Infomercials

As i was watching TV today with my friend, we happened to get stuck on this channel with very long ads and one really go to us.  It was for "callous clear".  This was the must repetitive and uncomfortable ad that we watched.  It was all about how to get the dead and dry skin off your feet. ew. then we started to think about what we were watching and why we were even thinking about this product.  Then we realized that we got sucked into watching an infomercial.
Infomercials, they make you want to pay attention and you don't know why....you catch yourself actually paying attention to what they are saying and why their product is something you should have.
What do infomercials do for you? Do you get caught up watching them?

Response to Tyler T: Gender Discrimination in Advertisements

As Tyler  noted there is a battle of the sexes going on in advertisements.   This clip of different ads has a great variety of ads that are blatantly screaming to men, "your not a man unless you do manly things..." and manly things do not include diet drinks.  Why would a man need a died drink? Is it because a diet drink has taken all of the calories out, there for not real or acceptable for a "real man" to drink?  

Does ten calories in a drink make it that much more of a manly drink?

Response to Tammy Chou: Maslow's needs

What three Maslow's hierarchy of needs are essential to your life? Which one do you think is the most important to you?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging, esteem needs, and self-actualization.  So what are the ones essential to me?  In being a college student, in the SPDI major i would say that self-actualization is defiantly one of the most essential to me.  But, like it is on the pyramid, this is something that has a lot under it, a lot of things to think about and to incorporate into self-actualization.

One thing about the pyramid that i question is esteem is above love/belonging.  Now i do think this could work either way, but i find it odd that this is suggesting that in odder to have self-esteem and confidence and respect by others, you have to have friendship, family, and sexual intimacy. Here's my question, how are you suppose to be able to have good friendship, family and a sex life if you don't already have self-esteem! But then again, maybe what Maslow is saying is that if you love yourself then you can move on to self confidence.

What are your thoughts about the Hierarchy of Needs?
 

Dr Pepper Ten, "Not for Women"

A different type of, well, they aren't calling it a diet drink because this would be the exact opposite of what they are aiming towards.  Dr Pepper Ten is "180 degrees different than Diet Dr Pepper".  It has calories and sugar in it making it real, but in a different way.  They are trying to target a certain type of man that is too, um, manly? to drink a diet drink, or someone that doesn't want all that fake stuff in their soda.  The Dr Pepper Ten ads are being played on FX and ESPN during college football games and more.  They are aiming to get a specific type of audience.

There is some controversy about the whole idea of men not wanting to drink a diet drink.  I have friends that will refuse to drink anything with the word diet on it, but they are not all guys.  The reason they have is that if they are going to drink any type of soda drink they are going to drink the real stuff because they don't want any more surprise product in it then there already is.  By surprise product, they are talking about the fake sugars and the even faker flavors that have to be made up to have zero everything.  So maybe this Ten is something in between the full diet drink and the full real drink.

What do you think of them coming up with a drink "not for women?" 

 

IN Response to Jade: Cuts Glory Ram

Do you think this is a good form of advertising? Should they pull you in with a short story or give more details about the truck?

This kind of advertising can definitely work for some things but not everything.  I think in this example it did a good job.  They knew who their target market was and really sent the ad out to them specifically.  In both ads you have here it really makes you listen and the music draws you in and you feel something towards the ad.  I think if you can make an audience feel something towards your ad, then you really have something. 

The only thing that i wasn't to excited about was how long it was.  I know it was for the super bowl and that is an exception, but i think an ad over 30 secs in general it too long for someone to pay attention to. 

What about Pandora's Ads?

Your listening to your favorite Pandora station and after 3 or so songs come on, that annoying ad comes on talking to you.  Sometimes it about a new TV show or another Pandora station, but other times, it seems that the ad know exactly where you are in space and what is around you to advertise about.  I know that my Pandora likes to give me ads about places and school in CT, because that is where my phone is from and my account was started.  Pandora can us your ZIP code to pin point where you are and send out ads relevant.  Pandora also takes into account you age, sex, and musical taste to decide what ads will be most fitted for you.

Tim Westergren states "A dollar spent on Pandora is better than a dollar spent on terrestial radio."  And this is because Pandora's way or finding out who you are and what the ads most relevant to you are going to be are much better than normal radio stations where you don't even know if the listener is even there once that ad come on.  This bring me to another point.  On Pandora there is no way to get away from that ad.  Once it starts you HAVE to listen to it, because if you try to change the station, another ad will just come on or the same one will finish.  Therefore, this making sure that the user has no way of getting around the ad. 

Pandora has grown unbelievable in the past few years, going from 45 mil to 125 mil listeners' in just 2 years.  Making Pandora yet a better place to put your ads towards.  Pandora has a unique way of working with its ads and finding the best way to get them out the the right people.

For more about this go to  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/business/media/pandora-courts-local-advertisers-by-reaching-a-narrow-audience.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Next time you listen to Pandora, think about the ads, are they relevant to you?

Are customer satisfaction and customer value interdependent or mutually exclusive?

     For a customer to be satisfied the product has to have everything the customer is expecting.  Customer value is what the customer is willing to give for what the product has to offer.  Customer value is defined in our textbook (MKTG) as “the relationship between benefits and the sacrifice necessary to obtain those benefits.” Customer satisfaction is defined by our textbook as “customers’ evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether it has meet there needs and expectations.” I think that customer satisfaction and value are on the page.  If the customer is not satisfied with the product then the customer value is going to go down.  This makes for a interdependent relationship with one and other. 

What do you think, are customer satisfaction and customer value interdependent or mutually exclusive?