Have a Tiffany Christmas

This holiday season there have been some hit commercials from Dick Sporting Goods, Old Spice and Nike. The one ad I’m focusing on in this blog is Tiffany & Co’s holiday commercial.

Many people are LOVING Tiffany & Co’s eighty second commercial focusing on engagement rings. (The one I posted from YouTube is 30 seconds long.)

This commercial was first released in the United States in November and focus on monumental areas in New York including Central Park and Rockefeller Center. The ads have a Frozen meet Mad Men feel to them which attract consumer’s attention.

The ad is animated by Psyop, which also takes a snapshot of scenes from the commercial and place them into Tiffany’s store windows, including the Tiffany & Co on Michigan Ave. The commercials don’t have a heavy meaning, they are basically fun and full of sparkles from the jewelry and snow.

The song, “Out of the Blue” is by Chauncey Jacks and was only created for the sole purpose of the commercial. Unfortunately, the song cannot be purchased or downloaded.

Tiffany & Co, a luxury jewelry store, makes over 20% of the years revenue just on the holiday season alone. They focus on symbols such as their blue box and love in order to advertise effectively.  Most luxury stores create ads based on nostalgia in the past, while Tiffany & Co instead uses a contemporary display of Christmas in US culture.

While the commercial has been a hit thus far, there are critiques who point out that most of the “people” pictured in the story are primarily white, heterosexual couples, which is far from diverse.

What do you think about Tiffany & Co holiday commercials? Do you find them effective?

References:

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/adweeks-top-5-commercials-week-nov-17-26-161678 (Commercial)

Digital Ad Overtaking TV Ads

Thanks to Neflix, Comcast and streaming, it seems like ages ago I sat through an entire television commercial. The only time I look forward to watching commercials is during the Superbowl! How are advertisers able to maintain reaching audiences without the ability to have as much of a reach through television? The answer is Digital Advertising. According to the online site, Advertising Age,  global ad revenue will grow up to 4.8% (which comes out to $536 BILLION) in 2015.  The article also states that digital media will “reach 30% market share globally in 2015, and it’s on track to surpass TV revenue in the US by 2017”.

In 2014, digital media grew to 142 billion (17%) due to new social formats and mobile campaigns. In 2015 its expected to continue to increase by another 15%. Digital media is also affecting other international markets, such as the UK, which is the number one media category over television and magazines. Newspaper ads decreased 4.3% while magazines took a bigger hit, down 7.3%. Surprisingly, out-of-home media grew 3.4% while radio stayed the same.  Mobile ad spending is predicted to be a huge digital revenue by 2016- it’s expected to account for 1/4 of all digital revenues.

TV revenue in the United States is expected to decrease by 1.4% to 169.5 billion in comparison to the increase of digital media. The reason why there was a decrease in television spending was due to the bad weather that affected restaurants, automobile and retail. The main reason was due to consumers “heightened interest in digital”. Since digital is cheaper and more visually appealing than traditional advertisements, it rose in power in comparison to television ads.

Other countries such as India, Japan, Spain, UK and Australia’s advertising revenue grew this year while Russia, China, Brazil, Canada and Germany’s grew slower than expected.

It doesn’t seem to be quite a surprise that digital media will overtake television. In fact, for people of my generation, I feel that it took quite some time for businesses to put more money into digital advertising than television. Newspapers caught on faster that people were acquiring their information from the internet. Thus, online newspaper publications were created. How were advertisers not savvy about focusing more of their ads online when the trend to watch television shows, movies and the news on it? What do you think about digital advertising overtaking television campaigns?

References:

Bruell, A. (2014, December 8). Digital Ad Spending to Pass TV by 2017, Magna Global Says | Agency News – Advertising Age. Retrieved December 13, 2014, from http://adage.com/article/agency-news/digital-ad-spending-pass-tv-2017-magna-global/296090/

Farmer’s Fridge

While I was walking back from Christkindmarket this weekend, I discovered an unusual looking vending machine. It was larger than an ordinary vending machine  and it was made of all wood. My friends and I took a closer look and discovered an innovating healthy vending machine called Farmer’s Fridge. Inside this machine were fresh salads all placed in a glass jar. Inside the jar there consisted a variety of salads with fresh ingredients that you selected on a touch screen. The dressing was also located in the machine. What made this machine fascinating was how user-friendly it was. Each image of the salad also showed the nutrition (calories) and ingredients in it. All you had to do was select the salad you want, apply the 20% off coupon that was listed next to the computer and voila! The salad would dispense from the machine and you can eat your healthy meal on the go!

My friends and I loved how creative this idea was! The machine was interactive which brought life into a mundane lunch break. It changes the concept that only vending machines consist of unhealthy foods, which means junk food is easy to get, not healthy foods. At first, I was cautious about the fresh food being placed in a vending machine. Fresh foods go bad quickly because there are no preservatives in it. I was wrong! As I researched the company, I discovered that the food is replaced every day and the packaging is made out of recyclable plastics which have an extremely low oxygen diffusion rate. This allows less oxygen to hit the food making it last longer without the use of artificial ingredients. Every unsold salad after 6 pm is discounted by a $1 and ever unsold are distributed to a local food pantry.

Farmer’s Fridge is changing the way in which people can buy healthy foods. You can buy delicious, healthful foods at affordable cost within minutes. Farmer’s Fridge was able to position their company as an innovative and sustainable company which is changing the way American’s consume food on the run. The incorporation of a digital kiosk also makes them ahead of other vending machines/fresh food companies.

I’m excited to see how Farmer’s Fridge will do in the future. For now, they are able to incorporate consumer’s time and need for a healthy diet all in one!

End of Global Advertising?

Global advertising seems to be the wave of the future. With the creations of social media and digital media, companies that wanted to succeed added global advertising sales teams to their divisions.

That is at least what it used to seem to be. Now, things may be changing.

As of Wednesday, October 29th 2014, Microsoft  laid off its global advertising salesforce in the US, UK and other global offices. Microsoft’s advertising had spaces across Skype, Outlook, Xbox, Bing, Windows 8 and MSN properties. This job cut, which affects 18,000 roles, has been the largest sweep of job cuts in Microsoft’s history. Many clients of Microsoft were told by account managers of Microsoft Advertising that they would no longer be able to finish up the lined up campaigns.

Many are confused as to why Microsoft picked to cut their global agencies and accounts team since the handle “all of Microsoft’s relationship with top advertising agencies and brand-side marketers, as well as Yarn, an in-house creative team responsible for keeping marketers up to date with the latest updates to its advertising formats” (1).

Microsoft has yet to provide further information as to why they specifically closed down their digital advertising division.

The only people from Microsoft’s Advertising team that were not let go of (for now) were the executive team headed by Frank Holland. By keeping the executive team, this means that there is still a sales team in place and that Microsoft Advertising is “streamlining to favor negotiating larger partnerships with key brands, rather than concentrating selling large volumes of display inventory across its network” (1).

Many sites, such as eMarketer, speculated Microsoft’s decision to close Microsoft Advertising based on their shares of global display advertising market the previous year. They were at 2.45% whereas Google was at 31.92% and Facebook at almost 6%. In addition, last year sold their Atlas online advertising server to Facebook, another key sign that they were trying to remove themselves from global advertising sector.

What do you think about Microsoft’s decision to lay off their global advertising salesforce? Do you think Microsoft is coming up with a different strategy to advertise effectively or do you think this may be a beginning sign to the end of companies relying on global advertising?

References:

OReilly, L. (2014, October 31). Microsoft Fires Global Advertising Sales Team. Retrieved November 4, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-advertising-sales-team-redundancies-2014-10

Image taken from: http://www.storminvestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/storm-14.jpg

THE BOOM OF MOBILE ADVERTISING

When was the first time you got a cell phone?

When I was younger, I always marveled my parent’s cell phone. Whenever they were not looking, I would sneak it out of my mom’s purse and play games on it or call a family member. It wasn’t until I graduated from eighth grade that I finally owned my first cell phone! It was the beginning of a whole new world.

There wasn’t much I could do with my first cell phone that I could do now. Sure, I could text or call my friends but I never used the internet, sent emails, listened to music on it or used apps. Cell phones were in the initial stages of becoming the next new digital media medium. Over the following years, cell phones transformed from being a device used to call someone to becoming a handheld computer. By the time I entered college, I had an iPhone which changed the way I viewed communication and eventually cell phones changed the way people sell products to one another.

This is called mobile advertising- and it’s on a rise.

Due to the increased use of smartphones and internet technologies, China has now become the “fastest growing mobile advertising market in the world” (1). China has become a huge advertising expenditure that its broadcasted to grow at…get this… 834%! That is about three times the global growth rate in the advertising industry from 2013-2016.

You may be wondering which categories are experiencing such high growth in mobile advertising. These are: automotive, luxury and beauty. These fields are booming in the mobile advertising field largely due to Chinese people born between 1982-1994. This range of people use mobile technology the most and TRUST their mobile phone with payment. In addition, they are the biggest spenders.

Although North America and Western Europe have a larger population of smartphone users, China has the third largest population “which indicates that China is a mature market in terms of smartphone penetration” (1).

Chinese advertisers have two huge advantages. One is the ease in which they can adapt to new technologies. Secondly, they also tend to be conservative when it comes to the exchange of digital technologies with their overseas peers. This allows them much more room for future progress. Advertisers are putting more attention into localization because it will allow them to create a business model in which can help them determine change in trends.

Dexing, Q. (Ed.). (2014, October 22). Mobile advertising on a roll: Report. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/10-22/139406.shtml

Image taken from:   http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/10-22/139406.shtml

The End of TV Advertising

When was the first time you ate an Oreo cookie?

I remember watching “The Parent Trap” (recall a normal Lindsay Lohan?) when I was about eight years old. In one scene, Hallie turns to her twin, Annie, and asks if she wants an Oreo. They discover that they both enjoy eating Oreos with peanut butter. From that point on, I always associated Oreos with the innocence and coolness of that movie. Even at eight years old, I was a target of product placement and subconsciously became a lifelong customer to Oreos (until I realized the amount of chemicals and preservatives injected in them).

Every time I went to a youth group event in junior high and high school, I would snatch an Oreo  and would do what the actors did in the commercial: twist both cookies apart in order to see if the cream would end up on one side or the other! Oreo makes many sentimental commercials portraying parents or grandparents sharing a tender moment with their child/grandchild over a glass of milk with Oreos.

A week ago, Mondelez International (formerly known as Kraft who owns Oreo’s) signed a global advertising deal with Google that will be spending millions of dollars consecutively on online video. It was reportedly  Mondelez International’s biggest digital media deal ever. Mondelez’s strategy this year is to commit ten percent of their advertising budget towards online video. In the past, Mondelez spent most of their budget on TV but now they are focusing on the emerging advertising medium of online video.

Mondelez plans to aim half of their media budget into digital advertising by 2016 because they “drive ‘twice’ the return of traditional TV advertising” (1). This is bad news for broadcasters which have been hurting due to other huge brands following the lead of Mondelez by moving their advertising budget online.

In addition to the advertising deal with Google, Mondelez is now joining YouTube to create a low-cost but high quality video content. The videos are planning to feature digital starts in order to create highly engaged audience to build an affinity with the brand.

Surprisingly, eMarketer researchers have recently forecasted that “online video ad spending would overtake the amount spent on TV advertising by 2018” (1).

Mondelez chose to switch from traditional media to digital in order to increase and improve media efficiency. What do YOU think about the switch from TV to digital media mediums?

Citation: O’Reilly, L. (2014, October 1). The Owner Of Oreos Just Signed A Huge Deal With Google That Will Terrify TV Broadcasters. Retrieved October 16, 2014.

Image from: http://jacquelinel9.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/the-parent-trap-still-010.jpg

Youtube video link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl95nIN3Jx8

Starbucks on TV

During fall break I explored many areas in the city of Chicago. There are so many magnificent museums, parks, exhibits, restaurants and shows that amaze all my guests who come in to visit. My aunt, who visited me from DC, walked all over downtown and Michigan Ave for hours. We noticed that besides the amazing attractions, architectural sites and a beautiful lake that everywhere we turned there was literally a Starbucks at every corner! This got me thinking about how often Starbucks affects people’s everyday lives.

Every time I’m in class, there is at least one student near me who has a the white coffee cup with the green logo. Whenever my friend’s want to spend very little money we chose the nearest Starbucks to meet up. When I’m bored at the airport, I look for a Starbucks to fill up on a delicious hot chocolate, or a passion tea if I’m on a diet.

Why is it that Starbucks has become a popular hangout and go-to when we’re in different settings all over the globe?

One explanation for Starbuck’s smooth transition into individuals daily lives is based on their global campaigns. The Seattle Times recently reported that Starbucks is currently “launching a global television advertising campaign that doesn’t peddle frappucinos, lattes or tasty pastries- but rather the idea that the coffee giant’s shops are a great place to hang out” (1).

Starbucks has always been identifying themselves as the “third place” to go in your daily life to socialize- apart from your work and home. They will now be incorporating their concept of being the “third place” in an expensive TV ad campaign.  Have you ever seen Starbucks being advertised on TV? The answer is no. This will be the first time EVER that Starbucks will pitch about the identity of their company, but not about their products.

The ad is going to be a documentary- style shot at 59 different stores in 28 counties over a one 24- hour period. The locations are international and national including: Prague, Tokyo, New York, Hawaii and California. The reasoning why they shot globally was due to Starbucks  strategy of pushing their company out of the US market due to it’s plans for long-term growth in international operations.

What do you think about Starbuck’s strategy of introducing a TV ad in order to communicate about the brand?

Image links:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1270037/thumbs/o-STARBUCKS-DRINK-ORDER-facebook.jpg

http://indianewsmagazine.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Starbucks-cafe.jpg

Citation:

González, A. (2014, September 29). New Starbucks campaign touts role as global hangout. Retrieved October 8, 2014, from http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2024658627_starbucksadxml.html

Digital Life in 2025

Recently I was asked the popular question, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

I took a few moments to think about and said, “I’m not sure. Hopefully I will be in a career that I enjoy and married.”

“How about in 20 years?”

I pondered for a few moments and said, “I have NOOO idea.”

Twenty years feels like a century away when we make future plans. Surprisingly enough, it was only 25 years ago that the internet was created.  On March 12^th, 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee created a paper discussing a storing information program called Enquire. This was the first prototype for the first world-wide web server. He went on to create a hypertext browser/editor in order to allow people to share their information in a web of hypertext documents. Thus, the internet was formed!

Who knew the internet was created only a few years before any of us were born?  In order to commemorate the World Wide Web’s 25^th anniversary, Pew Research decided to take a look and see how digital technology will change over the next decade. 1500 Internet analysts were surveyed to see how the future of the internet will be played out in the next quarter century. They discovered that entertainment and information will become even more accessible due to the creation of promising trends in the upcoming future. Yet, this will also create a continued loss of privacy, increasing cyberbullying and crime. The findings concluded that:

• “There will be a global, immersive, invisible ambient networked computing environment” (1).
• “A continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things ” (1).
• Reality will be expanded due to new wearable and portable technologies.
• Business models (primarily in finance, education, publishing and entertainment) created in the 20^th century will be altered due to the constant change in the Internet.
• “Tagging, data basing and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms” (1) will be created by that time.

Many Internet analysts believe that the internet will end up being the background in all we do. Devices will have their own way of communicating and their own social networks, which will change the way information is controlled and accessible. Social life will be more integrated, exposure of human gaps in terms of beliefs and behaviors will be shed more into life and more individuals all over the globe will have the ability to become highly educated.

What do you think agree with these results? Or do you think the Internet will be at a standstill in the next 25 years?

Digital life in 2025: Internet will become ‘like electricity’. (2014, March 11). Retrieved September 24, 2014, from

I WANT MY MTV

                             

When was the first time you became aware of MTV? I recall my mother telling me NOT to watch MTV when I was little. She stated that it used to be a fun, innovative network that provided music videos 24/7. People from the middle of nowhere in America were able to watch the same cool music videos that someone in the Upper East side of New York- at the same time! Unfortunately, it began to change.

I wanted to see what was the “change” she referred to so I would wait for my mom to go upstairs. Once she did, I would click on channel 38 to see why she was so anti- MTV. Once the channel lit up, I realized why she was so determined to have me not view it- because it was filth.

With the creation of “Real World”  and other reality TV shows, it seemed that MTV turned from being innovative into being raunchy in order to receive attention.

Even though I don’t watch MTV for those reasons, it’s still one of the most popular stations for viewers age 12-late 20’s. This age group is known for being tech-savvy and up to date with the latest digital technology.

That’s why in 2014 MTV and HP created the Engine Room series. This was a six week period in which digital arts could compete in order to show off their design skills in the European markets. In order to increase the amount of people competing, MTV also partnered with AdMob in order to use its mobile advertising networks.

AdMob was able to tap into MTV’s youth markets while MTV was able to use AdMob’s mobile ad platform to “run eye-catching display banners and local language text link ads to country-specific mobile sites”.

The results from the Digital Case Study showed that the iPhone was an “especially responsive medium due to AdMob’s iPhone ad unit”.  The average click- through- rates (CTR) was 1.2% on iPhone in the United Kingdom and an average CTR across all other European markets exceeded 0.90%. In addition, over the 24 days of the campaign, AdMob had more than 11 million ad impressions. This exceed the campaign objectives on clicks.

Even though I personally don’t like MTV, I still believe that they are able to draw in young people and are strategic in order to assist other companies with bringing in young people to use mobile sites. This study was interesting in understanding how both companies were able to profit off each other while using their main target audience: young people!

Mahony, Ed. (2014, January 1). CASE STUDY MTV ; HP. Retrieved September 17, 2014, from http://www.admob.com/marketing/pdf/MTV_AdMobCaseStudy.pdf

iAdvertising

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IPhone 6 has been THE hot topic of the week. Everywhere you turn whether it be the news or your family member, the new iPhone is casually brought up. Many blogs and websites saturate the internet discussing how the IPhone 6 is worse or better than the previous phones. My blog article will (thankfully) not be discussing the pros and cons about the new iPhone. Instead i’m going to talk about the other item created by Apple that has also received much discussion- the Apple Watch and Apple’s advertising.

The big discussion regarding the Apple Watch is the comparison between its competitor’s technological watches. According to the Wall Street Journal, it states that “the bar set by the competition isn’t incredibly high…The Apple Watch looks great…”. Apple has been known to create innovative products that are also visually appealing. In addition, Apple also has been known to create monumental advertisements that emotionally impact customers.

Advertisements (such as the one below) are effective in terms of showcasing the product and using a catchy phrase in order to draw customers in. Another creative advertising technique Apple did was by collaborating with U2. U2 released their new album, Songs of Innocence, for free on iTunes the day Apple introduced the Apple Watch.

Impressive.

According to aplus.com article, the iWatch has many excellent features including: Siri, real time notifications, detecting heart and pulse rate, tracking your fitness progress, vibrations when you change directions while walking/driving, locking your car or hotel room and taping your contacts digitally (“Digital Touch”).

My question is: how will Apple be able to make customer’s bring back wearing watches? Since so many features on their phones replace watches, I am curious to see how will they advertise tp young people, (who primarily don’t own a watch) that they should NOT use their iPhone and instead use their watch to tell time. In addition, how will Apple’s competitors try to change the manner in which their current technological watches fail to impress consumers? My questions depend immensely on how competitors and Apple advertise their product.

There are no questions asked that the Apple Watch will end up being the one of Apple’s new game changing product. Apple was able to create a need for consumers to want to buy their computers, phones, iPads and iPods. I am positive that they will be able to use their brilliant advertisements in order to continue to create a need for consumers to buy the Apple Watch, Apple Watch 2, 3 until infinity.

 

 

 

   

 

BENSINGER, G., & SIDEL, R. (2014, September 9). Can Apple Solve Riddle of Mobile Payments With Apple Pay Service? Retrieved September 10, 2014, from http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2014/09/09/apple-watch-hands-on-first-look/

Carissimo, J. (2014, September 9). 11 Amazing Things The New Apple iWatch Can Do. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from http://aplus.com/a/apple-iwatch-release

Jingle Jingle Little Star

How old were you when you first became aware of the world of advertising? I first became aware of advertisements when I was about five years old. I would wake up  early each Saturday morning and watch “One Saturday Morning” with my little sister. Man were those the days! I recalled being glued to the TV (but only for an hour and a half- that was the limit my mother set upon us) and continuously watched the brightly colored commercials. These commercials were telling me and my sister to buy things that would make us popular with our school peers which would make us happy. The first commercial I realized that I was being “sold” to was a Pokemon Pikachu commercial. The jingle they played over and over again was “Pika Pika, Pikachu!” with a bunch of kids of all different nationalities smiling with the toy. Less than ten years later the jingle still rings in my head randomly from time to time.  The question I wanted to explore in my blog is: why are jingles used in global advertising and is it affective?

A few years ago a study was done at the University of Wisconsin- Lacrosse regarding the effects of lyrics and music on recalling advertisements. They compared if instrumental music or vocal music was more effective in convincing customers to buy certain products. They studied seventy six undergraduate students and made them listen to three advertisements. Each advertisement was the same yet were slightly changed- some advertisements had the same male radio speaker with either instrumental or vocal music were played in the background. Each student was immediately asked to recall the ad after they heard the advertisements. In order to test the long term effect of the ad, students were followed up one week later to study their recollection of the ad. The study explained that jingles are used in advertising to “attract the customer’s attention, carry the advertised product’s message and act as a mnemonic device…  songs are an effective way to communicate a concept or idea in a memorable way” (1). The study also discovered that there was truly no difference between the recollection of the product if the advertisement used instrumental music or vocal music. Albeit the jingle (music) itself is what causes the consumers to remember a product.

So next time you catch yourself humming a jingle, know that the millions of dollars and hours spent into creating that perfect jingle in order to stick into your memory has worked!

 

Heaton, M., & Paris, K. (2006, January 1). The Effects of Music Congruency and Lyrics on Advertisement Recall. Retrieved September 3, 2014.