Reflection on the Year

For my last blog post I have to write a reflection about what I have learned throughout the year based off of some objectives from our syllabus. One of our objectives was to explore ethical issues that marketing manager face. I feel like we really did not cover anything on this other than the fraud going on at Jay Peak right now. Even so it’s not directly related to marketing at all. However I feel that my blog discussed a huge ethical issue of how marketers exploit our emotions to make us feel things and buy their products.

With every business class that I take in school I feel like I take away nothing from each class. Not because I don’t pay attention, but because I am never taught anything new. For three summers I managed a stand up paddle board shop on long island. My boss and I worked hard from the very beginning working to establish a name for us. We both got national certifications so we could market ourselves as the only certified paddle board shop on long island. We created various social media’s to be able to share pictures and different events that were going on. Our target market was literally everyone, male, female, toddlers, moms, grandpas, and everything else. Anyone is able to paddle board and we pushed our hardest to target each and every different group. We created mommy and me events to bring out the little kids to get them exploring with their moms. We had teen nights every Tuesday where teenagers got discount rentals and we even cooked food for them.

I no longer work at the paddle board shop because I am trying to start my life here in Vermont. However here is the link to the facebook page that we had created. On average we grew about 250 likes every summer. On top of that we have 25 reviews of us, and all 25 are five star reviews.

 https://www.facebook.com/huntingtonsupshack/?fref=ts

Taking business classes in school can be helpful, but I have yet to learn anything in any of my classes that I haven’t already known from having real world experience. Marketing is not hard at all, you just have to be passionate about what you are trying to sell and make it happen. 

How PS4 is Doing Better Than Xbox One

Ever since the original Xbox and PlayStation came out in the early 2000's there has always been the battle between groups of friends on which one to buy. Most recently the Xbox One and PS4 came out in November of 2013 and only seven days apart from each other, with PS4 coming out first. However there interesting thing is that PS4 has higher sales by about 50% and Sony spends less money are marketing than Microsoft does. So how is Sony doing better? Well it all comes down to the way that Sony markets their product as a console for hardcore gamers. The strive to give gamers the best gaming experience while Microsoft focuses on the Xbox One as a living room necessity. Here are two commercials that are from the original release of both systems, first let us examine the PS4 commercial.

If we examine this PS4 commercial we can clearly see that all they focus in is the greatness of games. Sony focused on showing us what games are awaiting us once the system launches. As we can clearly see Sony is purely focusing on the aspect of gaming on their system and not any other features of the PS4. 

Taking a look at the Xbox commercial we can see that Microsoft made the console for everyone to us, and focused on our wants. One of the key phrases that stuck out at me was that “you will have a relationship with your T.V.” Now to the ordinary person they might not have any idea what this means. However Xbox has this thing called Kinect and it allows us to use voice and hand commands to work the Xbox. Another interesting point they bring up is that they are using all of this data to boost our entertainment. Note that they say entertainment and not gaming. Microsoft wanted to focus on entertainment for the whole family, not just the hardcore gamer.

So how did all of this play out in the long run? Well there is about 55 million console worldwide and the PS4 makes up about 35.9 million of them. That leaves a measly 19 million Xbox Ones out there. When we look at marketing costs a year after the consoles release I found out that Microsoft spent around 47 million and Sony only about 30 million. How did Sony do so much better than Microsoft? I honestly think that it all comes down to how Sony marketed their product. There are more hardcore gamers out there than families that want an entertainment system. It is very easy just to pick up Netflix, Apple TV, or Amazon Fire as an entertainment program. I think if Microsoft targeted the hardcore gamers like Sony did than they would have had a better shot. 

The Jewelry Industry

The jewelry industry is just as strong now as it has ever been. The thing we really have to look at is what they are doing to attract sales.  Ever since there have been ads the jewelry industry has been using them in ways to take advantage of peoples insecurities and desires about social status, love and marriage. This first advertisement is especially condemning in this case. Even though the majority of the commercial is not in English, you can tell from the context what is going on.

The commercial implies that by wearing this brand of jewelry it makes the wearers more prone to marriage. “Jewelry that makes you want to marry” is used at the end of the advert and it is just ridiculous. This prays on a person’s fear of rejection by implying that just by having or presenting the jewelry it can make a person want to marry another. Think she might not like you enough to marry, or your social image might affect her decision? No problem, locate your nearest Tanishq Jewelry dealer. Now lets shift to a common jewelry store we all know, Jared. 

Have you ever been concerned about your social status in the world around you? According to Jared all you need to show your high ranking status is to purchase one of their fine pieces of jewelry. Watching the video you can clearly hear them say they have been supplying jewelry to the world’s ancient royalty and modern red carpet goers alike; if you want to be like them you need buy from Jared. Jewelry is portrayed by advertisements to symbolize wealth, power and high social status. How often are successful people, actors, musicians, etc seen in commercials to be sporting expensive jewelry?  From this bombardment of advertisements a large number of us have come to accept these portrayals as truths.

 

Playing on symbolism and tradition of marriage the many companies try to make it seem as if buying their product will make you have a happier or long lasting marriage. Take the above image for example; pulled from the webpage of Kay’s online March catalog. Every kiss begins with Kay, and according to this ad so do long lasting marriages. You can see the his and her rings overlapped next to each other with the words “Tell the story of your love, Now and Forever” emblazoned across the middle. This clearly portrays the idea that that if you have these rings, then your marriage will last forever.

 If expensive jewelry had anything to do with your marriage, or true status as a human being then maybe the richest of us would never divorce, and the best of us, no matter what sacrificed, would be covered in diamonds and rubies. While looking into the issues revolving around advertisement in the jewelry industry, I discovered that three major jewelry distributors (Kay, Jared, and Zales) are all owned by a single corporation name Signet. So even though all these companies are trying to exploit your emotion for your sale, in the end it doesn’t matter where you go.

Works Cited 

https://www.kay.com/CatalogViewerForm?langId=-1&storeId=10101&catalogId=10001&catalogURL=https%3A%2F%2Fcareyweb.com%2FSterlingFlipBooks%2FKayMarch2016%2FDVL%2Freader.html&catalog=March+Catalog

American Petroleum Institute

You know what really grinds my gears? When people in the media deny climate change because they are receiving giant sums of money from various corporations and institutes. In this particular case I am looking into the American Petroleum Institute and how they use their money to pay off the media to market their gas and oil. Patrick Michael’s is a climate scientist and he estimated that 40% of his funding came from oil and gas companies, American Petroleum being one of them.

What really disgusts me is the commercials put out by Energyfromshale.org, an organization trying to brainwash us into thinking hydraulic fracturing is safe. Let’s watch this commercial really quick.

In this commercial she makes a bold statement by saying fracking has been done safely by them for 65 years. They are lying right to our faces. There is nothing safe about pumping thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the ground to break apart shale to retrieve natural gas. In the documentary Gas Land we can clearly see the destruction hydraulic fracturing brings to the land around us. People were able to light their tap water on fire because of the toxic chemicals getting into their aquifer from fracking. Besides the toxic chemicals in the ground, the extraction and production of natural gas is the leading methane gas emissions contributing to climate change according to the EPA.

So where does this all tie together? Well Energy for Shale is actually part of the American Petroleum Institute. So money spent by them to disprove climate change will help boost sales and make fracking look safe which benefits Energy for Shale. This case is very similar to my post about Perdue chicken. These companies straight up lie to our face to make us think they are doing the right thing for us and the environment, when in reality that are not. Think about it, would we still support fracking if we saw the destruction it caused? We wouldn’t want to buy their product at all. Worst of all the American Petroleum Institute claims that natural gas is a clean energy and the way to the future. A scientist from Stanford by the name of Marc Jacobson created a map on how we could reach 100% sustainable power by 2030. The reality is we can fight climate change and make a difference. However these companies keep putting out propaganda to make their product, in this case natural gas, seem friendly and safe for us and the environment. They are giving us a false sense of hope while stabbing us in the back and destroying our water, land, and planet. 

Works Cited

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

How Fake is our Beauty Industry?

When I look at the beauty and cosmetic industry I think of a multi billion dollar industry that makes its money off of telling people they need this to look beautiful. Fun fact, beauty products are just sold to help you hide your insecurities, own up to your body and be proud of it. Another fun fact, the beauty industry is so misleading about its products that some ads have been banned in certain countries for being to fake. In fact a couple years ago in the UK an add published by L’Oreal featured a photo shopped version of Julia Roberts. It was banned by the advertising standard authority for being too misleading. On the left is Julia Roberts, and on the right is her misleading self made by photo shop.

It just makes me sick to my stomach that people fall for ads like this. Why else would people spend upwards of 200$ for a beauty product unless they thought that these images were real. It blows my mind how twisted this whole industry is in making us think that if we buy their stupid creams or eye liners that we will look like them. Who cares!

One add that I found particularly funny was a mascara commercial from cover girl that utilized Katy Perry. Pay close attention to what comes onto the screen around 19 seconds.

Did you see it? At least this company doesn’t try to lie about their products and say that Katy was wearing last inserts. Still though I doubt that most people will see that because they are just drooling over Katy’s eyes. 

People should not be persuaded to buy a product to try and look like a fake model in some add. We should be buying cosmetic products because we like the way they smell or the way they feel. I’ve been buying the same soaps and shampoo since I can remember not because of some ad, but simply because in the store I smelt a variety of them and picked one that smelt great. 

As a final ad I am going to leave you with this picture and question. What is this picture trying to advertise?

http://images.pcworld.com/images/article/2011/07/lancomejuliaroberts-5200420.jpg

 http://www.adwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/pantene-print-ads-2.jpg

Pharmaceutical Marketing

One question that has been running through my mind for the longest time is why do prescription drug companies have ads? When I am watching TV all of a sudden an add will come on for Abilify or Nexium saying if I have these symptoms then I should go to my doctor and ask for this medication. Hold on here is it not the doctors job to tell me what is best for my health? I shouldn’t go to my doctor saying I need this medication because of x, y, and z, instead I should go to my doctor and say hey I have x, y, and z what can I do to fix this. Doctors now a day are way too quick into prescribing a patient with a medication because more often than not they get reimbursed by these drug companies to sell their product. Let’s take a look at the first ad here for Nexium a prescription for acid reflux. 

I didn’t know what Nexium was until I saw this commercial. From the start it seemed like an anti-depressant because of all the family shots, but really it is to cure acid reflux. The ad targets us by using the word “you” in saying that they have been helping people like you for over a decade. Nexium also now has a new service where they can deliver it right to your door. Why do I have a problem with this? It all comes back from my original point, people see this as a cure and then go to their doctors to get it. But does the patient even know what the cause of acid reflux is? Acid reflux can be caused by eating too big of a meal, being overweight, eating before bed, smoking, drinking coffee, or even eating acidic food like tomatoes, chocolate, or spicy food. I know as both my mom and dad got older then experienced some acid reflux due to body changes. Instead of going to a doctor about this problem they simply changed their diet by drinking less coffee and eating less acidic foods. Now I’m not saying this is the cure all for everyone, but it should be the first step before taking some pill. 

The next drug I am looking it is actually the leading drug in sales for anti-depression, and is meant to be taken with any other anti-depressants we already take.

I chose to just play the side effects to this and not the actual commercial because who in their right mind would take this with all of this horrible things that can happen. Just like acid reflux, depression is probably being caused by something that can be fixed before having to rely on a medication. This person might just need to talk to someone about whatever is bothering them, or just needs a change of pace in life. Instead these marketers come in and say “hey just take this pill and everything will be better.” Like all medication though eventually it won’t have the same effects, so we have to take more or move to s stronger medication.

I acknowledge that there may be so people out there that need these medications, but I don't like how these companies tell you to ask your about them. We are supposed to go to a doctor with a problem and then they give us a solution. The other problem I have is that people don't take some time to research their own symptoms and find alternatives instead of just taking a pill. In fact many illnesses today can be fixed simply by changing something in our everyday life. Lastly I am going to to show you all an amazing drug, its called nature and everyone should take some of it. 

The Food Industry

When it come to our growth and health we have all heard the phrase “you are what you eat.” More often than not however we think we are eating something good for us, but we fall trap to marketers using sly words to make something seem better. One instance of this stems back to 1977 when the McGovern report came out. It was originally intended to say “reduce intake,” however the food industries didn’t like that and had it changed to “consume more lean products.” From this we had a brand new market take off, now everything was being labeled with reduced fat. But what happens when we take the fat out of a product? Well it is going to taste horrible, because we are so used to a sweeter taste. So what has happened is companies take the fat out of products and replace it with sugar. We currently have 600,000 food items sold in America and 80% of them contain added sugar. That statistic comes right from the documentary Fed Up, which everyone should watch. Let’s take a look at the first example here of Heinz French dressing vs. Heinz fat free French dressing.

Did you catch the difference? Both dressings are 12g packets, yet the fat free one has three extra grams of sugar. Now I know you are probably thinking what the big deal is, it is just three extra grams. Well if someone is trying to lose weight they are going to buy the fat free because they are told it is healthier, when really it is just pumped with sugar!  Next well take a look at these two peanut butters made by Skippy.

The one on the left is the reduced fat, and yet it has more sugar than the regular Skippy's peanut butter. Now I am not here to tell you that fat is better than sugar (which it is), but rather focus on how marketers can be misleading. I am going to slightly change gears here now and take a look at another huge problem with food marketing. First I want you to watch this commercial from Perdue. 

The most important thing we can do as consumers is pay attention to the language company's use. In this case Perdue claims that all of their chickens come from "family farms" and "clean safe environments." Since the USDA verifies this we as consumers believe it, but I have one question for you. Does this look like a family run farm that has a clean and safe environment? 

What is the big picture of marketing here? The point I am making is that we cannot always trust the words we see. We as consumers are drawn to words like “fat free” because we want to be healthy. Marketers know that we are going to buy these items because we will feel good about ourselves eating them. Just like we can be happy that our chicken came from a family farm and was raised humanely. Marketers are always trying to use our emotions against us to make us feel good about buying something. We need to be aware of this and always question what we are being sold. 

Works Cited for images 

http://www.heinzfoodservice.com/products-and-brands/portion-control/salad-dressings/Salad%20Dressings/78000722

http://www.heinzfoodservice.com/products-and-brands/portion-control/salad-dressings/Salad%20Dressings/78004381

http://dessertswithbenefits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/nutrition-label-THEIRS2.jpg

http://trainer-kim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/skippy_peanutbutter_reducedcreamy_nutrition_label.jpg

Video Streaming Services

Hello fellow bloggers, my name is Chris and I am an Environmental Studies major at St. Michael's College in Vermont, with a minor in business. For our marketing class we have been tasked with creating a blog and posting in it for eight weeks. I am sick and tired of present day marking because they purposely use empathy to manipulate us into thinking we NEED to buy this. Over these next eight weeks I will jumping from industry to industry breaking down their marketing schemes and helping to educate the public on the evil trickery corporations use to make us buy things.

So maybe some of us are not sure what empathy even is. Here is the literal definition of it from the Oxford English Dictionary "the quality or power of projecting one's personality into or mentally identifying oneself with an object of contemplation, and so fully understand or appreciating it." In more simple terms it means to put yourself in someone's shoes and feel what they feel.

For this week I am targeting the video streaming industry, like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Let's take a look at this ad for the Amazon Fire TV.

First let's examine the four P's of marketing (product, place, price, and promotion). The ad does a good job clearly telling us that this if for the Amazon Fire TV which can stream TV shows and movies instantly. We have enough common sense to realize that since amazon is an online shopping site, which that is where we can purchase one of these, but they do not list the price here. The real problem I have with this ad is that they are using empathy to make us think how they want us to think. They came up with this term "show hole" to make it seem like we have a problem that we don't know what to watch anymore. 

This next ad is your typical ending to a movie where the guy chases the girl to ask her something important, but there is a twist. 

This is an interesting ad because they really do not explain what the product is, but rather assume that people already know what Netflix is. The empathy in this one is not as strong as the amazon one, but yet it makes me wonder "would someone actually do this?" They draw upon a classic love scene in most movies to make it comical so you will remember it. Comedy also plays a huge roll in the next ad about Hulu. 

Hulu makes it very clear in this ad that their service is free, and even though this ad is a bit dated, yes Hulu does offer some free shows. But you will get bored very quickly and want to pay the $7.99 to have access to more shows and movies. They make it very clear that we can use their service anytime and anywhere on your TV or computer. Within the ad they make jokes about how this will turn your brain to mush and then they will eat it all up. Hello! They are clearly telling you that they will rot your brain, so they can take control of you, so you keep watching more and more, so that way you keep paying them monthly. However no one sees this because the ad is funny, so the real meaning gets hidden, but hey, that's marketing.