I had a strange urge to write a blog post and then remembered, in a foggy memory, that I do indeed have a blog. Completely slacking, I blame graduation and obtaining a real-life job at the beginning of January (excuses, excuses.)
The main thing on my mind right now is my love and continuing obsession with concert going. This past weekend I somehow managed to attend two shows at the same venue (http://stageae.com/index_pittsburgh.php?venue=stageae) two nights in a row. Poor planning or amazing coincidence?
Friday night: Young The Giant
A band with something for everyone. And when I say "something for everyone" I am not being cliche (or am I?) The band played a cover of "Remix to Ignition" (no need to name the artist) and even those boyfriends who were drug there by their girlfriends were forced to just love the guys on stage a little bit. My friend Dana and I went insane and were the two crazies dancing toward the back of the venue, in case you saw us. Regardless of my friend and I's love for that classy, classy song and our college memories and need to play it on our favorite Kent State jukebox every time we walk into that bar with that jukebox, Young the Giant played a great show. They played new songs from a hopeful Spring 2013 album release and fit in almost every song off their self-titled album. Good spend of $15+ fees.
Also, check out their opener of the night The Apache Relay. http://open.spotify.com/track/4P80YFBznCzhyPVGv8i5oF –very entertaining and considering we had no idea there was even an opener they were a great surprise.
Now, let's completely switch genres and show atmospheres...
Saturday night: Laidback Luke
I, personally, do not have a incredible love for electronic music but am finding that I do love dancing like a lunatic at the shows. First off, I don't need to work out all week because I know I will burn over a million calories on the night of the show. Second off, you don't need to be a "die-hard fan" to enjoy any show, you will enjoy all shows i.e. dancing around like a lunatic.
This coming Friday: Augustana at Mr. Smalls. (http://www.mrsmalls.com/NewPHP/home.php) I have had a long-time, very emotional love affair with this band. I promise myself (and you if you care at all) that I will remember I have a blog and write a gushing post about how amazing Augustana was.
There should be no excuse for why I haven't written a blog post since April 14th. But, I did have an internship, take two classes and work a part-time job over the summer so if you were looking for excuses there they are!
For my first blog post in months...
A lot of buzz and criticism has been revolving around the new campaign Dr. Pepper rolled out for Dr. Pepper Ten. Many people (mostly women) are offended by the manly man campaign persuading men to drink diet drinks, particularly Dr. Pepper Ten. Girly, fruity and fancy are usually the kind of words that come to mind when men think of diet drinks. Current commercials and campaigns for diet soda (Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc.) are targeting women with the hopes of losing weight and feeling good while still drinking their favorite soft drink. Images of lead actresses in movies and characters in TV shows being addicted to their trusty diet drink have been shown for years. Men don't want to be associated with this type of image at all.
Most recently, I have seen a shift from targeting women in diet soda ads and creating more of a gender neutral image. Dr. Pepper Ten decided not to go this route. Instead, hitting men over the head and alienating the entire audience of women was the chosen route. People are complaining that Dr. Pepper Ten is completely sexist and stereotyping women. The same could be said about men in the campaign. Not all men like action movies. Not all men like cheesy catchphrases. Not all men hate chick flicks. The meathead in the commercial is hardly relateable to all men.
So why use this approach? Clearly, Dr. Pepper wanted to create some buzz and some controversy. People are talking about the new diet drink and its campaign. The company knew it would stir the advertising community pot. The ad is so loud and obnoxious you have to watch it. I, personally, think it is funny. I do not feel offended or stereotyped, but I am still not going to buy the soda. I believe men think the commercial is funny. It is a good break during the football game and the copywriting in the commercial can be memorized and regurgitated during conversation with friends. But, are they going to buy the drink? I say probably not. I hate to say this as an advertising (almost) professional, but I think targeting diet drinks to men and receiving a substantial response is beyond impossible. It is so deeply rooted in our society that diet drinks are for women. Years and years of this campaigning has been instilled. And years and years of campaigning for it to be gender neutral needs to happen before targeting anyone but women.
I began watching Rachel Zoe's reality show, The Rachel Zoe Project, on Bravo because I watched, and currently watch, virtually every other reality show on Bravo. I thought I would give it a shot. "Giving the show a shot" turned into a full fledged admiration and envy for Rachel Zoe, her entire career and brand. As an aspiring advertising and marketing professional, I view her personal brand as one of the strongest out there. From her styling career, reality show, effective social media presence and recent QVC line Rachel Zoe is clearly building a very successful empire.
Within her empire, I think her online presence has contributed a lot to her career and brand. All I have been hearing recently in my classes and from professionals is how important creating an online presence is. Zoe built her brand and online presence from nothing to amazing. If someone were to ask you to name stylists, how many could you name? Honestly, without bias, I could only name Rachel Zoe. By targeting the Bravo audience, she opened an entirely different door. The kind of people who are avid reality television fans will try any new reality TV show at least once. Along with airing many reality TV shows, Bravo is very interested in an interactive television experience. With every show on the channel comes texting contests, online games, quizzes and mentions of Twitter handles. Bravo wants its viewers to interact online while watching its shows. Having a platform like Bravo to begin her online presence was a great starting point. Zoe has a large Twitter following and keeps up with @replies and provides new content each day, mainly, with her newsletters (which I will talk about.) She focuses on new style trends, seasonal fashions and answering fan questions. These three things are what her fans want. It sounds so simple: give fans what they want. She is an expert at knowing what is right for her brand and online presence.
What I think is most effective for her? Daily newsletters titled "The Zoe Report." Go to her website: www.rachelzoe.com and the first thing that pops up is a prompt to enter your email address to receive her daily newsletter. Each day the newsletters usually consist of a photo of a dress, jean, blouse, shoe or piece of jewelry that I want to buy (but would need to take out another student loan to afford) accompanied by a paragraph on what it could be paired with, how stylish it is this season and just overall how absolutely "ba-na-nas" it is. After reading the paragraph and nearing tears because I know I can not afford this item, at the bottom of the newsletter is a blurb called "Parallel Universe." Let me just say, best idea ever. This blurb is a small photo of an item almost identical to the $2,000+ item, but this one is under a hundred bucks! Thank you Rachel Zoe. You are a genius.
Hopefully this post was more insightful than it was ranting. I get very excited about Rachel Zoe and her brand.
Back from a two month hiatus! I have been slacking (meaning busy studying, writing papers and internship searching) on my blog posts recently and when I saw this article I knew this could be the post to get me going again.
When I switched from visual communication design to advertising a few years ago my social media presence was basically a private Facebook page and a Twitter handle that did not get much use. I was unaware of the benefits of social media and not sure how companies could utilize its “powers.” Now that I am graduating in mere months with a B.S. in advertising, I have come to appreciate and understand the importance of social media for companies and for myself. It is well-known in the field that younger generations are more receptive to social media trends and practices. In the article I found on AdvertisingAge by B.L. Ochman, she explores why Fortune 50 companies are still wary about using social media and making it a prevalent part of their websites and brand images. It is difficult for established companies to use social media when they are already a Fortune 50 company doing well. The main point she brings up is the generation gap. Older, more established companies are, well, established. They do not need these new “tricks” and “gimmicks” to attract customers. They have their customers. These companies may have a Facebook, blog or Twitter to possess a social media presence, but Ochman says they hide the icons and links to the pages on their websites. Engaging and interacting with customers is the main reason to have social media pages. Hiding the links? Not very engaging.
Currently in my account management class, we are working on a project that entails choosing a company and recommending an emerging trend for the company to use. My group chose to recommend a Smartphone application for The Melting Pot franchise. While researching The Melting Pot, I found its social media presence extremely strong (which is why we are recommending adding a phone app to the mix.) The Melting Pot has a website called www.FondueFanatics.com that houses its Twitter feed, Facebook feed, blog, YouTube channel, Flickr page and much more. It is one central location where The Melting Pot customer can read and interact with all things fondue. The entire page is great, but when on the homepage, the link to Fondue Fanatics is hidden within the content. If someone isn’t specifically looking for everything he or she can find on The Melting Pot (like I was), the Fondue Fanatics site may be overlooked. Like Ochman explains, having social media is great but it should be prevalent, not hidden.
This article is part of a series of articles Ochman is going to continue. I kind of took this first article as just an intro piece to more of her opinions and explorations into why Fortune 50 companies are not utilizing their social media pages. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the upcoming series and (hopefully) blogging on it!
This semester I am taking the dreaded Law of Advertising and Public Relations class at Kent State. Just a FYI for everyone, I am actually enjoying it more than I thought I would. But, anyways we just completed our first short research assignment. The paper was on the Susan G. Komen Foundation's trademark battles and if the organization should have the exclusive rights to own the phrase "for the cure" because it is within its trademarked Susan G. Komen For the Cure®. (I decided Komen does not have the exclusive ownership of the phrase because it is not distinctive enough or a good identifier.) During my research, I found an interesting article from the New York Times. It is a little off topic from trademark rights but still very relevant.
The article talks about how the commercialization of breast cancer awareness is killing the seriousness of the cause. The companies (for example, "Save the Ta-Tas" brand) who are producing t-shirts, bracelets, etcetera are making money off of something that began as a great cause, has turned into a desensitizing joke. It is very easy for these companies to sponsor or promote breast cancer awareness. Essentially, it is cheap advertising for a great, well-known cause. The author of the article, Peggy Orenstein, explains many young girls today are associating breast cancer with something cool, very feminine or even sexy. Orenstein comments, "I hate to be a buzz kill, but breast cancer is just not sexy. It’s not ennobling. It’s not a feminine rite of passage. And, though it pains me to say it, it’s also not very much fun."
I think the entire breast cancer "support" industry has turned into one giant commercialization nightmare. Honestly, I had not thought much about it until reading the article, and Orenstein's point-of-view. Products "supporting" breast cancer research have always been in stores. The marketing of these cute, sassy, funny, feminine products seems so normal until you actually stop, and think about it. I included a reference to this article in my paper about Susan G. Komen attempting to own exclusive rights for the phrase "for the cure." The manufacturing industry and the Susan G. Komen Foundation becoming more of a company, rather than its roots as a charitable organization, are both factors of the current commercialization of the cause. Komen claims other organizations using "for the cure" without Komen's permission or partnership are confusing consumers. Komen claims donors have decided to give their money to its organization because of its exceptional reputation. No, Komen. People are donating to the organization because they want to support breast cancer research, and Komen is the most prominent and easy to find. I think as long as smaller organizations and events using the phrase "for the cure" are reputable and are, in fact, donating money to breast cancer research then there should be no problem. The main goal of Susan G. Komen, and all organizations like it, is to raise money for breast cancer research. Who cares who the middleman is.
Organizations, manufacturing companies and advertisers should take a step back and realize, again, what the cause is actually about. Don't get me wrong, these organizations are definitely helping breast cancer research and awareness, but is it in the right way?
What was I thinking? I should have written a blog post about Matt & Nat a long time ago. Since I stated I would write about fashion and haven't yet, I thought a post about Matt & Nat would be a great way to start it off.
First off, a little anecdote. I fell in love with Matt & Nat products about four or five years ago while on vacation in Myrtle Beach. Broadway at the Beach is my favorite part of Myrtle Beach by far. (www.broadwayatthebeach.com) It is filled with well-known stores and little shops that have the most unique items. At one of the corner shops I found the wonderful Matt & Nat wallets and bags, and ever since then I have been checking its website to stay-up-to-date on its latest collections.
What makes Matt & Nat a great company, besides its unique style, is its use of only vegan materials. There are very few companies that claim environmental consciousness and actually stick to that claim. Each one of its products contain at least one recycled item and no animal byproducts. The mission is a simple but a great one.
Even though the products are reasonably priced, I actually do not own one item from Matt & Nat. I can't believe it! My problem is, I can not commit to one piece long enough to buy it. I love everything. As a poor college student, I want my first purchase from Matt & Nat to be perfect. I will wait until I can commit to one item. Maybe it will be a gift to myself once I start my career? I think that's a great idea. For now, I will continue to be a fan and admirer of the Matt & Nat collections.
I subscribe to Creativity Online's daily email, and I try to read each one each day. During Christmas break, reading the daily emails each day was difficult because my Mac was the last place I wanted to spend my time. I did save an email entitled "Happy 2011! The best of 2010 wraps up," because I assumed there would be great articles included. Once I had time to open it, of course, the first article was about Old Spice's campaign and its awesome viral catch-on. The other article included was about Jay-Z and Droga5's, a New York based agency, "Decoded" campaign. If it is one of the best campaigns of 2010, I must have been living in a cave the entire time people were talking because I heard nothing about it.
The campaign is a great marketing and personal selling campaign. Jay-Z wanted a creative way to sell and create buzz about his new memoir, "Decoded," and wanted it to match his big, creative ways of doing things. Each page of his new memoir was blown-up to fit a unique outdoor space such as cars, pools, traditional billboards and guitars. My personal favorite is the pool at the Delano Hotel in Miami.
I think this campaign took a great amount of confidence because, as mentioned in the article, any person could decode every page and read the entire book without even buying it. Any person? Yes, any person. Jay-Z and Droga5 also teamed up with Bing. The goal was to give global access to the "pages" and outdoor spaces, courtesy of Bing Maps. Let's behonest, who even knew Bing had a map feature like Google? (Once again, I might have lived in a cave over Christmas break.) I think it was a great marketing move on Bing's side to promote its map feature as a competitor of Google Maps. I looked up the Bing Maps feature, and it is very similar to Google. As a user, I am pretty loyal to Google, so the chances of me switching over to Bing Maps isn't great, but the campaign at least provoked me to look at Bing Maps. Another downfall, I think, is being required to download Microsoft Silverlight to see the campaign online. That is just an extra step that a lot of people would not want to take, but true fans and very interested users would. It could go either way. But in the end, the campaign includes perfect marketing partner matches, Jay-Z's "big way" of doing things and the fans. The combination of these things creates an extremely interactive campaign on the streets and online. The unique choice of outdoor space was something no one had done before, catching everyone's attention (except mine, apparently.) Jay-Z was confident his book would sell, this was just an extra step to ensure the excitement factor was alive.
My Itunes library is filled with an array of artists from Led Zeppelin to Spice Girls to Jay-Z. I love all different kinds of music, and any one who took one look at my library would be thoroughly confused. Although, recently, I have been in involved in almost an exclusive relationship with eccentric female artists. My exclusive relationship began with a British artist named Kate Nash.
I am just going to admit it, I am obsessed with Kate Nash. Within the last year, I jumped from possessing absolutely no knowledge of Kate to listening to her 1300 times (exact count courtesey of LastFM.com). Kate is at the top of my list with Florence + The Machine in close second and KT Tunstall, Sara Bareilles, Ida Maria and Regina Spektor all making the "exclusively female artists relationship" list, too. I think relating to the lyrics is a huge part of how people choose what they like and don't like about artists. There are those "hits" on the radio which have a great beat and everyone loves but who someone spends most of his or her time listening to has to posses something more than just a great beat. The artist has to have a strong conncection with the listener. Kate Nash is who that is for me, and seeing her in concert was a miracle. Because she is a British artist, she hasn't created a huge following in the United States yet. Her concerts in the U.S. are few and far between. But like I said before, a miracle occurred.
My roommate and I almost had simultaneous heart attacks when we found out she was gracing us with her presence within our three-state radius travel limit. We bought our tickets as soon as they went on sale. We were ready in July for her concert in November.
The Newport, a small venue located on High Street in Columbus, was home to Kate for the night of November 11th. Doors opened at seven and the concert began at 8. Perfect. We arrived at 6:30 and stood in line, patiently of course, for a half hour. The concert began promptly at eight, which was interesting considering concerts never begin on time. The opening band, Peggy Sue, was surprisingly great.
Their dynamic was very unique. Two soulful, indie lead singers and a passionate drummer with great rhythm. Their sound was uncommon and actually very different from Kate Nash's, besides the obvious fact both are British artists. Peggy Sue is definitely a band worth listening to. They played for about an hour and fully captured my very short attention span. Waiting impatiently for this band to begin or end playing was not an issue.
The entire concert was one of the longest and shortest concerts I have been to. The waiting time between when the concert was supposed to begin and when it actually began was nothing at all, and the waiting time between bands was very, very short. Peggy Sue played for about an hour and Kate Nash played for about two. My friends and I were out a little after 11:00pm, but we heard a lot of music, more than some four hour (mostly waiting) concerts I have attended. Kate came out shortly after Peggy Sue ended. Her stage was adorable and fit her image spot on. Her piano was covered in small, white light balls, making the piano look like a glowing pile of ping pong balls. Behind her was an umbrella with the same glowing white balls underneath which Kate turned on and off like a table lamp. The whole atmosphere of the stage was perfect for her whimsical, eccentric style. She performed a balanced mix of her first album and sophomore album. The two albums vary between styles. Her first album was cutesy and whimsy with a focus on realationship mishaps and longings. The sophomore album still includes cute, whimsy, relationship songs but has a harsher undertone. I have read reviews that have compared her second album to a Karen O. (lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) rip-off, but I think Kate's lyrical messages are completely different.
The most "controversial" song on the sophomore album is "Mansion Song." The basis of the song is being an independant woman and respecting yourself, but the start of the song is a ranting monologue which is meant to be a sarcastic jab at how women think they should be behaving with men. She performed this song at the concert, and looking around the crowd, I could tell which people were fans of the first album and which were fans of the second. The people with the confused, stunned looks on their faces were the first album fans.
Kate performed a great mixture of her first and second album, making sure to play all the hits.
Anyone in the crowd could tell she was suffering from a cold, jetlag or probably both because of the water and hot tea she was given between songs, but she kept her energy up and her overall performance did not suffer.
I would love to see Kate Nash again. I can tell, just from seeing her once, each of her performances are unique depending on the city, her mood and her set list. Her performance was energetic and very personable, just like her albums. After writing this blog post and reflecting on the concert, I am thouroughly considering getting up right now, driving to an airport and moving to Britain so I can go to more of her shows. But, I guess my three-state radius travel limit will have to do right now. Currently, waiting for another miracle.
In a previous post, I talked about my reaction and opinions to the LeBron James "Rise" Nike ad. This past week, my copywriting class had a group discussion on whether or not it was a "good" ad. There was interesting conversation and it was nice to see that being an advertising major with opinions trumped being a loyal Clevelander in some of my classmates' discussion. I still wonder what that class discussion would have been like if I didn't attend school in Ohio, let alone how close Kent is to Cleveland.
I still like the ad and I still stand behind my "it presents LeBron's message well" opinion, but I recently read an article on AdAge written by Bob Boland, a professor of sports business at New York University's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management. His view on the entire ad was very interesting, considering a totally different aspect of the endorsement.
In the article, Boland wonders if James' ad portrays sports endorsers poorly and even makes them useless, which I kind of wonder too. Clearly, the overall point of the ad was to sell Nike's LeBron merchandise and create a better image for him so people would buy his products. This is what sports endorsing is supposed to do. A company uses a famous, trustworthy, hard-working athlete to sell a product. People respect athletes and trust what they say, which is why companies pay a boatload of money to have an athlete endorse its brand. LeBron has turned a lot of people off from his personality and him as a person entirely, but he is still a great athlete. So what is more important? A name attached to a great moralistic, amazing person or a name attached to someone famous for being famous? In the AdAge article, Boland says, "Reality TV is full of people famous for just being famous. The kids from "Jersey Shore" demand far less for appearances and endorsements than big-name athletes." Do companies need to spend a ton of money to receive product endorsement from an all-around great person or is it worth saving the money and just finding someone labeled "famous?'
Advertisers are always looking for the next thing to break through the clutter. A new trend I found interesting while searching Adage.com is using CAPTCHAs for advertising messages. For those who are unaware of the term, like I was, it is referring to the fuzzy, angled codes users need to re-type to access something or buy something online. I think this is a unique way to utilize something that is, for the most part, annoying. I don’t know about other people, but on some sites it takes me, on average, two attempts to type the CAPTCHA correctly. If advertisers used brand names, taglines or messages it would be easier for customers of the site, where the CAPTCHA is located, to access whatever they may be trying to access. The CAPTCHA would be simpler to type, which would be a benefit for the customer.
For the brands and the advertisers, in the article it addresses how typing a CAPTCHA requires the user’s undivided attention. This undivided attention is exactly what advertisers need from their customers. Even it is just for a few seconds, that customer is focusing on exactly what the CAPTCHA message is. No one I know looks at an advertisement and re-types its copy. In the article, Ari Jacobey, Solve Media CEO, says,“Advertisers are looking for message comprehension. And you know what they say, 'If you write something down, you remember it.'” The repetition of retyping a company's tagline or slogan will help the consumer retain that brand better in his or her mind, even if it is only until the buying, accessing or secure sign-up is complete. They will remember they had to type out a brand name.
