Conclusion

Time flies. It’s so amazing that this is my final post already! I’m really thankful to those who have read my post and the ones who left comments. Though there were still a lot I could work on more, I still had a great time making this blog.

The reason why I chose marketing as my topic is this summer I had a marketing class in UPENN. It’s quite interesting in my opinion. Therefore, I want to share to you guys.

Throughout these ten weeks, I concluded what I had learnt already and looked for extra information on the Internet. I undoubtedly learned a lot in the process. Though it may be a bit exhausting somehow, it’s worthwhile.

At last, once again, thanks to all of you who have visited my blog. Hope you acquired some knowledge and have a clearer view on marketing. 

Gamification

What is gamification?

It’s a term invented by an engineer, Nick Pelling, in 2002, but hadn’t been widely used until 2010. The definition of gamification is, “The use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game contexts." That is, to put game factors into non-game situations.

The ultimate goal of gamification is to stimulate people’s interests while pursuing a target and feel fun in the process. Therefore, people will be willing to spend more time and focus more on it.

The process of engaged in a gamified situation can be easily shown in a loop.

 Gamification is widely used in marketing nowadays. Take the airline industry for example. The company will come up with a sequence of rules, allowing the passengers who have accumulated more mileages to be upgraded to the first class. Therefore, every single passenger is a character in the game. When they take more flights, their level will get higher. After reaching the goal, they can win a prize!

This make passengers feel competitive and engaged. Finally, they will spend more money in the airline company.

Viral marketing

Nowadays, unlike the past, information are spread extremely fast through the internet. With a click on the screen, people can search for any studies and look for any video they want. Due to this convenience, businessmen came up with a new technique for marketing, viral marketing.

What is viral marketing?

It’s a strategy focusing on spreading information about a product by person, especially in unconventional ways such as internet or email.

The advantage of viral marketing is that it costs low but will gain high credibility. It’s an efficient way to promote ads for companies.

Let’s see a video.

 “Trains travel in a straight line. If you get hit by a train, you’ve probably done something wrong which makes getting hit by a train one of the dumbest ways to die.”

This is one the most successful and innovative public safety videos of all time. Instead of a typically announcement, this commercial appealed the viewers by the catchy back ground music and adorable animated characters. When this video is launched, barely by being shared, it reached nearly 100 million views in a short period of time. The metro company didn’t have to cost a lot to reach their goal.

reference

http://mccann.com.au/project/dumb-ways-to-die/

Guerrilla Marketing

From this week, I’m going to move on to the third main part of my blog, marketing skills. Let’s talk about the first one, guerrilla marketing.

What is guerilla marketing?

It’s a strategy which a company uses unconventional interactions or surprise to promote a product.

Take Coca Cola’s commercial for example.

In this video, the coke truck hit any place randomly. Locals were curious about the button and eventually, they pressed it. Surprisingly, a can of coke popped out from the truck for free. Finally, people gathered together to have cokes and fun.

This is an innovative, impressive, and attractive way of promoting Coca Cola. When this video was posted on Youtube, it sensationally generated over 1.5 million views. The Coca Cola company also increase their brand awareness internationally as it spread joy all over the world. This is simply just a brilliant example of guerilla marketing and it associates with the company image perfectly, to bring everyone happiness.

Emotional Branding

Last week, I introduced the three main ways to persuade audience. Today, let’s focus on the most prominent one being used, Pathos, also called emotional branding.

Emotional branding

It’s the practice of cultivating brands appeal to a customer’s emotion and aspiration directly. Emotional brands is successful when it triggers an emotional response upon the customers.

Commercial using the “pathos” method is associated with strong feeling and affection. Though sometimes, the ad itself has little to do with the product, as long as it captures audience’s heart, the commercial is successful. However, this method is usually only suitable for famous companies.

Let’s take the Budweiser’s 2014 Super Bowl commercial for instance.

The topic of adorable animals is always loved by people. From the ad, we can see the strong bond between the puppy and the horse. The narration and the BGM is perfectly shown to the audience. At last, the word “BestBuds” not only points out what the ad wants to show, but also stick to Budweiser’s brand image.

Another example for emotional branding is Guiness’ commercial.

The ending is the soul of the ad. It demonstrates the value friendship. This also indicates the slogan of Guiness, “Dedication. Loyalty. Friendship. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.”

Persuasion skills

“A brand is worthless if it doesn’t CONNECT with the right audience in a relevant way.”

The great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, argued that there were three main ways to persuade audience: ethos, pathos, and logos.

The short explanation for the three are:

Ethos: an appeal to ethics, the trustworthiness of the speaker. (服之以德)

Pathos: an appeal to emotion, often associated with feelings. (動之以情)

Logos: an appeal to logic, a way to persuade people by reasons. (說之以理)

When companies make ads, they basically follow these rules to persuade the audience. However, it’s not necessarily to use the all three to be persuasive. Sometimes one or two being used is enough.

Let’s take two commercials for example.

Miller 64

Ethos: If you are an athlete, drink this!

Pathos: Miller 64 is a great drink to have with friends and brings you happiness.

Logos: Miller 64 is a low-calory drink, so it’s worth drinking for people who want to keep their shapes

Bud Light

Pathos: A clever dog with a special name and reacts cute

As you can see, the story of the commercial doesn’t need have be associated with the product to be successful. Take the Bud Light ad for instance. Though there was nothing to do between puppies and alcohols, the commercial still made more than 10,000 hits. As long as the commercial is interesting enough and makes audience react, it’s successful.

Brand Narrative

What are brand narratives?

They are “meaningful storylines that makes people easily to understand who you are.” Good narratives need to be specific, special, and outstanding. That is, they need to convey your business purpose and personality precisely.

Brand narratives are similar to personas. They usually use simple sentences with easy grammar, vocabularies and metaphor. By these, people can read and realize what companies want to express. Then, companies can build their unique brand image to stand out from the others.

Brand narratives are often shown in commercials. However, the ads themselves won’t just show sentences. The narratives are hide in the ads metaphorically. Let’s take two Coca Cola’s commercial for example.

The young man yawns and puts money into a Coke machine. The world in the machine works then energetically. Finally, the man drinks and feels happy.

A sleeping students is about to miss his finals. The creatures in the books pop opened a coke and wakes the boy up.

So, the persona that Coca Cola wants to tell is, “Coca Cola brings you energy and happiness.” It’s quite near to average people’s impression on coke. Undoubtedly, this is one of the main reason why people drinks coke.  

4Ps

What is marketing? There is an interesting explanation shown on the internet, “Putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time.”

Sounds simple, isn’t it? Theoretically, it’s true, but the reality isn’t that easy. Companies need a lot of statistics and calculation to know what customers like, where they shop, and to balance the cost and price of products. Therefore, they came up with idea named the 4Ps, or called marketing mix, to maximize their benefit.

The 4Ps are abbreviations of four words that starts with letter P. They are product, price, promotion, and place.

The meanings of them are:

Product: the features and appearance of goods and services

Price: how much customers pay for a product

Promotion: how customers are informed about products

Place: the point where products can be sold to customers

Shortly speaking, if companies make good use of the 4Ps, they can benefit easier. However, they usually don’t utilize them equally. Let’s take some brands for example.

Luxury jewelry (Rolex):

Product: high quality, that stands out from the others

Place: urban areas, where people who can afford it live in

Promotion: in tennis games, where rich people go

Beverage (Coca Cola):

Place: everywhere, so it’s convenient to buy

Promotion: unique ads and slogan to attract customers

Brand Image and Marketing

What are brand images?

When seeing these notable logos, most of us can tell what they represent immediately, since the characteristics of them are strong enough. Their brand image are deeply rooted in our mind.

Think first. What images of the three brands will come into your mind?

7-11: convenient, everywhere, 24hr, cheap

Nike: fashionable, customized, expensive, athletes as spokespeople

Mercedes-Benz: German, safe, huge, expensive

In conclusion, brand image is the impression of a brand’s personality in customers’ mind.

Why are brand image important?

Brand image is essential for companies to set up a unique identity that stands out from the others. This enables the customers to recognize and expect what they will purchase and what the services are.

Companies often build brand images to target certain groups of customers. They know what buyers want and what they need. It’ll be easier for the companies to create ads that will appeal them. Ultimately, the companies win the loyalty of customers.

Think. When you are going for a bite, what will you choose? McDonald or Burger King. Why? The answer may be the brand image that the company want to represents!

In this era, with the improvement of global network, more and more companies promote their products through Internet and social media. However, what makes a successful advertisement? What makes a commercial stands out from the others? What strategies do the firms use? This is what I want to focus on and share to all of you.

In these ten weeks, I am going to separate my studies into mainly three parts. It’ll be the brand image, the persuasion skills, and the marketing strategies. In the first part, we have to know what brands are and what makes them special. Besides, I’ll show you some ads from youtube and discuss about the images that the companies want to show. In the second part, we are going to talk about the persuasion skills that commercials often use. At last, I’m going to focus on the strategies the firms utilize to attract customers and give some examples of them. This is the overview of my topic. Hope you guys will enjoy it!