COORS: Cold as the Rockies Cans

This is a catchy move, it has no actual relevance to drinking accept the cool effect of the can changing color. But, for many people it gives a reason to buy the drink over its competitors in the cheaper alcohol departments. It has pitched itself directly against Bud Light and their "drinkability". But instead of hoping that people think they are a quality and good tasting beer they have differentiated themselves on a level away from taste. The majority of people who want to drink cheap beer only look at the price, but Coors is trying to make sure you know they offer something more than just beer.

I believe they should keep going with this campaign because it is something new and different and I know the consumers appreciate it. I already hear all over my campus "is the can blue yet" because people know about the campaign and are interested.

Wendy's = Fastfood

I don't know why Wendy's has decided to put together this entire campaign trying to push away from the idea that they are a fast food chain. I understand that they ave diversified by offering baked potatoes, chili, and other items that are not topically offered on a fast food menu. But that doesn't change the status of their restaurants.

This is a situation where even though their commercials state that they are "anything but fast food" everything else about their company yells "we are a fast food chain". Their website, actual restaurants, staff, drive through, to go bags, and service trays all match the fast food scene. If they are going to make a break for a classier position they need to change every facet of their delivery. This campaign is not going to work and their slogan "you know when its real" won't make them a higher quality restaurant until they change everything.

Keeping everything consistent is the key!!!

The Stockton Showcase

For the biggest game of their season thus far the Pacific Men's Basketball team is scheduled to play University of California at Berkeley. The unique decision made for this game is that it is scheduled to take place at the Stockton arena instead of the Alex G. Spanos center where they usually play.

Now the athletic department and the marketing staff have placed themselves in a position where they need a marketing campaign to get students to the game. It wouldn't be worth playing at the arena if no one shows up, it fact it would be a complete failure. So far they have employed two bus trips back and forth from the university specifically for students, and a pre-party at Valley Brew on the Miracle Mile located about a mile from campus.

There marketing strategies include utilizing pacifictigers.com, marketing at any Pacific event, and advertising in the US Derosa center where all on campus students go to eat everyday. The question is: will this be successful enough to make the game worth playing at the Stockton Arena vs. the Spanos Center?

To be continued....

This post will be completed on Thurs Dec. 10 the day after the game

Apple vs. Wondows 7

The reason why these advertisements and this campaign is successful is because it is seen by consumers more than the MMicrosoft's commercials promoting the new operating system. Your everyday consumer will believe apple's campaign stating that Windows 7 has the same problems that Vista had until they are proven wrong, literally until they test the product or hear someone they trust say that all the problems are solved. Apple did a great job immediately, in fact even before Windows 7 officially came out, attacking the product and asking; what has really changed?
To solve the problem in the eyes of the consumer that doesn't read the wall street journal and isn't computer savvy enough to actually understand the differences Microsoft needs a strong and "new" campaign of their own. What better way to say that the new system doesn't have the problems of the first than creating an absolutely new campaign to promote it?
This is a matter of positioning in the mind of the consumer. It doesn't matter where the company believes they are positioned because it doesn't sell until the customers believe it. So they need to develop a new marketing campaign that will move their seen functionality, ease of use, and it factor towards where they want it to be

Facebook: Social Network Advertising

Success: I believe that one of the most successful advertisements that are riddled throughout facebook would be the credit score ads. Placing ads about credit scores in a place where the main customer is just starting to worry about their credit, college students.

Failure: Modern coin mart doesn't really work for me, why would a college student care about collectors coins. But, then again more and more people from a much wider range of demographics have taken up a place in facebook. So really you could give a reason to put any ad on facebook and you would find an audience.

Cadbury Gorilla

So Cadbury has decided to go with the, it has nothing to do with our brand but it is kind of funny approach. This Gorilla does the drum solo to a lot of famous songs in all the Cadbury commercials. I don't really understand why they have decided to use this tactic in their campaign, especially because it gets old after watching one of the ads. It isn't really that funny, and I remind you, it has nothing to do with chocolate.

I hope these ads were really cheap to produce, because then I would have a better understanding of why they would have chosen them over a normal chocolate commercial. I will give it to the gorilla, he is pretty good at drums. Cadbury obviously took the humor approach and I don't think it is going to pay off for them in the long run.

Dove Evolution

In this ad dove shows a model posing for a makeup billboard. Not only does the already beautiful girl go through hours of makeup and hair manipulation but after the pictures are taken they are distorted to make her look absolutely symmetrical and perfect. Dove's last word is, "no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U (click is you want to watch the commercial).

Dove has a good point when high lighting the wrongdoings of many make up ad campaigns, but what does this have anything to do with them? Dove's focus is fairly simple: soap, shampoo, lotion, and makeup remover. Why are they attacking a make up brand if they don't even produce make up? This is my main concern with the campaign, they are focusing on hurting another company without making this commercial an asset to their own business. In no way does this commercial or campaign tell you or show you how to solve the problem through buying Dove products.

Using Caple's principles (get attention, hold attention, create desire, make it believable, make it a bargain, make it easy to buy, and give a reason to buy it now) we can clearly see that they only focused on the first two steps and making it believable. There is no support of their own brand in this ad except for the presence of their name on the title.

1st For Women Insurance Brokers

These commericials show men in a car with one of the passengers tying to get in. But, every time he tries to open the door they drive away from him so he can never get in. Eventually when they pull away from him something stupid happens. Two of the commercials show them crashing into a light post or driving off the edge of a cliff. The commercials can be seen on youtube.com.

You guys are right, every time a guy gets in a car they are more interested in entertaining their friends than maintaining their own safety. Whereas, all women are safe every time they drive. They have mastered the different ways to apply makeup on the way to work along with talking/texting on the phone to make the ultimate comfortable driving experience. I'm being sarcastic of course, I believe that both male and female drivers can be terrible.

On a more serious note statistics at car-accidents.com report that in 2006 more than twice as many men died in auto accidents than women; so maybe the commercial does have a point no matter how offended I may have gotten. Data that doesn't just measure fatality rate states that women get into more accidents per million miles driven, but this is only a slight number, 5.7 vs 5.1. This statistic comes from scienceagogo.com.

From a marketing perspective this commercial draws from a functional or utilitarian value in a entertaining way. They are advertising that women are safer drivers and should be rewarded with their own insurance company. Which also pulls a little social value because women should be included in a group insurer that only takes women. I don't think that this advertisement and this brand of car insurance has enough pull to take business away from the bigger named insurers. Why would a female choose a broker that makes fun of men over a broker that keeps them safe and focuses on doing just that. But, I must admit I have never understood women, and I am certainly no master of the choices they make.

Axe = Sex

The axe marketing campaign has been directed towards younger males who for some reason or another have absolutely no concept of what women really want. Not that I would ever pretend to know. One thing I do know is that I have heard "who would spray that much cologne on themselves at once" several time directed straight at a guy using axe. Looking up several commercials on youtube helped me realize that their slogan is "spray more, get more". What a cruel slogan fr those of us that do not enjoy the smells that emit from those affordable slick looking bottles.

I also can't help but notice that instantly the females turn into animals whose only goal is to get the man. In other words the gender roles are switched and suddenly the the guys are the ones that are wanted.

My point is, whether or not I want it too because I can't stand the potent smell of axe, that their campaign is working. They have lulled the male between the ages of 10-20 into the idea that instead of being an interesting and lovable person you just need spray their cologne 100 times all over your body and women will be all over you. I guess it is worth a try.

But the truth is that by the age of 20 you should realize that the only thing axe is good for is covering up your BO after work outs but one spray is enough. Why did they need to invent a bottle that sprays constantly until it runs out. That is the concept of the air freshener not cologne.

Great Ad campaign regardless of my opinion on the product!!

Think Box TV Marketing Campaign

Through their television advertisements and their website think box TV of the UK develops a campaign focused on getting British brands to focus marketing dollars on TV commercials. In their commercial they develop a funny image of a man who when placed under hypnosis can only respond to questions through advertisements that he has stuck in his head. This shows the power and role of advertisements in getting brand names into the heads of customers, literally. The commercial can be found on youtube.com under think box ad.

In the UK TV commercials do not play anywhere near the same role as they do in the US. Instead they are only allowed before and after programs instead of placing them in the middle and interrupting the show. For this reason they are much less likely to be seen by the masses so corporations tend to ignore the idea of spending money on them. In the UK 3.8 billion pounds were spent on ad dollars last year which is roughly $7 billion, whereas in the US $180 billion dollars were spent in the last year. If the UK were a company they would only be 4% of the US's TV Ad dollars. This mean that Think box is fighting to not only get businesses to invest money in commercials but also get viewers to watch them. On their website they promote competitions by who can create the most funny commercial and advertise them all over the screen. This could be why many of the worlds most funny commercials come from the UK.

The picture on the right advertises the thinkbox TV planning awards in which the company rewards the brand that has developed the best advertisements in several different categories such as;

In 2009 there were six award categories:
Best Use of TV in an integrated campaign:
Best ongoing use of TV
Best newcomer to TV
Best use of sponsorship or content

Best use of TV innovation
Best use of TV for response
Grand prix: The Judges also award The Grand Prix from the winners of the six entry categories.

Think Box is doing a great thing for the marketing community of the UK by fighting to increase the share of money spent on marketing through television advertisements.

There has never been a more exciting time to be planning TV; programmes and channels to target every possible sort of person, new TV advertising formats, and new technologies to deliver it. Think box is the driving force of UK television advertising and has taken advantage of a gaping hole in the UK business market. They have targeted a broad market of businesses from small businesses to the businesses competing in the TV planning awards show. Instead of strictly segmenting the market and choosing one segment to go after they have strategically set up ways to attack all different segments in different categories while still maintaining a single brand image.

The T-Mobile Dance

Life's for sharing!!!!

The T-mobile dance can be found on youtube.com, it is hundreds of people at a famous train station that just break out and dance, all knowing the steps and just enjoying dancing together.

This was a great commercial but will never be connected back to T-mobile because they didn't do enough with it. If they would have decided to find several different places that they could do several different dances then it would be much more effective but also much more expensive. They created a very entertaining, long, and expensive commercial that doesn't point me in the direction of their brand.

My evoked set of mobile phone companies would be Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile so they have to be doing something right. But, I just don't understand why they would go through so much trouble for an advertisement that doesn't even show up on the recommended searches for google when you type in T-mobile.

Message consistency?

I have always enjoyed the sexy model that they have continuously placed into their commercials for the past few years which cuts straight to the point that they want to be "sexy brand". So why did they decide to jump into a completely different type of ad. Where did this come from? It is a very interesting and fun commercial but why did they decide to do it then pull away from making it a ad campaign?

PICK ME: Fantasy Football Campaign

Although the general idea of showing NFL players making plays is a basic tag for the fantasy draft, the addition of the superhuman abilities makes this set of commercials precisely entertaining. They contain the perfect ammount of humor and serious attitude to create a brilliant campaign for the fantasy NFL website and business.

Other aspects of marketing involved:
1) Using actual players labeled by team creates a halo effect, you don't see them using T.O. or Michael Vick. They are using credible and well known players each wearing the new sponsor for the fantasy football league, Reebok.

2) Customer Attention: As a viewer I saw all the different amazing plays and searched time after time to find a glitch in the graphics.

Customer Retention: I easily and quickly associate the commercials and campaign with the fantasy football draft so the message is not lost in the entertainment.

Field of References: All of America knows the context and rules of the game of football and can relate to the entertaining message that the commercials portray.

Sustainability: I feel that this campaign is extremely sustainable because there are several other amazing and unrealistic things that a recognizable athlete can do in the context of football. Fantasy football has been growing and growing over the last several years. More importantly the ads instantly leaves me wanting to watch more videos, so in my promoting opinion I feel like fantasy football and Reebok could and should continue with this advertising campaign.