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  • Banking on Bracketology

    Even if you’re not a fan of college basketball, you’ve likely heard friends and colleagues exclaim about their “busted brackets” as of late. The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, billed as “March Madness” runs throughout the month of March and is one of the most popular spring sporting events. The tournament begins with 64 teams and ends with the championship game in April. Part of the fun of March Madness, is Bracketology, the science of pitting teams against each other to predict the outcome of the tournament. It gets pretty serious–billionaire Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway even offered $1 billion to whoever fills out the perfect bracket.

    Where does Bracketology intersect with IMC? The answer lies in the “good hands” of Allstate. 2014 is the insurance company’s third year as official sponsor of the NCAA tournament. This year, Allstate’s antagonistic character, Mayhem, is breaking brackets in a series of Tweets, Facebook updates, and Vines. While Mayhem is infamously known for causing car wrecks and burglaries, the Leo Burnett-created “March Mayhem” campaign makes light of Bracketology. Watch as Mayhem breaks, bends, and even blends busted brackets.

    March is Mayhem

    “March Mayhem” is Allstate’s social media component of its NCAA tournament campaign. During TV coverage of the tournament, the company sponsors the “Good Hands Play of the Game” and is rolling out increased advertising for its homeowners insurance. Pam Hollander, Allstate’s senior IMC director, points out that the campaign goes on as the tournament progresses, taking into account how different teams perform in the tournament. She says the campaign features direct engagement with fans. Mayhem acts as a direct engagement tool to connect and learn more about Allstate’s social media-savvy audience. With Mayhem, interpersonal communication takes place in an ad campaign, personifying the brand’s relationship with the consumer.

    Mayhem isn’t the only insurance character with social media presence. Representing insurance companies big and small: the Gecko, Flo, Jake, and J.J. Hightail each interact with their Twitter followers. One of the strong points of the March Mayhem campaign is how it takes advantage of the Bracketology phenomenon to establish a connection with the consumer. Using a popular social trend in a social media campaign exemplifies the personification of brands.

    Do you believe using Bracketology in advertising is effective? How have you seen other brands use social phenomena in their advertising?

    –Nathan Evers

  • Luxurious Advertising

    Gucci. Prada. Versace. These three symbols of “luxury” are high-end fashion companies that are flaunted around the world as brands of desire, wealth, and success. According to Forbes, luxury retail brands can be worth as much as 23 billion dollars. That amount shows the price consumers are willing to pay to feel as glamorous as the models who showcase the clothes, both through Advertisements and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a buzz worthy week in New York City that features the spring collection of the most luxurious fashion brands in the world.

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    The hype of Fashion Week and the brands that are luxurious enough to present themselves there share the same quality: they give consumers a sense of desire. Rohit Arora, Strategic Planning Director of Bates Pan Gulf (BPG Group), studied the various reasons consumers’ desire these brands. One of the main reasons is notably the exclusivity to afford such brands, which changes over time as objects become less exclusive and more fiscally available.

    Similar to the four P’s we learn about in IMC and marketing, Arora revealed a list of eight shared “P’s”- Pillars in Luxury Brand Marketing:

    1.)   Performance

    2.)   Pedigree

    3.)   Paucity

    4.)   Persona

    5.)   Public Figures

    6.)   Placement

    7.)   Public Relations

    8.)   Pricing

    Each of these “P’s” must be highly considered by the brand’s marketing team in order to brand itself as luxurious while also justifying itself in price. Arora placed emphasis on the importance of both the pricing and placement phase, which can make or break a luxurious item as either desirable or unnecessary. “It is important for luxury brands to price themselves right – as setting the price lower than the consumer expectation and willingness to pay can potentially harm the brand value, whereas the reverse can potentially not give enough justification for consumers to go ahead and buy.” The marketing team of these brands has a lot to wrestle with in justifying their value, whereas less flashy brands are able to triumph off of their practical prices and convenience.

    Cara-Delevingne-Mulberry-Fall-Winter-2013

    Following Fashion Week this spring, many luxury brands executed campaigns featuring public figures that were popular in both the fashion industry AND social media outlets. Luxury brand “Mulberry” selected 21 year old Cara Delevingne, currently one of the world’s most famous super models, as the new face for their campaign. The fact that Delevingne has nearly 5 million followers on Instagram helps give widespread exposure to Mulberry, which is a part of the “placement” phase of the marketing campaign. It doesn’t hurt that endorsements from popular top 40 tracks are always on the luxurious side of the spectrum. When is the last time you heard Drake talk about his reasonably priced jacket from TJ Maxx?

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    Luxury brands not only compete with the more cost efficient brands, but they also compete with one another to be the top selection among consumers. In 2010, “Louis Vuitton spent more than $22 million on advertising across all channels between January and June, compared to slightly more than $14 million during the same period last year, a 57 percent increase.”  A year later, Marc Jacobs president Robert Duffy told the New York Times that Jacobs’ fall 2011 show cost at least $1,000,000 (or $1,750 per second). These painfully expensive prices are paid in order to keep status as a high-end fashion brand when winter fashion blooms into spring clothing. With the price of living going up just a few years beyond 2010 and 2011, one can’t fathom the funds needed to market luxury clothing items in 2014. As the temperature gets higher, the cost of advertising gets higher for these luxurious fashion brands!

    –Austin Johnson, Jade Johnson-Grant, Jami Rogers, Ty Thomas

  • The “Instructional” Campaign

    According to the calendar, Spring has officially sprung. And while we are still experiencing some chilly days, it’s undeniable most of us are ready to shed our winter gear for shorts and sandals. As with all season changes, clothing companies are eager to help you exchange your wardrobe.

    Recently, clothing company Lands’ End launched their new “How to Spring” advertising campaign, showcasing, “How fun and fashionable it is to add bright colors, graphic prints and floral patterns with a few perfect pieces from the women’s spring collection”. It could be argued that every spring campaign that will launch this season will have a similar goal; however, Lands’ End decided to do something a little different this season by adding a sweepstake to its promotional and marketing strategy.

    The sweepstakes works by first connecting with Facebook or entering your email. Once you’ve connected, you are asked to fill out your name, email, and zip code. Filling out this information unlocks the game. The rules are simple, select an outfit and click “spin”. If the outfit that the player selected matches the three tumblers, the player automatically wins a gift card with a balance of $25, $50, or $1,000. That’s it! Simple right? Not to mention, everyone is eligible to enter every day for the grand prize of $1,000 shopping spree. You can view the official rules of the sweepstakes here.

    While we like to think that games, contests, and sweepstakes’ only motives are for fun and entertainment, they are actually a smart marketing move – encouraging consumption of the product by creating consumer involvement. This involvement builds fan base, engages the audience, and enables consumers to do your marketing for you. Not to mention, user generated content often provides quality, innovative, and creative ads for free.

    In addition to promoting brand visibility, contest and sweepstakes are strategies that provide valuable quantifiable benefits for companies as well. They are cost effective, they help build search engine optimization (SEO), and increasingly important, they provide a rich source of consumer data for the company about existing and potential customers – emails, product preferences, location, etc.

    With every click essentially producing some sort of user information, online contests are growing in use on websites and especially on social media. The most popular initiatives include: photo and video contests, tagging contest, hashtag giveaways, and website raffles.

    Top Rank, an online marketing blog, named some of their picks of the best contest use on social media.
    Facebook: When Frito-Lay began their campaign for searching for new potato chips flavors, the company bypassed focus groups and turned to Facebook to connect directly with the customers who would be eating them.
    Pinterest: AMC Theaters have an entire Pinterest board, AMC Giveaways, where all users have to do is follow the board to stay up to date on the latest AMC contests. The basics are simple, when users see a prize they want, clicking on the image takes them to a landing page that collects their information.
    Twitter: In a “retweet to win” twitter contest, Doritos tweeted a message that simply asked followers to retweet for a chance to win. The tweet was retweeted over 500 times in a day with winners snagging products that ranged from Doritos to widescreen tvs.
    Instagram: As many clothing company are starting to do, Vera Bradely’s instagram contest asked users to post pictures of them and their favorite Vera Bradley bag using the hashtag #VBStyleShare. At the end of the contest, winners received a wrislet, followers of the hashtag could receive fashion inspiration, and staff could see how consumers were pairing their products.

    The benefits contests can provide seem like an almost no-brainer for companies to increase brand awareness while also gaining consumer data, but as they start to trend they are also subject to overuse. To combat becoming another form of clutter, companies will have to make sure their contest are increasingly interactive, engaging, creative, or lucrative.

    Have you ever participated in an online contest? Did you win? Did it make you feel more favorable towards the brand? Scrolling through your social media feeds have you seen brands using contests similar to the ones above? What are some of the best/most creative ones you have seen?

    – Elizabeth Harrington, Caroline Robinson, Savannah Valade

  • Trends in Social Media

    The newest trends for 2014 in the job market are centered on social media. According to Twin Engine, a digital marketing agency featured in Social Times, content marketing and big data will become the most significant in 2014. Because of this, The University of Florida now offers a masters degree in Mass Communication and Social Media. However, the Silicon Valley Business Journal wrote they feel a degree in social media is a waste of money and it is better to gain “real-world” experience. In the same article, 91% of the people surveyed said they would hire someone regardless if they had a social media degree.

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    The Creative Group tells a different story.  The blog reports there will be an increase in hiring within the creative field, especially in social media in 2014. Around 32% of marketing and advertising specialists have problems finding skilled creative professionals to hire. These specialists look for people who are experienced in a “range of digital skills, including mobile and user experience designers, and those who have successfully managed social media campaigns and communities.”

    To become a Social Media Specialist, one needs a higher level of dedication than many other fields. According to Dane Cobain’s post on Ari Herzog’s Social Media Today blog, these positions are 24/7 jobs – including nights and weekends. Cobain describes his workday beginning with checking social media sites and email while still in bed each morning. His typical day at the office includes blogs, tweets, hash-tags, Facebook and more.

    With social media so engrained in our everyday lives, is it necessary to offer a specialized degree? Most of the younger population knows how to surf the web, download apps and Face-time before they enter Kindergarten. There is a new generation of people who have never lived without social media and view what some see as a new trend as the norm. This is an exciting time with new careers opening up in a growing field. I predict we will see the social media field evolving in leaps and bounds over the next few years. Are you ready?

    – Susan Willetts

  • Career Center Helps Students Get Hired

    Graduation is fast approaching for college seniors, which means one thing –it’s time to find a full-time job. Transitioning into the real world and a new career can be a daunting task for soon-to-be graduates. Thankfully, the Career Center on campus assists these students worried about their future careers and helps them develop a strategy to find employment. The Career Center helps empower students and give them all the resources necessary to become successful after graduation and develop their career. This instrumental resource can be utilized by all students for a variety of purposes such as selecting a major, assistance in writing a resume, and even finding an internship. This resource helps interested students on their journey of finding employment after graduation.

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    The Career Center’s mission statement shares their goal of encouraging students to engage, explore, experience and embark. By making an appointment with one of UNCW’s career experts, students are able to find out the different opportunities that allow them to succeed in each of these four actions. Help is offered in the areas of resume building, interview preparation, LinkedIn preparation and any other professional inquiries. The Career Center also holds multiple events each month that provide students with the opportunity to actively take steps toward their future. Along with being a part of COM Studies Day, the Career Center is also holding an event called Going Global: Finding International Jobs and Internships, this month. Events such as these allow students to gain tips about the job search process as well as network with current professionals. With all of these resources available, students are guided and encouraged through the process of finding a job after college. Even if you are unsure of which direction to take with your future, the Career Center can help you every step of the way by teaching you valuable skills necessary to starting your own career.

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    In addition to utilizing the Career Center, students are encouraged to attend COM Studies Day tomorrow to hear helpful advice from previous students and get the chance to network with professionals in their field of interest. If you are still worried about finding employment, the Career Center and COM Studies Day are two very beneficial resources to utilize in finding future employment.

    -Hannah Turner & Emily Foulke

  • The Power of Networking

    Networking has been around for a long time and continues to prove the importance of it throughout one’s career.  Although many individuals cringe at the thought of networking, there are many myths that are not true about this powerful way to connect with people.  For starters that networking is just a way to get a job and that is the only benefit from it.  This is absolutely not true; it goes beyond just handing a resume to a familiar person.  These are lifelong bonds that are beneficial through an extended period of time.

    COM Studies Day 2013_2

    The steps to networking are easy to follow as long as you don’t let your social anxieties get the best of you.  Majority of people seem to get worked up mentally in large crowds and do not seek their full potential at a networking event.  The key is to remain calm and have a plan in motion before going to any kind of networking event.  You need to have in mind exactly what you’re going in there for and the type of candidates that would be good in your networking circle.  After meeting with contenders it is your responsibility to keep up contact and remember they are doing the favor and to really appreciate any time or feedback given.  This will build their trust and confidence in you as a person if you continually show communication efforts and motivation in that particular career field.

    The potential knowledge you can gain from these people in your social circle can help you in your career when facing challenges or lead you to a new opportunity.  Networking provides a good outlet to seek access to prospective jobs that most of the times are not listed for public view.  With your inside connections you are more likely to be exposed to these hidden opportunities than others.  There is also the sharing of information and the reciprocal aspect of networking; to be able to exchange or return favors for those that have helped you to get to your career. When you finally get settled into your profession you’ll realize that it’s helpful to have an outside resource to call on during challenging times.  To have a knowledgeable mentor guide you in hard times is extremely nice because they could have already been through the same dilemma and have very informative advice to give for the sticky situation.  Networking can give you guidance on how to further your profession or possible new adventures to take with other career prospects on the rise.  These are just a glimpse at some of the amazing advantages and the enormous power of networking.

    -Melissa Shampoe

  • A Few of the Careers

    Everywhere we turn we are faced with some sort of an advertisement. Products, services, and ideas are more profound than ever due to the easiness of communication from mass mediums. When we stream music online, go to “on demand” for the television shows we missed, or even surf the internet, we are stopped from our entertainment to encounter an advertisement that was carefully and purposely placed there. Although we might dislike waiting to hear our favorite song, our discipline from a Communication major can eventually lead to careers in fields that contribute to such advertisements.
    The process of producing an Advertisement takes several different people, with several different talents. Jacquelyn Smith, reporter from Forbes magazine, described how “Marketing and advertising professionals are also responsible for a company’s message and brand image, ”Your brand’s promise, or unique selling proposition, separates it from all the other brand”. Smith featured eight professions in Advertising and Marketing, ranging from the artistic careers of writers, photographers, and graphic designers to more business savvy jobs as marketing manager to sales reps. These eight professions were also broken down by median salary and job out look, which is listed below. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/03/13/the-marketing-and-advertising-jobs-with-the-best-future/

    Advertising, Promotions and Marketing Manager
    Median Salary: $108,260
    Job Outlook: +14%

    Advertising Sales Representative
    Median Salary: $45,350
    Job Outlook: +13%

    Film and Video Editor
    Median Salary: $45,490
    Job Outlook: +4%

    Graphic Designer
    Median Salary: $43,500
    Job Outlook: +13%

    Market Research Analyst
    Median Salary: $60,570
    Job Outlook: +41%

    Meeting, Convention and Event Planners
    Median Salary: $45,260
    Job Outlook: +44%

    Photographer
    Median Salary: $29,130
    Job Outlook: +13%

    Writer
    Median Salary: $55,420
    Job Outlook: +6%

    These advertising jobs pertain primarily to traditional forms of advertising (More careers are emerging as online ads get more popular.) All the careers listed show promising median salaries and positive outlooks! One interesting one to think about is the outlook for Advertising Sales Representative. Online only campaigns are becoming widely used by companies everywhere and rightfully so. They have the potential to go viral, reaching millions, all while being virtually free to put out there. This of course is a bit more ideal than paying thousands for fifteen second time slot. But the outlook for Ad Sales is still up 13%. One would think that with all these campaigns going online, the outlook would be less promising. This just goes to show that the advertising industry is full of promise and opportunity! In a world of constant innovation and evolution one must be dynamic within our fields. The use of advanced computer programs helps to aid in the quantification of online data. The interpretation of this Big Data opens up a new field of market analysis.

    Austin Johnson, Jade Lester, Jami Rogers, Ty Thomas