IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Advertising

  • Academy Awards Entertain in More Ways Than One

    The Academy Awards is one of the most glamorous nights on television.  This year at the 2011 Academy Awards there were more than just the fabulous fashions and celebrities that walked the red carpet, or as Justin Timberlake described it in his interview with Tim Gunn, the “fuschia” carpet because it looked more pink than red.  Other than Melissa Leo being the first winner in Oscar history to drop the F-bomb in her speech and the all the British nominees racking up numerous wins with The King’s Speech, aspects of marketing were apparent throughout the night.

    Now we all know that the Academy Awards isn’t the Super Bowl, that’s a given.  However, they do have something in common.  Advertisements.  During the commercial breaks there were plenty of new advertisements for ABC network shows such as The Bachelor, Dancing With The Stars, and Good Morning America.  ABC revealed that the new cast for this season of Dancing With The Stars would be announced the following night during an episode of The Bachelor.  ABC also showed that Britney Spears had a big announcement that she was going to make on Monday’s airing of Good Morning America.  The network even incorporated the Academy Awards into a commercial for its series Modern Family, having the characters playing a game of Charades acting out the well-known films.  ABC markets how each series of shows, whether it be reality or drama, are integrated with one another as an actual “network”.  Every show has a way of incorporating another.  This may be a way ABC attempts to gain viewers because they are hoping people are interested in finding out the newest DWTS cast and what big news Britney Spears has to share.

    Aspects of marketing did not only show up during the commercial breaks.  One example unexpectedly came to attention during Christian Bale’s acceptance speech when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as boxer Dicky Eklund in The Fighter.  The real-life Dicky Eklund was present at the award show and Christian Bale made sure that everyone knew it.  Bale thanked Eklund in his speech and told him how excited he was to watch the next chapter of his life and that everyone else should too if they want to be a true champion.  He told everyone to check out dickeklund.com for more information on boxing lessons with Eklund.  This got a large laugh from the audience.  Was this a way for Bale to return the favor to Eklund since he won an Oscar for his portrayal?  Maybe, maybe not, but it sure was good publicity.  If you visit the website, one of the first pictures on the site is of Bale and Eklund at the Academy Awards.

    -Danielle Dorantich

  • “I want to be an event planner!”

    Contrary to popular belief, event planning isn’t all white dresses and fancy cakes.  In the realm of IMC, events are everywhere. From trade shows to music festivals, it takes knowledge of budgeting, marketing, advertising, organizational planning, and more to carry out a successful event. Our education in Communication Studies gives us a head start on other event planning hopefuls by providing opportunities through the classroom, internships, and extracurricular activities.

    Dress for Success Fashion Show Logo
    2010 "Dress for Success" Fashion Show Logo

    At UNCW, students have the opportunity to assist in the planning of fashion shows, academic conferences and meetings, concerts, multiple charity functions, and fundraisers. These opportunities give us valuable insight into all the necessary components of event planning. We come to understand that it takes hard work and long hours, excellent writing and public speaking skills…the list goes on and on! At the end of the day, an IMC student evaluates the outcome of his or her efforts not by how happy Bridezilla was, but by how it changed the behaviors of the client. For example, the success of a charity event might be measured by an increase in donations, not by how much people enjoyed the show.

    UNCW Communication Studies Society raised over $5,000 for breast cancer research in October 2010!

    When searching through the thousands of job listings, there are a variety of titles to consider: conference coordinator, special event coordinator, and meeting manager to name a few. Dependent upon the more specific interests of the applicant, these titles can start you on your way to a career in event planning!

    -Tiffany Evans, Deji Adeleke, Anna Kate Babnik, Katie Eagle, Carissa Niederkorn

  • Facebook vs. Twitter

    Social media has become such an important aspect of our culture and now provides businesses the chance to market to their potential and current consumers. It is interesting to notice whether having, for example, a Twitter or Facebook account will make a difference for your company.

    To keep with the theme of competition going for our IMC-Hawks blog, we’ll ask,
    Which is a better social network to market a business: Facebook or Twitter?

    Facebook: We all know the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his genius creation of Facebook in 2004. Facebook has now grown to have over 500 million active users and about 70% of those million are from outside the U.S.

    What makes Facebook appealing to businesses? It’s community based. Facebook allows you to know who is interested in your product and allows you find out what specific target market to aim for, as well as updating the users of any new information. Facebook gives the business an opportunity to upload multi-media information and gives users the chance to speak their minds about the specific product or service.

    Twitter: Twitter has 175 million registered users and about 95 million tweets go out a day. I like to think of Twitter as basically a site for multiple Facebook status’ (if you want to put it that way).

    So why choose Twitter for your business? The 140 character limit allows you to keep the message short while containing the most important information you want to deliver. Twitter is all about messaging at a fast pace. If you want to get something out fast, Tweet it! You also can see who is following you and what consumers are saying about your product (a similarity to Facebook). However, most tweets for businesses usually contain a link that drive the reader, if interested, to a specific site or article.

    Twitter offers a link for businesses on their website: http://business.twitter.com/

    If you weigh the comparison out, it seems that both Twitter and Facebook offer important social media marketing tools. It all comes down to what will be more appealing for your company or what will be more effective.  In my opinion, as a consumer, Twitter and Facebook work together in a positive way. You can tweet out a link to your Facebook page and you can connect your Facebook page to your Twitter account. Nowadays, having both Twitter and Facebook isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Involving your company one way or another on a social networking site is crucial for your company, especially on the customer satisfaction side. It is appealing when the company is involved and connects on a more personal level.

    Which one do you think is more successful in connecting with customers? Facebook or Twitter?

    -Micaela Fouhy

  • Healthy Competition

    Ever heard of the term “Healthy Competition?” Well perhaps instead of seeing competition as a driving negative force behind brands going head to head in their advertisements (i.e PCvsMAC or PEPSIvsCOKE), we as consumers actually get an insight into a wider variety of products that we can choose to purchase/support.

    First, let’s look at the how competition helped, rather than hurt, pepsi/coke in these advertisements.

    Coke zero was implemented into markets in 2006, starting out in western Europe. Considering it is still in stores, selling out shelves and soda machines is not only encouraging, but motivating! Just after two years of selling and marketing this new Coke product, sales went up 34% from when Zero began! USA Today reports, “Men are about 45% of Diet Coke drinkers but about 55% of Coke Zero buyers. It has a stronger, more Coke Classic-like flavor and seems to be holding onto Male customers who’ve become more calorie-conscious with age but still want more flavor than most diet colas.”

    Seeing the success in Coke Zero, Pepsi knew that such a strong competitor couldn’t go unnoticed. While PepsiMAX was created in 1993, Pepsi took action in response to Coke Zero’s success, as they strategically changed their name “Diet Pepsi” to “PepsiMAX” in 2009. These advertisements prove that the two companies have the exact same product, can cause argument between better tastes, but ultimately, they are putting each other in the spotlight for the consumer to decide for themselves.

    Also, PC got their fair share of shots from MAC, with the MACvsPC commercials featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman.

    MAC took focus on how much “cooler”, more “Attractive”, more “Stylish” and efficient their models were to PC. One can’t deny that these commercials weren’t strategic, effective, and fun to watch, but they were so hard to touch on PC’s weaknesses that Window’s gained enough strength to improve and implement an entire new Vista system.

    It mimics the idea of MAC’s leopard operating system, all while adding non-mac features like the tablet touch screen, TV recorder, and WiFi with WPA 2 support. But what did MAC do in return? Welcome, Snow Leopard.

    So hopefully we see now that competition is nothing short of evoking advancements in every product/line in the business. Competition helps business’s not only thrive upon existing technology, but drive improvements and innovations in this evolving economy.

    -Maxann Keller

  • Who markets the best ice cream in town?

    As a smaller town, Wilmington has a lot of competition between businesses. Kilwin’s has always been known as a “go-to” location for ice cream in Wilmington and a popular tourist spot.  This past summer the ice cream industry grew by one, adding the Fuzzy Peach into the choices for a cool treat on a hot day. The Fuzzy Peach is located less than a mile from UNCW and this is their only location. Both Coldstone and Kilwin’s are chains and have locations across America.

    Coldstone is the largest of the three and it has stores internationally. Their marketing strategy involves television commercials, promotional coupons, direct marketing at UNCW events like the Involvement Carnival. They are a sponsor for the UNCW Athletic Department. On our basketball tickets, you will find a coupon provided by Coldstone. They set themselves apart from the competition because they have lots of different combinations such as “Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some” and “That’s How I Roll”.  You can see their entire signature creations made right in front of you and they have pictures of each combo on their website. Their portion sizes are called “Like It” “Love It” and “Gotta Have It”. They also sell ice cream sundaes, smoothies, and pre-made ice cream cakes. This company is also known for their quirky songs that they sing when you walk in the door and when you leave them a tip. You can hear the same songs at each location, so you know that you’re walking into a Coldstone when you open the door.

    The Fuzzy Peach opened in May of 2010 and already has a lot of brand recognition. Their t-shirts and facebook page are almost as popular as their low fat yogurt.  The frozen yogurt bar allows you to choose the toppings that you want and how much of each topping you want on your yogurt.  The Fuzzy Peach is the only frozen yogurt bar in Wilmington, so that makes them stand out from their completion. The price is calculated by the weight of your bowl and toppings. Their slogan is, “Providing Wilmington with a healthy dessert alternative.  On the website, they have a comparison of why they are better than their competition, which includes Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins.  Their marketing strategies include t-shirts with their logo, which allows people to recognize the brand since the logo is a peach. They also use direct marketing by passing out coupons, stickers, and shot glasses at events.  They come to UNCW’s Involvement Carnival in the beginning of the year and give out samples.

    Kilwin’s is a downtown Wilmington classic. It is a common tourist location. They sell ice cream, chocolates, caramel apples, fudge, and more. Kilwin’s makes their own traditional waffle cones, which lures customers in from their scent. Kilwin’s creates an exciting experience by creating the cones right in front of you. It ads a personal element of trust, since you can see the people hard at work on your waffle cone. They rely mostly on word of mouth marketing, as well as social media and their website. They draw people into the store because they bake their own waffle cones and the aroma drags people in by their noses. They are not as big as Cold Stone, only located in 15 states with only 9 locations in North Carolina.

    Who do you think has the best marketing strategy? The winner is…….The Fuzzy Peach! We think this because they employ the most promotional strategies. They handed out coupons and got customer input on what the best flavor is at UNCW’s 2010 Beach Blast. The store has been open for less than a year and a second location is already in the making. We look forward to seeing how much The Fuzzy Peach grows in the coming years.

  • Corporate Communication Wrap Up

    As our time in the Corporate Communication classroom comes to a close, the information and knowledge that we have gained will continue with us as we each venture out after graduation into our desired career field.  Among the class of communication majors are students interested in event planning, public relations, integrated marketing communication and advertising, just to name a few.  Corporate communication is involved in all of these industries.  As stated in Corporate Communication: a guide to theory and practice by Joep Cornelissen, one of our required readings for the course, “Corporate communication is a management function that offers a framework for the effective coordination of all internal and external communication with the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining favorable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the organization is dependent.”

    When the course first started back in August, not a single student in the class knew what the definition of corporate communication was.  Even though everyone registered to take the class, no one really had an idea of what it entailed.  Today, every student in the class has a definition of corporate communication, as well as plenty of detailed and background information that will give people a better understanding of the topic.  A big improvement from three months ago, wouldn’t you agree?

    We have covered a variety of forms of corporate communication that take place in sports, music, movies, politics, crisis management and careers this semester.  We have learned that communication is essential when it comes to an organization’s corporate image and identity, reputation, stakeholders and shareholders.  We have learned what makes a company go from good to great, the characteristics of a great company and why every company should strive to become one.  We hope we have left everyone with a better understanding of corporate communication.

    REMINDER! This week is NBC’s Green Week!  Green Week runs from November 14-21.  All this week, green topics will be featured into news and your favorite shows on the NBC network, such as 30 Rock and The Office, as well as special reports, fundraisers and documentaries.  Join NBC in celebrating the numerous ways that you can make a difference in the environment.

    -Danielle Dorantich

  • Seasons Greetings (For Whom, Actually?)

    The Yuletide season is drawing closer, as stores begin displaying decorations and Christmas music makes its seasonal debut on the radio. Some would say that the holiday spirit is in the air, but what is truly being celebrated? Is it a time of giving and charity, or a testament to our nation’s consumerism and emphasis on material possessions? As our earlier posts pointed out, advertising and marketing campaigns equate holidays to buying products and spending money. This deflects from the real meaning of the season of giving, and even excludes some less recognized holidays. These corporations need to realize that the holidays retain different meanings to different groups of people.

    Most people tend to categorize the month of December as the month of Christmas. Often times, the mainstream audiences overlook other holidays such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. This could result from the lack of media attention given to these holidays. Currently, the greeting card industry offers cards celebrating these events, but that is about as far as it goes. The attention is almost always directed towards Christmas. This could be because Christmas is more marketable, thus turning a larger profit for companies. In the end, a company’s main goal is to earn a profit, no matter what it takes.

    These corporate practices are not exclusive to Christmas. Other holidays display the same profit-minded trend as well. With the creation of Black Friday, Thanksgiving has become less about giving thanks, and more about marking the beginning of the shopping season. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are synonymous with showing someone how much you care about them by purchasing a gift for them. Halloween advertises costumes and candy. Almost every holiday has some kind of themed product linked to it (clothing, party supplies, decorations, etc.), all in the name of profit. It could be argued that society has become so wrapped up in consumerism and receiving gifts, that the true meaning of holidays can become lost in the translation. In the corporate sense, holidays are about generating income and creating innovative new products. So who is really experiencing “Happy Holidays” around this time? Is it the corporations gaining substantial revenue, or is it the consumers providing the revenue?

    Sarah McIntosh, Eliza Wadson, Jocelyn Walson, Sean O’Connell