Persona Development

     Social media platforms are increasingly improving their ability to target key consumers with new advertising updates. Below is a list of improvements made to various social media platforms in the past year and a half. 

Facebook Improvements:

• Page Post Target Enhanced: gives business the opportunity to to target their Page posts by gender, age, Likes, education, interest, relationship status, and more.

• Paid-for Sponsored Stories-suggests "Pages You May Like"

• Sponsored Results: ads that appear below Facebook search queries

• Facebook's Graph Search: enables business to analyze and act on data associated with consumers

• Auto Play Video Ads: soon to appear on Facebook

Twitter Improvements:

• Promoted Tweets

• Promoted Trends

LinkedIn Improvements:

• Video Advertising

• Sponsored Posts

     With the ability for social media tools to more accurately quarry key customers, it is becoming more and more lucrative for companies to truly know their customers. Placing increased importance on developing customer "personas" to more accurately define a customer's needs and wants should be at the forefront of strategic marketing executives' minds. Without this in depth discovery, companies will end up targeting imprecise consumers with no interest in their product. 

     We don't want 55 year old mom, Cindy, who works as a physician's assistant in Missouri and values exercise and healthy eating habits, to be inundated with Marlboro or McDonalds ads.

 ++ = Loss of Possible Engagement

 

Thoughts Provoked by: http://www.inc.com/hollis-thomases/new-ways-to-advertise-on-social-media.html

Growing and Growing

In the past few years, many believed that the opportunity to capitalize on the U.S consumer market was not worth the effort. Marketers believed that the United States consumption rates were stagnant and that increased product marketing should be focused on developing nations. But, new developments have led to an expanded interest in marketing efforts in the United States.

The U.S has recently been named an "emerging market" by L'Oreal CEO, Jean Paul Agon. L'Oreal recognizes that the United States is their most profitable market, whereas the consumption growth rate in the BRIC countries are declining. For many years, large corporations believed that it would be most advantageous to capitalize on the developing markets in the BRIC countries. Though, now it seems as if increased competition and a thirst for market share is changing the way companies are focusing their marketing efforts.

The population growth in the U.S has led to the greater interest in investing in marketing efforts, as companies notice that a larger market will eventually lead to larger consumption, and greater profits. Whereas GDP in developing markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China has slowed, in the United States, growth is at 2.2%.

The implications of the realizations that the United States is a market that should be further capitalized on led to the possibility of many companies, such as Walmart, to relocate their manufacturing plants. Walmart claims that they will $50 billion more made in the U.S merchandise.

Though the United States is a fully developed market, it is possible for corporations to take advantage of the population growth and growing GDP. It is important for companies to note that though markets may seem completely developed, there is still much opportunity.


Thoughts provoked from: http://adage.com/article/news/u-s-emerging-market/239848/

OH OH Oreo's Got It!

Many consumers don't realize what is going on currently in the digital age. When Oreo was able to post this ad just seconds after the Super Bowl blackout, 

the average consumer didn't wonder how they initiated this ad campaign so quickly. After doing some quick research, I learned that Oreo executives were stationed in the production room of their advertising agency during the Super Bowl. Oreo's quick creativity enabled them to capitalize on a pivotal social media moment consequently attracting many Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers.

These days, Generation Y is prompted to engage, not by a company's begging and constant pleading for "likes" or "follows," but by inventive or impressive advertisement and marketing campaigns. As a member of Generation Y, I too admire and furthermore acknowledge a company's innovative attempts to attract brand champions through digital campaigns.  

Digital campaigns continue to be a gray area for marketers in both small businesses and large corporations. Personally, I believe this is due to the major generation gap between those producing the content, and those targeted to engage in the material. 

Once marketers pinpoint "what it is the consumers really want" from digital, the next step is how to quantify customer data and revenue generated from these digital touch-points. It seems as if Oreo is nearing that point.

Less than Super Superbowl Commercials

Let me be honest. I attended a Super Bowl party for 3 reasons: the commercials,

the great Beyonce,



 and buffalo chicken cheese dip.

 I would love to discuss the last two in detail, but instead, I'll attempt to recap the 4 million dollar 30 second ad spots which failed to impress this year.

This year, the reoccurring theme seemed to be babies, families, and animals. With these three crowd pleasing subjects, you would think that the marketer couldn't go wrong. OH, but they did.

Here are my picks for the top 3 worst Super Bowl commercials of 2013.

Priceline "The Mission"



This was a Priceline negotiator commercial gone wrong. The scenario is absolutely pointless and the commercial managed to lose my attention after the first 5 seconds. It was actually terrible. I would hope that Priceline executives are firing their creative agencies currently. (Too harsh? Well, they did just waste 4 million dollars.)

VW:



I don't think that Volkswagen really thought this one through. The Jamaican accent on the thrilled new owner of the red VW may be offensive to some. In fact, VW screened the commercial to a focus group of Jamaicans to determine whether or not it was offensive. If you have to screen your Super Bowl commercial to make sure it doesn't offend anyone, you probably need a new commercial. Not to mention there was not a single black person in it.


Wonderful Pistachios:



COME ON! Haven't we all had enough of this PSY character? Just because he's doing his little dance surrounded by a bunch of pistachios with legs doesn't make me want to consume pistachios any more than I already do. It's obvious that the Wonderful Pistachio team took the easy way out this time. "Ahh what will we do for our Super Bowl commercial?" "Well, America really likes that little dance PSY does. Let's get him!!" Great thinking, if the Super Bowl had aired 6 months ago when PSY was still popular.


I guess in our social media centered world, it's okay to have produced a terrible commercial. In fact, a terrible commercial can be better than a mediocre one. Why? Because it starts buzz. So, congratulations Priceline, VW, and Wonderful Pistachios. You've made my top 3 worst commercial list, and subsequently, started some social media chatter.