IMC Hawks Blog

Category: Marketing

  • “The Most Interesting Blog In The World”

    One organization that does an exceptional job building their brand and message through effective corporate communication is DOS EQUIS. Dos Equis has been brewed since 1900 and was developed by master brewer Wilhelm Haase who emigrated from his native, Germany, to Mexico and fused brewing traditions from both places to make a unique, blended beer. This brand has grown in popularity ever since, but has recently skyrocketed thanks to some effective marketing and advertising ploys.  The “most interesting man in the world” campaign made its debut in 2006 and was designed by the marketing firm Euro RSCG for the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery. The ads feature Jonathan Goldsmith as “the most interesting man” and are narrated by Frontlines Will Lyman.
    Rather than an embodiment of the brand, “The Most Interesting Man” is a voluntary brand spokesperson: he and Dos Equis share a point of view on life that it should be lived “interestingly”. According to the company, U.S. sales increased each year between 2006-2010 and tripled in Canada in 2008. Although exact figures were not provided, sales of Dos Equis have increased by 22% at a time when sale of other imported beer fell 4% in the U.S. This campaign changed their identity from a mere beer brewing company to a revolutionary product; thanks to the endorsement from one of the most accomplished men on the planet. Not only is the endorsement a golden ticket for the company, but their advertisements have also proven to be successful. The ads are surrounded with catchy quotes, including: “He is the life of parties he has never attended” and “Sharks Have a week dedicated to him” as ways to connect with common themes that the audience will recognize. Goldsmith recently said in an interview that he realized how successful the campaign had been when a man came up to him in a restaurant, telling him that he had asked his young son what he wanted to be when he grew up, and the boy replied, “I want to be The Most Interesting Man In The World”.
    “Stay thirsty my friends”.   – Jared Sales, Sally Shupe, Oliver Evans

    IMC's very own JARED SALES

  • Do campaign ads sway your vote?

    In just under two months, we will celebrate the arrival of a new year. There will be plenty of things to anticipate in the coming year: the optimists will make their resolutions striving to reach them by the year’s end and the pessimists will continue to raise their voices about the end of the world. But 2012 also brings another event with it: the presidential election.

                As the presidential campaigns begin to get into full swing, our television sets once mainly confirmed to the usual commercial advertisement bombardment will face another kind—the political advertisements. Every four years we are exposed to the constant cycle of emotional ads, attack ads, biographical ads, issue ads, and on and on and on. And the reason is simple: the person who spends the most money in the races is usually the victor. This was demonstrated in the 2008 presidential election with Barack Obama outspending John McCain 3 to 1 on political advertisements on television. In the 2008 congressional campaigns, in the 426 House races, the person who spent the most money won 397 of those races. Also in the races for seats in the Senate, the biggest spender won 30 out of 32 races.

                This does not necessarily mean that if a candidate spends more money on advertising that they will win. However, it could be an indicator of just how much influence advertising has on our election process.  We are inundated with ads and messages about political candidates from TV to radio to simple guerilla marketing tactics and it obviously impacts our voting decision. So take a step back and think about it as you begin to listen to these ads. Are you voting for this person because you truly feel they are the best candidate or are you voting because the candidate’s ad campaign was great?

     

    For a closer look at how much politicians are spending on political advertising, head over to http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/

      -Jessica Kingman, Alaethea Hensley, Lauren Phelps

  • The 31 days of Hallomedia

    On a scale of one to fun — Halloween is by far the most-fun holiday of all holidays. Christmas is great, Easter is swell, and Hanukkah has the tendency to get crazy, but Halloween tops them all in terms of an all-around good time. It is such a good time that there is an entire month, “Monstober,” dedicated to it on the Disney Channel! On ABC Family, 13 solid-packed nights of Halloween are sure to get you in the spooky-spirit!

    And how could we ever forget the infamous annual hour-long special of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”, which airs tonight at 8pm on ABC.  Other holidays are also heavily recognized in the media, such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day, however, they do not compare to the hype of Halloween and the month of October.

    If you think about it, although Christmas is considered a Christian holiday, it is celebrated by a large number of non-Christians as well. The only thing is, Christmas is surrounded by other holidays that “steal its thunder,” if you will. Hanukkah and Kwanza, with New Years’ celebrations shortly after, withdraw some of the attention to Christmas. On the other hand, Halloween has October’s attention-span all to its self!

    Every morning in the month of October talk shows across network television showcase all that Halloween has to offer in terms of recipes, decorating, and entertaining. The Today Show with Kathy Lee and Hoda provide you with the tasty treats and monstrous-mixed drinks. LIVE with Regis and Kelly share ideas for how to dress the snazziest at your Halloween event, while The Martha Stewart Show gets you ready to decorate your house in a ghoulish, yet glamorous way.

    When else can you convert a fruit or vegetable into a bird! Our own blogger, Jordan, made these adorable Angry Bird-inspired pumpkins.

    Later on in the day, while you are prepping your plans for the holiday with all of your newfound knowledge, holiday favorites are featured on T.V. Who doesn’t love seeing the Disney Channel’s Halloweentown and its three other entries, Halloweentown II, III, and IV. Hocus Pocus, Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Casper round out some of the classics featured on television during the month of October. It’s amazing, if you think about it — all of these great movies and shows that are featured each year were filmed many years ago; yet, they continue to market to us and we keep tuning in!

    With Hallomedia, we can enjoy the entire month of October with all it has to offer, not just the last day!

    — Michela Noreski, Jordan Hill, Ashley Nelson

  • Trick or treat..Smell my feet..IMC

    To many people, Halloween strictly means candy, tricks, costumes, and monsters. However, Halloween actually has a history rooted in religious conquests and power struggles; a characteristic that most people are unaware of. This national holiday dates back to Celtic pagan festivals that celebrated the end of the harvest season.Druid ceremony They believed that on this day the spirits would come back to earth and roam free; causing mischief and looking for living souls to possess. The people would dress up in frightening costumes, make blood sacrifices and leave food outside of their front doors in an attempt to ward off the evil spirits and appease their appetites. Halloween only fundamentally changed when the Romans took the Celtic lands and forced Christianity among its people. The Romans adopted the Celtic celebrations, infusing their religious beliefs into the concepts, and named it “All Saints Day” in order to honor the saints that did not have a day of their own.  By the 1500s, “All Saint’s Day” had become “All Hallows’ Day”, and the Celtic festival had begun to be known as All Hallows’ Evening, Hallow Evening, and eventually… Halloween. 
    This holiday fell somewhat dormant until 1921 when the first citywide celebration of Halloween began in Anoka, Minnesota; followed by New York and L.A. Only about 5% of the American population celebrated this holiday until now, as it has become one of the most celebrated holidays in the US. With this mainstream evolution in mind, many businesses are in debt to the creators of such a day. From candy to costumes, this day turns out to be one of the most profitable of the year, making the importance of marketing efforts vitally important. The goal of the holiday is no longer to ward off evil spirits; but rather to have the best costume and best collection of candy. For one day every year, people feel it necessary to build a costume based on their perception of a person, product, or trend; driving attention to some of the biggest “hits” of the year. Since everyone is now participating in the tradition, the role of marketers is to offer these costumes and candies to every main audience of Halloween: children, parents, teenagers, and young adults, in hope that their variety will be selected as the “hot item” this year.

    Jared Sales, Sally Shupe, Oliver Evans

  • Potato — Po-ta-to : Sweet Potato vs. Yam

    North Carolina is known for celebrating many odd and obscure things. For instance, our great state has festivals glorifying everything from pickles to blueberries, from crabs to mules, and in this case: both sweet potatoes and yams. Are you following along – sweet potatoes and yams are two separate entities!

    yams

    In the United States, yams are really just another name for a sweet potato. However, a true yam is usually imported to America from the Caribbean. When cooked, yams are a soft, sweet, orange concoction. I know what you’re thinking – this sounds just like a sweet potato! The US Department of Agriculture requires that the label “yam” always be accompanied by “sweet potato” to avoid the confusion because they are generally used interchangeably.

    North Carolina is known for specializing in this crop of ‘related-vegetables’. The sweet potato is a native crop in North Carolina and is primarily grown in the coastal plain area of the state.  We are also recognized for our crops in tobacco, cotton, blueberries, and peanuts.

    But, why should we celebrate a vegetable? The answer is, why not! October 22nd and 23rd, in Tabor City, N.C., the NC Yam Festival celebrates its agricultural heritage by saluting the yam. From 1947 until 1961, the little border town of Tabor City played host to one of North Carolina’s largest festivals.  Since 1947 the Carolina Yam Festival has been attracting as many as 15,000 visitors each year, to this tiny community of less and 2,000. The following weekend, in Snow Hill, N.C., Greene County will be celebrating the vegetable at the 4th annual N.C. Sweet Potato Festival.

    Each event is sure to be a good time, with the Sweet Potato festival having entertainment such as Jason Michael Carroll at this years’ event.  But, if you look at it like these North Carolina growers do, more is always better – so check out both festivals!

    If you are not craving a sweet potato/yam after all of this, hopefully this will at least ease your mind: the main difference in these two vegetables is that their individual festivals are held on different weekends in October and are about 2.5 hours away from each other! These festivals combined don’t need any marketing, they rely on word of mouth to promote these fantastic events for people of all ages to have a yam good time!

    – Michela Noreski, Jordan Hill, Ashley Nelson

  • The Greatest Lecture Ever Sold

    I remember the first time I watched “Super Size Me” and how impressed I was that someone would actually decide to eat McDonalds for 30 days. After watching the documentary, I was completely disgusted by the fast food industry but, Morgan brought an important issue about our society to attention and that is why I liked the film so much. “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” is a great film. I really enjoyed watching it and Morgan Spurlock definitely made the film enjoyable. I think it is so important to notice the brands in your every day life and in the movies/tv shows you watch.

    Attending the Morgan Spurlock lecture was the icing on the cake after watching “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” because in person, he makes the film come to life. It was so interesting hearing all about the little things that went into making the “docbuster” as he likes to call it. From the very inspiration that went into creating it (an episode of Heroes with overtly blatant product placement) down to the fact that he had a “Faken” – fake version of his son Laken in the final cut of the bathtub scene.
    I also really appreciated the time he took afterwards to make sure that everybody, and I mean everybody, had their questions answered. Even after Professor Fernando let him know that he would be going over his allotted time, he wasn’t at all worried about getting out of there. One student asked: “What motivates you to create movies?” Morgan answered: “If you can help, then you should. If you can change things, then you should.” He took the time out of his evening to stay with us and keep the conversation going. Overall, the lecture allowed me to take even more from the film, and to gain quite a bit of respect for Mr. Spurlock.
    I think what Morgan said to the student describes who he is exactly. He just wants to make a change and also to make a difference by putting light on subjects that need to be discussed.

    -Micaela Fouhy and Kacy Cox

  • The North Carolina Seafood Festival

    The month of October brings many things to look forward to: crisp fall air, the eruption of auburn hues from the trees, and Halloween to name a few. But in the small, seaside community of Morehead City, North Carolina there is one more thing to add to that medley of feelings: The North Carolina Seafood Festival. The streets of downtown Morehead become alive with carnival rides and booths upon booths of delicious seafood to be consumed. You name it and it can probably be found amongst the crowded booths that weave their way down the main and side streets of the festival, shrimp, crab, oysters, clam, calamari, eel, sea urchin, flounder, rockfish, redfish, any kind of fish. With almost 150,000 people attending each year, the Seafood Festival, which celebrated its 25th year this past year, isn’t something that should be overlooked.
    With an emphasis on promoting the seafood industry’s positive economic and social impact on the state of North Carolina, the booths filled with the fresh seafood are one of the main reason people keep coming back year after year. Thus when marketing the festival to remind those who have experienced it before and to garner the attention of those who have yet to attend, focusing on the coast is an integral part of the campaign. Ad campaigns feature footage of the festival the year before, but also focus on the people who make the festival happen: the fishermen. Ads have been known to focus on their stories and what part they play in making the festival come alive. This personal touch brings a deeper meaning and connection with the festival for patrons. The promotion of the Seafood Festival digs deep into the roots of the festival and that is what has been continually celebrated for the past 25 years.

    -Jessica Kingman, Alaethea Hensley, and Lauren Phelps