IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Social Media

  • Ready to shop ’til you drop?

    Gobble, Gobble! Happy Thanksgiving Eve! With all the impending excitement of a delicious home-cooked meal, time spent relaxing with family, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and of course football, let’s not forget about another American tradition: Black Friday. Every eager deal hunter and thrifty mom alike will be setting their alarm bright and early to take advantage of all this day has to offer. With deals such as Walmart’s Emerson 32″ LCD TV for $188 to Best Buy’s 24″ Dynex HD TV set for a crazy price of $79.99, the early hours are completely worth it.  Target has DVD’s for as low as $1.99 per DVD, while Sears is offering sweaters for 60 percent off from 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. only. With these prices, who needs to advertise? The prices seem to speak for themselves. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Companies seem to be spending a great deal of time and effort on their advertising campaigns, from targeted Black Friday commercial campaigns, to leaked Thanksgiving Day newspaper inserts.

    Target has put an interesting spin on things and has changed the way they have marketed to these consumers. Instead of bombarding customers with prices and products they should be looking forward to buying, they have tried a different technique: portraying a ‘stereotypical’ yet over the top Black Friday shopper.  The commercials feature a woman who has been counting down the days to shop at Target for Black Friday, and gives herself pep-talks and training sessions to prepare for the big day. This fresh way of advertising really seems to have hit a nerve with the public. This is a pure example of a well-executed targeted marketing message. It’s a tongue in cheek inside joke Target is portraying to their customers, “Yes, Black Friday shoppers are crazy, but, hey, with prices this good, there’s a reason to be,” Target has been spreading this campaign through traditional mediums, such as through TV commercials, as well as through social media. They have released additional videos of the “crazy Target lady” on Youtube, as well as giving her a personal Twitter account “ChristmasChamp” to the tune of over 13,000 followers thus far. Although the cost benefits from shopping on Black Friday speak for themselves, the advertising for this day certainly serves as a great positive reinforcement. Happy shopping!

    Phelps, Kingman, Hensley

  • 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

  • Talk of the town? More like talk of the nation: When Local News Goes National

    As we all know, the phrase “gunman on campus,” is nothing to take lightly.  Since the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, colleges across the country have made it a priority to ensure the safety of their campus.

    UNC Wilmington students were alerted late last night of a gunman on campus, fleeing from the nearby Hardees. The University continued to update students through email, phone calls and text messages in order to ensure all students were aware of the situation and safe.
    It seems as though UNCW took all the proper precautions; what they didn’t take into consideration was how the students were going to react to it. Within a matter of no time, students with Facebook and Twitter accounts were posting: “everyone on campus be safe!” or writing terms of endearment on loved one’s walls. According to Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, the ability of people to share, cooperate, and act together is being improved dramatically by our social tools.With access to these social networking sites, students were able to publicly announce that there was a gunman on campus, which instigated a major concern.  News of the gunman on UNCW’s campus even reached popular media outlets, such as the New York Times and CBS.

    Using these social networking sites has united people all over the country.  Looking again at Shirky’s book, he exclaims, “a story can go from local to global in a heartbeat.” Without today’s social media sites, many news outlets would not have heard about the gunman. From an IMC perspective, we must look at how powerful these sites are and use them with much caution.

    -Stephanie Bakolia, Claire Outlaw, David Glaubach

  • Trending Topics: Political Campaigns

    With the next presidential elections only one year away, political campaigns are in full swing. The republican candidates have met multiple times to debate various topics of high concern to the American people in an attempt to pull voters early. With Obama having only one more year of his term in office, he is also working to attract voters to support him to another four years of Presidency. In fact, his recent announcement of a new college loan plan seems to be another attempt of attracting young voters; the voters who most popularly voted him into office in 2008. However, debating and new Presidential plans are not the only ways these candidates can depend on to win American voters in November of 2012; they also are in need of intensive marketing of the brand they want to represent via various strategies.
    The use of traditional and non-traditional marketing tactics will be the primary difference between this election in comparison to those historically. The typical running of television, magazine, radio advertisements will most certainly be used; however these candidates will also need to perfect the art of social media if they are looking to appeal to the younger generational voters. These candidates will only stand out among the competition if they can look savvy to all generations while still maintaining consistency in their messages and vision for our country. The use of social media and non-traditional marketing tactics will not only bring attention to these candidates, but will also give a positive indirect message that they are embracing the advancement of social and technological advancements around them. Building an image, brand through these tactics will be a huge change in comparison to campaigns in the past, allowing their messages to gain momentum faster and build a following of all audiences successfully.

    – Jared Sales, Sally Shupe, Oliver Evans

  • Connecting to Potential Jobs

    When it comes to the big job hunt, there are a plethora of considerations that come to mind. Seeking out career fairs, perfecting your resume, and getting the right professional look all seem to be high on the list. However, there’s one tool we sometimes neglect when it comes to seeking out jobs in our field, whether it be Marketing, Advertising, PR, or IMC: social networking. Sites such as LinkedIn provide a huge leg up for those looking for a job in our current market. You will be able to get your resume out to multiple different audiences with the click of your mouse, while also putting your resume out to employers who you may have initially overlooked.

    Not only is LinkedIn important for initially creating new job opportunities, it is also useful in growing and cultivating new connections and relationships. Networking is extremely important in the field of IMC and every connection you get could be a potential for a new opportunity. Active use of this resource shows those you have connected with, what you are up to, how you are looking to grow professionally, and if you are currently looking for employment options. With the current economic state, we have to exploit every avenue we can to ensure that we are able to find a job upon graduating.  While it is necessary that we have a strong resume and good interviewing skills, we also have to remember that our potential job opportunity could be found through LinkedIn.

    – Lauren Phelps, Alaethea Hensley, Jessica Kingman


  • The Real Cost of Advertising

    Our economic troubles are hurting deeper than the punch from the gas pump, bruise from increased tuition costs, and stabs from the job market. These economically challenging times are also abusing the fundamental business principles that companies have relied on for years. In particular, these bad financial times are changing the way advertisements are valued.

    Many companies assume that when they are affected by hard economic times, it is best to pull the plug on various advertisement campaigns as a way to cut marketing costs. However, this kind of penny-pinching seems to only make the struggling financial situation worse. According to a study prepared for American Business Media by Yankelovich Partners and Harris Interactive, businesses who continue to run ads have a significant competitive advantage over those who choose to cut back.

    Simply: there is a value to spending money on advertisements, regardless of economic struggles.

    Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” has never been so true in today’s economic downfall. Companies cannot risk pulling their advertising from the marketplace if they want to remain in the thoughts and minds of consumers. If only the fit survive, then a company should use aggressive advertisements and marketing strategies as a way to not only reach their audience, but to intimidate the competition. The continuation of building clientele through running advertisements establishes an image of loyalty, faith, and stability a company has in their product or service to the consumer. If the advertisements get pulled, then so will the opportunity to reassure to consumers that the company is prospering despite the economic hardships.

    If a company is facing the decision to pull advertisements as an attempt to adhere to budget cuts, it would be wise to think beyond the element of monetary cost. Because the cost of losing attention could be larger than the amount of money you may be saving without advertisements.

    -Oliver Evans, Sally Shupe, Jared Sales

  • Marketing’s New Superhero

    In a world where most of the general public has been inundated by the vast amount of advertising on every realm of media, advertisers are struggling to connect with one of their prime markets – the college student. College students are a principal market for corporate marketers with their discretionary spending, having a $2 billion gain from 2009 to 2010. Along with their spending habits, these young adults are beginning to shop for themselves for the very first time, thus beginning to form brand loyalties that marketers strive to form in their target audiences. Herein lays the problem: since we are prone to ignoring most forms of traditional media marketing on television, radio, or newspapers, recent studies have shown that college students are no more likely to open an Internet ad than the rest of the population.

    Introducing corporate marketing’s new superhero: the student brand ambassador. Large corporations are starting to tap campus leaders with a wide sphere of social influence, not to mention the people skills to go along with marketing the brand to a variety of students across their campuses. They also paper bulletin boards, chalk sidewalks, and have constant Facebook or Twitter updates promoting their brand. “The student ambassador tactic embraces all the elements that corporations find [have the] most effect,” states Matt Briton, managing partner of Mr. Youth, a firm that specializes in college marketing, “It’s peer-to-peer, it’s word of mouth, it’s flexible and it breaks through the clutter of the media.” As a market that generally tends to distrust corporate messages, having a peer spin the praises of a certain brand can certainly turn more heads than an ad placed in the correct time slot on MTV.  Marketers are finally beginning to realize something WE all already knew, the best way to sell students something is for other students to be talking about it.                                                                              

    – Jessica Kingman, Alaethea Hensley, & Lauren Phelps