Ho Ho Holiday Marketing

Now that Christmas is just around the corner, marketing and advertising seem to be everywhere! These past few days, my email in box has been practically overflowing with sales promotions and the hottest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. It's a little aggravating to me, and almost stressful. It makes me feel rushed to get my holiday shopping done- and it isn't even December 1st yet. That "rushed" feeling must be some kind of marketing concept, and if it is, it's definitely working on me!

I found an article on the AMA website called "5 Tips for Attention-Grabbing Holiday Marketing Campaigns" that gives good insight on how marketers can successfully reach consumers during this busy holiday season. There is tons of clutter this time of year, so marketers need to find ways to be unique and effective in getting messages across.

The first tip featured in the article is: "'Season's Greetings' matters". It explained that it's okay to use a phrase such as "Merry Christmas" if it is appropriate for your audience. I think this is interesting and I'm not exactly sure that I agree with it. Even if your target audience might celebrate Christmas, they're not the only people seeing the ad. For instance, the Starbucks red cup scandal got people extremely offended. I don't think you can assume your target audience is all celebrating one specific holiday a certain way. I think it's best to stick with the generic "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays". The last thing your brand wants is negative PR during the holiday season, because it could cost you a lot of business!

Another tip in the article suggests "Rethinking Black Friday and Cyber Monday". Based on my previous comment about the overload of email marketing I received in the past few days, it doesn't look like many companies are following this tip! Outdoor retailer REI gained good PR by encouraging consumers to be outside enjoying themselves after Thanksgiving and not opening stores on Black Friday. I wonder how their overall holiday sales will be affected by not opening stores that day.

Tip #5, "Storytelling still works" relates directly to our course material. The article suggests that companies try to grab consumers' attention by telling a good story. It also put a different spin on the storytelling we have discussed in class, as it suggests to educate consumers about the "good work" your company has been doing or about "giving employees the gift of downtime". This is interesting to me, because it focuses less on the consumer's inner layer, and more on the brand's inner layer. This seems to rely more on the consumer agreeing with what the brand's inner layer believes in, and in this case it could be about philanthropic efforts during the holidays. I wonder how successful a storytelling marketing campaign would be among all of the campaigns that seem to be strictly focused on sales promotions and the best holiday deals. I think it would depend on how hedonic or utilitarian the product is. For instance, jewelry could be a product that can be marketed by using a story to appeal to consumers. However, would a storytelling ad connecting laundry detergent to the holiday season be effective? I wonder.

On that note.. 25 days until Christmas!

Marketing to Millennials

I came across another interesting article at my internship, this time from Marketing Dive. This article is a short, easy read, and it focuses on the marketing tactics necessary to appeal to millennials. I found this article interesting not only because I am interested in marketing, but because I am a millennial myself. I was curious to see if the content of the article was something I agree with.

The article referred to millennials as an "audience segmented by their passion". I think that this is extremely true, and it can directly relate to marketing. Our age group has been bombarded with advertisements since we were little kids, so there is a wide range of clutter. With that said, advertisements need to spark our attention in order for us to get anything from them, or even notice them at all. This relates to our core course concept of emotional involvement, something we keep going back to all semester. Emotional involvement is the key to marketing success in many instances. Because millennials are driven by passion, generating emotional involvement and engagement is a key to successfully marketing to them.

In addition, the article mentions that the millennial generation is extremely diverse, making it more of a challenge to market to. Because of this, marketers have to focus in on individual passions and emotions in order to effectively reach this audience. I think for most market segments this has to be a huge struggle- because not all members of the segment are the same. They may fall under the same demographic or psychographic criteria, but their passions and emotions are most likely extremely diverse. I've discussed this in previous blog posts, but I know for a fact that I am unique among other college students who purchase brands.

Another aspect of the article that relates to our course concepts is toward the end, when it discusses how marketers need to be "educational, entertaining, and visual" when trying to reach millennials. Like our the famous empirical generalization #7 that states that "brand advertising often has a short-term sales impact. This impact decays over time. The most dramatic influence on short-term sales effect is creative copy". The educational, entertaining, and visual marketing tactics need to contain creative copy that will reach millennials. I was surprised that this did not mention emotional as one of the criteria for marketing messages to millennials. Because the article referred to this cohort as full of passion, it is clear that they need emotional messages. For instance, I would definitely describe myself as a passionate person, and I am greatly influenced by advertisements that trigger my emotions.

This article got me thinking a lot about different demographics and generations and how marketing to each one needs to be significantly different. Do companies with a large target market (say, of a range of age groups) come up with multiple marketing messages, depending on the particular age group? Marketing is a lot more work than I thought it was when I first began college, and articles like this make me realize how much thought and planning needs to go into sending a marketing message out to try and reach a target audience!

Marketing & the Wedding Industry

At my internship yesterday, I was browsing the latest marketing news. I came across an article from the American Marketing Association website that I found really interesting. Being a stereotypical 21 year old, I love weddings. I love talking about them, attending them, and even dreaming about one of my own. This article focuses on how the wedding industry calls for a lot of marketing opportunities, and for a wedding-lover like myself, it's a good read.

According to the article, consumers want to be overloaded with marketing messages during their wedding planning stages. I find this to be extremely true. This summer, I spent a lot of time with one of my cousins who was planning her wedding. At her bachelorette party, it seemed like all we talked about was wedding plans. Many of the girls who attended the party had recently gotten married, or were planning weddings of their own. With that said, they had A LOT to say. From details as little as stamps for invitations, to big details like venues, these girls did not run out of things to talk about it. And that just goes to show that this is a huge industry for marketers to jump into.

Why are weddings a good opportunity for marketers? For starters, I'd say a wedding involves some of the most high-involvement purchases a consumer will make in their lifetime. This plays a big role into why consumers are willing to listen and open their eyes to marketing. As the article stated, there are over 2 million weddings every year in the United States.

I found it interesting when the article said that brides/grooms are receptive to hyper-target messaging (highly selective messages to specific groups of people) and that they are more open to behavior tracking that supports it. Because people are so excited and highly involved in planning their wedding day, they find all the information presented to them about weddings to be interesting and useful. I think this shows a positive side of behavioral targeting that some consumers fail to see- because I think it often has an "annoying" reputation. I know many people who find it annoying and inconvenient to have random ads pop up on their Facebook page- but what if those ads were for things that could help consumers? In this case, marketers are sending helpful ideas to consumers that want to soak up that information.

The article also related to our course material when it mentioned the wide range of touchpoints there are in a wedding. It is said that engagements typically last 9-12 months, leaving a huge amount of time for planning. These 9-12 months can have nearly an endless amount of touchpoints- from wedding food to photography to dresses. Marketers can jump in at nearly any of these areas and reach their targeted consumers. The article also mentioned that re-targeted ads with all of the data on wedding consumers are very relevant/personalized, resulting in a high level of consumer engagement. In addition to touchpoints, this topic can connect back to our course discussion of emotional involvement. This is an industry that involves high-involvement purchases for a very sentimental event. So, marketers can take advantage of that sentimental value by sending messages that consumers will feel an emotional connection to and engage.

Overall, I found this article to be extremely interesting and also relevant to our course material!

The Road Ahead

Wow, I can't believe it's already the middle of November. This semester has flown by- and I can't believe that I only have one more to go. It's been a challenging few months, but I've learned so much about marketing in this short amount of time. It amazes me how much there is to learn about the topic of marketing- especially because it is a field that's constantly changing. What's so different about this semester? I feel like I'm much more passionate about the material I'm learning in my classes. Now that my courses focus on an in-depth look into the marketing field, I'm highly interested in them. I had to get the "boring" courses out of the way (Accounting..Finance..you know, the ones that us "marketing people" just don't seem to understand). But now that I've done so, I can focus on these topics I'm interesting in learning about.

Campaign Planning & Management has challenged me a lot this semester- but in a good way. The course material has caused me to question a lot of what I know about marketing. I've learned that the best way to fully understand something, is to ask questions about it. Through posting preparation questions before class, and engagement questions after class, I have been able to keep thinking about our in-class discussions, and carry them over to form new questions and ideas. Now, we have reached a different phase in our semester. We are no longer holding traditional class meetings, as we have begun our consulting project. Although this project seems overwhelming to me right now, I think it's going to be a really great learning experience. My client is a local accounting firm seeking to sell their business in the next couple years. Our main goal is to help them with reputation management. We will also be creating ideas for promotional materials, including website design, email blasts, blog posts, etc.

This project will be a good way to put our marketing knowledge "to the test". All semester, we have discussed theories and ideas that make up our "Marketing Concept Toolbox". Now, we will be testing our knowledge of that toolbox and using it to assist a client. A big challenge of this project will be helping a client in an industry that I do not know much about. It will take a lot of research and "collecting the backstory" to fully create a campaign plan that will be of assistance to both our client and the 421 team we are working with. As I mentioned above, accounting has never been one of my strengths, but I am confident that my group members and I will be able to succeed in this next phase of the course.

Starbucks Holiday Cups: Latest Scandal?

There has been a great deal of controversy on social media about Starbucks. Every holiday season, Starbucks switches over to holiday themed cups, which I thought was a great way to get customers in the spirit. The design has always been winter-themed. Whether you celebrate, Hanukkah, Christmas, or some other holiday during December, I think the cups are a great way to get people excited. However, people were extremely offended by the transition to a plain red cup, saying things like "Starbucks is blowing off Christmas", or "Starbucks removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus". After discussing reputation management in my group/professor meeting this morning, I felt this topic was appropriate and related to marketing.

To be honest, I think this is all a bit ridiculous. Starbucks is now dealing with a huge crisis management situation, and their PR team must be struggling to figure this all out. It seems like they tried to avoid controversy by having a more neutral cup. Without any images on it, you would think that there would not be any room for people to find the cups controversial. But, there are certain people out there who find anything and everything offensive! This has become a huge topic of conversation. Yesterday, I overheard my roommates talking about it. My professor also brought it up this morning in class, and one of my friends asked me today if I heard about it! When I began to search "Starbucks" on Google just now, "Starbucks cup" and "Starbucks red cup" were two recommended searches, because I assume there is so much conversation about it right now!

As I mentioned before, this can relate to the marketing concept of reputation management. Your brand's image and reputation play a huge role in whether or not people decide to purchase your products. Starbucks is already a well-established brand with millions of loyal customers- so will this "scandal" have an effect on their sales? Will this negative W.O.M. and publicity hurt their brand image?

I think that scandals like these often help brands in the end. My thoughts on W.O.M. are that whether it be positive or negative conversation, people are talking/thinking about your brand. This can generate awareness that the brand exists (in this case, that doesn't play a huge role because Starbucks is a huge company), and that people care enough about the brand to be talking about it. I think that this may encourage people to go to Starbucks and see what the new cups look like for themselves! I'm tempted to take a trip to Starbucks myself and see if this whole thing is even worth all the controversy!

To view original article, click here.

 

Cups from 2014:

Cups from 2015:

Twitter Mixes Things Up

At my internship, I do a lot of work on social media. One of my tasks this past week was to compose tweets for the Envision Marketing Group's twitter account. They prefer to tweet about the latest marketing trends and news stories. I found a lot of interesting articles on AdWeek, and I really enjoyed reading some of them. I went on the site this evening, and came across this article about Twitter: Read Article Here

The article discusses how many agencies do not "heart" the new changes that have been made to Twitter. There are mixed opinions from marketers about the new heart button. Noah Mallin, who works at MEC North America, said that "I look at this as a move for Twitter to add more meaningful and emotional actions for marketers to measure content performance and to base targeting and optimization of paid media on..."  This is really interesting, because it relates to what we talk about all the time in class. Brands make themselves successful through emotions. Consumers having emotional involvement can generate a purchase decision, as well as brand loyalty.

Another marketer expressed that because the heart symbol is more similar to a "human emotion" rather than a star, people will be more likely to press it. I disagree with this. I think that consumers do not have much an emotional connection at all with what kind of button they are responding to a tweet with. People quickly scroll through their Twitter feed, and because the tweets are 140 characters or less, it is a fairly quick process to just look at it and "like it". To be honest, I think that Twitter is becoming too similar to Instagram now. I think that before, they had a unique star button, which differentiated the platform from Instagram. I'm curious as to what their logic was behind this, and if it was really for the emotional involvement.

I have my iPhone set up so that updates run automatically for each of my apps. Sometimes, I get confused when I open up an app (after it's had an update), and it looks different. I think that it hurts platforms like Twitter and Instagram to be continuously updating and changing. Users get extremely comfortable with the way the site is, and it can be an adjustment to get used to changes. However- I do think that this can generate W.O.M., because people will say things like, "have you seen the new Twitter update?". In fact, I didn't hear about the Twitter update until my roommate was talking about it last night!

Storybranding 3.0?

Since we began reading Storybranding 2.0, we have learned the importance of following each step of the storybranding process. To refresh your (and my) memory, these are the six C's/steps that occur during the storybranding process: 1. Collect the Backstory,  2. Characterize the Brand, 3. Characterize the Prospect,  4. Connect the Characters, 5. Confront the Obstacles, and 6. Complete the Storybrief. 

Although these steps were discussed a few weeks ago in class, we continue to discuss the "collect the backstory" step. Now that we have completed our own videos for Oreo, the backstory is something I realize to be very important. The backstory is like the backbone of your story. It's where all the initial information and thoughts come from, shaping the plot and main story points. According to Jim Signorelli, the backstory "identifies the reason for the story being written in the first place, as it defines the problems and opportunities for the main characters of our story: the brand hero and its beneficiary, the prospect". I never realized how much I agree with this quote until I went back and re-read the Backstory chapter in our Storytelling 2.0 book. 

The backstory is giving purpose to the story- it helps explain why it even exists. I like how Signorelli referred to the brand as the "hero", because it shows the importance of consumer needs. Consumer needs begin the Consumer Decision Making Journey. When a consumer realizes there is a problem and that they have a need for something, they begin to search for information and evaluate their options. This is where the brand becomes the "hero". For instance, you're searching for a detergent that smells fresh for a long period of time after you wash your clothes. When you learn that Tide can solve that problem for you with their guaranteed "24 hours of freshness", they become your hero and solve the problems you had. 

When we have been working on our Oreo Story videos in our teams, I feel like I have gained a better understanding of the overall storybranding process as well. It was interesting to characterize Oreo as a brand and figure out a way to reach and engage consumers through various peripheral cues and techniques. This project has given me a strong understanding of Oreo as a brand, and how they target different groups of consumers. Collecting the backstory starts this process, and can help mold your story into something your consumers will be able to connect with.

I also think that Collecting the Backstory, as well as the other C's of the Storybranding process, play a large role in evoking an emotional connection in consumers. My group's main goal was to get viewers of our video to feel nostalgic as a result of seeing the main character's flashback. We also wanted viewers to think back to their own childhood memories of eating Oreos. Overall, learning about the Storybranding process has been a very important part of this course, and that shows as we are applying the theory and information we learned in the classroom into our group videos and consulting projects!

The Moment of Receptivity

In class on Thursday, we discussed the Moment of Receptivity. This relates to the idea that your marketing strategy is no longer about how many people you reach- it's about reaching the right people at the right time. How do brands narrow in on what that right "time" is?

I think that finding that perfect "time" where your target consumers are most receptive is essential. But is it possible to find it out? I think that all consumers have very different shopping habits- and they also have different ways of processing information presented to them. Even though consumers might all be within one target cohort, they may be extremely different. For instance, I could be part of the target market for Victoria's Secret PINK. Their brand targets women from ages 16-25 (ish) who like comfortable and stylish apparel. To successfully reach me, Pink needs to fully understand what moment I will be receptive to their message. I'm susceptible to advertisements if they are not thrown at me. I prefer subtle, non-invasive/pushy ads that spark my interest. I am receptive to peripheral cues such as music and celebrity endorsers as well. In terms of the advertising medium, I think my receptivity depends on the situation I'm in. If I'm impatient waiting for a YouTube video to load, the last thing I want to look at is an ad for something. I am not receptive to it at that time. But, if I'm browsing the web and notice an ad of a celebrity wearing a cute shirt on the side of my screen, I'm receptive to it and drawn to it.

But- what about the other consumers in the target market? What about people who like to be advertised in a different way? I'm receptive to music- but what if someone in the target market hates the music I like? I feel like this whole concept is tough for brands to grasp. How do you figure out the perfect moment of receptivity for your target market if all of the people within it aren't really the same?

I think the difficulty of this also depends on what your brand is and what kind of product you're trying to market. Is it high involvement, low involvement, expensive, hedonic, etc? That will determine what kind of message you have to send out, as well as what your target market is. If your target market is broad- especially those that reach out to a large age group, it's going to be a lot harder. Specialized products being marketed to smaller groups of people may be easier, because there won't be as much diversity within the group.

This reminds me of many of the other concepts we've talked about, because they seem to be too generalized. Marketing has so many exceptions. It seems like people could find exceptions for every theory out there. The idea that you need to create your message in a way that it will reach the right people at  the right time makes perfect sense, but how realistic is it?