Week 14

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we continued our discussion about the communication process. We all communicate, we know what it is! Yes, well applying it to marketing is a different situation. The term communication process refers to the exchange of information, or a message, between two or more people. The sender or communicator is the person who initiates a message. The receiver, or interpreter, is the person to whom a message is directed at. The message is the verbal and/or nonverbal content that must be encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver. The channel is the medium by which the message is delivered and received. The context is the setting and situation in which communication takes place. noise is anything that interferes with the accurate expression or reception of a message. feedback is a response from the receiver indicating whether a message has been received in its intended form. Put simply, effective communication takes place when a sender's message is fully understood by the receiver. We went over this two weeks ago, but this week we focused on noise. Noise is anything that could interfere with your product. It is known as an outside distraction. It is interesting what the business majors would consider noise, and what the engineers would consider noise. For example, engineers would think of static or a physical element that hinders their product, but we think of competitors or alternatives as "noise."

We looked at a variety of advertisements. Apple, has an ad that says "Think Different." That's easy enough to comprehend. They are claiming in this advertisement that they offer diversity to their consumers by being different, and providing different products, than that of their competition. Then we looked at Nike's advertisement. This stated "Smoke 'em." What does that mean? It means that they want to stay ahead of their competition. They want to beat them to the chase for what the consumers want. Lastly, we looked at British advertisements from the Ministry of Health.

This is seen as a visual pun. This is seen as an abstract advertisement, for it provides incongruity and it is provocative. In Britain, they have very strict guidelines for what you can and cannot say in an ad, so using this visual pun, they cheated the system. Did I understand this advertisement at first? No. I had difficulty decoding the message, which makes me look at this as a poor form of advertising. In order for someone to receive the message properly, you need to have an overlapping field of experience with your target audience. I did not understand it because I do not smoke. Our class did not understand it because our field of experience does not overlap.

The next advertisement we looked at was Old Spice body wash. In this advertisement, they are basically saying that this product makes men manly. We dissected this marketing campaign and highlighted what was effective. First off, the man starts the commercial by addressing women. "Hello ladies." They are assuming that women do the shopping for their significant others. Then they go through 3 scenes. The man starts in his bathroom, standing in his robe, where they would be showering and using the product. Then it goes to a scene on the boat, where Old Spice displays some of their brand history. They even show tickets for something the women want to attend, and diamonds, so that maybe if the women buy this for their men, then they will get something in return. Lastly, it goes to a scene on the beach. He is on a horse, which symbolizes a psychological pneumonic, to show he is higher up that his surrounding peers. This is a series of events which personally, I believe is very odd, so I am sure I'll remember it. Old Spice uses a memorable device by utilizing incongruity. This is a convenience product, so this means there is low involvement on the consumer end of the buying process. If companies use incongruity, then they are hoping that shoppers will recall seeing the commercial or recognize the brand, and end up buying their product over other body washes. This commercial elicits that the business is mature, but the product is in its introductory state, therefore they are trying to connecting their new product with the well-known brand name.

On the other hand, computers have higher involvement which results in an extensive consumer buying decision process. You need to do your research and look at alternatives, so technology businesses need to inform their consumers, as well as persuade them to buy yours over your competition.

When we think back to our first class together, we look at the definition of marketing. EXCHANGE! You cannot do that without connecting the wants and needs of your customer, and by creating value with your business/product. In order to maintain a relationship with your customers, you need to think of the after effect. You want people to be talking about your product! The overall purposes of the communication process are to inform, persuade, and connect, but you also need to maintain that customer relationship.

How will you do it? How will you communicate in marketing? That all depends on your promotional mix. These are known as the tools a business uses to deliver their message to consumers. There are two types of promotional mix; personal selling and non-personal selling.

Personal selling includes sales meeting, incentive programs, sales program, fairs and trade shows and samples. It is more 1v1 whereas advertising is like a mass broadcast to consumers. Non-personal selling includes public relations, advertising, and sales promotion. Advertising and publicity both get word out about the company and product, but are they the same? No. Advertising is always positive. Publicity could be good, bad, or even ugly. Publicity consists of social media, news, magazines, etc. This is completely out of the advertisers control, it is simply a reaction from others.

How do companies deal with this? Well, that is why public relations is so important. This is known as the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person. It could also be characterized as the state of the relationship between the public and a company or other organization or a famous person. In other words, it is how a company interacts within firms to manage publicity. Their goal is to reduce the damages caused by publicity.

Paid Media: This is media you pay for, like Google AdWords or other types of search or display advertising.  This segment should be extremely well thought-out, so your landing pages can serve for PPC and SEO purposes.  They need to have clear calls-to-action, and the use of keywords and content needs to address the problems or solutions your potential customer is looking for.

Owned Media: This is the content that your business creates, like this blog, or the free download you can get from the banner in the sidebar.  It’s where you spend your money in SEO.  B2B marketers invest over $16 billion per year in creating content designed primarily to produce leads, according to Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.  He adds “Too many [marketers] are failing buyers with overly promotional and overly technical content that doesn’t adequately address market challenges and customer needs.  B2B buyers are looking for content that’s original, consultative, and highly pertinent to where they are in their decision-making process.”

Earned Media: This is where the customer becomes the channel.  Big influencers here are word of mouth (WOM), reviews and ratings, press releases or any buzz or “viral” content.  For example, in 2009 Pear did a study on the use of Twitter, and within 48 hours, it was the most trending topic on Twitter and was carried in news outlets all over the world.  While many businesses, particularly B2B, rely on WOM as a primary driver for leads, it’s really only one small factor.

Shared Media: This is largely influenced by social media activity.  Are you following and sharing the content of the primary influencers in your category, and are they sharing your content?  Are you engaged in LinkedIn groups or other verticals that are related to your category?  Even if you only have 400 people following you, those 400 people have followers, and so on.  So your “network” could potentially reach thousands of people that could click on or download your  content. 



Buzz about your business is great. But, businesses want to try to make all of that buzz positive. Surprisingly, email is one of the most productive advertisement campaigns. We think of all those businesses that spam our emails with constant emails, but just think. That type of advertising probably does not cost a lot, and even with a small response rate, the business can still make a profit. 

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. The AIDA model can be used by organizations to guide marketers to target a market effectively. This helps businesses achieve promotional goals. 



Attention: Put it out there. Make people aware of the existence of your business and product. 
Interest: Make people think. Tell them what value your business or product provides. 
                                                                                                                                            Desire: Make people want it. Show the benefits of your product and how its value solves a pain-point in their lives,         

 Action: Make people buy it. Show that this pain-point is so serious and important that it will inspire them to take action by purchasing your product. 

Thursday

This week we had a change of scenery. Instead of meeting in our usual spot, we met in Sleith 302. We had our posters due on this day. After reading the feedback from Professor Spotts and our Marketing Consultant, we were able to make adjustments which really helped with the design of our poster. During class, our team was able to work on our brand strategy memo as well. We have so much to do, yet such little time. 

First of all, we need to have our value proposition down, that way we can each be able to present to potential investors. We were encouraged to practice our elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a succinct and persuasive sales pitch. In about a minute and a half, we have to explain who we are and why we are credible. Then we have to describe what our product will do, and what pain-point it is solving. Lastly, you have to finish your elevator pitch up by describing what it is that you want from the person you are presenting to. This is a vital component of the project- presenting, and we need to start working on it now.