that we like and listen to. Is music written to appeal to a specific group of individuals while it is being written of is music all-encompassing of age, race and gender.

I think that Music gets written with a specific group in mind and is written for those people. 

Music is one of those things that gets marketed the same as any other product out there that you can buy. Certain types of music can be seen as being associated with specific "styles" or groups of people. Having your favorite band shirt on can be seen as an accessory or a statement of what kind of person you are and how you want to be perceived by others.


 Do you think music gets marketing to consumers the same way products do?

My repsonce to Kaley DeBoer's question:

Question: What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of this commercial?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGUshQPL8r4

I think that this commercial is not only funny but a very effective commercial.

I believe that the main goal of a commercial is to get you to remember the brand or product so that you will think of it the next time you are at the store and be influenced into buying it. I see this a lot in the form of slogans or catchy jingles that are played in commercials and get stuck in your head. These things create brand recognition. When you hear the jingle or slogan and you repeat it, you remember the brand or product and therefore are that much more likely to be influenced into purchasing it the next time you are in the store.

This kind of marketing isn’t limited to just songs but can also be affiliated with mascots.

When I think of a brand mascot, I first think of all the different characters you see on the front of the box when you walk down the cereal aisle. It seems like almost every different cereal has a character associated with it and I think that is what Jack Link's beef jerky is doing here. I have seen so many commercials featuring that sasquatch and all the crazy things that he does that now if I see his face, I instantly think of the their beef jerky. So in that sense, I do think that the commercial is very effective.

Who is your favorite brand mascot and why?

Personalized Advertisements

There has been a lot in the news over keeping personal information secret especially the information that makes it onto the Internet. With all the controversy over sites like Facebook taking your personal information and selling it to advertising agencies so that they can formulate personalized ads, i figured I would make a post about it.

Many people say that using their personal information in order to specify ads toward them, is an invasion of privacy and should not be allowed. This does seem a little bit "big brother" if you ask me and I initially thought it to be weird the idea of personalized ads but after a while, I changed my mind on the subject.

The way I see it, there is no way we can escape the effects of advertising. You can’t walk into a single store or watch a single episode of your favorite TV show without being bombarded with different ads. This idea applies even more to the internet in my opinion. I think the internet has the highest volume of ads seen compared to the amount of time you spend on it compared to any other form of media. So if I am going to have to sit through all these ads, they might as well be something I am interested in.

I would rather see an ad for tickets to my favorite band because I "liked" them on Facebook rather than an ad trying to sell me something couldn't care less about. Some ads might be useful and let me know about a sale my favorite clothing store is having right now that I would never have known about and I would rather have to see those kinds of ads completely random ones. 

Do you think personalized ads are good or bad? Why?       

   

My responce to Suzanne Koval's question

Question: Do you feel companies insistent advertising are to get your initially buy, and not for the quality of their product? 

 

I like this question mainly because it is one that I have asked myself many times after watching and hearing many different commercials. I think that the answer to this question depends greatly on the product being advertised in the first place. I know for myself personally, I will look for different things in an ad depending on what is being sold.

 

If the product being advertised is something like the new item being served at Taco Bell, I'm really only looking for a few things in the ad. These things are mainly what the product looks like and how much the product costs. Other than that, I'm not too concerned with the product because it is inexpensive and will be used quickly so for that reason I would say yes, the company is simply advertising for the initial buy.

 

But if I were looking to buy something else, my though process would be much different.

 

If I were looking to buy a new car, I would be wanting and expecting a much more quality focused advertisement. I am much more demanding of a product like a car because the cost of a new car is so great. If I were to see that a specific car had won the Motor Trend Car of the Year award (an award based on quality and value) then I would be much more inclined to buy that car verses its competitors based on the quality factor. So for this situation I would say that advertisers focus more on the quality of the product.

 

I think that the whole initial buy vs. quality question comes down to a matter of price and how much people are willing to pay for their "quality".

 

What are some products that you want to pay more for to achieve that sense of "quality"?

 

 

Super Bowl Commercials

I know I am a couple of weeks late on this post but I haven't gotten a chance to post about this due to having to post about other things for class. I wanted to talk about the amount of marketing and advertising that goes on during the super bowl. Everybody always likes to watch the commercials because they are often times very entertaining and fun to watch with their big budgets and often times a great amount of humor.

I have never been a big fan of football in general but I do like to watch the games when they are on and I feel almost obligated to watch the super bowl because its the biggest game of the year and everyone else is going to be talking about it so i might as well watch. This year was no different that any other year (other than the power outage) and this included the amount of adds I watched over the course of the 4+ hour game. It was almost comical how many there were.

I don't think I went more that 5 minutes without seeing a Bud Light add.

Most of the commercials I saw I thought were pretty stupid and were trying to make me laugh way too hard and mostly failed except for a few. This got me thinking about what commercials appeal to what people and for what reasons and i though this would be a good place to ask.

This was my favorite commercial: http://youtu.be/QGoU3VH7He4

This was my favorite commercial because it was one of the very few that got me to laugh and one of the few commercials that I actually remember after the fact. It was because of this commercial that the other day when i went to the store, i looked to buy the body wash but I couldn't find it. i figured if the commercial got me to laugh that hard, i might as well try it.

So what was your favorite commercial and why?

In response to Jade Brulotte's question:

Do you think a portion of the proceeds going to a Global Fund is acceptable?  Or should all proceeds be given to the fund? (Especially is Oprah and Bono are promoting it)


This is an interesting question to answer because there are so many ways to look at it. on the one hand, a true 100% non-profit charity would take all of the money that they would take in and give it straight to the cause they are trying to support. While this is the optimal way for an organisation to provided support to a cause, its effects are very limited. After the initial fundraising push, the donations and incoming money tends to fade away and eventually the charity stops collecting money and dies off.

The way that the (RED) cause is structured is more like a business partnership than a charity.

The (RED) campaign is structured in such a way that all parties involved(RED, GAP, Apple ect.) will benefit from one another. This flips the conventional charitable structure, of one party donating to another, on its head. With this new business-like structure, all parties benefit in hope to prolong the life of the charities ability to collect money. This is a new concept on charity that I have never heard before but it is very intriguing.

This new model for charity carries much more incentives for businesses to become more involved and stay involved for longer than a traditional charitable structure which in turn leads to more money generated for the cause of choice. While this is great, it means that not all the money being made is not making it to the people that need it and it is this point that causes so much controversy.

Do you think it is morally sound to turn a charity into a business partnership with the hope of more money being donated or rather leave it to be just a charity with a theoretically shorter lifespan?


http://mo-blog-kjohnson.blogspot.com/

Product (RED)

Question:   Do you think a partnership with Product (RED) can improve Gap’s image? Is it a sign that they are making a commitment to corporate social responsibility or do you agree with critics who say their involvement is an attempt to spit-shine the company’s image while continuing to do business as usual?

I do believe that the partnership with (RED) is an attempt for Gap to try and reinvent their image. Many companies, much like Gap, have been caught in business practices that reflect poorly on the company and have tried to redeem their image through charitable or philanthropic causes such as this.This can be a great opportunity for any company to make amends with the consumer and show that they have changed for the better. But in order to reinvent your image you must first address the issue which resulted in the tarnished image in the first place.

It does not appear to me that Gap has addressed this at all.

While the (RED) product campaign is an honest one with admirable intentions, It sounds to me like Gap sees it as more of a public  distraction from some of the companies real issues rather than a charitable opportunity. If Gap really wanted to make a difference, they would start internally by fighting for better working conditions for the people who make all their products rather than searching externally for problems. With Gap's production factories failing inspection in 2005 (this article being posted in 06'), I believe that their are much more important issues to be dealt with, but because they are much more financially costly, they get sidelined and replace with the charitable event that deals with the current issue of the companies failing image.

The (RED) campaign is structured in such a way that it is less charity based and more business based with (RED) only taking 50% of proceeds in an attempt to keep businesses more involved in the long run and extend the life of the campaign. I believe that Gap is waiting for this campaign with run its course and hopefully by the end of it, the public will have forgotten all about the sweat shop issue.

Do you think it is the norm for most companies to try and cover up their problems or address them immediately upon discovering them? 

My responce to:    Jonathan tomachick  Customer Satisfaction and Value

Are customer satisfaction and customer value interdependent or mutually exclusive? Can satisfaction occur simultaneously with low customer value?

After reading your post, I would say that i agree with most of what you have to say. I think that most of the time we as consumers take the idea of satisfaction and value and we get them intertwined with one another when actually they can be met separately.

That begin said, I do think that the instances where one of the conditions is meet and not the other are few and far in between.

I believe that often times, a product will initially meet one of the specifications and then the second will be meet as a result of the first one. Take the example of purchasing music. When you first purchase a new CD or buy a song online, you are instantly satisfied that now you can listen to your favorite bands newest song but that music really has no value. But the more you listen to a song, the more you connect with it and relate to what the song is about or maybe you develop a favorite memory that you associate with that song and, through this you develop a sense of value associated with the music.

Do you think the emotional/sentimental value can be as important as real world practicality value?


#no filter