Pump Up Your Instagram!

Instagram, what started as a fun way to share photos with your friends has now turned into a free way to improve your business. From big companies like Michael Kors to your own personal profile, there are several ways to improve your marketing on your Instagram.

Here are 5 tips!

1. Add a link to your biography. Once people visit your Instagram page, you want them to keep going on to the next level! These days, there has been a rise in Internet bloggers. Personally, there are several fashion beauty and lifestyle blogs that I look at weekly. If you have your own blog, put a link to it in your Instagram profile! Or, if you are a big business, have a link to your website! Here is an example:

2. Subliminally include your products into your Instagram posts. Make your product look very appealing to the target audience member. For example, Lauren Conrad has a fashion line available at Kohls that is very popular among my age group. Here is an post from LCLaurenConrad that incorporates items from her fashion line in a picture that many girls could find appealing and relate to.

3. Use a text overlay on your photos. Sometimes, people will not take the time to read the caption of your photo that includes the action that you want them to take. It is a good idea to put your message right across the picture so that it stands out when someone is scrolling through their news feed.

4. Make your captions include a call to action! If there is a sale, notify the viewers! If there is a new line of sweaters coming out for the holidays, tell them about it! Make sure the call to action is clear. Otherwise, there is no point in even posting the photo and caption.

5. ######## Hashtags!

It is extremely important to take advantage of hashtags. It is a great way to gather information and draw in more viewers from other people who are looking at the same hashtag. Make sure that the hashtag is relevant, and don't overdo it. On average, it is recommended to use approximately 1o to 15 hashtags in each post. 

Read more about how to pump up your Instagram at: 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/improve-your-instagram-marketing/

Pin, Pin, Pin!

So I must admit, I am slightly addicted to Pinterest. However, I don't think I am the only one who has this addiction. I found some statistics about Pinterest from www.Digday.com. Pinterest has about 25 million users and the average activity of a user is 2,757 pins; 35 boards; and following 355 users. Clearly, Pinterest is a great way for companies to show their products to pinners and show them ways of how to use their product. Pinterest is a great way for companies to integrate their products within pins so that people don't even realize that they are being exposed to an advertisement about the brand.

Pinterest accounts for more than 25% of retail referral traffic. I see this so much on Pinterest. I have found multiple ways on how to use a certain product in several different ways. I just looked at my "likes" on my Pinterest profile, and in the first two rows I had two ways of how to use one product for a different use than what it is originally intended for. The first one was a scrub made out of vinegar and cold water to get stains out of my leather boots. The other product suggestion was to make a mixture of lemon juice and baking soda and apply to your teeth with a Q-tip to easily whiten your teeth at home. These pins on Pinterest will increase the sales of these products because pinners can see all of the different ways they can use this product that they probably would not have known about if they weren't on Pinterest.

I also came across several recipes that are based around one product. I thought this was interesting because it is huge product promotion. When I saw these pins I was wondering where these recipes came from. They could just be people who created a delicious recipe, or maybe it was people who work for that food company that want to make people buy their product. For example, I came across a recipe for Oreo Balls and Snickers Chocolate Chip Cookies.These desserts cannot be made without the customer purchasing either Oreos or Snickers. I actually thought this was a really good idea on how to advertise because they catch someones eye and they might want to try it. I think it is a great social media marketing strategy for companies to use.

I also came across some things that would discourage people from buying a product. This shows a slightly negative side of Pinterest. The example I found was a duplicate recipe for Red Lobster Spinach and Artichoke Dip. If people really like this dip and typically go out to eat at Red Lobster just to eat the dip, then they will be interested in trying to make it at home. It might be cheaper and easier for them to just make it at home. Then that means that Red Lobster just lost a customer because people can just make their product at home. Even though Pinterest has a slightly negative side, I still think its a great website and offers many opportunities for companies to reach out to their customers.

How many Twitters does Twitter have?

A common misconception is that separate departments of a business are not aware of what is going on in other departments of the business. For example, even members of the finance team should know about the company's social media pages. This means that it is not just up to the marketing department to be involved in social media. More involvement by employees can better the chance of becoming well known and increasing fans and followers.

I found an article on www.Hubspot.com that was titled "How to Cultivate a Company Wide Social Media Culture" that included some great tips for companies. This article stated that in order for a company to be successful, they need to adapt their entire corporate culture to our social media oriented world. 

Some tips that I thought would be really helpful for companies that are trying to spread their social media efforts is to incorporate social media training into the standard job training. This is important because everyone will be on the same page on how to be involved in social media for the company. The other great tip is to incorporate social media into company events. When hosting an event, you can create a hashtag that everyone attending the event will tweet about. Also, you can use the "check in" feature on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram as well as use location based platforms such as Foursquare.

I was trying to look for a company that had company wide social media platforms with multiple Twitter accounts. The one that intrigued me the most was all of the different accounts that Twitter has. I couldn't even count them all because there were so many! Here is a screenshot of the top six accounts that came up when I searched for Twitter accounts. 

There is even a description of each Twitter account! I would never even think to follow a Twitter account. I thought this was interesting because it shows how much even social media platforms market themselves through social media. I think that  the Stories account is really neat because it is a good way for the people at Twitter to see how people like the platform and they can directly see and respond to either positive or negative stories by searching the hashtag #twitterstories. It makes sense to have so many accounts since there are so many members on Twitter. According to Business Insider, there are currently 232 million monthly active users.

Instagram Ads: Good For The Company, Bad For Your Wallet!

In the past year or so, I have noticed more and more sponsored advertisements coming up on my Instagram feed. Every so often I won't even realize that it is a sponsored advertisement and I think to myself, "When did I start following this page?" At first, I wasn't a huge fan of sponsored advertisements on Instagram. Instagram was the one social media site where I controlled everything I saw. Everything in my news feed appeared in my newsfeed because I chose to follow that company or person on Instagram. I thought that it would just end up like Facebook where there are ads everywhere you click.

However, I have changed my opinion about Instagram advertisements. I think that they are very subtle, not very in your face. The only one that I have noticed recently is advertisements for Michael Kors. I think the photos that they chose to include in their advertising were very attractive images of Michael Kors Products. I liked them because they were just showing a picture, it wasn't telling anyone to buy them. There were no promotions in the photo or the description. It made me want to look into purchasing the product. The only negative thing about this is that Michael Kors products tend to be fairly expensive, which is not a good sign for your wallet!

I found an article from Tech Crunch that can be viewed here. This article discussed how over 5% of Instagram ads have lead to likes. This is a very good sign for companies because it is showing that it has the potential to grow even more as people become more aware of it. I think that this is starting off successful because for me personally, I scroll through a lot of things on Facebook and just randomly read things that catch my eye. On Instagram, I don't follow as many people that I have as friends on Facebook. So I tend to take my time more and look at every Instagram post on my feed. I think a key indicator in success of this is to research and track your user's activity and interests on the internet so you can advertise the best products to them. For example, if you continue to have Michael Kors ads pop up on a 13 year old boy's Instagram who is into dirt bikes, he will most likely scroll right past it.

The analytics company that Instagram uses is called Nitrogram. This particular Michael Kors advertisement was viewed by 6.15 million people, and received over 218,000 likes. That means that 3.57% of those views led to the likes of the photo. For one of the first Instagram ads, that isn't too bad. I am sure that these advertisements will continue to expand an become even more successful.

Social Media Making Us Think

With the rapid growth of social media in recent years, it is truly unbelievable how fast some topics can spread once they have been shared on social media. Personally, whenever I hear anything about a current event, I search my Twitter page about it before I think to turn on the news or ask my peers if they know any information about what is going on. I think that this is both a good and bad thing for the world. On one hand, I think it is great that information is very accessible to a large amount of people and there are great opportunities to inform people on issues that they may have never known anything about.On the other hand, it is very easy to share non-credible information that might alter the opinions someone has about a certain issue.

As the year 2014 comes to a close (can you even believe its already over?!), think back and reflect on all of the times current events and issues have flooded your news feeds on Facebook, Twitter, etc. From the ALS ice bucket challenge, to the debates about Ferguson, social media has created a place where people can share and spread their opinions with others. In an article I found on E!, they rounded up fifteen different instances where social media posts or advertisements really made us stop and think about the issues at hand. While some of them are extremely controversial and sensitive topics, or some lighthearted and funny, they really made us stop while we were scrolling through the newsfeed and really think about what we were seeing.

Here are some examples:

Ebola sparked an uproar of fear in the United States after there were some cases of people entering the United States with Ebola. Without even learning more about what the disease is, people just got scared. While they had the right to be safe and concerned on the issue, many people created stereotypes for Africans assuming that they all were walking around with Ebola. The movement of #IamLiberianNotAVirus started when a woman was being judged by her race of having Ebola when she was not infected with the disease. This photo was shared on Facebook, and it immediately went viral. It taught us to educate ourselves before jumping to conclusions about people.

When a video was released of NFL player Ray Rice physically abusing his wife, it caused an uproar on the issue of domestic violence. This ad on social media really stuck out to me because of how graphic it is. It is a visual representation of how many women who are abused both physically, verbally, emotionally, feel on the inside every day. There were many arguments on how Ray Rice should be punished by being suspended from the NFL. Sometimes, it takes a graphic image like this to make people stop and think.

Check out some more examples of how social media made us stop and think at: http://www.eonline.com/news/603760/15-times-social-media-made-us-think-in-2014

Snap This, Snap That!

Snapchat has grown in popularity in recent years. For those of you who don't know, Snapchat was invented by three Stanford University students; Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. Snapchat is a photo sharing application where users can take and share photos, videos, and illustrations to a selected group of people for no longer than ten seconds. In my own experience, I have noticed that Snapchat is the new Facebook of this time. A feature that I believe has caused the growth in popularity is the "My Story" option.

Here is a notification from Snapchat explaining what a Snapchat My Story is:

Snapchat stories have created much more of an interaction between Snapchat friends because you are able to send your story items to all of your Snapchat friends in one click of a button. Snapchat stories have also created new ventures for Snapchat.

Snapchat now has the option to create sponsored stories to send to every Snapchat user. Snapchat now creates collaborative Our Story events that users can add their photos and videos to. The first Our Story was in June for the Electric Daisy Carnival dance music festival. Anyone within the arena in Las Vegas could add their experiences to the story. Our Story Events that I remember personally seeing from my account include; College Football, National Dog Show, Base Jumping, and many more. Each event includes a personalized illustration or logo from the event. Here are some examples:  

Snapchat's newest "money makers" are sponsored Snapchat stories. The first sponsored story was a collaboration with Samsung at the American Music Awards. This story included photos and videos of celebrities, the show, and behind the scenes of the show with a sponsored illustration of the AMA's and the Samsung Galaxy Logo. I personally think this is a genius advertising strategy because you are not throwing it in the users face. For example, if they don't want to watch the story, they simply don't. Here are some screen shots from the first sponsored Snapchat story.

A great strategy that Snapchat has is that not all of the Our Stories are sponsored events. For example, no company is paying them to create a story about National Hot Air Balloon Day, but it creates an interest from the audience. I think this is a great new way to advertise to users through Snapchat.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/23/snapchat-sponsored-our-story/

Black Friday or Black Thursday?

For as long as I can remember, the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) has always been the day that I avoid going to the mall to stay away from the chaos of thousands of people running through the stores to find the best deals for the holiday season. I personally feel that Thanksgiving should be a relaxing time where you spend time with your family and eat as much as you possibly can. However, there are many people who spend Thanksgiving cutting out coupons and planning their route around the mall. While there are two different kinds of people who view Black Friday in different ways, theres retailers who support Black Friday and who do not support Black Friday. In recent years, stores have been opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Day. It seems that it is no longer considered Black Friday, but Black Thursday instead.

An article from The New York Times titled "Some Retailers Promote Decision to Remain Closed on Thanksgiving", provides the different views that the leaders of these companies have on this issue. This issue has been known as the open-versus-shut debate. The retailers believe that they will be open on Thanksgiving Day to please their customers, or they will remain closed to promote the importance of the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Retailers that will be open on Thanksgiving Day include: Walmart, Kmart, Macy's, Target, and Radio Shack. Retailers choosing to stay closed on Thanksgiving Day include: Costco, Marshalls, Gamestop, TJ Maxx, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath and Beyond, Burlington Coat Factory, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, Patagonia, Dillards, and more.

Richard Galanti, the vice president and CFO of Costco says, “It’s an important holiday in the U.S., and our employees work hard during the holiday season, and we believe they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with their family and friends. We’ve never opened on Thanksgiving, and when the trend to do so occurred in the last couple or three years, we chose not to because we thought it was the right thing to do for our employees.” Other retailers don't have the same opinion on this issue as Richard. A mall near Buffalo, NY is planning on charging retailers $200 per hour if they don't open by 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

There is even a petition on change.org with over 55,000 signatures supporting Target to remain closed on Thanksgiving Day and a Facebook page titled Boycott Black Thursday with over 87,000 likes. Would you sign the petition? What is more important to businesses, spending time with your family or increasing profits and sales by opening on Thanksgiving Day? 


Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/business/some-retailers-are-promoting-their-decision-to-remain-closed-on-thanksgiving.html?_r=0

Are McDonald's Nuggets Really Made From Pink Goo?

In class, we watched this following McDonald's campaign which is a part of their new mission to be transparent with their consumers and put an end to the bad food reputation that they have been attacked with in recent years. 

I think McDonald's new transparency campaign is a great idea because of the recent popularity in healthy food. As we also discussed in class, other brands like Coca Cola are coming out with alternative options to their brand that promote a healthy lifestyle. Coca Cola is offering a soda that is naturally sweetened by stevia instead of artificial sugars. After we talked about McDonald's in class, I was scrolling through the newsfeed on my Facebook page when I saw this promoted ad from McDonald's:

This advertisement sparked my interest, and I took the action of clicking on the link in the sponsored post. I was thoroughly impressed by the steps that McDonald's is taking to become more transparent with their consumers. The link brought me to a page where it had every possible rumor about McDonald's food that I have ever heard. From the authenticity of there 100% beef patties to the contends of the McRib. Each rumor had a detailed explanation of the truth along with a video. I think that consumers will really appreciate their honesty and give them the reassurance that McDonald's food really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Clearly, McDonald's is not considered to be "healthy", but the rumors that are spread about their food can completely turn consumers away from eating at McDonald's. 

The most famous rumor that I have seen spread through different social media channels and the interned is that the chicken McNuggets are made from a light pink play dough like substance. The image completely turned me away from wanting to eat their nuggets. However, the following video from McDonalds Canada directly answers the infamous rumor about how their nuggets are made.

Honestly is a popular new trend in successful campaigns. The consumers appreciate the honesty and it makes it easier to trust the brand that you are investing in.

Daredevil Nik Wallenda Floods Social Media

Earlier today, I was scrolling trough my Twitter feed when I saw a sponsored advertisement from the Discovery Channel promoting the live event that they broadcasted tonight featuring Nik Wallenda. For those of you who don't know, Nik Wallenda is a member of The Flying Wallenda family. This circus family had been pushing the acrobatic limits over the years performing and attempting some of the craziest stunts known to man. Seven members of the family have died while attempting these extreme challenges. Nik Wallenda has already conquered walking across the Grand Canyon  on a tightrope with absolutely no safety net. Tonight, he conquered another extreme challenge of walking in between skyscrapers in Chicago, BLINDFOLDED!

This was an example of how social media plays such a large role in spreading awareness about something. For instance, I saw this promoted tweet from the Discovery Channel, then I told my roommates about it. This resulted in us gathered around the television biting our fingernails from being so nervous watching this insane attempt on live television. Throughout the program, the reporters kept encouraging people to tweet the hashtag #watchwallenda. Not only did this encourage viewers to interact with the program and share the awareness to their followers, but there was even a sweepstakes involved.

This sweepstakes was known as the "Skyscraper Live Tweetstakes." All people had to do was tweet throughout the program with the #watchwallenda, and they were automatically enrolled in the sweepstakes to win a special edition Nik Wallenda JR Terrascope watch. This was a great opportunity for the watch company to create awareness. Nik Wallenda has such a large following and this was a great opportunity for potential customers to interact with the company with the incentive of winning a nice watch. Here is a photo of the special edition watch that features Nik walking on a tightrope:

Watching this program tonight made me wonder, what were things like before social media? Social media is incorporated and integrated into so many things that we do. I think it is a very good opportunity for companies, but I constantly wonder what will social media do next to take things to the next level?

Red Velvet Oreos? (Don't get your tastebuds too excited...)

With great disappointment, word on the street is that the rumor of  Oreo's new limited edition flavor is a hoax. On October 18th, a Twitter post shared a photo of the rumored new red velvet Oreo's packaging. This tweet has been deleted, but it did not stop a huge flood of shares and re-tweets of the new flavor to spread all over the social media world. The image below of the new flavor shows a red velvet Oreo with a cream cheese filling. Many people have been showing their excitement for this new flavor on different social media sites. People are saying that the red velvet Oreo's will hit the shelves by Valentines Day of 2015.

Oreo has recently been creating several different limited edition flavors, so it would be easy to believe that they would be debuting this delicious new flavor. Since 2012, Nabisco has come out with over 35 new limited edition Some of the flavors Oreo has come up with in the past are: watermelon, birthday cake, banana split, lemon lime, pumpkin spice, berry, mint, peanut butter, and cookie dough. This is not the first time that rumors have spread about a new flavor that doesn't actually exist. Butterbeer and fried chicken have been two of the rumored flavors that never actually existed.

There has even been a Facebook page created for red velvet Oreos! Here is an (essentially fake) advertisement that has been posted to the Facebook page. The caption of this photo was: "Milk dreams about them, do you? #RedVelvetOreos"

              

Here is a statement released by Nabisco that neither confirms or denies the validity of this new flavor: "Oreo limitied-edition flavors are constantly a source of excitement and speculation. Over the last few years, we've seen a number of made up flavors 'leak' online, but we've also seen actual flavors leak too. When we have more information to share about any of our new limited-edition flavors, we'll be sure to let you know." As of right now, this flavor is just another rumor.

Actually, this rumor all started from a school project! A group of college students created this new flavor for a project in one of their marketing classes. I found this particularly interesting because I am a marketing student, and most of our projects in this class revolve around Oreos!


Sources:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/22/7041017/the-red-velvet-oreo-is-a-fake-and-heres-why
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1035168-red-velvet-oreos-on-valentines-day-not-true/
http://www.snopes.com/photos/food/redvelvetoreos.asp#52xmfUZqQWBQF5ju.99

Illustrations in the Media

Recently in class, our groups have been translating marketing communication theories and ideas from words into illustrations. This in-class activity challenged all of us. It is much more difficult than one would think to translate certain ideas and concepts into illustrations. After presenting my own illustrations and seeing the illustrations that my classmates came up with, it made me think about how illustrations are used in advertisements. From my own recollection, I don't usually see many advertisements containing illustrations. However, sometimes illustrations are the best way to convey a certain message.

Here are some advertisements from all around the world that hit the mark and took some risks on using illustration in advertisements:

This advertisement was created for Huggies Diapers by the agency Ogilvy based out of Bejing, China. The point of this ad was to advertise diapers for toddlers rather than just babies. The illustration of the toddler is more effective than if it was a photograph of a 2 year old.

This next advertisement stuck out to me because it is so different than the typical emotional themes that are in messages about adopting a rescue dog. This advertisement was for BETA: Adopt a Dog. The message was that dogs won't give you as much stress as children do. I thought this was funny and very different.

In class, we have discussed scare tactics in the media and had discussions on if they work or not. This advertisement is using scare tactics by conveying the message that smoking kills. The text that reads smoking kills 14,000 people each day and the illustrations of the scared people being killed by the cigarette definitely is graphic and sends out a very bold message.

Source: http://www.bhatnaturally.com/advertising/25-print-ads-with-great-illustration-styles/

From Tweeting, to Chirping!

A constant topic that is frequently discussed today is the large role that social media plays in a business' marketing communications plan. While many companies have huge social media platforms, some companies have still not mastered the technique of running successful social media pages. One of the main goals of utilizing social media pages is to increase the interaction with customers and have them frequently visit your pages. This task is not as simple to achieve as one would think.

That is where this fairly new company, Chirpify, comes into place. Chirpify's main goal is to get their brand's customers to participate in marketing and commerce from any channel using any device. Chirpify has been around since 2012, and since then have launched well over 10,000 campaigns on television and social media for their brands. There has been over 100,000 new Chirpify members each month. Chirpify can activate hashtags for marketing conversion. Some of the brands that work with Chirpify include: Guess, Dole, Sprint, Oreo, Stride, Forever 21, and many more. This helps the ability of marketers to leverage social channels as the point-of-conversion for their cross-channel campaigns. This brings hashtags to an entire new level, they are now activated. This helps consumers to participate and purchase simply my posting a hashtag. Chirpify allows marketers or brands to increase revenue and social profile data from their cross channel audiences.

Here is a visual of how it works:

Personally, I think Chirpify opens up a lot of doors for brands and increases the convenience or taking a particular action for consumers. Without Chirpify, hashtags really only gather all of the content that the particular hashtag was included in. My parents constantly ask me, what is a hashtag? Now with the help of Chirpify, hashtags actually have a pupose!

Click here to view a video that shows the process of using Chirpify in action!

Retargeting Advertisements Putting a Dent in Your Wallet

In class, we discussed the importance of reaching your specific target audience and focusing less on mass marketing. A method that many companies are using to specifically target these audiences are through retargeting advertisements through programatic media buying.

Do you ever look up a pair of shoes, or maybe the newest iPhone and you are going back and forth on if you should spend the money on it, but then you end up deciding you are not going to purchase the item. Then, the next time you go on Facebook, there are advertisements everywhere luring you back to the web page to purchase the product. That is what retargeting is all about, serving advertisements to your target audience based on their prior experience.

Here is a diagram that explains how retargeting works:

Personally, retargeting advertisements have caused me to go through with the purchase that I was once debating. Retargeting is the most effective and cost efficient programmatic tacticits done by placing pixels on website pages that can read data, which can pick up which product youve viewed then retarget it to you on a separate webpage. Certain advertisements are made specifically for retargeting, these advertisements are called dynamic creative advertisements. Dynamic creative advertisements are done by placing pixels on website pages that can read data, which can pick up which product you have viewed then retarget it to you on a separate webpage.The timing of placing the retargeted advertisements depend on the type of product being purchased. For example, travel purchases should be retargeted immediately, higher risk luxury goods should be retargeted later to remind them of the purchase.

Retargeting has proven to be a great advantage for businesses, and a disadvantage for your wallet!

Source: adage.com, retargeter.com

Social Media Fails

In chapter ten of Brand Media Strategy, Antony Young talks about how social media is a branding tool. Young provides tips on how to create a successful social media campaign. Here are the tips that he gives: People want to hear from real people, great content is king of the social media world too, seed and amplify the content, use social media websites a a branding destination; utilize insights of the community and technology to make a more relevant and involved experience, focus less of measurement and more on what the brand is attempting to achieve. While Young provides some great tips on how to run a successful social media campaign, it made me think about unsuccessful social media campaigns. After doing some research, I have compiled my top five favorite social media fails. You just can't believe how such big companies make such bad decisions!

Kenneth Cole was completely insensitive while using tragic events i  Egypt to promote their new collection.

While AT&T meant for this to be a tribute to 9/11, many people saw it as a marketing ploy.

In the midst of the horrifying events from the Boston Marathon, do not make light of the situation. 

When you are a PR Executive of a company, you should expect this tweet to get you fired before your plane even lands in Africa. 

Don't use a natural disaster that many people suffered from to increase the number of purchases made on your website, American Apparel.

The One and Only, Derek Jeter

While reading Brand Media Strategy by Anthony Young,  I always connect the information that he is talking about with advertisements that I see in my everyday life. Chapter six is titled, Sparking Consumer Brand Conversations Through Media. This made me think of a certain commercial that made me spark a conversation with all of my five roommates, my dad, and my sister within one day. This commercial was Gatorade's "Made in New York ft. Derek Jeter". This campaign in my opinion, is the best Gatorade campaign that I have ever seen.

Derek Jeter is a true American hero when it comes to sports. When Jeter announced his retirement last March, Gatorade jumped on the opportunity to create a campaign with him. It doesn't matter if you are a Yankee fan, or even understand sports in any way, everyone knows Derek Jeter. With his retirement coming up, this was the perfect time for Gatorade to release this advertisement. People are very emotional and passionate about saying farewell to the Captain, which I think is why this commercial has been so successful. Here is the commercial incase you haven't seen it yet:

If this commercial featured any other baseball player, there is no way that it would have generated 4,992,576 views within the first three days of it being on YouTube. Gatorade excelled at choosing the most cultural elite athlete in history (in my opinion). As you can see from the priceless reactions of all of the people he interacts with in this commercial, he is someone that many people look up to. With Gatorade being linked to sports, I am sure that Derek Jeter will have an influence on people choosing Gatorade instead of other competitors. 

Scare Tactics in the Media

In preparation for our upcoming Senior capstone project on creating a public service announcement for opiate and heroin addiction, we have heard from several professional guest speakers to help expand our knowledge. Lore Detenber is the drug and alcohol counselor at Western New England University. Lore talked to us about the popularity of scare tactics being used in the media to help prevent drug and alcohol abuse.

Even though there is a lot of controversy about scare tactics and fear appeals actually work, I personally do think that they work. I think that there is no way to sugar coat the real effects an outcomes of abusing drugs and alcohol. For as long as I can remember, I have seen several different public service announcements on staying above the influence. Many of these commercials stay in my memory and I think that is because they are so graphic and really make you stop and think about drug and alcohol abuse.

In my opinion, the most effective use of scare tactics in the media is in a campaign from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their campaign is a series of commercials that are Tips From Former Smokers. These commercials are true stories of former smokers and what their lives are like today. The stories range from a mother who's child is suffering with birth defects from her mother smoking while she was pregnant, to a following a woman named Terrie while she gets ready for the day. You can see the video of Terrie's story below:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an estimate that this campaign has caused about 100,000 people to quit smoking. You can find out more information about this study here in an article from the Huffington Post. 

Internet Superstars Can Sell Your Products!

These days, people constantly have their smart phone practically glued to their hands! Any where they go, they are constantly connected to people. With the easy accessibility to several different social media platforms, it is becoming one of the main communication channels connecting companies and end users. In my Campaign Planning and Management course, we are reading The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. In some of his chapters, Scott discusses connecting to your targeted audience through social media. Scott shares an example of social media being the driving force in the success of gourmet tea company, Adagio Teas. In this day and age, it is difficult to find companies who don't have at least one social media page. Some companies are taking social media to the next level, by using internet superstars to help spread awareness of their products.

Specifically, the YouTube Partner Program has opened many advertising doors for several companies to reach their target audience through YouTube. The YouTube Partner Program essentially is when a "YouTuber" gains a certain following on their page, they partner with YouTube and receive several benefits. After becoming a partner, they can make money through advertisements, paid subscriptions, and merchandise. In fact, there are several people who have become millionaires through YouTube. This gives companies the opportunity to put one of their advertisements before the video is played on YouTube. Also, with these partners having such a large group of loyal subscribers to their channel, it is a great opportunity for companies to pay the partner to talk about their brand in one of their videos.

(Here is a picture of itsbl0ndie using Sigma Beauty brushes in her video that currently has over 150,000 views!)

Personally, I am a huge fan of beauty videos on YouTube. Everything from makeup tutorials, to product reviews interests me. One of my favorite YouTubers goes by the username of "itsbl0ndie." Her real name is Casey Holmes and she is a partner with YouTube. Casey's channel is about everything having to do with beauty. Two companies specifically have sponsored her videos and created a lot of brand awareness for their companies through YouTube. These two companies are Nume and Sigma Beauty. Nume is a line of hair care products and Sigma Beauty is a line of makeup brushes. Casey is paid to do several reviews on these products and include these products in her makeup tutorials. Nume and Sigma give user the incentive to buy their product by having Casey mention an exclusive promotion code for a discount on their respective websites. I think that this is a really cool way for companies to reach their end users. From watching Casey's videos, I have become a customer of both Nume and Sigma Beauty. 

Welcome To My Blog!

Welcome to my blog, everyone! My name is Brenna Skelly and I have just started my senior year at Western New England University studying Marketing Communication/Advertising. Ever since I took my first Marketing class as a junior in high school I have been interesting in pursuing a career in this field. As I have learned more about marketing, it has taught me that marketing is everywhere. It is a field that will never stop growing and changing, which is one of the main reasons why I want to work in this industry. Through coursework, internships, and everyday experiences my interest in marketing has grown.

During my sophomore year of college, I had the opportunity to be a part of the Sophomore Connections Career and Shadow Program. Through this program, I had the privilege of shadowing the Marketing and Communications Manager for Wiggin and Dana Law firm in New Haven, Connecticut. This experience helped learn from and make connections with several successful leaders in the marketing and communications industry. In the summer of 2013, I was an intern in the promotions department of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment in Hartford, Connecticut. As an intern, I helped promote their radio stations, plan events, and interact with listeners. This experience taught me how to successfully work with a variety of different personalities, as well as strengthened my ability to work in cross-functional teams. This past summer I was a marketing intern at Newell Rubbermaid in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I worked for hilmor which is in the tools segment of Newell Rubbermaid. I am continuing my internship experience with hilmor during this semester.

My most recent intern experience with hilmor has sparked my interest in advertising and media. I am seeking to learn more about agencies through a future internship. 

As I complete my final year at Western New England and continue my marketing internship, I look forward to all that I have yet to learn and accomplish. This blog will help me log all of my experiences, opinions, and marketing lessons that I will learn along the way!