Category: Uncategorized

The Doritos Commercials

One of the best commercial making brands, I believe, is Doritos. They always bring a funny idea or story to the table and this is very effective in the ad industry. Every year during the Superbowl, Doritos usually releases their newest commercial. Typically each commercial is more funny than the last. When I watch the Superbowl, I typically look forward to the Doritos commercial the most. One of their more recent commercials is my favorite. It shows a mother and a father getting an ultrasound done. The father begins eating Doritos and we see the baby start reaching for the chips on the ultrasound image. He moves the chips around and the baby still follows the chip on screen. The ending of the commercial makes the commercial the best. Watch it to find out what happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYLoknty4pI

These commercials are great at creating the valuable virality that ad agencies are going for. All of the commercials are easily recognizable and memorable for the audience. Everyone that I talk to knows these commercials and they are a fan favorite. The creators of these ads are very smart and they know what they are doing. I look forward to seeing more of these Doritos ads in the years to come. If you are interested in watching more of their ads, I will post some links to a few of my favorites below. I think that you will find them all funny and memorable. Try to keep in mind what viral virality is and how it helps an ad when watching these videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObXL0hbOZFU

Wayfair, You Know Just What I Need… On Social Media

Over these past few weeks I have talked about many different impactful and notable social media campaigns that took the internet by storm. From Dove’s many mistakes to Ihop becoming Ihob. Today, I want to take another approach and talk about Wayfair’s Instagram. While you probably never thought there was anything special about it, the truth is, in 2017 and 2018 Wayfair has been leaving their mark on social media. Namely, Instagram. First lets touch on their Facebook. In 2017, their Facebook reach increased by 409% year over year. This is because Wayfair created videos to get their point across and to grab viewers attention. As we learned in this class, videos are a great way to boost engagement and gather views. It seemed to work phenomenally for them. On Instagram, Wayfair implemented use of Instagrams new feature which allows you to post links directly on your photo to the merchandise itself. When you tap the photo, names and prices of each merchandise pop up. When you click on one, it takes you directly to the link where you can purchase it on the company’s website. On Instagram, Wayfair increased their audience by 114% year over year. Wayfair and their “shop the look” approach seems to be working for them. It is important to never forget the many ways social media lets you connect with people besides merely posting. Stories, using the shop the look tool, and live videos all come into play. Wayfair knows that showing off their products by enabling the viewer to go directly to their website from the post. Customers can buy right from Wayfair’s photos and that is how you use social media to your advantage.

Facebook Bots are hurting Local Restaurants

Social media bots have been troublesome ever since people started using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The are basically accounts that are solely made for a single purpose. Whether it’s to anonymously troll other accounts, or to simply boost the amount of followers of a single person nonetheless, they are annoying.

Since the early 2000s the caliber of these bots have amped up a notch. They used to be easy to spot: a picture less profile with no posts and probably follow a weird amount of people. Unfortunately, bots can sometimes look exactly like real accounts, and may even have posts on their pages.

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Facebook has recently found itself in some more hot water concerning a local restaurant who reported have low ratings due to Facebook users. A whopping 71 one-star reviews showed up in their feed. But the question is: are these genuine reviews from dissatisfied customers? Well, probably not.

All 71 of the one-star reviews, were all posted on the same day and time. Which leaves the Facebook to believe that they had been rated by random bots on Facebook.

The restaurant owners are upset about this because it makes their service look bad and now when people search to see if they want to eat there, they’ll likely completely over look it because of a 2.5 star rating.

Although technology has progressed over the years, it seems as though it is still extremely hard to pin down people who create these bot accounts. Especially since these individuals are working to make sure these bots mimic the accounts of real individuals.

https://thetakeout.com/71-one-star-facebook-restaurant-reviews-single-day-1833156587

Canon Predicts Digital Camera Demand To Decrease

Camera companies continue to improve their products like the DSLR camera, but the market for consumer digital cameras is falling. Canon President Fujio Matarai says that the volume of camera sales has been decreasing constantly for the past couple of years and in the next two years it is expected to fall from 10 million units sold a year to almost half that.

Most people today are not buying digital cameras anymore because they already have one in their pocket. Smart phones make it easy for everyday people to photograph their lives. The improvements in phone camera quality are often comparable to a DSLR. Amateur photographers and average people no longer need professional equipment.

The convenience factor of a phone camera is a pivotal element in the choice consumers make in buying a better phone or a better camera. People can shoot photos and videos, edit, and upload to social media, all from one device and still have decent quality. If that is good enough for people, they have no reason to buy one piece of gear for the same price they can have a whole set. This shift also hurts the stock photo and footage market. People do not pay to use photos and videos someone else shot if they are able to shoot it themselves.

If Canon wants to stay ahead of their seemingly inevitable decline, they need to market their cameras to everyday consumers. By seeing what makes a smartphone camera more desirable to people today, they can implement those features in their own products.

Like a Girl

One advertising campaign that has stuck with me since for quite some time now was the Always “#LikeAGirl” campaign. I can still remember the first time I saw it was when I was 14 at an all-girls camp. The message was so inspiring to all of us at that time and still is today. At the time of the first release of the campaign, ‘Always’ had been falling behind to competitors and needed to revamp and reach younger girls. The brand released a few statements about the campaign that said, “We set out to champion the girls who were the future of the brand,” and “Girls first come in contact with Always at puberty, a time when they are feeling awkward and unconfident-a pivotal time to show girls the brand’s purpose and champion their confidence.” The campaign showed that women tend to lose confidence as they go through puberty and tend to forget all that it means to be a girl. The brand wanted to change the way it means to do something “Like A Girl” and take the negative connotation away from it. The response to the ad was more than Always would have ever thought. They received over 85 million youtube views from countries all over the world. The campaign won numerous awards and even went on to become a halftime segment at the Super Bowl. The fact that the ad came out in 2014 and is still being talked about today shows just how relevant it is in our lives and just how much of a hit it was. This ad was extremely cool and unique to me because it showed just how important the creative team behind the production was. They are who came up with the idea, supported it the entire way through, then executed the idea successfully in the end. #LikeAGirl is an ad that, I believe, will continue to be shown for years to come.

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Wendy’s with the Roasts

If you have a twitter, or even if you don’t, you probably know about Wendy’s twitter account. Filled with puns, snide comments, and trolling, they have successfully taken a boring fast food twitter account and created something big. Wendy’s income levels for 2017 skyrocketed. According to deputy.com, Net income was $159.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to net income of $28.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. Statistics show that just by implementing a new social media plan, Wendy’s sales have gone up 49.7%. Wendy’s VP, Carl Loredo stated that Wendy’s has always been different, from frosties instead of milkshakes to a humorous, new take on social media. “Its Twitter presence has made Wendy’s not just a more-fun-than-usual branded account, but a destination in some ways: ‘We believe that people are coming to us today on social to be entertained. That’s the commitment we have to deliver on.’” states qsrmagazine.com. Wendy’s mascot, the red-headed pigtailed girl, is just as playful and carefree as their social media. Which is what Wendy’s may be basing their twitter off of. One of the starts of their brilliant social media success is they mixtape Wendy’s dropped on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, and shared it on their social media sites. Wendy’s is an excellent example of using social media, especially twitter, to a company’s advantage. Social media has the power to transform companies and spike sales if you know how to do it correctly.

 

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I’m here to endorse endorsements

This post might seem a little self-centered, but I think it has become a hot topic around the nation and soon will be a hot topic on campus. This might be lengthier than most, but I think it is crucial to understand.

Some people argue it’s an abuse of power for newspapers to endorse, but I’d argue…they’re wrong!

In the wake of Student Government Association elections coming up, and city government races drawing in more candidates, I wanted to use my last blog post to explain why newspapers (should) endorse candidates.

Though the Optimist runs quite differently than most major newspapers – our editorial board is comprised of staff members from each section, whereas most newspapers separate their staff members from the editorial board (to be fair, our staff is significantly smaller, arguably too small, to be similar) –

I’d have to agree strongly with Jeff Cohen, editor of the Houston Chronicle, when he says:

“We believe it is paramount for the community and electorate to be engaged and strongly advocate for participation. We think that editorial endorsements help provoke higher thought and cognition and is a motivation to partake in democracy.”

When the Optimist endorsed Beto O’Rourke for Senate, we drew had over 6,000 engagements, 174 reactions, over 200 comments and 74 shares on Facebook alone. It was our most interacted with piece last fall.

We started the conversation. We became a medium for our audience to engage in agreements and disagreements (both kindly and quite rudely). We also gave our audience the chance to vote with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (Beto won on Twitter and Insta, but Cruz won on Facebook).

Editor of the Denver Post, LeeAnn Colacioppo, backed the history of editorials – that if they go through the trouble of covering public policy (which obviously, is a lot more work than reading it), it is the right of that respective paper to express an opinion.

“That’s how an editorial page got started to begin with, in trying to make arguments that would be good for society. The reason we do endorsements is because we’re trying to help people understand complicated political questions. Whether that’s a candidate, as in a presidential endorsement, or an issue, like a ballot issue, where the devil is in the details.”

This election season, for both campus and Abilene, we will endorse the candidates we see best-fit for the position, and help inform our readers of why these said people deserve the office they are running for.

Don’t worry, we still accept letters to the editor!

 

 

THE Gum Commercial

One of my all-time favorite commercials is a commercial for EXTRA gum. This commercial follows a high school relationship that becomes something much more. This commercial tugged on the heartstrings of viewers everywhere. The commercial features the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” playing in the background. It opens with the couple first seeing each other in front of the school building and developing some obvious attraction for one another. It then depicts the two students building a relationship, going on dates, and eventually getting married. In every one of their interactions, a stick of EXTRA gum is either traded, being chewed, or used after the scene for the grand finally. At the end of the commercial, we find that the man has been drawing a picture of each one of their interactions on the inside of a new gum wrapper. The final scene shows the woman being given a book filled with all of these drawings. She recognizes each of them except for one: a picture of a man proposing to a woman. She turns around to find the man on one knee with a ring. The commercial fades and we see the text “Give Extra, Get Extra.” I think that this commercial might be one of the best of all time. It captivates the audience with a story and appeals to the emotions of the viewers. Everytime I hear the song “Can’t help Falling In Love”, I think about the EXTRA gum commercial. I know that the creators of this commercial achieved their goal of valuable virality. I was seeing articles about this commercial for weeks after it aired. I saw it several times after the initial airing and each time someone knew made a remark about it. The people at EXTRA knew what they were doing. If you haven’t seen this commercial yet, here it is. fair warning, you might cry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQESGDQspI

And the Magic-8 ball says….

Ad Age pulls out the magic-8 ball with their 2019 predictions for the advertising industry. I won’t go into all of them because they made a lot of them, but I found some interesting enough to write about.

Firstly, Ad Age predicts that brands will begin investing more in voice-overs, such as the house brand Alexa. In voice marketing strategies will increase. J.P. states that, “More than half of U.S. households will have a smart speaker by 2022.” The only thing that I am worried about is the ability to keep consumers’ privacy secured. I know people are worried about these type of machines being able to collect data. So further down the line when more of these type of brands are built, companies will have to build a way and promise a way not to collect data that disrupts consumer privacy.

Secondly, they predict that the term “attribution” in TV advertising will be a very overused phrase. Jeanine Poggi, senior editor, media and technology, makes an argument that “TV sellers will aggressively try to prove that commercials drive specific business results, like test-driving a car, or the ultimate holy grail—making a purchase.”

Read more 2019 predictions from Ad Age here: https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/ad-age-s-2019-industry-predictions/316142/

I am curious to  see if everything that Ad Age predicts will come true or not.

Is Print Dead?

I work for an advertising agency on campus, Morris + Mitchell and this semester we were assigned to market the company TimelyMD. It is a company that provides telehealth via the internet. This means that you can “facetime” a doctor from the company at any time and they will diagnose you and write a prescription for you. TimelyMD was started by 3 ACU alumni which is why they want to specifically target ACU college students as their market.

One of our biggest contributions to the company this semester was putting a giant billboard displaying what the company offers directly outside the Campus Center. They wanted it to be clear to students how to schedule an appointment, call the doctor, then steps following. They also wanted to specifically focus on the new counseling sector they were offering. We worked the entire fall semester on the design and processing of the billboard then this semester we finally got to see the finished product on campus. While the billboard is huge and looks amazing, I wonder now if it is actually being noticed by students. I, personally, noticed it because it was my project but when I asked around to a few of my friends (who walk past it daily) they had no clue what I was talking about.

This leads me to the idea, is print advertising dead? We are so used to online and digital advertising that we don’t notice print as often anymore. So what comes next for print? Will the entire next generation know of anything besides digital advertising? Experts believe that there will still be a place for print advertising in the future but it will more so be in local markets. I think it will be extremely interesting to see the future of advertising.

Council, Forbes Communications. “Does Print Still Have A Place In The Future Of Advertising? 10 Experts Weigh In.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 2 Mar. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/03/02/does-print-still-have-a-place-in-the-future-of-advertising-10-experts-weigh-in/#77ca21525fc6.