I never really thought about the importance of branding until we watched the view in class where a study was mentioned about using a different logo on the same shirt. Three identical cotton short sleeve shirts had different logos and customers voted on which one was of better quality. It was amazing that people chose the most popular brand as the best quality shirt. When I was growing up, I was very into certain brands. To me, Abercrombie and Hollister were the big go to logos that I needed to wear. It made me feel like I was wearing the right type of clothes and that they were the best quality also. My mom would buy me a shirt from a department store and I would think that it was cheap and not good enough yet my Abercrombie shirt had a whole in it after wearing it once to school! I have many little cousins and two of them are at the age of the "importance of branding." Luckily my cousins are not as involved in having a certain logo on their clothes as their friends are. My oldest cousin is a freshman in high school and he only cares about wearing certain sports teams clothes. My other cousin who is in 7th grade, is a girl and her group of friends care a lot about what type of logo is on their clothes. She has told me of the fights girls have gotten into because someone wasn't wearing a certain brand of clothing. It is sad that this is such a big part of deciding what to wear. Hopefully times will change soon and kids won't care wether their shirts say Abercrombie or they are just plain.
Do you feel as though branding/logo's were an important part of growing up?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
In Response to Erik Bergstorm's Post
Erik wrote about the website called Stumble Upon and I could not agree with him more. This is best thing to do when you are bored or just want to see whats out there. You can have it set to your personal preferences. I think it is a great tool for marketers. Stumble Upon gives us more unique websites that wouldn't regularly come up on google or another search engine. I have found some pretty good websites for different things. I think everyone should check out StumbleUpon.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
In response to Erik Bergstorm's Post
Erik wrote a blog about how fast the social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogging etc as become a top form of communication. I completely agree. I myself only have a Facebook. When MySpace came out, I create one until Facebook took the lead. Now that there are so many other ways to publicize yourself such as blogging and twitter, I've started to become turned off by these social networks. At the moment, I refuse to create a Twitter. Twitter is based on telling everyone your every move and to be honest, I just don't care! These online social networks have taken over the simple phone calls or meetings in person. I think it unfortunate that our society has turned everything we do into a mean of publicizing yourself online. Important meetings or deadlines are sometimes discuss through these sites which to me is so impersonal and annoying. I hope there aren't any more sites that get as big as facebook!
Fast foods, not so fast
I was flipping through the channels one night and a documentary on the process behind fast food chains caught my attention. On TLC, a documentary team discusses on how important time is in the world of fast food. Everything is calculated to the second and loosing one second can cause you an unhappy customer. Fast food chains gather data on the times of each process of retrieving the ordered meal and analyze to improve each time. Workers are aware of how long each step has taken. There are clocks in the kitchen that let the employees know how long the customer has been waiting since they rolled up to the order menu. So many processes are involved in making sure the customer is not waiting for more than three minutes.
I don't eat fast food often at all. Recently however, my friends and I went late night to Wendy's in Keene. There weren't many car in line and it took about 20 minutes from when we placed our order until we received it. We weren't even waiting at the window, we were waiting behind another car and then finally got to the window. I think most people even complain after having to wait maybe five minutes! this was so annoying to all of us and we did not even have a large order! It seems the car in front of us only had one bag also so it didn't seem too large either. I understand we were there at a late hour in the night but that is no excuse for us to wait that long! Fast food places are always competing with the next chain. They compete with the time it takes to get our the orders. I have heard many people complain that fast food is starting to be not so fast. These companies put so much effort and pride in their results of time however I feel like they are looking it form a larger level. The individual restaurants time varies due to what kind of employees are hired. The more lazy employees, the worse the service will be. Have you seen an increase in waiting for your fast food?
I don't eat fast food often at all. Recently however, my friends and I went late night to Wendy's in Keene. There weren't many car in line and it took about 20 minutes from when we placed our order until we received it. We weren't even waiting at the window, we were waiting behind another car and then finally got to the window. I think most people even complain after having to wait maybe five minutes! this was so annoying to all of us and we did not even have a large order! It seems the car in front of us only had one bag also so it didn't seem too large either. I understand we were there at a late hour in the night but that is no excuse for us to wait that long! Fast food places are always competing with the next chain. They compete with the time it takes to get our the orders. I have heard many people complain that fast food is starting to be not so fast. These companies put so much effort and pride in their results of time however I feel like they are looking it form a larger level. The individual restaurants time varies due to what kind of employees are hired. The more lazy employees, the worse the service will be. Have you seen an increase in waiting for your fast food?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sex Sells. So what?
As everyone always knows, sex sells. Showing some skin or posing provocatively to attract costumers is a common trend in advertisement but when does it become too much? Are more and more people offended by the racy advertisements?
I personally am not offended with advertising that simulate sex or show an attractive man or woman representing a product. As Sigmund Freud as taught us, we are sexual beings. Companies use this to their advantage to get out attention to their product and I don't blame them! We look to buy products that will be beneficial to our appearance all the time. Men buy the body wash that will make them smell the best to women. Women buy the makeup that will attract men. A perfume company wouldn't use a puppy to sell their perfume. If you saw a puppy holding a bottle of perfume on a billboard, you'd probably just look the other way. But if you saw a racy perfume ad on a billboard, you would be more intrigued. I understand people getting offended by seeing racy advertisements but thats not the intention behind the ad. The motive for the ad is to get your attention (maybe negative or positively) so you remember their product.
As much as it doesn't offend me, I do think there is a limit. If a company was trying to sell a vacuum, the ad probably shouldn't look like this one below:
If the product to be sold is a razor then yes, showing a pair of women's legs in the ad is fine! It grabs the female customer's attention. The ad above is from Germany and maybe their have a different social norm with advertisements. I think this ad is a little too much but not offensive. The company just looks stupid and looks like they tried too hard to market their product as "sexy" even though it's a vacuum cleaner. Many people say that women are more sexualized in ads than men are and this is probably true but it's not in a negative way. Everyone knows the companies are just trying to get you to buy the product and not to offend anyone.
Do you think we use sex in advertisements too much?
In Response to Lia Moreggi's Post
"Even though parents have been through the difficulty of teen years as well, times do change and pressure seems different. I just need to ask, do the ads really help?"
I agree with what Lia had to say in her blog about the public awareness announcements. I just had a class with a guest speaker from the Wellness center at Keene State. She came to talk to us about Alcohol Education. In hopes to relate to us better, her message was basically "it is okay to drink alcohol, even underage, as long as you do it safely." I learned from her whole presentation that if i consume alcohol with a carbonated drink, I will get drunk faster. It seems as though we try to make teens aware of the troubles with alcohol but we also tell them its okay to drink. As Lia said, we don't describe the distributive behaviors that come with the abuse of alcohol or other drugs. I think that these ads need to spread more throughout colleges. Some ads about living above the influence can be annoying and unrelated to teenagers. I think the media needs to do a better job at really reaching out to students about the behaviors that can lead from the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Depression and suicide are two behaviors that can come form the abuse of alcohol and drugs. I think schools are too scared to talk about depressing, suicide or other disruptive behaviors. Our school in the past few weeks have gone through several incidents involving suicide. I have seen people close to me be deeply affected from this. The only sympathy they received from the school was an email saying they were "sorry" and they were providing counseling. The second incident wasn't even acknowledged. Colleges need to do a better job reaching out to students and getting the information out their about living above the influence.
I agree with what Lia had to say in her blog about the public awareness announcements. I just had a class with a guest speaker from the Wellness center at Keene State. She came to talk to us about Alcohol Education. In hopes to relate to us better, her message was basically "it is okay to drink alcohol, even underage, as long as you do it safely." I learned from her whole presentation that if i consume alcohol with a carbonated drink, I will get drunk faster. It seems as though we try to make teens aware of the troubles with alcohol but we also tell them its okay to drink. As Lia said, we don't describe the distributive behaviors that come with the abuse of alcohol or other drugs. I think that these ads need to spread more throughout colleges. Some ads about living above the influence can be annoying and unrelated to teenagers. I think the media needs to do a better job at really reaching out to students about the behaviors that can lead from the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Depression and suicide are two behaviors that can come form the abuse of alcohol and drugs. I think schools are too scared to talk about depressing, suicide or other disruptive behaviors. Our school in the past few weeks have gone through several incidents involving suicide. I have seen people close to me be deeply affected from this. The only sympathy they received from the school was an email saying they were "sorry" and they were providing counseling. The second incident wasn't even acknowledged. Colleges need to do a better job reaching out to students and getting the information out their about living above the influence.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Unique ways to save money
The other night I was watching the TLC show, Extreme Couponing, and was amazed. This television documentary showed the lives of a few people who took cutting out simple grocery store coupons to a new extreme. One woman had $638.64 worth of food items and only paid $2.64. She saved 98%. Another women had a retail sale of over $200 but only paid about $2.00 after coupons. A man had a over 2000 times from the grocery store and only spent about $200. After watching these people save up their coupons and have storage areas piled with food, I had one thought: why am I not doing this!?
I always get those magazines in the mail with a bunch of little coupons and never had the thought to actually look through them. Unlike my mother, who cuts out every useful coupon she can find, I'm not quite the bargain shopper. I've come to realize though how many different way there are to save money! While coupons may be a great way, there are several other unique ways that people save money.
I found a website that had useful household cleaning tips with foods you find in your fridge. If you want to clean silver, use the inside of a banana peel. To clean copper-bottoms pans, use ketchup. To clean the garbage disposal or to freshen it, run slices of a lemon through it. Other useful tips are for an ant deterrent, use Cayenne pepper or cinnamon. On minor wounds or burns, spread honey. Honey acts as a good antibiotic cream. These are just some of the many tis out there for people to save money.
With our economy being unpredictable at times, I think people need to start using these ways to save money. Maybe not going to the extreme of couponing taking over your life, or using honey to clean a wound, however there should be a balance of using ways to save money. The people profiled in the show Extreme Couponing, they are taking it to a new level. For years they cut out coupons for that one moment they go to the store and stock up. This show has given those annoying magazines a new light to me.
What are the different ways you do or have heard to save money?
This article is the unique ways to clean:
www.mint.com/blog/saving/household-products-food-02162011/
This article is about the TLC show Extreme Couponing
http://www.walletpop.com/2010/12/29/the-perils-of-extreme-couponing/
I always get those magazines in the mail with a bunch of little coupons and never had the thought to actually look through them. Unlike my mother, who cuts out every useful coupon she can find, I'm not quite the bargain shopper. I've come to realize though how many different way there are to save money! While coupons may be a great way, there are several other unique ways that people save money.
I found a website that had useful household cleaning tips with foods you find in your fridge. If you want to clean silver, use the inside of a banana peel. To clean copper-bottoms pans, use ketchup. To clean the garbage disposal or to freshen it, run slices of a lemon through it. Other useful tips are for an ant deterrent, use Cayenne pepper or cinnamon. On minor wounds or burns, spread honey. Honey acts as a good antibiotic cream. These are just some of the many tis out there for people to save money.
With our economy being unpredictable at times, I think people need to start using these ways to save money. Maybe not going to the extreme of couponing taking over your life, or using honey to clean a wound, however there should be a balance of using ways to save money. The people profiled in the show Extreme Couponing, they are taking it to a new level. For years they cut out coupons for that one moment they go to the store and stock up. This show has given those annoying magazines a new light to me.
What are the different ways you do or have heard to save money?
This article is the unique ways to clean:
www.mint.com/blog/saving/household-products-food-02162011/
This article is about the TLC show Extreme Couponing
http://www.walletpop.com/2010/12/29/the-perils-of-extreme-couponing/
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