Lately we have been talking about good and bad publicity. We pose the question, is all publicity good publicity? In my opinion, I think that all publicity is good for someone's career if all they care about is being famous and being known. If a celebrity does something wrong and either goes to jail or rehad for it, there are always going to be fans out there who still like them, or who like them even more now because of their "bad" image. There are many celebrities who want to be seen as role models and they do not want their names spread across the tabloids each week for something small that they did and now regret. Also, you cannot always believe the publicity that you see. Even if it is publicity about something good a celeb has done, it still may not be true. This can go the same way for brands. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch got a lot of heat about their scandalous catalogue they produce. It gave A&F a bad image to some people, like parents, but a sexy, hot image to others, like teens or young adults. A&F obviously believes that all publicity is good publicity or they would not produce this magazine with fears that parents would not want their kids wearing A&F merchandise.

News

When I want to know about something I usually just look it up online. With today’s resources it’s so easy to go directly to what you want to know instead of having to watch long news broadcast. Every now and then I will watch the news if it is something major that is going on and I want to watch them broadcast the latest news, but for the most part I use news sources like USAtoday.com where I can get the news I want when I want it. I checked out both BBC and the New York times and found them also to be very good. They had a lot of options and showed world wide news which is really good because you can know what is going on around the world. BBC was very easy to navigate around and find what you want. New York Times was a really good website but tended to just be information on things that were happening in the United States with some information about world wide events. I think now matter how you get your news its important to know what is going on around you and around the world.

Professor Sanghvi asked us to compare the NY Times news, BBC news, and our local news to each other. For my news, I will usually just watch the morning news show on local tv stations so I can see what the weather will be like and just to see what is going on. I went to the NY Times webpage and also to BBC news webpage and I there are some differences in those sources and the local news webpage. In the NY Times they had more categories and articles to choose from. It was set up very well and you could easily read and naviagte your way around. BBC was great also because they had sections for each part of the world. NY Times had national news and then world news, but the world news section was very large and covered every other part of the world in one section. For the local news webpage, they provided accurate, efficient news, but it was mostly just local news. Local news does not cover as much national or worldly news that the NY Times or BBC covers. Personally, I liked the NY Times the best because I am more interested in national news. For someone who wants to know what is going on all around the world, BBC would be the best for them. How does this relate to marketing? I was asking myself this as I was looking at all of these websites. I believe that for small businesses the local news on televion and their website are great places for advertisements. A lot of people rely on the local news for weather and traffic, so many people will watch or visit the website numerous times a day and see an advertisement for a brand or local business. As for the NY Times and BBC, a brand that is known nationally and worldwide would do best advertising either in the paper or on the website. A brand that everyone knows and everyone has either used or will use in the future. A food or beverage brand would be best because everyone is familiar with these kinds of brands. Placing ads on the websites would be the best thing to do because there are a few number of people who actually pick up the NY Times newspaper and read it. Placing it online will be better visibility and will reach a broader audience.

When we watched the ad for Macy's that included all of the different celebrities and designers, I knew that I would remember this ad and think about it before I would remember or think about a Belk or Dillards ad. I think that Macy's does a great job of removing themselves from the boring department store group. When people think of Macy's they think of New York City and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. When people think of Belk or Dillards or JCPenney's they do not think of anything except low prices and good sales and department store products/layout. Having an ad on television about the different celebrities and designers that Macy's offers is a great way to individualize themselves from all of the other department stores that everyone is tired of. I am sure that Macy's will reap the benefits of this particular advertisement.

Persuasive Advertising

Today in class we looked at advertisements that were persuasive and affective. The commercial that was very persuasive was the Cheerio advertisment. It made you think of the brand and how something so small could bring people together. It is very important to accomplish a persuasive and affective advertisment because you want to spend your time and money wisely. If an ad does not capture people’s attention and make a person want to buy the product they are advertising then the ad was worthless and didn’t do what it was supposed to do. A persuasive ad is going to stick in a persons mind and hopefully turn that person into revenue for the brand instead of just a viewer. The Macy’s ad was also a really great ad it showed all the celebrities and brands that you could find at Macy’s instead of showing sales and items that you could buy. The advertisements that work the best are created and innovative, they show the true character of the brand and make you want to be apart of that brand and what they have to offer.

experiential marketing

In class we've been discussing experiential marketing and how Vera Wang could use that to promote her new line SimplyVera at Kohl's. I think that the best idea that we came up with was the have either a fashion show in the store, or have free makeovers in the store that use her clothing. Many consumer's who come into Kohl's either don't know about the line or don't really care. Those people need to be exposed to the new line or else it will never get sold. I don't think that the new line will really bring in any new customers for Kohl's because I think that Vera Wang fans do not want to buy her things at Kohl's. Once the Kohl's consumer's are aware of the brand, they are more likely to come back to the line and buy her things. The makeover would be a good chance for consumer's to interact with the store and see the clothing on themselves. Many times consumer's won't buy something because they do not think it will look good on them, but when someone makes them try it on they realize that it really does look good, and they end up purchasing it. Even if the Vera Wang prices are higher than the other Kohl's brands, if a woman looks good in something she will cough up the extra money to buy because she knows it looks good and feels good in it. I think that this would be one of the best things for Vera Wang to do to promote her line because otherwise I feel like it will not sell well and eventually fade out.

Yahoo Avatar

I thought that the Yahoo Avatar was very interesting. It gave you an endless number of different options that you could add to your woman/man. It was fun to play around and give her different features and outfits. I think that this would appeal more to a younger audience because its kind of like playing dress up only in a virtual way, but it could still be interesting for college students. I think that its helpful in a field like consumer apparel and retail studies because you can see how outfits work and try different kinds or styles but not actually have to try them on yourselves you and try them on the virtual doll first and see what you like and dislike. It would make a retailers job easier because they wouldn't have to waste the time of trying things on people first. I'm not really sure what else they could do to make it better because it has about every option that you could have as far as hair and facial expressions. With all of the different options you can create just about whoever you want to be. They could maybe use a little more clothing options and more accessories. For the most part i really like doing the avatar and enjoyed getting to try different clothing and different ideas.
-Asia