Post 5: Ch 7 #9

Advertising and promotional programs are the fuel that consumers strive on. Without advertising, consumers would not be aware of the products/services available, they would have a lack of knowledge about what a specific product can do to benefit or help them, they would not know what to like vs. dislike, their preferences would not be fully developed, they would have to rely on a trial and error process that is through other communication (not advertising and promotional tactics) and the likelihood that they purchase or even re-purchase a particular product is slim if advertising techniques are not apparent to remind consumers that this product exists and is beneficial.

During economic downturns, the advertising and promotional budget is the first to get slashed. From a sales-oriented objective perspective, this may happen because sales-oriented managers "spend money on advertising and promotional to sell its product or service" (Belch 219). They focus on how advertising/promotion can benefit the SALES of the product instead of how these tactics can benefit the consumer's purchase behavior cycle. Sales-oriented managers often expect an immediate impact on their sales if they focus on advertising but instead, the carry-over effect occurs, which means that money spent on advertising does not have an immediate impact on the percentage of sales (Belch 220). While this may sound understandable through a business student's eyes, it also means that sales-oriented companies may slash their advertising and promotional budgets because they are not meeting the goals they hoped to strive for at an immediate pace. This is not the best strategy to follow because advertisements have the main purpose of educating consumers which will hopefully and positively impact sales in the long run.

Cutting advertising and promotional plans also poorly impacts IMC objectives that a company creates to follow as a guideline. Any quantifiable marketing goals (goals that have a specific time frame) need advertising and promotion to help achieve that goal. These objectives are usually "realistic" and "attainable" and include advertising/promotion as well as production, pricing, and distribution of a specific product (Belch 219). If there were a lack of advertising and promotion, companies would have a difficult time striving to accomplish their objectives.

Advertising and promotional expenses do not always have to be the first to go. In a top-down budgeting approach, management creates a budget limit and the advertising and promotional costs must remain within that limit. Belch describes a top-down approach as "the affordable method" where a budget is once again created but then the rest of the money is allocated to promotional costs. However, spending limits can sometimes skyrocket and then the company would be in financial trouble. Or spending limits can be under the budget and not enough sales will cover for the company's losses (239).

Another strategy that helps promotional costs remain an integral part of an IMC plan is bottom-up budgeting where the promotional budget is created first and then specific, attainable, measurable objectives are created to later be achieved and then the overall promotional budget "is approved by top management" (239). This is also a smart way to include advertising/promotional tactics into the budget and confirm that sales will increase and consumers will be aware and knowledgeable about the product or service.

The DAGMAR model (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results) is a useful model to follow in a company. However, companies have issues with following the basic hierarchy: awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action. If companies cannot abide by this model, they cannot understand what they are doing right or wrong. Sales-oriented companies often ignore the DAGMAR approach, leading to a cut in the advertising and promotional budget because DAGMAR lacks in "practicality and costs" and "inhibits creativity" (Belch 229). These are important tactics when advertising is involved because an ad should be generated to send a clear message to the consumer by using creative and qualitative tactics.

If a company focuses on communications objectives, it is determining specific, measurable, and obtainable objectives for the advertising and promotional goals that the company hopes to achieve. This is a healthy mindset in terms of companies who want to have a long-lasting impact on consumers and their purchase behavior. Cutting advertising/promotional budgets can negatively impact sales, negatively impact the relationship between the company and its ad agency, and negatively impact the end goals for a company which are outlined in an obtainable objective list that helps guide the company towards success.

Post 4: Super bowl forty eight.

Super bowl 48’s advertisements focused on family, friends, and what a vehicle, cup of yogurt, or new movie can do to positively impact the world. While many ads had an innocent, feel-good communication channel to the consumer, other advertisements created a whole new spin on what is ethical to air on TV.

1) What was the best advertisement, and why?

One of the top best advertisements was for Budweiser, entitled “Puppy Love.” It showed a yellow lab and a farm horse falling in love while the man and woman featured in the commercial grew emotionally connected through the animals. The hashtag at the end read “Budweiser: #bestbuds,” reiterating the message of the product creating an undeniable connection between two people or two animals. One of the reasons this advertisement worked so well was because of the music that was used to encode the message of love and friendship. Budweiser used a well-known currently popular song (Let Her Go by Passenger) that sang, “only know you love her when you let her go…” to channel the message of undeniable love and kinship that Budweiser beer offers to the consumer.

My personal favorite advertisement was for Goldie Blox, a new line of toys targeted towards young girls who have dreams to be female engineers or other male-dominated professions. The song during the commercial says, “more than pink pink pink we want to think think think.” This new toy line offers new options for young girls who want to break out of the binary of “pink is for girls, blue is for boys / dress up is for girls, building is for boys.” The ad also caters to the other important audience, the parents, who are the consumers of this product because they purchase for their children. This ad is attractive because it is similar, likeable, and familiar in the ways of children playing with toys, young girls choosing a new toy line that caters to their likes, and the average consumer familiarizing themselves with children liking toys that are good for them.

2) What was the worst advertisement, and why?

The worst advertisement was for Axe’s War and Peace body spray for men. It discriminates against communities from foreign countries, showcasing their acts of war on other people. The ad only matches with Axe’s body spray name, but it does not fit with the actual product and the lack of relation between an American teenage boy’s scent and how it infuses love or war into the world. As Belch describes source credibility, this advertisement does not include “honesty, belief or skill” into the advertisement. It gives off phoniness to how credible it is.

3) What was the best use of humor, and why?

The Cheerios commercial uses a young African American girl asking for a puppy after her dad tells her that she’s going to be having a little brother. The ad portrays funny, quirky family characteristics as well as advertising an interracial family to America. It includes successful communication techniques because it targets the source of family, gives the message of Cheerios being a family-cereal, targets a family-oriented audience, and may receives positive feedback from consumers who enjoy the cereal and the feeling of closeness it brings.

4) Were any advertisements ethically questionable, and why?  (This can include a discussion of sexist ads, if applicable)

-Dannon Oikos yogurt commercial insinuated to a woman performing sexual favors just for a spilled bite of Danna yogurt. While the commercial included a humorous aspect by the 3 former Full House actors, it shows a woman giving up her dignity for something as simple as food while attempting to portray this product as irresistible, sexual, and necessary. The use of celebrity endorsers worked well in this ad because it showed men cleaning the house and creating a bond between friends who function as parents together. The humor may have only reached a niche market though: consumers who watched Full House in the 80s and 90s.

5) What was the best (if any) advertisement for an environmental or sustainability related product, service or issue?

-Soda Stream features Scarlet Johansson explaining that she (and the product) help save the world by reducing plastic bottle waste. The first few seconds showed how the Sodastream worked and why it would help reduce waste in the environment but the rest of the 20-second clip featured Johansson promoting the product with her sexual-infused physique, completely undermining the message of what the Sodastream can do for the world. Sodastream’s advertising tactic was to use a celebrity source to encode a message about the product helping the world be a better place. Johansson has a positive public image, despite events that she has been involved in in the past. However, she may now be publicly scrutinized because of the way she portrayed a soft-drink machine.

Post 3: Chapter 6 P211 Question 7

Retrieved from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/katy-perry-popchips-pics-ad-campaign-366612

Katy Perry endorses popchips, a puffed potato chip snack that does not include any unnatural ingredients, preservatives or trans-fat. Perry's celebrity status elevates the popularity of the snack food, creating a more likable and familiar face to resonate with the popchips brand. Celebrities often acquire "stopping power" which is when the celebrity who endorses a specific product or service influences a consumer's purchase behavior. Celebrities may also affect the consumer by allowing a longer reaction time to the advertisement. For example, Perry is well-liked by a wide demographic of consumers, ranging from young adolescent girls to adults. This demographic segment also matches up with the product, popchips, because they are a snack that targets everyone, especially a market of consumers who are consciously aware of their healthy eating habits. 

McCracken's meaning transfer model starts with the potential issue of the celebrity overshadowing the product (Belch 187). popchips chose an effective celebrity to represent the product without any problems of overshadowing. Despite the sexist undertones of the advertisement, which will be explained below, Perry elevates the brand by maintaining her self-image as a positive influence for her audience. That message transfers to the brand as well, signaling that it has a good reputation.

Overexposure is not a problem for Katy Perry and her agreement to endorse popchips. She has mainly promoted popchips in a series of different ads, as well as her own perfume line, and an endorsement for Proactiv acne treatment. Because Perry appears in a variety of popchips ads, her face is well-known to the brand.

As discussed above, popchips' target audience is any consumer who eats snack foods. popchips specializes their brand by focusing on consumers who care about what they eat. Perry's image is receptive to popchips because of her own target audience: adolescents, teenagers, and adults who like pop music. 

The return on investment will be positive for consumers who relate popchips to "healthy" snack foods. Perry's image projects that meaning onto the popchips brand by her current popular status in the media and music sectors of the world. As Perry's image continues to emerge, her popularity will remain effective in sending the right messages about the popchips brand.

Regarding the prevalence of sexism in today's advertising and promotional world, popchips and Katy Perry create the illusion of "real" being good for the consumer. popchips regards this theme in terms of the natural ingredients involved in making the product, unlike a competitor chip. In the first ad, Perry is dressed in workout clothes and the script under reads: "i curl popchips right to my lips. good thing they don't go straight to my hips." 

In the second ad, two bags of popchips are placed in front of Perry's breasts, symbolizing (and assuming) that her body is also natural. This creates issues about plastic surgery, whether or not it was medical or cosmetic, and the normative roles that women are placed in media. 

While some critics believe that the message popchips and Perry are conveying may be about body-positivity or maintaining a healthy figure, it reinforces the fact that when women celebrities endorse a product, their bodies are somehow incorporated into the ad. This is unnecessary and places more emphasis on where the physical bags of popchips are in the ad instead of what the ad is trying to teach consumers. 

Post 2: Chapter 4 #7

Green advertising involves positive reinforcement through the process of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is defined as "the individual must actively operate on an aspect of the environment in order for learning to occur" (Belch 130). This process can be developed through the messages each "green" advertisement sends, where the consumer must act on an aspect within the environment in order for learning to sink in and develop the consumer's thinking and future purchase behavior.

In the examples below, green advertising showcases a company that promotes saving the environment, organizations that support the environment by showing the negative impacts of what humans do to it, or simplified versions of what the "environment" means to the average consumer.

Examples of green advertising include:

A Downtown Pittsburgh PNC branch focuses on a green initiative idea by creating a garden wall with its brand name grown on the bottom (http://www.oberholtzer-creative.com/visualculture/).

The World Wildlife Fund encourages consumers to volunteer to their organization by showing the future of a "dying" environment in the visual form of pair of lungs (http://www.urbanlol.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/funny-advertising-ideas-13.jpg). 

A poster advertising global warming's effects on the world (http://blog.uprinting.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/environmental-awareness-posters-01.png). 

Post 1: Chapter 1 Question #3

#3. Discuss how integrated marketing communications differs from traditional advertising and promotion. What are some of the reasons more marketers are taking an IMC perspective to their advertising and promotional programs?

The importance of IMC tactics stems from advertising and promotional strategies becoming more integral in today's "social and economic systems." Due to this reason, more and more consumers are becoming aware of the images, media, and advertising around them and they are paying attention to the messages behind all of it.
Regarding my blogging project, advertising that centers around the negative portrayals of women, women's bodies/minds/etc., can have a negative impact on young and adolescent girls who are exposed to this advertising daily. The interesting part of this advertising is that the target audience for these sexist ads may be older males or another demographic but the message is actually affecting the opposite demographic. Integrated marketing communications focuses on offering various marketing strategies all at once so that the message the product or service is attempting to deliver can be as clear and precise as possible. 
Marketers prefer IMC tactics over traditional strategies because it offers more value to the message behind the product/service. IMC tactics focus primarily on the evolution of technology and the usage of the Internet as a main form of advertising because consumers use that as their primary source of getting information. A new form of marketing called micro-marketing has also developed, wiping out the idea of sending out the message of many just to persuade a few. Now, marketers are focusing on smaller groups of people to get a message across for a product in hopes of incrementally persuading people through media-based advertising.  

blogging project introduction.

Although I am not an advertising major/minor, I have always noticed and commented on advertisements that are deemed sexist or discriminatory towards women within society. For my blogging project this semester, I would like to create a compilation of these advertisements, as well as positive ads that promote women as people whether it be through health, business, education, body-positivity, etc. I think it is important to combat the advertising world with healthy images of the female gender to demolish stereotypes that are most prevalent in the media.