Urgency & Pricing

Yesterday I went hiking with my little brother and we stupidly decided to hike the most strenuous trail to the highest mountain in North Carolina with no where near enough water. On the hike down, I kept thinking about how much I would actually pay for a bottle of water right then and there. This made me think about how companies can predict and react to consumer urgency. Like how electricity prices tend to rise in the summer in the south but in the winter in the north. Or how sports venues don't allow people to bring drinks into games, and then charge them $5 for a coke. I guess it just comes down to supply and demand, and although customers always complain about these situations, they are usually willing to pay the higher price with no lasting negative feelings towards the brands.

First iPhone Blog!

I'm writing this post from my iPhone because I'm out of town at my little brother's baseball tournament. Although I would not consider myself to be particularly technology savvy, it seems pretty easy to do just about anything I need to on this thing. It's really weird to think about how new the Internet is compared to how much it has developed and evolved over the last 20 years or so. I think one of the reasons technology advances so quickly is because consumers value convenience incredibly highly and companies recognize this. It makes me wonder what sort of things we will complain to our grand kids about when we become the out of touch old people of tomorrow. "In my day, we had to charge our cell phones and connect to th Internet through wireless hotspots." Seems like a stretch now, but is it really? I bet our grandparents never expected something like Siri to be possible in their lifetime.

The Ethics of Price Gouging

Price gouging is a highly politicized economic occurrence that happens when the demand for a particular product rises dramatically. One of the reasons price gouging is so controversial, is because of it's initial negative effects on consumers. For example, following Hurricane Katrina, the price of gas, water, ice, and other necessities was hiked to accommodate the increased demand for these items. This brought up an ethical question for many people. How can you charge someone who just lost everything they own $12 for a bag of ice or $30 for a clean shirt? On a less dramatic scale, many argue that gas prices these days are unnecessarily and unfairly high. But supply and demand are in equilibrium for these items. Suppliers can't control these factors, they can only adjust prices accordingly. Is it wrong for businesses to not want to go bankrupt by failing to keep up with these changes? Or is it their responsibility to make sure people are able to buy the things they need to survive at a "fair" price? If not suppliers, who gets to determine what that price is?

Political Marketing

 I think the way politicians market themselves is really interesting. What makes a political advertisement effective? The issues? The way the American flag waves in the background? The fact that there's usually a dog? I don't think most people recognize how much political advertising is like regular advertising for products or services. They have target markets, air at strategic times of day, and they're purpose is to sway voters to choose them over competitors. Also, just like product advertising, their approaches range from humor to comparative, to enforcement ads. Here are some examples I like :)

 

Now that we're getting into the creative part of marketing, I thought I would find some examples of eye-catching advertising. I found these ones just through a Google Image search, but I think they're awesome and really make a difference in the way customers react to products.

With Father's Day coming up so soon, the annual flood of special sales and ads are showing up everywhere. Here are some unconventional Father's Day ads from a condom company that I found to be a little amusing...

I saw this ad when I was sifting through the mail this morning:

Since we've been talking a lot this week about targeting and segmentation, it stood out to me because of the huge word "MEN" at the top. I thought, they have to be really going after a male demographic. But in reading the rest of it, it seems as though it's actually targeting both men and women, like an inside joke or something.

Here's an interesting strategy Kotex uses to get customers to switch to their product. This commercial along with a few others, uses sarcasm and humor to make fun of how tampons are traditionally marketed. They're hilarious and have been extremely successful without ever even mentioning what makes their product better than the competition. It's all about image.

Negative Advertising

While watching TV last night, I saw a commercial for T-Mobile that basically said AT&T sucks and T-Mobile is awesome. I started thinking about the differences and similarities between ads like this and political ones that attack opponents. I mean, it was pretty smart of T-Mobile to take advantage of the negativity surrounding AT&T right now for their slow service, especially regarding iPhones, as a way to get consumers to switch providers. This tactic is something that politicians do all the time - identify a weakness in the competition, and display it to the world in hopes that a few voters will be convinced. I did a little searching and found an interesting article on how voters respond to negative advertising. It's weird to think about politicians using the same marketing strategies as cell phone providers and brands of paper towels and soft drinks...Here's the article and the T-Mobile commercial, as well as a few more examples of comparative advertising I found just for funzies:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/05/15/attack-ads/

http://www.youtube.com/user/tmobile?v=pczODHEO23I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDGORiD82rQ

I find it really interesting that Peta more often than not, uses over-the-top provocative ads to promote their values. Maybe just for shock value or to appeal to a specific age group...

Here's an ad that really stood out to me when I saw it for the first time. I think the concept is really creative.

The Pitch: Intro

Close the door, have a seat. Welcome to my BUS-341 blog! This is my first ever blog so please pardon the cheesy Mad Men references. I am obsessed with the show and thought it might be fun for this blog to incorporate something I love and that, coincidentally, revolves around marketing. Enjoy!