Monday, August 29, 2011
intro: Brandon Clear
Self Intro and Shiseido's Celebritization
大家好! (means Hey everyone !) You are definitely welcom to use this phrase to trick people if you want them know you are bilingual!
I'm Xiaoshan, one of your classmates that you possibly have met, most likely, every day in the past week.
Seriously speaking, please forgive me if you are expecting me to introduce myself again, because I need a break! The first week was very stressful... I had two auditions back to back...Fun?! The good news is that I have been accepted to both University of Illinois Phiharmonia and Illini Symphony (this is the exciting part), but my schedules only allow me to work with one of these two...
As you can see from the picture on you right hand side, I'm a cellist! Shame to say this because I gave it up twice... This is one of our promotion pictures we are (yes we are doing it now still) planning to use for our CD project!
I can hardly think of any precise words, phrases or sentences to describe my personality... Hopefully, you'll know me better as time goes by!
Successful Branding Strategy-- Shiseido's Celebritization
Celebritization plays an important role in most Shiseido's commercials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CldVULk6CsE
This Chinese version commercial features how Shiseido shines the bride's most important moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+fLEHTMalzSA&feature=related
This Japanese version commercial features one of Shiseido's newest products--TSUBAKI, aiming to widely launch the product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUh0g5TECcY&feature=related
This English version commercial features one of Shiseido's make-up products.
Although those commercials feature different products and use different celebrities, Shiseido continuously uses the same strategy: there shall be common features between the celebrity who is the speakerperson of this product line and the product itself. In other words, the celebrity needs to be representative in terms of the feature of the product.
I said that Shiseido's celebritization is traditional because it is no longer a new strategy in branding/ advertising field; however the core values of Shiseido's products have been carrying out and are well presented by celebrities in its commercials: it could be an elegant perfume that perfectly fits the celebrity's graceful manner; it could be the newest shampoo that shines the celebrity's beautiful moment; and it could be a facial cream that moisten the celebrity's face.
Why Shiseido still maintain its brand value and image in years by simply using perhaps, the most traditional branding strategies? From my point of view, Shiseido's celebritization maximizes the degree consumers identify with the brand. Consumers want themselves look like celebrities in commercials, because they think it is COOL or IDEAL! Shiseido endorses certain celebrities to creat certain recognizations among its target audience.
When Shiseido Met Slam Dunk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sicgyd6ovA
This commercial features Rukawa, Sakuragi and Miyagi of the Shohoku High School Basketball team from Slam Dunk series, a popular Japanese anime series that well known evern in the United States.
I still consider it as celebritization, because the only difference is that celebrities are animated characters. However, it still embraces the idea that consumers want them to be the ones in commercials. In this case, it features a male product that maily produced in Japan many years ago.
The rationale behind Shiseido's celebritization is that consumers want themselves look like the celebrities that appear in commencials and have the expectation of being valued by other people in the society. This desire is not going to easily go away, thus Shiseido's celebratization branding strategy not only give consumers trangible image of the product, but bond with the brand personality to the celebrities and thus pass on to its target segments.
Self-Introduction and an interesting branding example
Introduction:
Hi, My name is Namita Narain. I am from India. I am a second year Masters student. My background is in Computer Science and anything to do with technology fascinates me. I am perfectly and normally noctural and neurotic :) And hence, I always tell my friends that I am the person to call if there is a 3 AM emergency! I love hiking, trekking, working out and this is a picture from one of my Bay area hikes (Note: I am a true Illini Fan). I am doing the Yosemite Half Dome hike in the next few weeks and I am excited and full of nervous anticipation.
I am happy to see so many new faces this semester and I hope to know you all a lot better! Ciao :)
Interesting Branding Example - Google+:
Google unveiled its top secret social network on June 28th and it already has 10 million plus users. So what does Google+ do right? Well, to begin with, it is trying to establish its own space without demolishing Facebook - something that many other social networking engines like MySpace did not quite learn. Social media thrives on interoperability and people at Google know this. You may not be able to incorporate your G+ stream on Facebook but vice-versa is very much possible. How did Facebook respond? Well, the day G+ was launched, there were more updates on Facebook about G+ than anything else. Soon, Facebook users started exporting their contacts to G+ and once Facebook realised this, they withdrew that option. Of course, there are ways to do it but not quite simply as before. It is unlikely that Facebook users would switch to G+ but if they are forced to choose, they just might. Just like twitter hashtags can be used to incorporate your twitter posts on Facebook, similarly, Facebook should have allowed G+ stream to be a part of Facebook update. It would take time to see how this plays out. Of course, meanwhile, Facebook has gone ahead and incorporated a video chat option (but only with one person unlike G+ hangout that allows close to ten users to be live at the same time)
This is a significant event in the lifecycle of social media. G+ is in fact in its beta testing phase and has plans to actually roll out a G+ profile option for businesses. In fact, a few large corporations have expressed interest in using G+ for their customer service needs. What fascinates me is G+ has relied completely on beta testing to brand its product. This subtle campaign took the social media world by a storm. And now, avid fans are sending G+ invites out(One person can send a total of 150), blogging and tweeting about it.
So here is what I liked. Google tested the product in-house, and then reached out to early adopters for beta testing. They knew who the early adopters were, because they know who writes about them – and where they stand in Google's own search results. High-ranking websites carry a certain amount of influence, after all.
Once you do let these early-adopting bloggers start writing about your product, they're going to generate plenty of buzz within their own audience. This is where Google got something else right, which they've done before: rather than immediately opening Google+ to everyone, they gave their early adopters invitations to spread to their friends. Google did that with Gmail, and this immediately created a demand; the very fact that you couldn't just join the service, but had to receive an invitation, made it special.
G+ rocks. And how!
Interesting Branding - Grub Hub
I chose Grub Hub for an interesting branding because they have some of the most memorable OOH ads I have ever seen. For those of you who do not know, Grub Hub is an online and mobile food ordering service. They are in major cities throughout the country and specialize in finding you the best deals on food in the city and delivering any type of food you could image to where ever you are. It is a pretty simple business proposition but the way they brand their message makes them special for a number of reasons. Firstly, they use primarily out of home advertising which is perfectly on strategy considering their brand promise is to be able to delivery any food you would want anywhere in the city. They can hit the consumer with OOH ads during their everyday lives. I noticed the grub hub ads while taking the public transit in
Introduction- Lacey Meece
As for career goals...I love people and I love advertising! After having an internship in a ad agency this summer and taking in the culture of the industry I know thats where i want to be after graduation. I want to work as a strategist/ account planner. I cant wait to get to know all of you this semester! Cheers!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Interesting Brand
Introduction:
Self-introduction and One interesting branding I wanna share~
I still remember the moment I stood in front of the "magic machine" which could decide your color at M&M's store on the Times Square. I was so nervous, keeping thinking that please let it be some kind of color I like(such as red, white or pink). Finally it turned out to be "mega mix". Later on, I found it was really a "perfect color" to describe my personality.
I took two largely different majors at the same time. It meant sometimes I thought in a sensitive way, trying to understand audiences. Sometimes I only dealt with numbers, finding arbitrage opportunities if possible. I really had a hard time balancing these two different thinking ways. On the crossroad of choosing graduate major, I hesitated a long time. Believe it or not, MS in advertising@UIUC is the only advertising related program I applied. But I'm glad I come here. My sixth-sense tells me it's the right choice and it indeed is.
I love traveling with friends, and I indeed have travelled all by ourselves to a lot of countries with friends and have enjoyed great time together. But I also enjoy taking adventures. Last year, I travelled to Bali Island alone( the photo was taken in a seaside temple there). I wish to travel around the world in my life,which must be terrific experiences to me.
In terms of forming a band in the class, I also have something to contribute. I learnt to play keyboard when I was five and have passed highest level as an amateur. I also know little about "go"-an ancient Chinese board game(also popular in Korean and Japan).
My dreaming career is definitely related to advertising, a cool industry. Right now, I wanna immerse myself into American culture, trying to understand the consumer culture and behavior and beginning my professional advertising life here!
By the way, I'm Xuedan Chen from China. And I have been called Crystal since junior high school. I love this name. Nice to meet you all! : )
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My share of interesting branding also related to "mega mix". It's about contradiction.
Starburst 's "It's a juicy contradiction".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jodb9lkwnd8&feature=related
I found this funny ad and knew this brand by accident when I was watching episodes of TV shows on the Internet. I was attracted by the position of the weird dog and kept my interest listening to the dialogue between the two guys. The ad employs the core idea of contradiction, not only the dog who breaks common sense, but also the guy who is having solid but juicy Starburst candy.
Firstly, I think the whole "contradiction" idea is appealing and interesting. It's a smart position. The brand has a unique selling point, solid but juicy fruit candy, which can segment the brand from other similar fruit candy brands.And it induces people to have a taste of the candy, especially the curious young people who love difference and maybe contradiction. Also, the spirit of the brand fits people who believe that contracts and differences make them who they are. In this sense, the brand is not selling a product but a spirit.
Secondly, the way the brand demonstrates "contradiction" is interesting. It avoided rational appealing(the common ways to show the content of the candy), but harness emotional appealing( inspire customers to associate other contradictory stuffs in daily life with the fruit candy). According to ELM model, this psychological process can effectively stimulate audience's curiosity and might encourage their buying behavior.
Driven by curiosity, I googled this brand and found more. The way it interacts with the target group is also interesting. http://starburst.com/ The brand launched a contradiction project on its website as well as its Facebook page. The project works in a way that people share their contradictions and rank others' contradictions then the company will donate money to keep music program in school. No matter looking at other people's contradiction or finding theirs, the fans will find it a funny&meaningful job.
WashPost: Ubiquitous ?tiny belly? online ad part of scheme, government says
E-mail 
Ubiquitous 'tiny belly' online ad part of scheme, government says
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Branding - "Girls' Generation"
Hi. I want to talk about "Girls' Generation", a sensational girls' group signers in Korea, as branding.
Before, if you're interested, you can see them on youtube from these links. I've found video in which they sing several of their most famous songs.
"Gee": www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_GZGdTI_nU&feature=related
"Hoot": www.youtbe.com/watch?v=5unhYq2zc4E
"Run Devil Run": www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_gfD3nvh-8&feature=relmfu
"Girls Generation" was launched in 2007 by 'SM Entertainment', an entertainment company in Korea. Mosly, they issue one album each year, and since 2007, they have issued 8 official albums and other unofficial ones only in Korea. In 2010, they started to perform very actively in Japan, and in Japan more than 6 albums including official and unofficial ones were issued. They sold more than 1,020,000 albums since their debut in Korea and in Japan, more than 1,054,000. Now, "Girls' Generation" are said to be the No.1 girls group in Korea and they have become icons of idols, regardless of age and gender. They are jumping toward to be No.1 in Asia in the near future.
They have such branding power that is beyond imagination that every product or soap drama, movies that they are casted are always successful. In my opinion, their branding power lies in their uniformity as one group and also their distinctiveness as one member of the group.
If you see them perform on the stages, their dances, motions, and apparels are so perfect and so uniform as a group. It seems as if the nine girls were sisters in terms of their actions and appearance. Their faces and bodies are so pretty and so well-shaped that whether you be a female or male, you have aesthetic pleasure in your eyes. As their name suggests, they have everything that a teenage girl or late twenties wish to have as a girl, and that males regard as ideal for a female to have. Also, their songs are lovely, strong, and have the similar melodies over so it's easy for anyone to sing along. As a group, the nine girls make a perfect combination, so the name "Girls' Generation" always makes you think about girls whom are healthy, beautiful, and ideal.
In addition, 'SM Entertainment' tries to shine each member so that they not only work as a group but also on their own. Yuna, Yuri, and Taeyoun, three of the members, acted in soap dramas, Seohyun is casting in a show, and some of them are also on advertisements. So even if someday "Girls' Generation" breaks up, they can always be acting without our members.
Obviously, "Girls' Generation" is more like a brand than it's like a group dancers. They are not a company, but they make more money than most of companies and have bigger and wider effects. And now they are becoming an international brand with the stream of social media as well as Korea's efforts to invest actively on media industry.
Introduction & Interesting Branding
Introduction---- Yangyaoxi He (MQ)
Creative thoughts in advertising is the first attraction for my deciding to study in this field, and considering my interests in graphic design and painting, I’m trying to figure out my career path in the creative field. Yet I understand advertising is not all about creativity, thus my anticipation is to get a systematic understanding of advertising and based on that try to develop my potential in the creative side.
http://www.vat19.com/
This brand Vat19 attracts my attention because it has its own distinguished features. Basically, it is kind of an online shop which summarizes itself as “Purveyors of Curiously Awesome Products”. Thus, the first and the most unique feature of it is the product. And indeed, when I took a first glance of the products such as the world’s largest gummy bear, the gummy shot glasses and parking tickets which contains hilarious citations for parking impaired drivers, I admit those are really interesting stuffs. And as it claims on the website, its products are picked out from thousands of potential products annually, and they even have a unique test for that---CAT (Curiously Awesome Test).
Actually, I have already seen many websites selling interesting products in China, but they just regularly describe and photo those goods. Yet, Vat19 creates informative and entertaining videos for each product it sells, and many of them are witty and funny. And as Vat19 is not kind of huge scale corporation, many of the videos are not that commercial, and really show their effort. For example, from the last part of the video for gummy shot glasses, you could see how the whole team work together to create this funny video. These entertaining videos successfully further the products’ creative feature and become the brand’s salient characteristic. What’s more, since the main target audiences of the “Curiously Awesome Products” are young people, who spent a lot of time online and easily impressed by creative and funny things, the videos, as a main advertising method, do exert its influence.
Besides, the style of the whole website really fits the funny and creative feature of its products, even when describing the policies, some humorous points would shine between the lines. And if you look through the customers’ feedbacks there, you could find that the customer service policies are well carried out and I believe it significantly enhanced the buying experiences in Vat19 and make this website distinguish from other counterparts.
Intro and Location-Based Marketing on the Big Stage
Hello Everyone,
Rick here. A very brief bio--I love integrated campaigns and watching the various components play out in mobile, out-of-home and television channels. My life revolves around advertising, culture and my pig, "Homer." As an avid consumer my major interests are in lifestyle brands and how they define their brand for consumers (i.e. edgy-music, sophistication, altruistic motives). I own a DVR, but rarely fast-forward the commercials and I like to talk during the show but prefer silence during the ads. Weird right?
So Dunkin Donuts is the first major fast-food chain to begin leveraging location-based social networking services—FourSquare and Facebook Places—into a national campaign—“President of the Dunkin’ Nation. Though it is promising to see such a reputable brand getting its feet wet in one of the newest and fastest growing sectors of online/mobile marketing, I question the overall consumer benefit and accompanying spam the article alludes to. As mentioned in the article below, if participants are allowed to check-in up to ten times a day, one concern is the number of notifications and newsfeed pollution being transmitted onto the participants’ friends/followers. This seemingly innocuous nuisance could potentially grow into a negative association of the Dunkin’ brand for non-participating friends/followers and perhaps even shift “the nation that runs on Dunkin” to run from Dunkin’.
http://mashable.com/2011/08/22/dunkin-donuts-foursquare-facebook-places/
Best,
Rick
Self introduction& interesting branding idea
Hello, everyone! This is Wei-Hsuan Lu. You can call me Patricia if it's easier for you to remember.
Introduction---self / M&M
Hey everyone, it seems I am the last one log in this blog. Hope I haven't miss too much fun here.
I am Nancy/ Wen. I am the girl, I like dance,(though don't really know how), I like yoga, I like swimming, I like jogging , I like pink (plz forgive me). And another favor is high heel shoes.
In every single day in the pass four years, at least, I was wearing high heel~ I know it sounds crazy, but I just cant help to say no~
The secret of branding-----M&M'S
As we know, Branding, is crucial to any product.
A wrong branding or advertisement could certainly ruin a good product, and also, not an excellent idea could save an awful product, especially in this "consumers talk " market.
How to achieve success? A good product could be the first step.
Have you heard the slogan that" The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand?" I bet most of you would say a "yes!".yeah, here comes an impressive and fancy brand of candy----M&M'S. http://mms.com/us/
To target your consumers/To build relationship with them
Mostly, people who love candies are the youth. They like fun stuffs, they like playing cooling, they like sharing joy with friends, etc. Here is the basic profile of the youth.
The M&M'S created the distinct personalities for every color of chocolate, the red funny chocolate, and the yellow peanut guy. Here is the link to some ads
http://mms.com/us/fungames/tv/
In the ads, M&M just like friends of us, they are fun. They do everything we do in daily life. They are normal, emotional and cool as you and me. Hence, the ad build a relationship between customers and product.
In the continuous ad campaign,the recognizable characters and funny plot always make people laugh. This relationship were reinforced,which would result in the brand loyalty and habit buying.
Branding Example - OLD SPICE
"Hello ladies, look at your man, now back to me...sadly, he isnt me, but if he stopped using lady-scented body wash, he could smell like he is me"
Since its release "The man your man could smell like" ad campaign created 1.4 billion media impressions for the Old Spice brand and in just six months, increased the raw sales of the product by an incredible 107%; placing old spice as the definite "number one" body wash for men to date.
Old spice was a pioneer in introducing body-wash products for men to the market. However, tough competition came with time from several alternate brands, causing Old spice to launch a new ad campaign to boost sales.
Old spice realized that women were doing more than half of the purchases regarding male body-wash products, so they targeted women and focused their efforts into creating an ad campaign to convince the demographic to stop buying women-scented bodywashes for their spouses/partners.
So it was, that not that long ago during superbowl half-time, Procter and Gamble aired what in my opinion, is one of the funniest ads seen in the last few years.
And apparently im not alone in this; just in the first week of its release, "The man your man could smell-like" bodywash ads from old spice had been seen more than 40 million times, increased tweets about the brand by 2700% and catapulted old spice to the number 1 all-time, most viewed brand channel in facebook.
Not stopping there, the "Old spice guy" had a facebook presence: a virtual space where his fans could write him and receive answers as video responses (around 200+ shor videos were filmed) to their comments/questions from the "old spice guy" himself. Not surprisingly, this kept buzz created by the campaign alive for a much longer time than usual and increased the brand's facebook page fan-interaction by 800%.
Conclusion:
I am a fan of youtube and i like watching funny ads as much as the next guy. However, I believe Old spice is a brand that not only deserves special recognition for creating an original and successful viral ad campaign, but also for exploiting social media to provoke incredible fan-interaction with the brand.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Self Introduction and Interesting Example of Branding
Interesting Example of Branding: Pro Evolution Soccer
A blurb for Pro Evolution Soccer:
Pro Evolution Soccer is a football video game series developed by Konami. From 1996 to 2011, this series of game has developed from the primitive Goal Storm to the much more advanced PES 2011. Despite recent mediocrity in sales performance, strong repeated sales in the first half of 2011 and 70 million accumulative sales suggest the impressive brand power of PES game series. Although branding techniques used for PES are largely limited to internet-based techniques and mainly play an informative role, PES still work hard to borrow and create ideas of the most efficient ways of marketing. Besides traditional branding methods such as issuing game trailers, signing cover athletes and releasing game DEMOs, PES tried hard to differentiate itself from FIFA by establishing a user community that allows PES fans to enjoy soccer competition and share information online. This branding technique is not as simple and superficial as the old ones because it really used the game itself as the tenant for branding. It managed to capture soccer game players by their eagerness to compete and communicate.
(Information of the blurb is drawn from the article below)
Below is the referential article:
1. What exactly is successful branding?
Prior to any introduction and measurement of a certain brand, a standard of measuring a successful branding needs to be set up. It’s should not be a subjective standard that is prone to change due to the nature of individual opinions, but rather a comparatively objective standard which is set up by prestigious authorities.
I’ve searched on the Internet and found some articles related with “a standard of successful branding” which were written by experienced advertising practitioners such as Laura Lake and Lori Weiman. Since an instant search will not be the best and most in-depth one, I guess their opinions of “successful branding” are not quite far from the true definition.
Laura Lake’s definition of a branding success is that the brand is seen as the only one that provides a solution to the customers’ problem. She seems to have a higher standard by using strong word like “only” than the one characterized by getting the brand’s target market to choose it over the competition. Lori Weiman mentioned advertiser ranking as a direct and easy way to measure the successfulness of branding, but most part of her article criticized this path for idler.
Basically, a standard of a successful branding is somewhat hard to find or is distributed in a graded manner. It’s obviously too strong and unreachable for a brand to be the sole choice of their customers; and it is even less likely that a mere advertiser ranking will tell everything of a successful brand. Thus, I tried to mix those standards and practise a little bit eclecticism. A successful brand should have a steady user loyalty and a wide brand recognition which occupies a significant portion of its target customers. Also, a good sales performance in both short term and long run has a voice in measuring brand successfulness.
2. Brief introduction of Pro Evolution Soccer
Pro Evolution Soccer is a football video game series developed by Konami. Every year, the version of the game is released first as Winning Eleven in Japan, and after a few months a slightly modified version is released worldwide, in two different packages: World Soccer: Winning Eleven for the Americans, and Pro Evolution Soccer for the rest of the world. Additionally, in Japan and Korea a localised version is released, featuring local leagues and teams including European ones. From 1996 to 2011, this series of game has developed from the primitive Goal Storm to the much more advanced PES 2011. The evolution of this video game, as its name suggests, broadened its customer base and expanded its influence on the young generation all over the world.
3. Is Pro Evolution Soccer an example of successful brand?
I did a little research on the Internet in order to see whether Pro Evolution Soccer matches the standard above. Although it’s much of a hasty research but it may demonstrate a more structured judgment of PES’s performance.
1) Customer Loyalty:
Strong repeated sales of PES game were reported in the first half of 2011. Repeated sales may indicate the interest of purchasers in the prospective advancement of the game (for example: advanced 3d effect of football field and more natural action emulation of soccer players) and a firm customer base.
2) Brand Recognition:
Although sales of PES game were down 1.8% to 188,308 million yen compared to the same nine-month period in 2010, the game has occupied a rather big market worldwide. In Feb. 2011, Konami has revealed that lifetime Pro Evolution Soccer sales have exceeded 68.8 million units globally. However, compared to its major competitor, FIFA Game Series which occupies a 100 million or more accumulative sales, PES still has a long way to go. But PES’s effort in branding has successfully captured a considerable portion of market from FIFA’s hands.
3) Sales Performance:
Sales performance of PES game in 2011 experienced a decrease, which is obviously an unpleasant signal for the new PES 2011 game. Increasing game difficulty may block former PES fans from playing the game in a relaxed mood; what’s worse, failure to purchase the sheer volume of licenses of numerous football clubs has hindered the game from achieving a sheer worldwide success.
Based on the above analysis, we can judge PES’s success from two perspectives. Historically speaking, PES was born 3 years after the first baby of FIFA but successfully became the nemesis of FIFA for 15 years. The series managed to obtain customer loyalty and worldwide brand recognition step by step through imitative branding techniques and standout game qualities. I can hardly say it’s not a success. But these 2 or 3 years, PES lingered at the crossroads of making the game playable and making the game professional and lost many fans because of several abrupt turnarounds. That may be counted as a failure for PES game series recently.
4. Old and new tools of branding for the success of PES series
As the above has mentioned, PES game series did have some historical success in branding. The major branding techniques for PES’s progress are issuing game trailers, signing cover athletes, releasing game DEMOs and so on.
Although various ways are available for the branding process, there are two major issues that should be clarified with regard to the depressed nature of the sales of football game series. First, the target customers account for only a small proportion of the intersection of football fans and netizens. Thus the branding techniques used for promoting PES game are mainly narrowly internet-based. Second, from my personal viewpoint, the PES fans who directly chose PES or switched from FIFA to PES made their choice mainly based on the reputation of high level of difficulty and playability, which means branding techniques play a more informative than persuasive role. This will definitely weaken the functions of branding.
Even if the above casts a shadow over what I will introduce next, I consider branding a very important way to set up the unique reputation of PES games and present the existing or potential fans with a bright vista of prospective game.
By issuing game trailers, PES demonstrates the advancements of the new game and leaks several game scenes to the public. The trailers are always made exciting, dynamic and professionally systematic in order to attract both the rational fans who emphasize the actual playability of the game and emotional fans who always immerse themselves in the reverie of sense experience.
Via cover athletes, PES establishes a worldclass reputation. From nobody to somebody, from Henry and Owen to Messi and C. Ronaldo, cover athletes have played an indispensible role for the popularity of PES games. Following tight the trend of soccer, PES always find the player who has the ability to attract the largest number of fans.
Prior to the official release, game DEMO is released for the real game experience of fans. It acts both as a constructive method inducing later purchase and a destructive method causing retreat.
All of the those branding techniques mentioned above have also been adopted by FIFA. Although these branding measures may be independently discovered by both sales team, some game critics tend to treat FIFA as the initiator and PES the follower or imitator because of the earlier birth of FIFA and Japanese long-established fame of imitation.
In order to differentiate the game from their noble trailblazer and rival, PES sales team think about new approaches of branding. One of the most creative approaches they’ve taken is to blend the game with branding.
They set up an user ID system for information sharing and game playing between PES fans. Fans can enjoy using their favorite league teams or the teams built by themselves to rival others via the system; more importantly, through on-line matches and forum discussions, fans make friends with each other and feel a sense of belonging. This approach provides a great community for the PES fans and keeps on attracting outsiders to join in. This branding technique is not as simple and superficial as the old ones because it really used the game itself as the tenant for branding. It managed to capture soccer game players by their eagerness to compete and communicate.
Why Nike Embraces Brand Utility
An interesting take on a brand for me would have to be an article I stumbled upon a few years back for an undergraduate marketing class. For years Nike has prided itself on being an innovative company that has found success in selling sporting apparel with a single motto, “If you have a body, you are an athlete” (Nike.com). The company’s director of digital media, Stefan Olander, conveyed a few projects the company would be embarking on that focused on building the Nike brand, and also created services for its customers. This article was interesting in that despite being one of the leading global sporting brands, Nike continues to revamp itself within the advertising world to stay in the forefront of the industry, and also provide improvement in services for its customers.
Building a great Brand - By Anshul Agarwal
Introduction- Anshul Agarwal
Hello everyone. I am Anshul Agarwal and this is a picture clicked some time back, with me sitting on the Anchor at Navy Pier, Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Chicago is a windy city, and as you can see here the wind is in my face, my hair are swept away, my eyes are shut and I have to clutch on to anchor to hold me still.
Last day we introduced ourselves in class and recited an interesting thing about ourselves. I told how it took me long to learn swimming. Carrying forward that introduction, there’s one more interesting thing I want to tell about me. I am an expert at Yoga and was once a yoga instructor at a small health community in my hometown. I can teach yoga & asanas with proper breathing techniques in my native language, Hindi. I think trying in English shouldn’t be too hard.
A Branding Perspective
From my knowledge in this domain, I am putting a brief perspective on Branding here, throwing light on an important subject matter in this field.
There are many things which go into the making of a brand- a promise, a personality and a positive user experience. And a thorough Consumer Research is a crucial ingredient in this brand building recipe. While a good amount of consumer research can make your brand suit the taste of your target market, yet an insignificant amount of the research on the same front can make your brand bland. In other words, your consumers can make or break your brand. They can communicate you when the things are right and they can give you the feedback when the things go wrong. Hence, a significant amount of time should be spent in conducting an in-depth study of the consumer segment, in order to build a strong brand.
Let me cite the example of Facebook to illustrate this. As I noticed in the movie The Social Network, during the initial stage of his startup, the founder of the company gets an idea while roaming at his University campus. He sees that young people (who make his product’s target market), when befriending opposite sex, are very interested in knowing their relationship statuses. They are curious to know if their friends are committed, or engaged, or make potential available mates. This idea led the facebook team to add the ‘relationship status’ under the profile information. Then ever, Facebook has constantly excelled in its ethnographic studies and has led a consumer focused approach. It has almost transformed a real being identity to the virtual world. Remember the times when we used to visit relatives’ places, and they used to show us their marriage albums, or the Kodak-print photos their children have sent them from abroad, or long conversations about mutual experiences from a vacation or birth of a baby. What we see on facebook today- sharing of pics, status messages, comments- is a clear reflection of the past. Facebook, the social networking site, has clearly researched the why, who, what, how & when of social network routine. Today, it provides a fulsome Brand Experience to the consumers, which is reflected in the way consumers consume it.
In sum- Think, Design, Build and Evaluate your services with your Customers. With each step, you will gain great insights into your consumers’ behavior which will lead you to build great brands.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Branding: Mayhem, meet Allstate
Insurance. About as exciting as taxes or having a root canal. There are tons of insurance agencies out there, so which one do you choose? Geico because of the green lizard? State Farm because their headquarters is local (45 min away in Bloomington, IL)? Allstate who promises to save you from…
ADV 587...I'd like to introduce you to Mayhem. Mayhem can occur at any place and any time. Mayhem could be the deer that jumps out in front of your car. It could be the young teenage girl who is emotionally compromised and slams into your vehicle in the parking lot. Or the snow that keeps accumulating on your roof until CRASH! Your roof collapses and now you have a big hole in the ceiling. Or the GPS that keeps telling you to “turn left” and there is not option to turn left, or “recalculating” and in your frustration you get into an accident. You never know when Mayhem will occur...you just have to be prepared.
Allstate suggests that Mayhem occurs to everyone…but if you have their insurance, you will be able to cope with the unpleasant realities that occur in life from time to time. Some of the best Allstate commercials can be seen here: http://culturemob.com/the-10-best-mayhem-commercials-allstate
This brilliant advertising plan has given life to an otherwise boring area: insurance. Because of these commercials now Allstate is on the map as one of the frontrunners in the insurance field.
Introduction-Kim Byrd
Hi, I'm Kim and here is a picture of me from a few years ago in San Francisco. I think one of the best ways to see a city is to hop on a bike and ride around, so that's what I did across the Golden Gate. It was a beautiful view, even with the famed Alcatraz in the distance. I've had the opportunity to travel a lot in the past several years, to about 20 different countries. I find it so interesting how each place presents different ways to reach out to consumers, and also how consumers react to such advertising methods. I hope my travels give an interesting perspective on advertising as well as learning from each of you in class!
Case Introduction_Chan ju LEE
What I am about to share with you as to a branding example that has fascinated me is a social marketing case by Heineken. I do not drink, though. Before that, I really hope that most of you have not heard of this one, since it is until now on many people's lips as one of successful promotion cases. Just refer to the YouTube video link below for better understanding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dInhX6ED15Y&playnext=1&list=PL04370D514E24FF58
As a worldwidely reputed beer manufacturer and an official sponsor of the European Champions League in which the champions of all European soccer leagues compete as well, Heineken has young male customers aging from 20 to 30 as their core target. They have long been working on a number of promotions, making the most of what the target audience has in common. Especially, as for this case, it was deliberately designed by Heineken Italy in attempt to touch their strong attachment for soccer and ultimately enhance the intimacy between customers and brand with unforgettable memory; soccer is all but some religion for European men.
They planned a sort of trap for over 1,000 AC Milan fans with such 200 accomplices as girlfriend, wife, boss, and so forth to persuade them to come to a spoof classical concert on the same day of the big Champions League match between AC Milan versus Real Madrid. They succeeded in inviting as many as literally disaffected 1,000 male customers to an auditorium, and the concert started with a video projection showing poetry. After 15 minutes, the video began to give clues of the event, and the quartet also started performing the anthem of Champions League, leading to dramatic enthusiasm.
In particular, this campaign could not help but become sensational in that following the event, not only mass media represented by TV and newspaper but also the participants voluntarily spread this promotion in various ways of their own mostly via social media including Facebook, YouTube, etc. More importantly, we here need to note that Heineken's intended message closely associated with customers' amazing entertaining experience was effectively delivered to millions of customers throughout the world, which contributed to substantial brand awareness increment.
Introduction_Chan ju LEE
Hello! After such a long consideration, I finally picked this picture taken on my birthday last year. I now feel that the candle lights are somehow beautifying me, but I believe that no one would be confused with the real me in class. Actually, I was going to post one in which I play the drums, but I unfortunately failed to find any on my laptop. Still, do not get me wrong! I did not lie to you at all.
As I already shared many about me thanks to so several chances for self introduction, I thought that I no longer got something interesting to tell you. However, I found that I missed one thing that can define me. That is, I am a big soccer fan probably more than you could imagine. Of course, I know that this is the United States where other sports, most notably baseball, outshine; not so many, consequently, are captivated by soccer. However, soccer is pretty popular in my country, Korea, and I am one of those called soccer nuts. In particular, I love watching soccer games on TV ranging from the domestic pro-league to many famous foreign ones, which would have me stay up all nights during weekends. On the contrary, because more often than not finding me sleeping on couch with all lights on, my mother came to hate soccer, canceling cable TV channels in the sequel.
Another reason why I brought up soccer here is that it also has something to do with the following case of branding which I want to introduce to you all.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Introduction - Eugenius Song
Hi everyone!
Introduction - Megan Harrison
Hi everyone! This is a picture of my and my dog, Lucy, at an Illini football tailgate last year :)
Introduction of Aaron& Interesting Branding
Hi everyone, this is Yulong Tian from Tianjin, China.(If you never heard of this city, please google.) I perfer you call me Aaron because I have been using this name for years and have already get use to it. In the picture, I am just dyeing myself green...
I had several internship but none of them is related to advertising because I like trying different things and different lifestyle. I believe that to an advertising man, personal life experience is extremely important.
I was a broadcast speaker and a TV anchor in a local TV station in China. However I never saw myself on TV because I am sure it is horrible...
I believe that every international student come to America becuase of an American dream. Now I came to US because I wanna start a new life here... Actually I do not have a strict requirement in pursueing a career for myself. I prefer a simple happy family-centered life. So far I have promise myself to work out a career plan after a year study in UIUC, continuing phd or getting a job.
I like photography. If you like to see my photo work, please Facebook me(Yulong Tian(Aaron)). I just start to use Facebook(aha, old fashion guy!) because of Chinese rediculous internet restriction...
HERE COMES THE INTEREST BRANDING ISSUE!esco Homeplus Virtual Subway Store in South Korea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaVFRzTTP4
Please click the link before you continue to read below...
I am not from Korea but I am right talking about something happening in South Korea. Maybe using QR code in commercials is very common all over the world right now. However I strongly recommend this vedio commercial because it exactly support my view on the future of advertising.
I believe we are living in a Disintermediation Era. Actually I really cannot see a bright future for advertising industry. Since technology growing unbelivablly fast right now,it becomes more and more easy for the customers to get information from the product they want to purchase directly rather than through TV commercials or ads in other forms. One day, when a mature channel right between customer and producer set up by using cutting-edge tech. Advertising is dead.
So I suppose we could let advertising, instead of being a intermedia, become a product that customer can "purchase". Actually, here, I do not mean people are really purchasing the ads but the goods behind the ads(ads show up as icon). Just like in the video, people purchase what they want in the sub station, however what they really do is just "purchasing" the pictures on the posters. Under this context, the ads play a role of "product" during the purchasing activity.
I really like to share this with you because I think it is opening an brand new direction for future ads and updating the definition of advertisment in my mind... I hope you like it... and think about it...
Branding- LivingSocial
LivingSocial's advertisements tend to focus on the uniqueness and fun element of their deals. The company does this through different media including television and the internet. A prime example of the quirkiness of LivingSocial's advertisements can be seen in the following YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDjHEmLtcns
LivingSocial uses younger consumers to connect with a target audience and portray how fun the brand can be. The overall exciting, trendy, and fun feelings that are depicted through their advertisements provides synergy to the deals in which they offer their consumers, helping to shape their brand image.
Interesting Branding - Disney
Introduction - Enrique Carmona
I tried finding something interesting and very "Mexican" to show you all :)I definitively want to work for an ad agency. My dream job would be doing creative or writing copy for a client in tv, movies or videogames, (maybe handling PR as a second option).
Brand- Bobs by Skechers
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Introduction- Kristina Schiller
Hey guys, this is me, Kristina- this is at the top of Montserrat in Spain!
Introduction - Jason Nesbitt
Hey everyone! This is me, Jason Nesbitt, being as patriotic as I can be.
My career goals have always been all over the place, but have recently been narrowed down to hopefully being an account planner for an advertising firm somewhere. After some experience with firms, I would really like to focus my attention on sports marketing, preferably for an NHL team.