To the class

I had a wonderful time teaching you this class. Advertising is a passion and i was happy to share my love for the subject with all of you and glad to see its rubbed off on a few people at least.

You were a great class. And I really enjoyed our discussions. I loved reading your midterms and presentations and seeing your ideas develop as you immersed yourself into the subject.

Many of you'll will hopefully keep your blogs and continue blogging. I'd recommend having a professional blog so you can use that as a calling card that sets you apart from other applicants. It also shows your creativity and dedication to the profession.

If you'll have any questions - please feel free to contact me. I'd be happy to help.

Happy Holidays.

perfection?

today in ads we see perfection in every aspect of the brand ambassador. we see the perfect moms and the perfect kids - all happy together in the perfect house and car and everything else.

this perfect little happy family makes some people quite angry. are we aspiring to become clones of each other, all in search of the unreachable goal - perfection? do ads celebrate diversity and even just the ordinary? what about the underachievers?

when Avis created the "we try harder" campaign what made it a success was the it was the underdog. the guy who doesn't come first. and people could empathize with that feeling. are there any commercials out there that today bring about the same feeling?

i know Dove makes the real women commercials which are very popular with the students of this class simply because they can relate to the imperfect real person.

this article titled "that supermom in your ad? real moms can't stand her" in the advertising age is a great read. and the website the article refers to can be accessed here .

We are a marketing class in the Consumer Apparel and Retail Studies dept at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. And we've assessed many brands and marketing strategies.
I wanted to give the students an assignment that would use their apparel, design and consumer behavior knowledge to give suggestions to an web application that is not very well known among the college audience.
The millennial generation grew up on AIM and have moved on to Google. They use Gmail not Yahoo. They use Facebook and not Yahoo messenger to keep in touch with their friends and family.

While Yahoo may have a large market in Asian countries - it hasn't found a way to connect with the American teens at home. So, the assignment was for students to create their own avatar and write about their experience and what Yahoo can do to improve this service and make it more college student friendly.

The posts are on the blogs links on the right.

And here are my two bits on the avatars:
So I'm a very loyal Yahoo user (i bet if they check their demographic information - they'd notice that a lot of their users are from Gen X) and have had my avatar for a while. But like many of my students i agree:
Yahoo should tie up with Facebook and Myspace to let Yahoo users put up their avatars on the websites.
If Yahoo wants to appeal to the college going student - it needs to get cooler. They're not talking the language. And will lose out eventually to Facebook at the rate Facebook is adding new users.
Yahoo's avatars need more categories, there are too many backgrounds and you have to go through each one of them, remember your favorites and its just too much work. categorize them into school/ outdoors/ cities, etc.
And finally - I have short hair and i haven't found a single Yahoo avatar for women that allows me to be me! and so I'm stuck with choosing the male sex to truly show how i look.

what do condoms promote?

The latest Carolinian (Oct 2 - Oct 8) has a story about Trojan Ads called Evolve on page 6 titled "I want your sex...and your medical history", here is the ad:



The staff writer Ms. Conley believes that since most committed couples 'rely on hormonal and nondisposable forms of birth control because sex is, for the most part, a fairly regular occurence' hence condoms are targeting their commercials and product offerings for to those outside of relationships. And in this specific case, for one night stands.

Well, first of all, the ad is advertising Trojans being available in a dispenser/ vending machine in bars and nightclubs. And since the primary usage for those products would be one night stands, it would make sense that Trojan advertise for that particular eventuality.

Do you think Trojan is encouraging one night stands? Or simply acknowledging that they happen and that you'd rather be evolved in your choices?

Here is another ad i saw while i was looking up Trojan - this uses men's fear of committment and having children and takes it up a notch. Is this ad unethical? I wonder what would the pro-life organizations think of this commercial?



The positioning for the Trojan ad i believe is that be a better man, use condoms. The positioning for Zazoo on the other hand seems more like - avoid mishaps use condom. One ads uses positive reinforcement (though i wonder how men would percieve being called pigs in the ad) and the other uses fear.

Which do you think works better?

An homage to Anita Roddick

"I hate the beauty business. It is a monster industry selling unattainable dreams. It lies. It cheats. It exploits women." These are the first few lines of the book Body and Soul: Profits with Principles - The amazing story of Anita Roddick and The Body Shop by Anita Roddick.

In the book she writes, "What is beauty? I believe beauty is about vivaciousness and energy and commitment and self-esteem, rather than some ideal arrangements of limbs or facial features as celebrated in fashion magazines and beauty pageants.....In my view the cosmetic industry should be promoting health and wellbeing; instead it hypes an outdated notion of glamour and sells false hopes and fantasy."

Anita Roddick has created a very large awe-inspiring company and brand from very humble beginings. She started The Body Shop in 1976 using natural ingredients in plastic bottles used by hospitals to collect urine samples because they were the cheapest available. Her shop was sandwiched between two undertakers who did not see the humor of her store name next to theirs. And the trademark green walls were used because that was the only color that would cover the mold.

But it is not these anecdoctal factors that helped the brand. It was her pursuit towards making the brand and her life stand for important things that mattered to her. Her belief was the business could be conducted with love and the power of business could be used for good. From speaking up against animal testing to aiding trade and importing ingredients from under-developed and developing nations, Anita Roddick used her life and her company to do good. And the customers responded. In 30 years The Body Shop has grown from a single outfit to a $1.86 billion company without using elaborate marketing campaigns or multi million dollar ad budgets and research. Instead they pushed the brand forward with posters like the famous Barbie one targeted at the "real" women and womens body image issues.

Hats off to a brilliant woman, entrepreneur, activist and marketer. We need more people with that kind of passion.

Old Navy Flirt Ad causing a commotion

someone recently forwarded this message to me - i am going to copy the message verbatim and wanted your opinion as to what you think of the commercial.

I recently viewed a disturbing Old Navy advertisement on TV promotingone of their new lines of jeans called the Flirt. The lyrics to thesong playing in the ad suggest that when a woman "says no, and no again," this is part of the process of flirting. This conveyance isvery disturbing to me as a professional who has spent years working toimprove communication regarding consent in the dating situation.It is imperative that we educate our students & the public, both maleand female, that when a woman says no it means NO. It's not a playfulexchange that is meaningless and can be ignored, but a declaration of her intent that must be honored. This advertisement goes against abelief system that we as sexual assault prevention professionals havebeen working hard to correct. I would encourage anyone who isinterested to send an e-mail to Old Navy expressing similar concerns about this advertising campaign. Although perhaps meant to be cute and"just" flirtatious, the ad has a very damaging message that should notbe promoted.Here's the link to view the ad: www.oldnavy.com
Here's an address to voice your concerns: custserv@oldnavy.com
Anamarie
Chair, Sexual Assault Prevention Team

When you see the ad - do you think the issues raised by Anamarie are justified?
If yes, why? If not, why not?
What was your reaction when you saw the ad towards the product?

first sightings

wow, i've really enjoyed reading the blogs and reading some very interesting opinions from a great batch of students. lets continue to keep it up!

i was a bit nervous when the class started off on tuesday, because everyone looked so sleepy, it was early morning and i wanted to get everyone charged up about advertising and marketing. advertising is such an exciting world - of brands and models and great stories and entertaining commercials. its hard to stay bored with a subject like that.

and once we started discussing brands especially in the retail world - the class perked up and we saw a great stream of ideas - with some strong opinions going back and forth. we analyzed what companies were doing or had done, some strokes of brilliance and some great guffaws. and some potentials - where the jury was still undecided. sometimes its nice to sit back and observe the initiatives taken by companies and see how the consumers will react.

for this class, one of the initiatives we've decided to observe from the sidelines is the introduction of the vera wang collection at kohls. it all started when one student brought up the topic and suddenly everyone was discussing the positives and negatives - check out the blogs in my links to read more about what the students think!

i'm excited at the idea of watching how two sets of consumers are going to react to the vera wang line at kohls - first i want to see how does vera wang manage not to alienate her current core customer base - of potential brides who love her wedding gowns! and next i want to see how the average american customer reacts to the vera wang brand name in the store.

some students thought the average kohls customer has heard of the vera wang brand - and some students disagreed. i tend to believe most of them are unaware of the brand or at least the importance of the brand and what it stands for or signifies. brand recognition is just that! mere recognition and should not be mistaken for the customer understanding the vera wang brand identity.