In response to Christian Torti's blog

I agree in your belief that he should not sell the rights to the names of the surveyors.  It violates the AMA code of ethics. I agree that the Honesty section is the main section he would violate if he sold.  I think the bigger reason he should not sell is because in the long run it probably isn't worth the bad reputation.  His company has been declining for 2 years and 8,000 will only help for so long.  If he is going to throw his morals out of the window it better be for more money.

To sell or not to sell

In regards to the class question about John Smith I feel like he shouldn't sell the names for $8,000.  I believe he should not sell the car dealer that information.  I think the main reason is because he would probably need more than 8,000 dollars to keep his business afloat.  Even if he sold the rights to the information how much longer would that money keep him out of bankruptcy?  He would still probably end up filing for bankruptcy but it would only be delayed.  Also it would violate the AMA code of ethics.  The one that I see is the worst violation is the honesty one.  The people taking the survey thinks they are taking it for the Ohio Department of Economic Development.  So they don't expect their names out their and being harassed by dealerships.  The people thought it was anonymous and it should remain that way

How marketing has changed through the years

A lot has changed 50+ years in terms of technology.  We have gone from land lines to cell phones. There was  time where one television was seen as a privilege to own and now its odd if you don't have one.  The addition of the Internet has increased our access to information and we are able to talk to people across the world.  That is why it is obvious that marketing has had to change over the years.  Big firms had to adapt or die.
The people of Mad Men would fail in today's world for many reasons.  One major reason is that nowadays people can decide what they want to see.  Back in the 60's there was maybe 3 television channels and the other forms of media was just print and radio.  So consumers had to sit there and listen/watch the advertisements.  In today's media we had hundreds of channels so if we don't want to watch an ad we can easily switch over to something else.  Because marketers in the 60's decided what the consumers saw they fell into the next trap which was no conversation or engagement.  An advertisement back then would tell you what the product was and why you should get it.  They would show in the ad the person they feel is the perfect person for the product and it showed why you should aspire to be them.  Now with social media people have a way to communicate with the creators of the product.  Specially made Facebook and Twitter pages are there for all kinds of people to post their feedback and that is taken and used accordingly.

What other reasons do you think marketing has changed over the years?

In response to Suxanne Koval's post

When it comes to self marketing today it is easy to fall into traps due to social media.  Although it is true there are many pros to social media sites and that they can help you network yourself to people across the world you can find yourself in trouble when you are applying for a job.   You can give a great interview and come off as a perfect employee but if there is even one scathing photo of you or an offensive post on Facebook or Twitter you will be cut from the list of candidates.  So when you want to self market you really need to comb through your personal things to make sure you can properly network yourself.  

Importance of Branding

The positives of branding include both the buyers and the sellers.  For buyers it helps speed consumer purchases and for the sellers it helps introduce new products or promote all same brand products. When it comes to a branding there are many factors that go into it being a successful one.  You need a brand name and logo that can be easily recognizable.  It will have to avoid linguistic traps, easy to remember, suggests a more positive image, and says something to the user.  For the consumer brands are a status symbol that they like to show off.  A shirt with the Lacoste logo is more expensive than the exact same shirt that has the Old Navy logo on it.  This is because people have an idea in their head that the clothes they wear should look higher end.  That is the brilliance of branding.  It molds psychology and science into one.  Products have a life cycle.  There is a time and an end to them, but brands live on.  The original Macintosh computers came and went but the brand is making billions.  That is because even though their laptops are more expensive than Windows but people like the feel it gives them to own one of them.

What do you feel about the effects of branding? Do you feel it can manipulate people into buying more than they should?

Marketing Alcohol

When it comes to alcohol advertising the companies need to be careful about how they advertise on all medias.  During commercials the actors can't be shown drinking alcohol.  In the series of Jagermeister commercials a bunch of blue collar men sit at a round table and hold up a shot and cuts away before they drink it.  Another obvious rule is to not advocate irresponsible drinking and not to look as if the the advertisement is selling its product to minors.  Cartoon promotions are not advocated.  On social media sites like facebook official brand pages can only be viewed by people of legal drinking age. They also have to monitor their sites to block people promoting bad behavior and they have to tell people to drink responsibility.  Advertisers also can't sell a product based on alcohol content.  In the US alcohol advertisements are allowed when 70% of the viewing audience is over 21.  In other countries it is against the law to advertise before a certain time.  Because alcohol can be dangerous and it has killed people they still get more leeway than cigarettes.  Cigarette companies can't advertise on television at all.

Do you think it is right that alcohol is given so many restrictions? Or do they not have enough?

In Response to Joseph Maturo's Post

The New Race In Marketing

When it comes to the new generation of consoles it comes down to the PS4 and Xbox 720.  Both Microsoft and Sony have been very secretive on many of the details of their product.  The design of the consoles are still unknown.  However branding has a lot to do with this console war.  Each system has a loyal fan base for the current systems that came out in 2005-2006.  They will stay faithful so it comes down to the neutral parties that are waiting for more details to decide what they want.  I personally prefer the Xbox 360.  I've had it since 2005 and its worked out alright.  Having Netflix and HBO GO on Xbox Live makes it more than just a video game system, its a home entertainment system.  And that is really the goal for both Microsoft and Sony.  

Video Game Marketing

Now that video games are more mainstream now than ever, there is an urgency for more aggressive marketing plans.  The marketers for these games have bigger budgets and are able to bet more and more creative with their advertisements.  All their hard work is not forgotten because there are game marketing awards and there are multiple categories.  Awards range from best retail marketing campaign to outstanding overall marketing campaign of the year.  That award went to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The problem Bethesda Softworks had wasn't with its core demographic, they wanted to make sure the genre of fantasy role playing could compete with a market mostly dominated by first person shooters.  They had a strategy to build its brand by showing its strengths which was its sweeping cinematic style. Everything they did was to try to excite their core audience and get gamers who would never buy Skyrim interested in the product.  Huge outdoor billboards and a live action commercial really helped in achieving this goal.  All of this paid off because in the first 48 hours of the launch Skyrim sold 3.5 million copies, shipped 10 million copies worldwide and made 650 million dollars in sales at launch.  Skyrim made its case for game of the year due to the fact its a really good game and the hype its marketing team built during the months leading to its release.

Source: http://www.gamemarketingsummit.com/awards/winners/

Advertising in television

In 2009 the NBC show Chuck was in the prime time rotation but was struggling with maintaining a large audience.  After two seasons NBC was planning on pulling the plug on the show.  The show had a faithful following by a small group and they took to the internet pleading to keep the show going.  According to NBC executives the reason they brought Chuck back for a 3rd season was because of an advertising partnership with Subway. Subway was excited about the opportunity because it help expand there advertising.  What was attractive to them was Chuck's audience was mostly young viewers so if Subway and Chuck joined forces it would be a mutually beneficial relationship.  The show was able to go 5 seasons and it was because Subway decided to advertise in their show.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/upfronts-chuck-takes-the-subway/

What do you think product placements role is in television?

In Response to Suzanne Koval's Post

Are companies trying to reach a different target market by advertising during new TV programs?

I do believe that companies are seeing the increase of viewers of the Grammy's and are trying to broaden their target market.  These companies see an opportunity to gain customers through the awards show and are willing to pay the price of a 30 second commercial.  I also think that some are trying to save money.  The Grammy's may have less viewers but everything will have less viewers than the Super Bowl and paying $800,000 instead of 3.8 million is a good way to save money for your company.  

It's Gotta Be The Shoes

Michael Jordan turns 50 today and is the greatest basketball player in the history of the sport.  He was signed by Nike in 1984 and a perfect storm was made that created one of the best marketing opportunities ever.  Nike was a struggling company at the time and risked millions on an untested player.  They put all of their energy into marketing the Air Jordan's but it was the play of Michael that got people interested in the sneakers. Then in another stroke of brilliance they hired a director that only made one movie and trusted him to make an ad campaign that would sell.  Spike Lee as his character Mars Blackmon sold the hell out of each version of the Air Jordan's with the famous line "It's gotta be the shoes." Nike rolled the dice and lucked out by choosing the best player ever, and they chose a relatively unknown director to market their brand.  Now they basically own the market on basketball sneakers and people are still saying "I wanna be like Mike."

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/15/its-gotta-be-the-shoes-how-nike-bet-on-jordan-jordan-bet-on-nike-and-both-won-big/

What do you think about Nikes strategy back then?  If you were making the decisions would you have made all those risks and put your company in jeopardy?

In Response to Joseph Maturo's blog

Do you think that it is worth these companies paying all this money for a commercial during the Superbowl? What is your opinions on this year's Superbowl commercials?

While I don't agree that it is worth why they would pay for a Super Bowl ad.  I think spending $4 million for 30 seconds could be possibly a terrible waste of money, but could be worth the risk in instances.  Most of these companies like Coca-Cola and Samsung have plenty of money so it wouldn't really be that big of a risk.  also over 100 million people will be watching so they will find a market for their product.  You just need a really creative commercial, one that you will remember for a long time.  This years commercials weren't particularly that great.  I don't remember most of them.  The ones that I liked were the Samsung commercials with Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd and the Mercedes commercial with Willem Dafoe as the devil.

Super Bowl advertising

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest television events of the year with over 100 million people tuning in.  So it is easy to see why companies spend a lot of money to get a spot during the broadcast.  For a 30 second commercial in this years Super Bowl cost almost 4 million dollars.  Comparing that to the $42,000 in the first Super Bowl shows just how far companies are willing to go to get their ads out.  To me it sees like 4 million is way to much for a commercial.  Especially now that everyone judges the commercials and if it falls flat that could end up being a huge waste of money.  Another way you can market your product now is through social media.  The example was when the power went out during the Super Bowl the twitter Oreo uses posted a picture making fun of the power outage.  It was cheap and didn't take long to make.

Do you think Super Bowl advertising is getting too expensive?  Does marketing on social networks help at all?

Costumer Value vs Costumer satisfaction

Is Costumer satisfaction and costumer value interdependent or mutually exclusive? Can satisfaction occur simultaneously with low value?

Costumer satisfaction as defined in our MKTG textbook "is the customer's evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether that good or service has met their needs and expectations."  While customer value is "the relationship between benefits and the sacrifice necessary to obtain them."  So based off that I believe that these two are interdependent.  If a product or service doesn't generate high enough value than the customer's satisfaction will most likely fall too.  An example of this could be how the way music has been played over the past 50 years.  Once record players were what people needed to buy to play music.  There was high customer value and it led to high satisfaction.  Then over the years new technologies have made playing music easier and more compact.  CD players took over and the sacrifice to have a record player was greater than the benefits so costumer value went down.  In the 21st century the Ipod was released and the value for that was high.  With that came the lowering of satisfaction of the CD player and all its problems were not enough to save it.  Soon something better than the Ipod will come out and the pattern will repeat.

What do you think about costumer satisfaction and value?  What ways do you think costumer satisfaction can happen with low costumer value?.