Anti-piracy ads target digital-savvy youth over illegal downloads

Everybody remembers the ‘piracy it’s  a crime’ advertisement that was played previous to lots of movies from 2004 to 2007. This ad made us clear that illegal downloading of movies is equal to stealing a car or a handbag. A few months ago, some new anti-piracy advertisements have been launched. The advertisements show us a parody on classic films such as Reservoir dogs and The sixth sense. The target audience of this ad is the so called digital-savvy youth. After all, these young people find it so obvious that they can find everything on the internet and they don’t even think about the consequences of this illegal downloading for the movie industry. And the consequences are quite big. Declining incomes  more and more prevent good films being made. The UK film and television hopes that these advertisements will urge the young generation to buy more legal DVD’s and downloads and to go to the movies.guardian

Ann-Sophie Parmentier

Food manufacturers target children on internet after regulator's TV advertising clampdown

Since the media regulator Ofcom has made it difficult to advertise during children’s television brands such as McDonald’s, Haribo and Skittles are using social networking sites and internet chat programs to target children.

Adverts for brands classed as being high in fat, salt or sugar are banned in programs for children.

Turning down the advertising on children’s television isn’t very effective because the advertisers simply use the money to advertise online.

Skittles set up a profile on the social networking site Bebo and now has more than 3500 friends. McDonald’s developed an Internet game where children have to shoot down McDonald’s logos. Some brands use MSN messenger and add friends who they give information about the latest activities of the company.  That kind of advertising in an unregulated area so that Ofcom can’t really do something about it. Many people want the government to change the legislation and forbid advertising for children.(guardian)

Sharon Persyn

bringing your brand back from the brink

The internet and social network sites in particular have changed the way of handling with products having branding problems. Dealing with such a branding crisis is all about keeping control, but social network sites have made it very difficult to keep the product from breaking down. Why is this so much harder? As an example we take Toyota. This company was forced to recall 8 million cars. Because of the social network sites, the need to respond is now a real-time issue. Toyota failed to respond quickly to the customers questions and got therefore a lot of criticism. The problem is that brands have a fear to communicate through the online world because they think it will lead to more negativity. But in fact the opposite is true. The social media can help a brand to recover after a blunder. If Toyota had done this communication earlier, many problems could have been avoided.  marketingweek

Anthony Pieters

Social network sites help revitalising the online ad sector

In the first half of his year, social media sites have helping online display advertising in the UK making a growth of 6.4% or about £381m (450 million euro), so says the Internet Advertising Bureau.  

More and more companies like Unilever, Virgin and O2 advertise on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkIn etc , by spending huge budgets to pick up potential consumers.  

Online video ads are the most popular, however they only make part for 5.5% of total digital spend. Although, paid-search advertising (like Google and others) have still an increase of 8.9% to £1.18 bn (1.39 milliard euro) , the paid-for search’s share of UK internet advertising shrunk  from 61.7% to 59.5%. The main reason is that marketers switch to areas such as social media and online video advertising, who have a high margin growth.

Overall media and entertainment spend the most on display advertising, followed by the financial sector and consumer goods companies.

But why advertising at social network sites ? First of all, they can attract the people you want to advertise. Secondly, the number of target people is huge (a half milliard people all over the world has already Facebook for instances) .

Julie Scheipers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/05/facebook-display-ad-increase

Cultural differences in ads

Tastes of consumers are different all over the world, so aren’t advertisements in Asia the same in Europe, neither are they in North-America. Successful, but provocative ads in one part of the world, for instances Europe , might be provocative in prudish America.

These disagreements are also at publicity concourse, for example when the jury of the 2002 Grand Prix for print advertising (Cannes) got split after a discussion. The notorious commercial for travel company 18-30 (by Saatchi & Saatchi), who won finally the competition, was hated by the Canadian juror. Reaction of the Swiss judge Mr. Fabrikant : ‘Do not sell “politically correctness” to us’.

It isn’t only hard in times in terms of financial aspects, it is even for global marketers dealing with different cultures. Globalization is a fact, but commercials can’t be aired all over the world without adaptations. Changing standards in a country or a continent is not commended, you have to know what the different acceptable attitudes are.

Violence in humorous advertising is tolerable in the USA, in addition to what it is in Europe. Generally in North America, there are more violent-typing ads than elsewhere, but nudity and sexuality are a no-go-zone.

Julie Scheipers

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2003-06-19-xtreme_x.htm

The marketing answer to online shopping

Online shopping is becoming more and more popular, nobody will doubt that. Marketers couldn’t let pass this new trend either, so it was up to them to create new strategies that would go along with this new virtual way of shopping. The answer was behavioural targeted advertising. This marketing strategy is based on user interests and their recent online activity. Based on this information, online shoppers will be confronted with specific adverts which were found more relevant to their online behaviour. Of course, this could become dangerous because behavioural targeted advertising might narrow the possibility for brands to grow their customer base. Therefore it stays very important to actively search for new customers. Some customers might not be searching actively for the product you offer (and by consequence won’t be listed as ‘possible buyer’) but nevertheless, might become interested  when they get confronted with advertising about it. marketingweek

Ann-Sophie Parmentier

How Marketers Target Kids

Kids are very important to marketers because they can influence their parent’s buying, they have their own purchasing power and they are the consumers of the future. This text describes some strategies marketers employ to target children.

Marketers use psychologists to analyze children’s behavior, fantasy, art and dreams and use these results in their advertisements.  They make the kids aware of their brand because children can already recognize brands from the age of two and by the time they go to school children can recognize hundreds of brand logos. Further marketers want the coolest kid to use or wear their product and so give it a cool status, so that the other kids would also want to use or wear what “the coolest kid” uses. On top of that they pay to advertise in schools. By giving free drinks and snacks, putting their logo on the school bus, computers, sponsoring school events and supplying technology they hoop to reach the kids.

I don’t think you can blame parents for not protecting their child.  When other kids talk about the product or they get it for free in schools, parents can’t do anything about it. (media-awareness)

Sharon Persyn

marketing to the elderly group

Today, the first baby boomers will turn 65 years old. These elderly represent a very large part of the market. The most advertising campaigns targeted younger people because the elderly were stereotyped as “individuals who depend on their children’s income.” But several surveys have revealed that these senior citizens have higher education, an independent income, and that they also have access to the internet. Therefore, it is important to take into account these seniors when a company sets his target market. There are a couple of insights which can be used in communicating to the senior citizen market. First of all, elderly don’t like to be called old. For example, there was a Heinz publicity campaign about baby food for older people having chewing problems. As a result the product failed because the product symbolized the weakness and the helplessness of the elderly. Therefore, it is more appealing to focus on the social activities of older people instead of focussing on their problems. Finally, there is no reason to think that elderly are set in their ways; they still can be motivated to buy new products. To conclude, the elderly market is very wide, and can be used for a lot of advertising purposes.  theentrepreneurpage

Anthony Pieters

Shrek Invites Kids to Explore the Outdoors

Mostly the articles we found about targeting kids have a lot of critique on that topic.  But not all ads for kids have to be negative. I found an example of an ad which motivates kids to play outside.

On the commercial you can see 2 kids discovering the forest when suddenly Shrek shows up. At the end there is some advertising for www.discovertheforest.org ,a site which motivates children to go play outside, offers games about the forest, information and shows the forests nearby your house.

This commercial is part of the Reconnecting Kids With Nature Campaign. DreamWorks Animation says they are proud to support the campaign and Shrek is the ideal character to promote playing outside because he loves living outside.

I thought this is little strange, an animated film maker who promotes playing outside. Maybe this is just to promote the Shrek character and is this ad not that innocent as we think it is. (adage)

Sharon Persyn

Mc Donald’s launches TV ad campaign targeting gay men

McDonald’s is launching its first television advertising campaign targeting gay men and there is already a lot of commotion about it.

The new McDonald’s ad campaign is aired on television in France. It shows a teenager sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant looking at a class photo. Meanwhile he is  phoning his gay lover and saying that he misses him. His dad arrives and they start talking about the class photo. The father is interested in the girlfriends of his son and is convinced that his son must be very popular with girls. Then you see the boy smiling secretly.

The campaign is shown to promote McDo’s new slogan ‘Come as you are’ but it is only shown in France because there would be a lot of comment on the campaign in other countries.

(dailymail)

Sharon Persyn

Apple: It's all about the brand

“People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company.” These are the words of John Sculley, the former marketing executive from Pepsi. In the late 1980s, Sculley turned Apple into the biggest single computer company in the world, with $11 billion in annual sales.  He decided that a marketing budget of $15 million wasn’t high enough, and he lifted it up to $100 million. In 2001 Apple was the brand of the year. But it was not roses all the way. In the mid-1990s apple was in danger of going out of business due to bad branding and boring products. But with the return of Steve Jobs everything changed. He rebranded Apple. At the moment, Apple is one of the most successful brands in the world. Nevertheless, it is not the best product in the world. But why is it so popular? Because it’s not just intimate with its customers; it’s loved. This is where Apple distinguishes itself from other brands.  wired.com

Anthony Pieters

Advertisers 'increasingly target children'

More and more advertisers choose children as their target audience. Why are these children such a good target group? First of all, they are very accessible. Not only through TV or radio, but even in the school canteen, where their little friends are telling them the greatest stories about all their new toys. Second, every parent wants their child to be happy and have friends. So, when their child is begging them for one of those new toys he absolutely wants to have so he can play with his friends, parents will easily buy those things just to make sure their kid isn’t a misfit. A recent study shows us that parents think their authority is undermined by those advertising campaigns. Lately, more and more arguments are coming up to regulate this child targeting, in order to protect these little kids, who aren’t able yet to see through these advertising campaigns.(telegraph)

Ann-Sophie Parmentier

How to target tourists in New York ?

First of all, luring tourists to New York isn’t difficult at all, but luring them to your own shop in NYC , also known as the biggest American shopping area , would be a challenge.

Retailer American Eagle Outfitters, Inc  - with a little help from social network sites - found a new way of targeting advertising . Costumers , mostly tourists,   get photographed in a mini studio after their purchase . Minutes later, their photo (now about 4500 square meters)  is shown at the billboards of Times Square . The shopper get alarmed of his appearance at TS by Facebook, so all his friends also know the news – the 15 seconds of fame at one of the most famous and visited places in the world. This once-in-a-lifetime experience for tourists is an excellent strategy to get sold your products in NYC. “We will reach a lot of new people," says Steve Kubinski, senior director of marketing for the AE brand.

Julie Scheipers

(note: This inventing way of billboard advertising  is partly due to the Belgian high-resolution LED and display company Barco )

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/11/american_eagle.html

Kids do realise they're advertised

David Buckingham (professor Media Education at London University and head of the Centre for The Study of Children, Youth and Media), speaking at Eos Magazine: “Primary school kids aren't slaves of our marketing society, they can make the difference between commercials and information at the television. Tracing hidden ads rest difficult, but it is even hard for adults to see through cookies and data mining. This is not the fault of commercial makers, they’re just more creative and inventing. Even are children, they’re smart enough to get round censure . Kids reached in advertisements get younger, and the younger, the more influenced they are. The way advertisers are treating kids, is getting more personal and more participated. The government has to impose laws avoiding abuse.” Buckingham doesn’t make sense of this new way of advertising, he just want to invite children to discuss about the do’s and don’ts about media, social network sites and commercials (targeting advertising).

 www.eosmagazine.eu/boeken.aspx

Julie Scheipers

Target market selection

Steuart Henderson Britt once said: “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.” Without marketing nobody will know your product. So brand awareness is a very important subject in the policy of the enterprise. A key point to get brand recognition is to aim at a specific market segment. Therefore the company has to consider two important factors. On the one hand, they should observe the attractiveness of the segment. Two very important aspects are the size and the growth rate of the segment. Furthermore, the competition and the sales potential are considerable angles. On the other hand the segment has to fit into the objectives, resources and capabilities of the company. If the enterprise wants to sell high-quality goods, it will not target a low price market. On top of that, it has to take into account the access to distribution channels required to serve the segment. netmba

Anthony Pieters