Advertising and Promotion

The topic of the week is the 2014 Super Bowl, which aired on Sunday, January 2nd. The Seattle Seahawks went up against the Denver Broncos in a terribly consistent game with an outcome that could have easily been predicted by the end of the first quarter, the Seahawks won 43-8.  But everyone knows the Super Bowl isn't solely about football, it's also about companies'  risky and expensive attempts to catch the attention of the millions of viewers. In this I will discuss the best, worst, and most humorous advertisements. Then I will go on to discuss the most ethically questionable advertisement.  The best advertisement was Coca-Cola's "It's Beautiful".  It featured an all inclusive, multicultural rendition of "America the Beautiful" sung in several different languages including Spanish and Arabic. It showed aspects of typical "American" life including families, pool parties, road trips, etc. with many people of different nationalities,...

A current commercial displayed in the early months of 2014 is one for BeatsPills by Dre featuring Pharrell Williams. This commercial has Pharrell, among other actors, dancing through urban areas alongside animated BeatsPill characters while Pharrell's song "Happy" is playing. (This song was featured in the popular kid's movie "Despicable Me 2"). In this blog, I plan on analyzing the use of Pharrell as a spokesperson for BeatsPills using McCracken's meaning transfer model. According to McCracken's meaning transfer model, a celebrity's effectiveness as an endorser depends on the culturally acquired meanings he or she brings to the endorsement process, including status, class, gender, age, personality, and lifestyle. As McCracken would explain it: "Celebrities draw these powerful meanings from the roles they assume in their television, movie, military, athletic, and other careers. Each new dramatic role brings the celebrity into contact wit...

Men and women process the sexual imagery of advertisements in different ways.  A study by MediaAnalyzer conducted in 2005, explored how men and women visually process sexually themed ads and what affect this process has on advertisements’ effectiveness.  MediaAnalyzer examined the visual patterns of consumers as they viewed print ads, one sexual and one nonsexual, from each of five categories.   This investigation showed that men tend to focus on an ad’s sexual imagery (legs, breasts, skin), which draws their attention away from other elements of the ad such as logo, product shot, or headline.  In this study, men’s correct recall of the advertised brand was lower for sexual ads at “9.8%”, than nonsexual ones at “19.8%” (Belch 169).  Unlike men, women tend to avoid looking at sexual imagery.  However, they still show signs of being distracted by such images.  When asked to recall the brand advertised in sexual and nonsexual ads, an a...

             This blog is dedicated to explaining why advertising agencies lose clients and a situation in which a client switched agencies.  First things first, advertising agencies lose clients for some of the following common reasons: ·       Poor performance or service. The client becomes dissatisfied with the quality of the advertising and/or the service provided by the agency.   ·       Poor communication between the client and agency personnel that causes an unfavorable working relationship. ·       Unrealistic demands expected from the agency by the client that reduce the account’s profitability or exceed the amount of compensation received. ·       Personality conflicts between the client and agency. ·       Personnel changes. ·       Changes in th...

This is my first blog written for my Advertising and Promotion course. In this blog, I will discuss the difference between  integrated  marketing communication (IMC) and traditional advertising and promotion and I will explain why more marketers are taking an IMC perspective to their advertising and promotional programs.  Integrated marketing communication utilizes modern and classic forms of advertising and promotion. Some examples of the modern forms of marketing are internet and mobile device marketing. IMC is defined as: "a strategic business process used to develop, execute, and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communications programs over time with consumers, customers, prospects, employees, associates, and other targeted relevant internal and external audiences" (Belch).   Traditional advertising and promotion solely consists of classic methods such as newspaper and magazine ads, direct mail, T.V. commercials, free samples, cou...