In Response to Ethan Gage...

How important is having a well known face for an organization?

Having a well known face for an organization and its products is extremely important. Think about insurance for example. Progressive, State Farm and Farmers Insurance all have their actors and actresses that are the faces of their company. If I saw "Flo" on T.V. anywhere then I would automatically know it was a Progressive commercial.

By having a face for your company's products you are marketing that product to stick in the minds of consumers. Sometimes it is difficult to simply advertise the product alone. If perfume and cologne companies simply video taped a bottle of perfume it would not be very intriguing.  So, they higher models and actors to portray what it is like to have that specific product.

With Burger King hiring those new faces for their products, the consumer feels as though the "faces" of the actors have accepted the product as a good product. So, they feel more inclined to buy this product if they believe in what that actor stands for.

Is it possible that the way these companies market their "faces" for their products is completely opposite of how they should market? Should a celebrity really be in the same commercial as a cheeseburger? Where is the relevance?

Guess How Much Facebook Makes Off You?

In this interesting article written by Kevin Spak, it is explained that Facebook makes a little less than five dollars off of each person that is on Facebook according to their last report. How is this possible?

Well a majority of it is from advertising. Since Facebook had 901 million members according to their last report, everyone wants to advertise on Facebook. It seems that Facebook has made a marketing empire for themselves by accident. Who would of thought that a simple social media site could turn into making $872 million last period in advertising?

It is quite weird to think about Facebook as a marketing strategy for other companies when we simply use it to interact with our friends. But, it is in fact a genius marketing strategy for companies to advertise on Facebook. This way they are getting millions of views of their ads and people that enjoy them will share it with their other friends, free of charge to the producers of the advertisement.

The increase of advertising on Facebook is beginning to get annoying in my opinion, when will it be too much? Is it possible for Facebook to lose members when it becomes more focused on advertising businesses rather than our social lives?

In Response to Shane Norris...

Can you think of any other industry where this same pricing action occurs? 

The phenomenon of the fast food pricing situation that you wrote about is almost humerus.  I have seen something like this happen as well. As consumers we are trained to only go after the lowest prices when there is a competitors product that is a direct substitute for the one we are purchasing. But, what happened to the saying, "time is money?" In my eyes, you are only going to be spending around a dollar more if you go to one of McDonald's competitors like Wendy's or Burger King. One dollar is most certainly worth twenty minutes of time.

I began thinking about your question and realized that gas stations have the same situations occurring. I have literally seen two gas stations next to each other and one is priced one cent less than their neighboring station. The line for the station priced one cent less had huge lines while the other one remained basically vacant until they lowered theirs one cent as well. Then the line started to die down.

How can it be possible that as consumers we are willing to focus so much on prices like these situations, but then we go ahead an spend so much more than we have? Could studying the lowest prices of products be a way of making ourselves feel better for our splurges in spending?

The Overspent American

In class yesterday we watched a very interesting video about the endless cycle of consumerism in our country. I don't think anyone knows exactly when or why we switched from the regular work schedules of the past to people working up to 80 hours a week. The video seemed to explain that do to our increasing spending habits, we work to compensate for that spending. The more money you make the more money you're going to spend.

After facing some of the questions we were asked to answer, it seemed evident that we really changed in 2003 when the "new consumerism" traits started to occur. This new consumerism is a result of companies simplifying their marketing strategies and blasting consumers with multi-media advertisements. Since people generally aspire for a lifestyle that is hard to achieve, it makes sense that people are willing to work 80 hour weeks in order to live the lifestyle of the "Gates's."

The problem with this is that since the mansion you purchase, sports car you drive and designer clothes you wear are tangible objects, they physically show the rest of the world how successful you are in a subliminal way. The people that see that you have these things do not know how much money is in your bank account. Or how much debt you have on your credit card. So, consumers in our country are constantly bringing on debt in order to purchase these flashy products in order to achieve the sense of prosperity that they have longed for.

In our modern day, it is apparent that the "Overspent American" is getting worse. Do you think that things will continue on that path? When will it eventually be too much?

In Response to Molly Keereweer...

What other troubles may Volvo face by hiring their new spokesman mainly to gain customers of young and Chinese populations?

Jeremy Lin has definitely been getting his name across due to his famous "Lin-sanity" term. But, I am not sure if this is going to be as successful of a marketing plan as Volvo thinks it can be. My reasoning behind this is that Jeremy Lin is so new to the NBA. He has hardly had enough time to really make an impact in the game. Plus, by using someone who is still currently playing in the NBA may pose some difficulties. For fans that are opposed to the New York Knicks this could be a reason not to buy a Volvo. 

On the other hand, it could be successful to the Asian community. There has been a very high volume of Asian's attending the NY Knicks games at Madison Square Garden recently. They seem to have a lot of pride in the fact that Lin has been so successful. So, the advertisements could reach out to them well. 

Athletes have always been a popular choice for promoting products. Do you think that Jeremy Lin is the right decision for Volvo's new marketing scheme?  

Can Dollar Shave Club Cut Gillete?

After this years Superbowl a lot of the students in our class posted about the different advertisements that aired during the game. One of the advertisements that had its debut was the Dollar Shave Club. The Dollar Shave Club's ingenious commercial explained how can get quality razors and razor blades for only $1 a month. Now, months later, people are wandering if they really have what it takes to take on company's like Gillete and Shickk that are already so implemented in the razor market. Well, this article explains how this comedic approach to men's hygiene could take down the leaders.

Due to Dollar Shave Club's marketing techniques hit the public hard. Entrepreneurs are betting that they can make it because they raised over $1,00,000 in seed funding. They also signed up 12,000 members in 48 hours after their debut commercial.

Could it be possible that by creating such a joke-based commercial it created a larger impact than if they tried to sell their product more seriously? What type of marketing strategies should other companies learn from this?

In Response to Tyler Mcwhirk...

Are we ready to fully rely on technology? Or should we at some point say maybe things are not too difficult and we do not need so much extra in life? 

We cannot deny the inevitable. Technology is something that is growing at such a rapid rate that sometimes we can't even look back on how drastically things are changing in our society. To take an example as simple as movies. Just a few years ago VHS movies were the common source of movies in a household. Now, people are watching Blue Ray movies on their Blue Ray player connected to their flat screen plasma T.V. Efficiency is something that our society is obsessed with.

Now, take this example and reflect it towards coffee such as Tyler did with Starbucks. Coffee used to a drink that was simply, "coffee." You could go anywhere and just get a cup of coffee. Now, there are tons of flavors, types and variations of the sort. Plus, there are places such as Starbucks that offer prestigious cups of coffee for the staggering price of around $5. This alone shows how innovation is constantly around us. The fact that Starbucks is creating mobile payments in their drive through locations does not surprise me.

Starbucks needs to think strongly about their marketing for this because it could get to the point where it really is too much for a cup of coffee. Sure, Starbucks has their certain target market of people. But, if Starbucks gets too into the technological side of things, they could lose customers. I know that when I have been at Starbucks a few times, it is nice to see that the baristas know exactly what they are doing and specialize in coffee. If Starbucks slowly takes out the amount of human interactions with the customers, they will no longer provide a service but a product. Most consumers will not pay as much for a product as compared to a service.

Do you think that it would be better for a company such as Dunkin' Donuts to invest in something like mobile payments? Would it be more successful than Starbucks?