IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: IMC

  • Celebrate Thanksgiving (or any season) With Butterball!

    In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies.  For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. 
    It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.  To this day, the centerpiece of Thanksgiving in the United States is a large meal, centered around a large roasted turkey.  Thanksgiving dinner is not complete without the perfectly cooked turkey, but not all of us can be masters in the kitchen.  What happens if you don’t know how to cook a turkey?  Don’t sweat it!  It’s not a problem because now there’s the infamous Butterball Turkey Talk-Line if you need cooking assistance.

    Butterball is a brand of turkey and other poultry products produced by Butterball LLC.  The company manufactures food products worldwide and specializes in turkey, deli meats, raw roasts, and other specialty products, such as soups, salads, sandwiches and entrees. Butterball operates the world’s largest turkey-processing plant in Mount Olive, North Carolina and sells over one billion pounds of turkey a year.  Butterball is so popular that one in every five turkeys sold in the United States comes from them.  How did this Butterball craze start, though?

    Butterball has been around since 1940, but it wasn’t until late 1981 when the company decided to start a toll-free telephone line called the Turkey Talk-Line, that it skyrocketed.  The mission of creating the talk-line was to help customers with cooking and preparation questions during the Thanksgiving season.  During the first year of the Turkey Talk-Line, 11,000 people called in.  Because of the rising popularity of the Turkey Talk-Line and the huge interest in Butterball products, the company decided to expand its business.

    Butterball has a talk-line open to the public on weekdays from 8am-8pm. But it now also has a website that offers consumers the opportunity to celebrate traditional holidays and everyday meal occasions with the Butterball branded line of products.  Whether it’s the annual family get-together or just a day in the office or at school, people can celebrate with Butterball turkey.  Butterball’s website provides a variety of recipes and ideas and also offers tips and how-to’s.  If you are a new cook or are just interested in watching videos on how to choose, thaw, stuff, roast, and carve a turkey, you now do so with Butterball.

    In recent years, Butterball has become even more recognizable.  The Turkey Talk-Line number has grown to over 200,000 and it continues to increase with each holiday season. There are many brands that are associated with the holiday season; the next time you grocery shop for that Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, Butterball won’t let you down. Happy holidays!

    -Stephanie Bakolia, Claire Outlaw, David Glaubach

  • Another Day, Another “Gunman”

    It was not our plan to write another blog post about university safety communication however, for the second day in a row, one of North Carolina’s universities was faced with a crisis as a reported gunman was spotted on campus. Much like how the University of North Carolina Wilmington alerted their students, East Carolina University also utilized all tools necessary in order to notify their students. Officials issued a complete lockdown and notified students via e-mail, phone calls, text messaging and social media sites. However, the role social media played in UNCW’s crisis is far different from what happened at ECU.

    Reports of a gunman walking through campus started circulating around 10 am this morning and there was surveillance of a man with a cowboy hat carrying what looked like a large riffle walking on a 5th Street, a road that runs through the campus. As students were locked up in class, tweets began to flood in reporting the incident and some even saying that they saw the gunman and that there were hostages. However, after three hours of searching the Greenville Police tracked down the suspect and found that the “rifle” was in fact an umbrella. Greenville police Sgt. Carlton Williams stated that rumors circulating on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter caused authorities to “chase ghosts” and follow leads that were false.

    Although yesterday’s post focused on how social media has allowed us to share and cooperate in moments of crisis, there is also a negative side to the impact it has on the crisis communication. Officials utilize the tweets and posts on social media sites in order to gain information and as you can see from today, often have to take those tweets at face value. There’s always that “better safe than sorry” feeling, especially in the wake of the Virgina Tech massacre, but to what extent should authorities follow-up on information provided through social media?

    -Alaethea Hensley, Jessica Kingman, & Lauren Phelps

  • Celebs of Hogwarts

    Harry Potter is a name that is known by people worldwide. Known both for the book series and the movies, this brand seems to be everywhere. Although plenty of merchandise sells because of its affiliation with the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter itself is much more than a brand. Harry Potter fans have read the books and seen the movies, and have developed a deep connection with the characters involved. There is an emotional attachment to this brand and therefore anything that sells with the picture or logo for Harry Potter means something more to them. But what seems to be the most representative visual for this brand? Not the creator, J.K. Rowling. This would be Daniel Radcliffe, Rubert Grint, and Emma Watson.

     

                 

    Chances are, if you began watching the movies before you finish reading the books, you would start to imagine these actors in your head as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, instead of the people you imagined before these actors were selected to play the parts. To many Harry Potter fanatics, these people are not just your average celebrities- they are friends.  The actors no longer have any choice but to be marketers for the Harry Potter brand no matter what they are doing. If Daniel Radcliffe gets married, it almost seems as though Harry Potter is getting married. If Emma Watson wears a provocative outfit, it feels like Hermione is being scandalous. So is this type of celebrity life better or worse than those celebrities who are famous just for being themselves? I think it means that these actors have a lot more riding on them than it initially seems.

    -Claire Dillard, Liz LaPuasa

     

     

  • The Miracle of Celebrity Endorsement

    The key to success when promoting a product, whether old or new, is by using a familiar face to associate with it. Many companies hire celebrities to advertise their products in hopes of increasing sales.  The widely known sandwich staple, Miracle Whip, recently came up with a marketing strategy to promote their product using celebrities. These ads aren’t like anything you have seen before.

    Paul DelVecchio, commonly known as DJ Pauly D from MTV’s Jersey Shore, stars in one of the commercials:

    What’s different about these ads is that Kraft chose to highlight individuals who dislike their product. The “which side are you” campaign has brought much attention to Miracle Whip. Even though Pauly D despises the sandwich spread, the commercial still succeeds in catching the viewer’s attention. Kraft made a wise decision in choosing Pauly D as a spokesperson for their product because of his connection to a different viewing audience. Many of today’s generation tune in every Thursday evening to catch the latest episode of the hit show. By choosing Pauly D instead of a big-time celebrity such as George Clooney or Brad Pitt, Kraft is targeting a younger audience in hopes of attracting buyers who have never tried Miracle Whip before.

    Which side are you on?

    -Stephanie Bakolia, Claire Outlaw, David Glaubach

  • A Good Slogan Can Go a Long Way

    A key ingredient to any election is marketing and campaigning, and election campaigns are in a league of their own. From an IMC point of view, candidates are just another brand.  The goal of the campaign is to inform and persuade voters to vote for them.  And although there are many different marketing methods and tools that are used in a presidential campaign, there is one strategy that seems to never leave a voter’s mind:  a slogan.

    Slogans are created to summarize the candidate’s purpose and goals in a few words.  Selecting the best campaign slogan is a pretty significant factor. This phenomenon does not only apply to political campaigns, but to any marketing campaign. Slogans should typically be short, effective, and to the point. If the slogan is effective, the public will be able to know what brand, or candidate, is associated with it. Examples of effective slogans include “Just Do It,” “Where’s the Beef?,” and “Got Milk?,” just to name a few, and of course there is our most recent example of Obama’s “Change” campaign.

    So what are some ground rules that one must consider before deciding on a slogan specifically for an election candidate? For one, it has to be relevant to what the candidate truly stands for. An example of this is the slogan for Mike Huckabee that states, “Faith. Family. Freedom.”What seems to be an equally important factor is to match the slogan with the current times. This means that the slogan should not just address what is important to you as a candidate, but what is important to the citizens at the time of the election. There seems to be no greater example of this than the slogan Ronald Reagan used in 1980 that read, “Let’s Make America Great Again.”

    Slogans may be short, but they are powerful and meant to represent the brand and what it stands for. When considering everything that goes into preparing a political campaign, something as small as a slogan may not seem very important, but selecting the right one is just another way to take advantage of improving your brand awareness and recognition.

    An Oldie But Goodie: Here’s one of our favorite examples of a slogan! It may seem silly, but you’ll probably find yourself humming the tune after you hear it.  Would a song like this have swayed your decision in the election?

    -Claire Dillard & Liz LaPuasa

  • 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

  • Political Bias in the Media

    Campaigning for the 2012 presidential election has begun.  Republican hopefuls are working to convince voters that they are the right choice to defeat President Obama, while the president is trying to convince everyone that he should remain in office.  In 2008, the Democratic and Republican parties shared some of the same beliefs on certain issues, but had opposing viewpoint on others.  Democrats were in favor of requirements to hire more women and minorities, repealing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and removing troops from Iraq.  Republicans were in favor of three strikes sentencing laws, taking steps to strengthen the economy and more anti-drug initiatives.  Both parties were in favor of limits on political campaign funds, and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.  The sentences above about the different parties were straightforward and un-biased, but it is difficult to find such information from one source.  You must be very careful in 2012 while selecting the information you are going to consider, regarding the candidates.  Beware of the agenda setters!

    Certain types of media will tell you that the Republicans are money hungry classists who are only in favor of appeasing the rich, with the intent to modify tax laws in order to behoove large corporations.  Then, that same media outlet will likely show a documentary on the sub-prime mortgage crisis, featuring interviews with families in middle America who lost everything.  There will be a lot of content promoting public programs for the under-served, and illustrating the Democrats as the humanitarian party.  That media outlet selectively left out good points about the Republican party on purpose.  It is called agenda setting, and it is when the media controls the amount of exposure certain news gets.  The more exposure people get to certain types of news, the more important it becomes.  If messages about middle Americans losing everything reach you every day, it will become important to you because it will inadvertently be on your mind.  There could be a more pressing issue out there, but if it is not prominent in the media, how will you know?

    You may be fooled into thinking that all Republicans are overly conservative and old-fashioned, and that Democrats are big spending and incautious if you don’t investigate for yourself. With regards to IMC, each party tends to portray the opposing side negatively. This poor image can potentially end a candidate’s campaign. With this in mind, it is up to the people to figure out which issues are important and research them from both angles. Ultimately,  politics can be quite biased, filled with false information and one-sided opinions. When you vote in this upcoming election remember: you cannot believe everything you hear or see.

    -Stephanie Bakolia, Claire Outlaw, David Glaubach