Verizon..AT&T...Dish Network??

     Dish Network was just approved by the FCC to now offer its own smartphone service to consumers making them the second largest satellite-TV provider in competing with Verizon and AT&T. The reasoning for the move is for the Dish Network to broaden their reach with consumers as a result from decreasing sales   with the satellite-TV business. This would make sense to me because most people I know that have satellite TVs are Direct TV users, and from what I hear from word-of-mouth it is way better anyone. Aside from its close competition with other satellite companies there are also "on-demand" TV owners such as Comcast and Time Warner cable, which as grown in popular big time. Dish Network is seeing the bad signs and sets to rely less on this side of the business. FCC members were in full support of Dish's move, however some restrictions may "cripple" them when entering the wireless industry. Apparently, Sprint as come forward to Dish for a potential partnership that would combine Dish with mobile-phone service over Sprint's network. I personally feel for the Dish Network, back in the day my family and I were users, which I was not a big fan of. We switched to Direct TV and haven't looked back since, but now living in a age of everything "on-demand" other options may come up. The fact that Dish is trying new things to broaden its reach is showing they are putting up a good fight in a very competitive market, however I believe it is too late for that.  

  http://adage.com/article/media/dish-smartphone-service-wins-approval-u-s-regulators/238734/

Lacoste: Predicting the future?

      Adweek recently put up an article in their daily "Ad of the Day" segment, which featured an ad put out by Lacoste that could hint at possible future endeavors for the company. The ad depicts a pretty standard fashion ad of models hanging around each other thinking they look normal, wearing the famous Lacoste polo shirts. However this ad for celebrating 80 years of the shirt is a bit different. The models are able to change the color of their shirt with just a swipe of a finger. For example, one model is walking down the street realizes that he is not enjoying the color of the shirt he is wearing , so he begins to scroll around on his own shirt to see what color he is feeling. The commercial continues with models being able to change any aspect of their clothes just by swiping or moving the clothes around similar to a touch phone or Ipad. From reading the rest of the article it appears that Lacoste is almost aiming toward future "geeks" to help make something like this somewhat of a possibilty. Even though how ridiculous that sounds, it seems as if the ad is meant to inspire these type of people to join up with the brand for the future. A smiliar futuristic product is already out with sweaters that have LED screens and others with lights in them that are selling for about $223, most likely not found at Macys. I think it was a pretty clever move from Lacoste to show that they are still "with the times" with this ad. Lacoste has been around for a long time with selling essentially the same type of product. Maybe some nerd out there will be inspired and jump Lacoste up to the newest age in fashion.

New face to Pepsi: Beyonce

     Looks like Beyonce is continuing her world domination when she just recently partnered up with Pepsi, becoming the brands newest ambassador. In an article I read from "Ad Age", the Beyonce and Pepsi new tag team shows how the Pepsi brand is collaborating with musical artists in a whole new way. Aside from the future shows and other promotions that Beyonce has with Pepsi including a, "Live for now" global TV commercial that I am sure anyone with a Television will be aware of it, some new pepsi cans feature Beyonce's face along side of the can.



Pepsi has been notorious with working with musicians. This year they worked with Nikki Minaj earlier this year as the first artist in the global spot. Also Beyonce will be part of the creative process, agreeing to work with the creative teams with designs of all materials related to the partnership. I believe this a great move by Pepsi, Beyonce has already proven to be a huge celebrity not only in the US, but globally as well, so that choice was a no contest. More importantly I think that they are giving Beyonce more "freedom" to express her style with working with the design teams will also help the Pepsi brand and grabbing more of the music target market. It also helps that her superstar husband "Jay-Z" is always making headlines for all the right reasons. The two have proven to dominate the entertainment industry and beyond, Jay-Z has hands in sports teams and other industries all on top of a great music career. The fact that now Pepsi is going to have her everywhere will only help the brand.

http://adage.com/article/news/pepsi-names-beyonce-brand-ambassador/238697/?utm_source=daily_email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage

SodaStream Ad Pulled: Fair or Foul?

  I just recently read an article on the guardian website that talked about the ad for "SodaStream"  being pulled in the UK by the broadcasting company, Clearcast, for apparent violations that denigrated other soft drink industries. Alright...so I have seen the ads before here in the United States and I instantly made some remarks when viewed them. If you have not seen the ads before it pretty much shows the SodaStream product being used by people and while they use it simultaneously shows brands of at giant warehouses exploding everywhere, displaying that with SodaStream you can save 1,000 bottles per year. Before I get into if this ad is fair or foul I would like to point out how effective this ad was. Going off Kellog's ADPLAN, the ad right off the bat grabbed my attention for essentially what the product is, the sleek design, and the content of the advertisement (exploding bottles). It obviously is distinct from competition because now you can make soda from your own home. I can easily link the message to the brand. Consumers and officials have already been talking about the message because now there is controversy surrounding it and I believe the brand equity is improving because of it.
   Now with all that being said, I think that this Ad was defiantly foul. After viewing the commercial my exact quote out loud was, "Doesn't that eliminate a lot of jobs?" The people at Clearcast believed that SodaStream violated rule 3.42 stating,"Advertisements most not discredit or denigrate another product, advertiser or advertisement or a trade name or distinguishing remark." SodaStream clearly was not happy about this and thought the ad was just fine and that it was showing the benefits it gives to the environment. I think that's all fine and dandy, but I think it still hides the truths of eliminating jobs and tarnishing brand name sodas. I see SodaStream using the "green card" in trying to make an excuse for this sort of potential hostile take over of soft drinks. Will not lie though, the product is pretty damn cool.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/nov/23/advertising-itv1

Earl Cox: Martin Agency

This Thursday our advertising class has the opportunity to get more insights for our projects from another guest speaker. Earl Cox, a Virginia Tech alum, graduated from Tech with a degree in communications and received his MBA at the University of Virginia for marketing. He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer and Partner of the Martin Agency. The Martin Agency is a very successful advertising agency based out of Richmond, Virginia. Martin Agency works with companies such as Geico, Hanes, American Cancer Society, Wallmart, and Pizza Hut just to name a view. In 2010 they received US Agency of the Year from Ad week magazine and are responsible for coining the phrase "Virginia is for Lovers". As you can see this is a pretty impressive agency with a lot of success to back it up. Earl for the Martin Agency oversees the Strategic Planning department for the consumers forensics group and the data analytics. He is also the author of the book, "Wraparound Planning: Non-Linear Approach Makes Better Ads". Obviously Earl has represented Virginia Tech and the Pamplin school of business very well with his success in the ad industry. I see this as a great opportunity to see what our group can squeeze out of him to boost more ideas for our project. I know I have thought of a bunch of approaches and hopefully will get some one-on-one time with him to see if we are headed in the right direction. Especially working with Uni-Qlo we are going to want to make the Ad personal for the consumers and at the same time make it memorable. I think the good thing with dealing with clothes is that it leaves a ton of opportunity for creative ideas. I believe the trouble will be getting our ideas to be concise and to the point for the ads. Hopefully Earl can shine some light on different ways to avoid running into problems.  

Monica Jones is back with "Riunite"

 Back in September we had a guest speaker come into class by the name of Monica Jones. Monica, a member of Modea right here in Blacksburg, talked us about her journey that eventually led to Modea, working for a digital Ad Agency, and different opportunities and niches to starting a career in advertising. Now that most of the semester has gone by and we as a class have received more   She plans on coming into our class this Thursday again to show us the creative brief for "Riunite Sweet". Riunite is the name of a wine company that produces many assortments of flavors and different types of wines based and founded in New York. Although not much detail was given in class about the brief, the general information was that it is about Reunites line of "Sweet" is trying a different direction and looking at a younger target. I already have noticed that the wheels have been turning for that, Reunite Sweet already has a twitter account and has been posting to the population with interesting tips and information about the wine. I am curious to see and hear what Monica has to present to us about how they plan on reeling in a younger generation that already seems to be a wine aimed for older consumers. Currently in class we are starting to get into our creative pitches for the next part of our projects. Hopefully this presentation will get the creative juices flowing for me and help out our group in pointing us in the right direction for the proper game plan in getting the right pitch. We are in the process of the brainstorming phase so would like our group to really start getting some good ideas on paper.

Ad Race for Burger King

     I recently just read an article in Ad Week about how Burger King is shopping for new marketing ideas for its brand. BK is searching for new marketing ideas because they have been facing a decline in their market share and want to turn things around. Although Burger King is not looking for a new leading creative agency, executives did stress on the fact that they want agencies to make new ideas surrounding their "Taste is King" tagline. “Agencies have been asked to pitch concepts which bring this positioning to life in new and unexpected ways,” the rep stated. BK reps also talked about if particular selected concepts come out well, their agency could be looking at a million dollar payout!
     The article continued on about why some agencies should or should participate in this "ad race" due to Burger King's prior history/probably motives. I however, was more interested what type of briefs could come of the idea around "Taste is King". In our advertising class we have been talking about the different components and the construction of creative briefs. Obviously there will be a lot of though that goes into the objectives and what target market to search for, because clearly things are not working for Burger King. I want to look at the possible insights. Insights which unites the competitive environment, the target, and its needs is a very important process. When building a consumer insight you want to look at consumer truth, consumer need/want, and whats the consumer friction. I was thinking most of the time for fast food advertisements, the ads are focused on their burgers. If BK is trying to get back to their roots a little bit, I would definitely want to try and single out what you are changing or what is best about BK's burgers. Here's an example of forming an insight for those three factors.

Consumer Truth: When I go to a fast food restaurant, most of the time I grab a burger.

Consumer Need/Want: Because I'm graving a delicious fast food burger

Friction: But..I am not sure which fast food place to go..Aren't they all the same? Wish there was some variety here.


This is clearly a very broad example for this type of issue, but I believe it can generate into something else that could help out with Burger King's brand. I would have to agree that the "Taste is King" is the right way to getting back to a better marketing share.