Themed Television Commercials

When I am watching television it feels like I see more commercials than the actually show that I am watching. There are just so many different messages that are trying to get feed to people when watching one show on television shows, never mind if you’re trying to watch a movie. Companies need to find a way to get their messages to their consumers, but since everyone uses commercials to try and get their messages across, there is a lot of competition among every company that makes commercials.
One way that a company can try to gain more attention over other companies is by focusing their commercials around the same theme. For example, Geico using the pig that goes wee wee wee all the way home, or the mayhem commercials for All State. I believe that basing commercials around the same theme is a great way to break away from all of the clutter in an easy and inexpensive way. I think this is more effective than a company using one type of commercial to feature a product and then use a totally different commercial to promote the same product. What do you think?

Techniques in Movie Trailer Advertisements

While I was watching TV the other day, my roommate noticed that a commercial for a movie called "The Lucky One" kept coming on, but it wasn't the exact same commercial every time. She noticed that there was a different song playing every time the commercial came on, but I didn't really believe her at first. After she told me about it, I started to pay attention to it and she was right, there must have been three different songs that played for the same commercial. I think this is a good way to get people to save money on advertising while still being able to get people interested in the movie. This is because people won't get sick of the commercial since it doesn't seem like they are watching the same commercial over and over, as well as advertisers only having to use the same video but put different music over it.
Another technique that is used in movie trailer advertisements is not showing full scenes of the movie in the trailer. Project X and Super 8 are two examples of movies that did this and I think it worked fairly well for them because it got people interested in the movie even though they didn't know what it was about. Personal, I didn't think this technique was effective for these movies to use because once people saw the movie, and realized how bad they were, they told their friends and no one wanted to see the movie. So I think this technique is good to use only if the movie is good enough to gain interest after it has been released.

Infomercials

Whenever I watch television at night, I always see some sort of infomercial on. It never fails, whether it's for an exercising machine/workout, a kitchen appliance, or something totally outrageous like the Snuggie. Some of these infomercials are interesting and things that will help you, but some are just a scam, take the Snuggie for example. The Snuggie is just a backwards robe and people are still stupid enough to buy them.
I am curious as to how people came up with some of the ideas that infomercials are made for. Like the shake weight for example. We all clearly know when people use the shake weight that it gives the appearance of a sexual innuendo so why would they design the exercising tool to give this appearance? I think that people are less likely to buy the shake weight because of this but what do you think?

Innovations in Advertising

Since there is so much competition and clutter in advertising, companies have to start being more creative with how they get their message to consumers. Some companies have started this creative process. One example is to advertise by using escalators or stairs like the Coca Cola advertisement shown below on the left. Other companies are getting even more creative than this. The Coop paint advertisement shown below in the center includes a billboard spilling paint and below that is a few cars with the same paint on them. The last picture shown below on the right is an advertisement for watchmaker IWC where they designed straps on buses to look like the watches they make. 

 

I believe that these types of advertisements are very effective and would get a lot more people to notice them over any regular commercial, online or print advertisement. If people see these advertisements, I don't think they would or be able not think about them when they see another ad from that company. What I mean by that is if someone saw the watch advertisement and then saw a commercial for the same company; I don’t think they would be able to not associate it with the bus straps. This is great for the company because then consumers would buy their brand over others. So do you think more companies are going to get into this type of advertising? If so, do you think that these type ads would be as effective if more companies were doing them?

How Trayvon's murder is affecting Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea

I don't know if everyone has heard the story of a 17 year old, African American boy named Trayvon Martin but a February 26th, Trayvon went to the store to pick up his brother up some Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea. After the boy left the store, a neighborhood watch person named George Zimmerman called the police to report that he saw a suspicious looking person (Martin) wearing a hoodie walk out of a convenient store and down the street. The police told Zimmerman not to do anything and that they would handle it, but Zimmerman didn't listen and followed Martin anyway. After a while Martin noticed he was being followed so he turned around and punched the guy in the face and as a reaction Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot Martin to death. There has been a lot of controversy about this case ever since it happened.
The reason I bring this up is because I read an article saying that people think that the Skittle and Arizona Iced Tea companies should do something about the case because they are getting free publicity from it. For example, protesters are holding up signs displaying the brands to represent what happened. Now people think that they should do something to help Martin's family because they are getting free advertising. On the other hand, it's not these companies faults for what happened, it was something totally out of their control, and they even publicly expressed their condolences, what else could they do. So what do you think? What should the Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea companies do in this situation?

Event Sponsorship

I believe that sponsoring an event is one of the best way to advertise either a new product or a company in general. Sporting events are great to sponsor because you can reach a wide variety of consumers. For example, if Anheuser-Busch were to sponsor a baseball game, they would be able to reach everyone over the age of 21 that is at the game no matter what race or gender. This gives them the best opportunity to introduce a new product like the Bud Light Platinum. When sponsoring a sporting event, the company gets recognized either on a sign or something of that nature.
On the other hand, if a company were to sponsor a different type of event, like a concert, they would be able to be more creative with their promotional techniques. For example, if Monster sponsors a concert, they can give the band free energy drinks to drink during their performance for the audience to see. That will get people to think the band like Monster so they might be more inclined to drink it as well. With either type of event sponsorship that a company chooses to use, I believe it is a lot more effective to people over a commercial .

Emotional vs. Rational appeals

In advertising you can either try to appeal to your target market through emotions or rational thought. I believe that aiming for emotions whenever possible in advertising is the best way to connect with your audience. I think this is because it will get the consumer attached to the product on a higher level. For example, if you associate your product with babies or pets, the audience will think about either babies or pets that are their own or know very well. In relating the advertisements with their own lives, it would be more expected for them to remember the advertisement. On the other hand, the advertisement is too long and drags out, that would turn consumers away from the product because they would remember how bored they were watching or reading the advertisement. For example, the Chanel advertisement we watched in class yesterday made me very interested at first because I love the movie Moulin Rouge, but after a while I couldn't wait for it to be over. So I think the best way to catch the attention of a target market and keep it is to appeal to their emotions in a shorter, more to the point advertisement.