Last Blog of the Semester

On August 30, 2012 I wrote my first blog for this class and my first blog, ever. Now almost four months later, it is really interesting for me to look back on all of the blogs that I have written. I feel that over the course of the semester it is very apparent through my blogs that I have really learned a great deal about advertising. This class has impacted the way that I view advertising and the long, intricate process that goes into every single ad.

One of my favorite parts about this course that I really enjoyed to blog about was the guest speakers. Every speaker that came and talked to our class was very experienced and had so much to offer and teach us as potential advertisers in the making. One speaker that really sticks out in my mind is Chris Shumaker. As the Chief Marketing Officer for Publicis Worldwide in the USA, I expected him to be very intimidating and stern. On the contrary, he was extremely friendly and made the class feel like our opinions truly mattered. He wanted to know our feedback on his razor campaign and seemed genuinely interested in our responses. Also, when our group spoke with him at the Marketing Advisory Board meeting he gave us some great advice on what he liked about our brief and what we could improve on. I thought he was a great inspiration as someone I would enjoy working for.

The most valuable thing I got out of this class was the experience I gained creating a creative brief and a creative pitch. When presenting to the Marketing Advisory Board, I felt very proud of the work that my group had done in creating a solid pitch for Cuties. It definitely did not come as easily as I had expected, but I think the end result was worth the hours that went into it. I plan to include that brief in my resume as work experience that future employers would hopefully be impressed with. Advertising is a very exciting and challenging field that I have really enjoyed learning about, and I hope that I have the opportunity to learn more in the future.

Sources:

Me

New Potential for Advertising

What kind of website do you think would attract a 95 percent male audience, ages 18-34, to visit for at least 23 minutes per session? Surprisingly, the answer is not porn. It is actually Giantbomb.com, which is a gaming website. The gaming industry has been incredibly popular recently. In an article from Adweek titled, “Video Games: the New Porn? Live gaming webcasts draw huge numbers,” by Sam Thielman, it describes the recent explosion in popularity the gaming industry has been experiencing. Since July of 2012, at least 83 million people have logged into some type of gaming site.

The site Giantbomb.com is a perfect example of the potential advertising possibilities that the gaming industry brings to the table. Their consumers are overwhelmingly male that are in a generally close age bracket so they most likely have a variety of things in common. Advertisements including sports, food, music or any other aspect that is similar and relevant in this target audience’s lives could experience a very high amount of exposure by utilizing these gaming sites.

One of the issues that could come about with advertising in these games could be the promotion of sexist and violent ads. It is important for advertisers to make sure that their ads are ethical so no one, especially a younger audience, is exposed to crude negative messages while playing their games.

According to this article from Adweek, one of the main problems that advertisers are considering with these sites is the ad-blocking software available. However, David Ting, Imagine Gaming Network, argues this in the article saying, “[Gamers] understand the value of the advertiser to the ecosystem. They want to keep the content free.” If Ting is correct in his assessment of these gaming sites, then advertisers should definitely utilize this untouched market because it has the potential to be extremely lucrative.

Sources:

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/video-games-new-porn-145799

Advertising with Pandora

In light of some of the recent creative pitch presentations, I have been much more aware of the advertising that Pandora offers and I wanted to research why exactly it is so successful. In an article in the New York Times titled “Pandora Courts Local Advertisers, by Offering Well-Defined Listeners” by Ben Sisario and Tanzina Vega, the appeal of advertising with Pandora is described. According to the article, Pandora currently has a $17 billion ad market and 125 million registered users so I naturally assumed that it would be looking to work with well-known affluent companies. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the exact opposite. Pandora is looking to work with small local companies with budgets usually amounting to $20,000 a month.

Pandora’s current revenue is listed at $274 million, and the majority of that is because of advertising. So why exactly is Pandora so successful compared to any other radio station? According to the article, Pandora has the ability to reach its consumers much more intricately than the radio. The company uses the listener’s age, sex, ZIP code, and musical taste to find out exactly what type of ad is appropriate for the individual listener. This is definitely kind of creepy, but very cool.

Jordan Rohan, an analyst for Stifel Nicolaus, said the following in the article, “Local advertising dollars are the key component of Pandora’s future success.” Pandora wants these local businesses to realize that by utilizing them for their advertising needs they will be much more successful at reaching the specific target that they are looking for. Regular radio is directed at the masses and might potentially waste the local businesses limited advertising budget with the wrong segment.

Now instead of skipping the ads every time I am listening to music, I am much more interested to see if the ad mentioned is applicable to my life. The ad that I am currently viewing on Pandora is for TOMS shoes, and those are what are currently on my feet. This might be a weird coincidence, but I’d say Pandora knows what they’re doing.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/business/media/pandora-courts-local-advertisers-by-reaching-a-narrow-audience.html?pagewanted=all

Tell us more Earl Cox…

Earl Cox is the Chief Strategy Officer & Partner for The Martin Agency TBC and is in charge of the strategic planning of 37 groups. The Martin Agency is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, and represents many high profile clients such as Hanes, GEICO, Discover, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. In 2012, Adweek awarded the Martin Agency U.S. Agency of the Year.

Something I found very interesting about Earl Cox is that while he was an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech he was a Communication major, compared to a lot of speakers that have met with us who studied some type of business. I am also a Communication major with a Marketing cognate so I found this interesting that he went on to get his BA from the University of Virginia and ended up being so successful in the field of advertising.

Earl Cox is highly motivated in discovering consumer truth and finding a way to truly uncover consumer’s motivation. Since we are currently working on creating an advertising pitch for Uniqlo, I would like to ask Mr. Cox his opinion on what would truly motivate consumers to shop at the trendy Japanese clothing retailer, and how we could research the target audience to help us discover the best way to pitch to them.

Sources:

https://secure.hosting.vt.edu/www.marketing.pamplin.vt.edu/bio.php?page=ecox

Brad Pitt for Chanel No. 5

The new Chanel No. 5 ad features Brad Pitt in black in white looking mysterious while he states the following:

“It’s not a journey. Every journey ends but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear. Dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel No. 5, Invetiable.”

Excuse me? No matter how many times I watch this I still do not get the point of this ad. They are promoting cologne for men, yet the script of the ad is completely ambiguous and does not even attempt to target men who they want to buy the cologne. Since its release, it has generated over 4 million views on YouTube, mainly because so many people are wondering what exactly the ad is trying to say. It is so bizarre that Saturday Night Live and Conan O’Brien have both made their own parodies about it and have helped to make the ad extremely popular. Lisa Granatstein, managing editor of Adweek, was quoted in an interview with ABC News stating the following regarding the ad:

“I don’t think Chanel intended for this to be a joke. It turned into a bit of a joke but it’s not bad publicity. They’ve generated millions of impressions and gotten a ton of free publicity. This was a home run.”

Granatstein’s opinion of the ad was very interesting because it is true that Chanel didn’t intend to make it funny, but it is one of their most popular ads to date. They have had famous spokespeople such as Marilyn Monroe, Keira Knightley and Nicole Kidman but none of the advertisements featuring those women caused nearly the amount of publicity as Brad Pitt’s strange behavior. Although the ad might not shed the best light on Brad Pitt, people all over are now aware of what Chanel No. 5 is so I guess it is true that all press is good press.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/10/brad-pitt-chanel-ad-makes-little-scents/

Project Glass- Advertising or No Advertising?

There aren’t many times that I watch an advertisement and am truly so interested in it that I do exactly what marketers all over are hoping for: I start spreading the word of mouth buzz about the product. One exception to this would definitely be Google’s “Project Glass” promoting their new Google glasses. I showed the ad to my friends, my relatives and weirdly enough even the woman that I nanny for. The first time I saw the advertisement for these glasses was actually in one of my classes at Virginia Tech, and my entire class was so perplexed that the rest of our class time was spent on discussing the influence these glasses would have on socialization. Would people really have no purpose to communicate with others now that every need or question they had could be answered through their eyes? One aspect of the glasses that I did not even consider yet was the new potential for advertising.

 

An article in Forbes called “Don’t Kid Yourself–Project Glass Will Produce An Advertising Bonanza For Google” stated that Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, was very clear that the glasses had no plans for ads. Although this is the tentative plan regarding advertising, the potential that these glasses have for marketers is endless, which could make Google filthy rich. The article describes why advertising would be so perfect for these glasses:

1. “Google will now know what you’re likely to want next–right here, right now.” (This pretty much means that the glasses can see exactly what you are looking at in a store, and they can give you feedback regarding the price, alternative products etc.)
2. “Seamless voice search could connect consumers with products even faster.” (Right before people are about to purchase an item they can ask a question out loud and immediately get a response, rather than typing words into Google. This could be the closest advertising medium to the actual action of buying.)
3. “Glass could finally provide a way to measure the impact of online ads on in-store sales.” (Advertisers could see that a person looked at an ad and then behaved in a certain way due to that ad, because the glasses see everything that you do. This could let marketers know what ads are successful and if mobile advertising is truly as profitable as people think it is.)
4. “Google could run ads on Glass devices–yes, despite what Brin said.” (It could be very dangerous to clutter someone’s vision with ads, so they could run voice ads just like the radio depending on what a person is looking at or what they are near.)

The potential advertising benefits to the Google glasses are very clear, but I also think that it is slightly too invasive. I would not want marketers to be able to track every single product that I look at or to constantly find a way to advertise to me when I might just want some peace and quiet while shopping or walking around. Privacy might be a major legal barrier that Goggle will face if they do decide to ultimately allow some forms of advertising. Project Glass has some fine-tuning to do before they are a truly successful product, but I would say that they are well on their way to the future of innovation.

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/06/29/dont-kid-yourself-project-glass-will-produce-an-advertising-bonanza-for-google/

Mobile Advertising in 2012

When I think of mobile advertising, I think of trying to Google something on my phone and having to exit out eight different ads before reaching my actual destination, or watching a show on Hulu and having to sit through six minutes of prepaid advertising that count as commercials. I clearly am not alone in my aversion to this new era of mobile advertising because in a Wall Street Journal article titled “Mobile Ads: Here’s What Works and What Doesn’t” Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, is quoted in 2010 stating, “Mobile advertising really sucks.”

Although it can be really annoying, the market of mobile advertising is relatively untouched. Authors of the article, Shira Ovide and Greg Bensinger, discuss how mobile advertising is only 2%, or $2.6 billion, of all U.S. marketing spending, yet 10% of all Internet traffic is from consumers using smartphones and tablets. Also, mobile advertising is significantly cheaper than traditional advertising. Ovide and Bensinger state the following:

“While rates vary widely, on average it costs $2.85 to reach 1,000 iPhone users with a mobile ad, according to mobile-browser firm Opera Software ASA OPERA.OS +1.74%. By comparison, an ad in a national newspaper can cost as much as $50 or $100 for 1,000 viewers, a standard ad-rate metric.”

Researchers exploring mobile advertising are trying to figure out what works for consumers and what really annoys them, so they have differentiated it into various categories including: Search, Useful or Fun, Audio, Big is Beautiful, Unfamiliar Places, and “Spray and Pray.” They are clearly trying to find ways to make mobile advertising interesting rather than just putting the same boring advertisement on mobile sources.

I think that because mobile advertising is so inexpensive and unexplored that it will become very popular in the upcoming years. As of 2012 it is only 2% of marketing, but I bet that by 2014 it will greatly increase because of new technology and research in the field.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444083304578016373342878556.html

Target’s Sale for Cyber Monday

I love saving money on shopping and I will always look twice at an advertisement for a sale; however, there is one day out of the year that no matter how attractive the money saving advertisement is I will still stay home in my pajamas. Two words: Black Friday.

Black Friday is definitely an opportune time to save money on all of your holiday gift shopping and whatever else you may be in the market for, but the amount of craziness and crowd chaos associated with it completely turns me off. Target has found a new way to appeal to their target audiences for the post-Thanksgiving madness.

What is the Problem?

Target knows that people still want to participate in the sales after Thanksgiving, but they do not want to wake up at 4 a.m. and wait in lines for hours to save a little bit of money. Therefore, Target is one of the stores that has recognized that most people would much rather stay at home and shop via the internet, so they have focused their advertisements on “Cyber Monday” instead of Black Friday.

What is the ad objective?

They want people to focus on the 2-day sale that they will be having on November 26^th and 27^th online because they know that Black Friday is synonymous with stress in the minds of many consumers.

Who is the target?

The target audience for these ads are mainly working moms ages 30-55 because they have experienced the craziness on Black Friday in the past. These moms are the people that are looking for sales that will help keep them on track with their holiday budget, but they still want gifts that will “wow” their family and friends. They also want their target audience to be Internet savvy and utilize social networking because they provide Facebook and Twitter links to follow the 2-day sale.

What is the Insight?

You now have a choice in the matter on how you want to save money. You are not forced by Target to be running around a store with hundreds of other shoppers, instead you have 48 hours to choose the products that will satisfy your holiday needs.

What is the Single Minded Proposition?

Black Friday is out and Cyber Monday is in, and Target will be there with all of your Cyber Monday needs.

Sources:

Tell us more Kelly Fisher…

The “Got Milk?” Campaign is one of the most successful and recognizable advertising campaigns ever invented. It was originally created in 1993 by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board. They needed a new way to increase their sales and it has been wildly successful ever since.

“Got Milk?” has snowballed into numerous print, radio, and TV campaigns that attract famous celebrities and athletes to promote the healthy nutrition and great taste of milk. The campaign has included Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, Hayden Panettiere and many others. One of the reasons that I think the campaign has maintained its popularity is because it always has a new face to their advertising. With so many popular celebrities and athletes, consumers are bound to like one of the many people that are the current face of the campaign. The milk mustaches in the campaign are a humorous way to advertise milk, but they are also very recognizable which helps people to remember the advertisements.  

Before I researched this campaign I had obviously heard about “Got Milk?” but I had no idea that it has been around since 1993.  I would be very interested to ask Kelly Fisher how they have kept the campaign popular over such a long period of time. Usually people loose interest in advertisements after they have been around for a while, but” Got Milk?” continues to attract famous spokespeople and consumers are not tired of the ads yet. Another question I would like to ask Kelly Fisher is how they choose the famous people that are featured in the ads.

Sources:

http://www.milkdelivers.org/got-milk-campaign/

“Pretty Powerful” by Bobbi Brown

Bobbi Brown is the founder and CEO of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, which has grown into a very successful company. Every Bobbi Brown product is focused on the woman that is actually using it, rather than just selling the product itself. Her website has numerous helpful tips on how to apply her makeup, how to keep your skin healthy and young, and personal stories from women that use Bobbi Brown makeup everyday. Bobbi Brown launched an advertising campaign called “Pretty Powerful” and I personally thought it was one of the most unique campaigns I have ever seen. Bobbi Brown invited real life women to tell their stories about how the makeup inspires them and makes them feel powerful. Brown said the following regarding the campaign:

“I believe that all women are pretty without makeup- but with the right makeup can be pretty powerful.”

The website showed numerous women of every skin tone and age without makeup and then with the makeup applied. It also gave suggestions on how to get the look of the woman that was wearing the makeup. It was really refreshing to see normal women looking beautiful and confident by simply applying the makeup rather than seeing unrealistic supermodels. I thought this greatly increased the believability of the campaign because it showed women that they were perfectly capable of using the makeup just like the women pictured on the website.

I believe that the challenge Bobbi Brown was trying to solve with this campaign was that most cosmetic advertisements are materialistic and not relatable to the everyday woman. They picture supermodels that are photo shopped to look more beautiful than they already do. The target audience for Bobbi Brown ranges greatly. There are women pictured with wrinkles and then there are pictures of very young girls with freckles. I think Bobbi was more focused on targeting women in general who have the desire to feel feminine and pretty, but also confident and powerful. The objective of this campaign can be seen very clearly in a Bobbi Brown quote:

“Over the years I’ve worked with countless women who have inspired me with their stories. Beyond makeup, we’ve talked about life-altering events. Everything from the joy of being a new mom to dealing with homelessness and divorce. With each conversation, these women have shown that when you have the will and the heart, almost anything is possible—and that’s what Pretty Powerful is all about.”

Bobbi Brown wants women to look at their products as much more than makeup, but a chance to connect with other women and realize they are powerful and can achieve anything. The insight to this campaign is that they needed to find a way to connect the idea of Bobbi Brown being excellent makeup that is good for your skin with the feeling of being powerful. They did this by using the real women and showing the before and after pictures, but also giving information about the real women’s lives and their thoughts on the best ways to apply or use any of the cosmetics. The single-minded proposition for the campaign is “Pretty Powerful.” I thought this was a very simple, yet effective way to appeal to both the makeup aspect of the campaign and also the feelings that they want to resonate with their target audience.

Bobbi Brown found a great way to create a unique makeup campaign that appealed to everyday women and made them feel good about themselves. I think we could use more cosmetic campaigns like this to increase the self-esteem of every women, no matter what age they are.

Sources:

http://prettypowerful.bobbibrowncosmetics.com/?locale=en