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.