Subliminal Advertising

No more than ever subliminal advertising is taking over. It is in just about every add we see on TV whether we realize it or not. Whether its to convince us we need something, or convince us that we don't need something, subliminal advertising is all around us. I found a cartoon that pretty much sums it up.

Status Symbols

Status symbol products are everywhere - a product or service which sends a message to others, perhaps that the consumer is affluent. For instance rolex watches are synonymous with prestige, the name rolex defines class, or perhaps the name "caddilac" or even "gucci" all these are examples of some of the status symbols we have in society today.

Innovation

I think a great example of a product that consumers thought was innovative, and I might add the rest of industry had to copy, was the iphone. Well this is not as monumentive as say the invention of the cell phone itself, it definitely was leader in touch screen technology for cell phones and set the bar for what a call phone should actually look like. Still today companies are scrambling trying to keep up with this innovative device.

Price Bundling

Price bundling is everywhere! I notice in almost every store I go into especially with video games. For example if you buy the new rockband, you don't just get the standard equipment. It comes with games already included in the product. So while you pay more than the machine is technically worth, you also get included games that you may or may not actually want. But because it comes with the product there is little you can do.

Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is extremely commong and also very effective. Whether it is, sports althletes or movie stars, it pays to have famous people using your product. I think one of the most famous examples is the james bond car. It seems to have always been an aston marten, and that alone has probably helped to sell thousands of aston market and helped them to extablish a reputation of class and prestige amoung luxorious auto makers. Take for example this picture. Pierce helps to sell the car itself.

Guerilla Marketing

I experienced guerilla marketing today as I walked out of Todd only to be bombarded by people handing out flyers to events. Granted with the amount of people that commonly do this, it is not completely unexpected, but still the point remains that it is suppossed to be a neutral environment and yet I was being marketed too. Guerilla marketing seems to me to the most common type of marketing and yet the least effective, as it is sort of the in person version of being a tellemarketer, very few people are going to be pleased that you are suprising them at often in opportutine times, to try and sell them something that they most likel will not want anyway.

Database Marketing

I recieve emails constantly (much to my irritation) from companies that I have previously purchased from. This is a classic example of databse marketing at its finest. You make a one tmie purchase and then you recieve emails long after you have made the purchase trying to tempt you into buying something again. These are obviously companies that have adapted the IMC method of marketing and are clearly not content with offering one time sales, and want to try and encourage brand loyalty though their emails.

Price Lining

I was looking at a buying a new car the other day and saw a perfect example of price lining. With a tons and tons of combinations, there was seperate prices for each. Leather, for instance was additional, the type of sound system, even sunroof vs. moonroof options. Almost everything you can think of as an additional feature came as an option but not without raising the price of course. It's very smart if you think about. Advertising a car at a good price to get people interested and then showing them all of the other available options for extra prices and before you know it, you have spent much more on a car than you had initially planned.

Product MIx

In the course of my casual stock trades, and doing research on certain companies. I cam across the blue chip Proctor and Gamble. Most people know that they produce a variety of goods but very few people recognize just how wide of a product mix that they truly have They have over 24 seperate brands that each seperatly have hundreds of different products! When you purchase common products such as, Oral B, or Pringles, one very rarely realizes that they are consuming a Proctor and Gamble product. Indeed this company has done a masterful job, of obtaining an enormous product mix.

Generational Marketing

I noticed a a lot of examples of generational marketing with adds on TV. One that especially stood out was Enterprise rent-a-car. Obviously the demographic of people that rent cars are usually older than probobaly 30. Very few young people go to the trouble to rent a car, we prefer to simply hitch rides, or better yet get someone to pick us up. Yet the enterprise commercial shows a husband and wife (middle aged) about to take a trip and in need to rent a car. I don't think I have ever seen an enterprise commercial with simply young people renting a car, and for good reason, it is simply not my demographic. I guess this example shows that generational branding is truly and effective mechanism.