In Response to Chris Morin

Prices are Going UP!

It will be interesting to see what happens when gas gets to $5 a gallon... will we all be driving or walking?  

I agree with you completely. Prices for EVERYTHING are rising due to some seemingly ineffective price changes around the world for goods that are needed and used every day. Gas prices rise because of war or other types of country rivalry in countries that sell oil. It's a never ending circle of rising prices. When will enough be enough?! What's even more interesting is that this cycle of pricing increases not only effects oil and gas, but effects other aspects of every day life as well like food and grocery shopping. It's astonishing today how people report that they were eating better years ago because food prices weren't so high... And neither were other goods prices either.

When will enough be enough? How long can this happen before someone does something about it?

Tide aligned with NFL Teams

Tide is teaming up with 32 NFL teams this coming Football season for $100 million plus.Once the campaign season rolls around, watch out for advertisements and the new Tide bottle featuring the NFL logo. Surprised? Don't be, a lot of teams use Tide to conquer their weekly laundry and there are other brands which do this too such as Head and Shoulders, Old Spice and Frebreze. It is said in this article: Procter & Gamble's Tide Looks to Clean Up With the National Football League that though the company is keeping secret of its marketing mix, that televisions ads will probably be a huge aspect of the campaign.

What do you think about this matter? What are the benefits of companies teaming up with athletics teams? Are there any disadvantages? Why spend so much money on a marketing mix?

In Response to Daniel Oliveira

Advertisements in Schools
Was it acceptable for this school to accept the funding from these advertisements? Should advertisements that send children the wrong message even be allowed in schools in the first place?


Dan makes a really good point. Young children are VERY impressionable. Because of this I think that advertisements that could send children the wrong idea should not be present in schools. Schools are supposed to be a place that teach children, not advertise them unhealthy foods and drinks. These types of advertisements are teaching these children that those unhealthy items are perfectly okay to eat. Though they are in small amounts, but children would not know that unless they were told by someone they look up to and trust like a parent or teacher. But teacher's wouldn't necessarily tell their students this.
In the case of this particular school I think that the school should have looked for funding from other sources than they got their advertisements from. They could have gotten "Got Milk?" posters and other healthy food choices instead of junk foods. This way they would be getting their funding and also be teaching the children a valuable lesson.


What else could the school have done differently?

Insights to Social Media Marketing

An article on Alltop called 5 Insights From The Social Media Marketing Industry Report states that there are several conclusion that can be taken away from the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. I want to go more in depth into two of the conclusions:


1. Marketers are too focused on measurement and not focused enough on strategy. Marketers were asked which top 10 social media questions they wanted answered. The number 1 answer was about measurement, the number 6 answer was strategy. This hints toward the reason as to why so many businesses struggle with using social media. Essentially, if you focus on how to measure what you're doing without having a strategy as to why you are even doing it then you've just set yourself up to fail. Strategy should be behind all the hard work and effort put into social marketing, instead of in the hindsight of everything else.


2. The line between social and non-social marketing is misunderstood. Businesses should educate themselves on what exactly these two terms mean because something like a live question and answer webinar is more like social marketing than using twitter to send out blasts to people's news feeds. Social marketing is a systematic application of marketing along with other concept techniques used to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Non-social marketing is used for goods other than social goods.


Why is it important that marketing strategies be utilized and the difference between marketing and social marketing be known?

In Response to Tyler Mcwhirk

The Hunger Games

Do you think social media will one day replace regular media?

 I do not think that social media will completely out-run and replace "regular" media but will rather become increasingly more popular until they come to a standstill where both types of media will exist together. I think that this will make both types of media stronger. Of course this all depends what you consider to be social media rather than regular media. In my opinion social media are websites like Facebook and Twitter and maybe even YouTube while "regular" media would be considered things like TV advertisements, newspapers, and maybe magazines, etc.

What would you consider to be social media/"regular" media?

10 Things You Can Learn From Apple Stores

The article featured here explains how Apple has unlocked the secrets to building great customer loyalty. On their list of the top 10 things your company should be doing are: Stop selling things, hire for smiles, celebrate diversity, empower employees, sell the benefit and last but not least appeal to the buying brain (along with some others). Some of these are self explanatory but others may leave you scratching your head a little. Let me break it down for you.

1. Stop Selling Things: Steve Jobs first started Apple with a vision not "just another way to increase market shares." Most companies tend to center their vision around "selling more stuff" but that isn't very inspiring to others, including customers, so Apple focuses on a different route.

2. Hire for Smiles: Apples employees are simply hired, trained, motivated and taught to create memorable experiences for every customer that walks through their door. The store values a "magnetic" personality just as much as a person's technical proficiency.

3. Celebrate Diversity: Almost everything that's on the list of "not to hire" for another company are on the list of "TO hire" for Apple Stores. Tattoos, obscene hair, piercings, etc. are all acceptable for Apple employees in order to reflect the diversity of their customers within their workers. In short, the company doesn't look for people that fits a mold.

4. Empower Employees: Employees at Apple stores are encouraged to take their time with their customers. Talking about completely unrelated things like golfing or kids is totally acceptable because it promotes a great experience and essentially, that's all that matters.

5. Sell the Benefit: Employees at Apple are taught to sell the benefit of a product rather than just selling the product itself. They are encouraged to tailor to each separate customer. For instance, when someone with kids comes in asking about the iPad, make the kids love it by letting them play with an in-store model which will show the customer a benefit of the product.

6.Appeal to the Buying Brain: Essentially this just means that a store should be spacious, clean, organized, well-lit, etc. because the brain will consume more energy if the store environment is messy or cluttered.

Do you think Apple is on the right track? If other businesses were to follow suit do you think they would do better in sales? ...Would our expectations change?

In Response to Georgianne

Do Brazilian Blowout Products need to update their current product labeling and provide salons and product users with clearer, detailed and more truthful information about their products and how to use them safely than they are providing now?
I think that many of these products are using deceptive labeling, and their advertising could be misleading.  Do you agree?


I think that it's wrong for companies to hide ingredients on labels, especially when they could be really bad for our health like in foods, shampoos and beauty products. Things like this should be regulated. I think that because this scandal has hit the news, actions should be taken to prevent this from happening in the future and to reprimand the companies who are using Formaldehyde and other harmful chemicals in their products.


What would this type of interference from the government do to those companies that are using harmful ingredients? To their brand, reputation? What would they have to change in their marketing plan to adjust to the change?