French's - American Dream Target Market

French's has two sets of commercials for the same chicken recipe but with different sets of families. The first video (below) has the American Dream family, which is with both parents and two children.

 The other video is demonstrates the what many families are faced with, which is a single mother household. The mother may have to be the sole provider but she still has to go home and make the family dinner.



I do however find it funny how the family size remains the same at four. Does that then mean that the French's products are specifically geared toward families of four? 

I also love the idea as the family theme continues to be illustrated in the home website (www.frenchs.com). French's has utilized the SMW quite well by incorporating what they stand for in these sites. Another example is their Facebook page (below) that has an extensive amount of pictures of food using their products.

The Facebook page also allows their customers to remain engaged in the company. French's poses questions on recipes and on a variety of issues faced with products. Their sites demonstrate a sense of continuous engagement with their customer's and gives the customers a feel of what they stand for. Customers can also visit the SMWs to voice their opinions and French's has what looks to be customer recovery to deal with the issues immediately. French's has done a job well done and is utilizing the web mediums adequately.

A Great Marketing Concept

This video is long but it relays a message that I is quite powerful to marketers. The video illustrates that marketers have to believe in what their company does, why they exists, and also instill those values through the employees. Its similar to creating a culture where the employees work with "blood, sweat, and tears" instead of for the pay check, as the presenter states. This is a demonstration of loyalty to the brand and a strong belief in what they do for the company.

If the company can successfully build a culture and thoroughly understand why they exists, the company can then easily instill the belief's in the customers. The conveyance mustn't be a hard sell, but rather a subtle sell which captivates the emotions to make a purchase. It takes a certain talent or an ability to understand the full concept of one's company and delivering what customers desire. A marketer must answer questions about the product or service before the consumers have a chance to think of any.

This video was inspiring.

Crazy Go Daddy Doritos Commercial Submittance

I can understand that commercials have to be out there and capture the attention of viewers, but did these individuals that submitted this video to Go Daddy really think they would get chosen? What a waste of time to even go through the effort to create this video. It is kind of funny though...

Some people simply need to get it together!!!

Lollapalooza - Great Crowdsourcing

Lollapalooza!!! A festival in Chicago that has been around for 20 years. There is no advertisement on television and the entire event is promoted online and crowd sourcing. The event is similar to Coachella, which is a three day event at Grant Park in Chicago and has 90,000 people there daily. The event has over a hundred artists and music genres from rock to hip-hop, to rap, to alternative, to techno.

The event has catered food not only from natives of Chicago but from great chefs, real cuisine but available for on the go as people enjoyed the music. There is an abundance of alcohol to keep the people happy as they walk around the park and rock out.

The crowd sourcing is involved from their Facebook which numerous people follow and then pass on to their friends as soon as the posts for ticket sales go up. The Facebook page, as pictured below, illustrates the dates of the next event as also answers questions that many of the guests may have. Their Twitter account has over 86 thousand followers.

Lollapallooza also has featured videos up on YouTube (the video above) that show the past years events and gives a vicarious feel for those that were unable to go. The person watching the video gets a feel of how the event is; rain or shine the event goes on. Also the (SEO) is absolutely spot-on! On the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), pictured below, the entire list on the initial SERP is all Lollapalooza impressions.

The links go directly to the website and each landing page is diversified to go exactly to the page people are looking for: to old videos, to new up to date information, to apparell, to videos, to various aspects of the event. The SEO for Lollapalooza was favorably executed in my opinion. I do think that more followers on the social media sights would be great because if they were compared to Coachella, their tickets sell out at a slower rate.

House Advertisement - Effective?

That's right, you are not imaging things; that is an advertisement on that house. The company, GoDial, offers people the opportunity to have advertisements on their homes for a minimum of three months and could extend the contract up to a year long. The colors are bright and are meant to capture the attention of your neighbors as well as from passer-bys.

The website (www.godialing.com/paintmyhouse.php) has a submission form, as seen below, and once the application is submitted the company reviews it. After meeting a certain criteria and upon approval they then send out painters to paint the house, which will take between three to five days.The entire home, excluding the roof and windows, is painted in bright vibrant colors and must remain for the minimum three months. Upon the completion of the three months the advertisement may be extended up to a year; all depending on if the home owner wishes to keep it and also if GoDialing wishes to continue a contract.

The perk of having the advertisement on the home is that GoDialing will pay the mortgage every month the advertisement remains on the home. After the contract has suspended the company will repaint the home back to the original style. In today's economy there may be more people interested in applying for this but the bright colors may not be worth it. 

How effective is this marketing? The house would have to be on a fairly busy street for a large amount of people to view ads. What about the neighbors? I'm quite sure the neighborhood will not be intrigued to be made to see an eye-sore everyday for an extended period of time. Not a good look and a difficult method of marketing a product.

McDonald's Coffee Snob Advertisement Campaign

OMG!!! Did you know McDonald's had this mockery of a website?! The only reason I found out the website existed is because I saw a billboard off the 10 fwy westbound on my way to school that read "Coffee Snobs Welcome" from McDonald's and I wanted to write about it. I then went on google to seearch for information but had to go through multiple links before I ran across this in a bloggers page.

This advertisement strategy isn't a good one in my opinion. How can McDonald's gain business from Starbucks patrons after making a mockery of them?! Is this really the route of a good marketing campaign that could capture the attention of Starbucks patrons? Although McDonald's hasn't explicity said they are targeting Starbucks patrons, the point is well taken that its towards us; this can be seen by the website (http://www.unsnobbycoffee.com/) which shows in detail how their coffee is made in the menu tab. Somehow the drinks look similar to a Starbucks coffee. 

There needs to be more positivity in the advertising campaign and less degradation of those whom chose to drink Satrbucks coffee. Starbucks is not a snobby coffee, rather the apmosphere is pleasant and they take pride in the service upheld at every location. In comparison McDonald's may have a good coffee, but coffee is not their expertisee but nuked hamburgers and genenetically altered fries are. Consumers have their preferences and to bash them is the last thing a company should do in attempting to obtain business from them.

The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is lacking substantially for this marketing campaign. I went to  Google to retrieve information on the ads but I continued to find unsubstantial information on this particular campaign, rather the search engine results page (SERP) continued to be dominated with food and other products. Their YouTube chanel lacked information or the commercial they have n regards to the "coffee snob." The SERP also consisted of bloggers on the issue that enventually led me to the McDonald's website.

Upon viewing the site I ran across the above page in which allows viewers to send an intervention letter to coffee snobs. They are attempting to make a unique selling point (USP) but this campaign is lacking enthusiasm and an appeal towards coffee drinkers in general.

I hope McDonald's can alter their call to action (CTA) because thus far the snobby coffee isn't working. You need to improve and possibly begin looking for a new CMO.

CNN iPhone App Improvement Needed

The CNN app on the iPhone needs work done as soon as possible. CNN is supposed to be one of the largest and latest news network, yet the application and the notifications are working improperly. The notifications that pop up on the screen when clicked takes the subscriber to the home page and the user has to go thoroughly through the site to find the notification. The notification doesn't have that news story readily available for a subscriber to click on or take you to the designated news story one is seeking.

Compared to the USA Today application, which also has the notification option, CNN is lacking a ease in access to top news. The USA Application has a notificatoin application  which also pops up a few seconds after CNN but the app goes directly to the news story notified. Also the USA Today application has easier manuverability compared to CNN.

The CNN applicaton definitely needs more improvement to keep retention because I am one that is close to turning off the notifications and continuing to utilize USA Today's application more frequently.