Consumer Behavior: Nostalgia

What are some of the major advantages and disadvantages of nostalgia marketing?

Brings back memories of times when you used a product, video game, or event, that can be brought back to a persons childhood, or past.  Advantages of this can be instant good feelings and an overall positive viewpoint of the brand or message being portrayed.  A negative can be negative feelings or ideals that can be associated with the experience.

Are there some products or brands for which this strategy may not be successful? Why not?

New items that don't have a nostalgic background or history would not be able to tap into this.  Also companies that have a negative history or are tied into negative events would not do well to run off of nostalgia.

Consumer Behavior: Fails

When studying consumer behaviors, sometimes people make the wrong assumptions or just make big mistakes, I will show 2 ad campaigns that ultimately missed the mark.

1. McDonald's

This internet ad tried to play off of sex for people to go and eat at McDonald's needless to say, they missed their mark, and this topic is enough to make anyone lose their appetite for something to eat.  A simple mistake that leaves us to question why?  Yes, sex sells, sex sells clothing and cars, and for Carl's Jr. works quite well, but in a textual form it misses the mark by quite a bit.

2. ScanDisk

In 2006, ScanDisk launched a campaign to sell their own mp3 players.  The campaign was designed to attack the Ipod. the problem with this was it was directly attacking the people it was trying to get to buy the product, if one thing is for sure, don't attack someone and then try to sell them something. You're going to have a bad time.

Workshop: Playhouse Ad

We were given a prompt in order to de-gender a  girls playhouse ad.  To accomplish this our group first found qualities that gendered the ad:

Laundry

Taking care of a baby

Cooking / Baking

The name (Rose-petal)

The colors (pinks, light blues, and purples)

The chores that went along with it

The jungle

Only girls in the ad

So we took this in mind and aimed to re-design the product / way it was advertised.

We came up with an ad that incorporate a group of kids (an odd number, 3 girls 2 boys) and attempted to change the tone of the ad altogether.  We took the colors and made them more non-gender specific with full colors and primary colors. we changed the accessories to incorporate both male and female audiences.

Workshop: TV & Radio Ad

The prompt we were given was "Busy moms looking for a housewarming gift."  We were then shown a bunch of products that could possibly fit this description, we were to choose one and create a TV and Radio ad for the product.  The product that our group chose was a waistband stretcher.

The approach we chose was to sell the item as a gift from one friend to another, being discrete was the big premise to this device.  We designed a TV ad that took place inside a changing room, and 1 friend was trying on pants but they were just a little too small, her friend slipped the stretcher under the stall and the one trying it on was happy that they fit and she could buy them.  The radio ad revolved around a mom getting ready for a party but she can't figure out what to wear.  Her best friend gets there early and shows her the waistband stretcher so she can fit into her favorite pair of jeans for the party.

Workshop: Jeep Brief

In this workshop, we were given the brief of creating a campaign to sell jeeps to an older audience as the target market.  My group chose to use the Jeep Grand Cherokee as the model to base the campaign upon.  We chose to tell a story that was slightly different, while still bringing focus to the unique features that the model has to offer.

Our idea was to appeal to the older generation by showing off the features to their grandchildren or children. Proving that in fact they are tech savvy and up to date with what is cool.  the main features we would promote would be the side, front, and rear cameras that make maneuvering a breeze. An ad would follow with a grandparent picking up their grandchildren from school, and looking cool for them by showing off their touch screen LCD, and by talking to them through twitter or Facebook through the car.  The point of our ad campaign would be to break the norm of what is thought of toward older people and technology.

Workshop: Toblerone in Social Media

For this workshop we were given the task to create a campaign for Toblerone using social media outlets.  For a campaign to be successful in social media outlets, it has to engage users, be funny / entertaining, and give the users an instant satisfaction.  In our group, we chose to achieve all of these by creating an activity that would engage  users beyond just the sale of the chocolate.  Using 3 Social Media Channels: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, We designed a contest that would entice users to participate.  The main idea behind the contest, was to engage users by having them create scenes, and well known global land marks with the Toblerone brand chocolate.  The top 3 submissions would then be broadcast-ed each week and voted on within Facebook, and Instagram.  This interaction gives the users a way to interact and be known within the community, as the winners would be posted and receive various prizes.

For the ad campaign for this, it would consist of a few teaser ads that take actual scenes and have bites out of the landscape or melting as if it is made out of chocolate, with messages that lead to online content. also releasing an app that in certain areas creates augmented reality turning certain landmarks into being made out of Toblerone. such instances could be large traffic areas like Paris, turning the Eiffel Tower into being made out of tons of Toblerone.

Outdoor Advertising: Unique Spaces

Outdoor advertising has been a large part of advertising for a long time now, but it is only recently that we have been seeing it used creatively and effectively.  The large majority of outdoor advertising that we see is a large billboard with a picture  and text, blah blah blah.  The select few that actually use the space in which the ad is placed, create a much larger impact from the message and engages the audience that are interacting with that space.

The above ad accomplishes this feature, by simply referencing to the cars being parked beneath the ad, it creates a relevance to the viewers reading it, a very simple yet effective use of space.

By engaging the physical space around it, it involves