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