Facebook Fraud: Buying "Likes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag#t=39

This was a very interesting video discussing the use of buying likes and advertising on Facebook. It talks about the value of a Facebook like for promotion purposes, and the negative effects of having "fake likes" on a page. Essentially what this concludes is that advertising on Facebook is a waste of money. Promotion leads to click farms liking advertisements and lower engagement on marketed pages.

How Emotions Affect The Decision-Making Process In Online Sales

http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2014/11/06/how-emotions-affect-the-decision-making-process-in-online-sales/2/?ss=salesmarketing

This article gives us a look into potential "input" for the consumer black box. The input would be emotions as the author describes. The goal for a marketer would be to create the correct emotional connection to the product that would promote the purchase of the product.

Some emotions are better for some products but not helpful for others. For example anger can be helpful for some brands- like those asking for donations to charities against animal cruelty. If the consumer is angered by the treatment of animals- he or she will be more apt to donate money. Any emotions "drive conversions", it is about which emotions help your specific product/brand.

Progressive adopts a bundling pricing strategy which is explained in several of their recent commercials. Below is a link to an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vQZQCZa_eQ

Progressive claims, "the more you bundle, the more you save. Now that's Progressive." And this is the pricing strategy they choose to adopt.

Vonage, however, spoofs on the bundling concept in their commercial, which can be accessed in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0LbJPgAwbc

In this commercial, they taunt the idea of bundling by making the neighbors who suggest a bundling program seem crazy.

I thought these two commercials were an interesting comparison regarding the bundling pricing strategy. As a consumer, which option would you prefer?

Smile when you say 'Mommy, may I?'

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/11/smile-when-you-say-mommy-may-I

I just stumbled upon this article and wanted to share it. Cornell Chronicle introduces a recent marketing research (“Sounds That Make You Smile And Share: A Phonetic Key To Prosociality And Engagement”) conducted by researchers at Cornell.

The researchers find that when people are forced to make a smile by making the "EEE" sound, even this forced smile improves instant mood, which enhances liking of the person or the object that ends with the "EEE" sound (think about mommy vs. mom or mother). This is a very interesting study with implications for marketing campaigns that focus on consumer engagement and the brand names (the topic we already covered in class).

The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2015

Forbes recently published an article predicting the 7 most prevalent social media marketing trends that will take over in the year 2015. First on the list is the "Rise of Ello," a new social media platform that is "invite only." Its promise to be ad-free and the "anti-facebook" is predicted to sky rocket its popularity. Next, Facebook ad pricing is expected to increase greatly due to its increasing use. Third, Twitter will be back on people's radars as their new advertising model will entice new users. Fourth, Google+ is expected to die out, due to its lack of personality. Next, both Instagram and Linkedin will be two essential social media platforms to the marketing and advertising industry. Due to constant growth, these two social media sites will prove to come out on top in 2015. Lastly, as a seemingly closing argument, Forbes states that their last prediction is that "social media marketing will finally be embraced as a core pillar of content marketing." Consumers and advertisers will start to believe that social media is a valid source for advertising and promotion.

To view the article, click here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/11/19/the-top-7-social-media-marketing-trends-that-will-dominate-2015/4/

Black Friday & Pricing Strategies

I came across this article the other day about Black Friday. Since the day is coming up I found it incredibly interesting to see how marketing is used to draw people in with cheap items, and possibly make them stay to buy more.

The idea behind these crazy prices is to increase sales by having people do all their Christmas shopping in one store. Stores advertise these sales heavily to get more people in their doors on Black Friday. The actual idea and practice of Black Friday is still a largely debated issue, but it is very interesting to see how price marketing is used for this day.

Unsung Hero: Thai Commercial That Went Viral

This other Thai life insurance commercial recently went viral on the Internet and best demonstrates the power of social media.

This commercial shows a young man performing random acts of kindness on a regular basis - giving a poor child some money and helping a woman lift her hawker stand. His efforts eventually paid off when the ad portrays the people he helped living a better life and the world as a better place. The ad was very touching and appealed to the audience. The audience started sharing on social media and spreading the word that charitable acts come with their own special kind of reward.

With such a powerful commercial representing itself, the company is not only selling life insurance but also promoting the belief that the real benefit of helping others is to make the world a more beautiful place to live in.

Silence of Love: Thai Life Insurance Commercial

This Thai life insurance commercial depicts the poor relationship between a daughter and her deaf and mute father. The girl refuses to forgive her father for being different from other fathers. However, when the girl is sent to the hospital, the father's actions finally touched the daughter.

Thai commercials are known to use emotional appeal to attract their audience. Because filial piety is a crucial cultural element in Asia, using filial piety as the central theme of the commercial not only makes it more memorable and relatable to the audience but also helps build a better brand image for the life insurance company.

Brought to you by Yik Yak

Coming home from school, I found a huge package in front of the door addressed to the sisters of Delta Delta Delta. I brought it inside and showed it to a couple of girls that were in the house, and we proceeded to open the package. Inside, we found a multitude of pale blue cups with written Yik Yak on it, as well as ping pong balls, yak stickers, and flags, all with the Yik Yak logo. All the girls grabbed one of each, and now they all have Yik Yak cups, balls, and flags in their rooms, as well as Yak stickers on their laptop.

I believe Yik Yak adopted an effective marketing strategy, because sending Yik Yak accessories to Greek houses will definitely increase Yik Yak awareness on campus. Their market segmentation in this regard was well put in place because almost every post on Yik Yak revolves around Greek life. Therefore, targeting their marketing effort to sororities and fraternities will entertain and retain this relationship. In addition, Greek houses are strong membership groups, and the loyalty to Yik Yak could spread rapidly. Furthermore, I believe Yik Yak used selective attention as a way to go about increasing Yik Yak popularity on campus because they want the students to get exposed to an important amount of stimuli through other students, such as the stickers on laptops for instance. This is also effective because Greek life at Cornell is popular, therefore other students might see fraternities and sororities as an aspirational group and start using the app more. However, this could go either way, because in some regards, Greek life is also looked down upon, and the fact that Yik Yak is associating itself with Greek life can also give it a negative connotation, as for some, Greek life is a dissociative group.

Overall, it is very interesting to see Yik Yak's marketing approach, and I look forward to see the effects of its marketing campaign on Cornell Campus.

Victoria's Secret Renames "The Perfect Body" campaign

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/11/06/victorias-secret-renames-the-perfect-body-campaign-slogan/20989838/

I found the above article very interesting because it shows just how important marketing is to a company's brand image. Victoria's Secret started a campaign called "The Perfect Body," and there was immense backlash from the female demographic. With so much emphasis being placed on body confidence in this era, Victoria's Secret failed to follow the trend. Their lack of consumer research angered some customers and caused some activists from Change.org to publicly ask the company to change the slogan. To see the original campaign and the new campaign slogan, here is a \business insider article

This article from entrepreneur.com elaborates on how the key to benefiting from from extensive and genuine exposure is to put your clients first and make them look and feel awesome. Kai Sato quotes "when you do this, they (clients) will share and talk about it, which subsequently markets your company." For example, Facebook exemplified this key strategy by innovating a social media website that made it easy post pictures and admire yourself.

The link to this article is below:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238740

This video is showing Microsoft as a Market Leader. It is not comparing themselves to other companies or classes, but positioning themselves in a way that highlights what they have to offer and what they can do for you. It helps to promote internal employee strength, helping them to connect to their company showing their pride for who they work for. It is not simply about technology in this advert, but connecting and personifying the meaning into 'human heart'. It is this personalisation - targeting difference users from: medicine, to families, to the disabled - that helps connect the audience to their product.

Find Yourself - Walmart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fSWSAWJZtQ

This advertisement conveys how Walmart sells a variety of products (from cooking supplies to footballs). What I really liked about this commercial is that the young girl in the video "found herself" in soccer and football, contrary to the other "traditional" girls who became cheerleaders instead. This video resembles the Dove commercial we watched in which girls and boys alike were asked what it's like to do something "like a girl". It strays from the stereotypical vision in which girls are weak and don't play competitive "guy" sports such as football. However, the young girl in the video, through the variety of products at Walmart, realized she didn't want to be a typical girl, but rather herself. This video really relates to everyone, especially people who are told to do/like something.