Social Media and Marketing

Social media has revolutionized marketing. It has allowed customers to have a more interactive relationship with their favorite brands. Customer interactions with companies on social media are starting to become more useful for marketers than the traditional form of advertisements. In 2012, 59% of marketers planned to increase their spending on social media marketing.

Social media has changed the way that customers and companies interact with each other. It allows customers to reach out to the brands that they care about and develop a stronger relationship with them. People can like companies on Facebook, or follow them on Instagram and twitter. People feel like they have a much closer connection to the brand; and as a result people generally develop a higher brand loyalty. Social media also presents an opportunity for companies to monitor their popularity, and gives them new ways to market their products.

Companies have begun to take advantage of their followers on social media. It’s a great way for them to promote their company’s values, and position their company however they want. Many companies use social media to strengthen the image that that they’ve created for their company to go along with their products.

I was particularly interested in how companies were using Instagram to market themselves to customers. I only follow one company on Instagram- Patagonia. I never go out of my way to follow companies on social media. Patagonia is the only a company that I’ve ever followed on social media. I’ve never “liked” a company on Facebook before. However, Patagonia made their Instagram page very appealing to me. I already like the Patagonia brand, and I have purchased their products in the past, however I never would have considered myself a “loyal consumer,” until recently. After exploring their Instagram page, I realized that I really enjoyed looking at the images that they posted, and the stories that they post with each image. I don’t feel as though I’m being advertised to when I look at their posts on Instagram, and yet this is exactly what they were doing to me and their 353,000 other followers. I think that that demonstrates a very successful marketing campaign.

Falling victim to the successful marketing strategies of Patagonia prompted me to explore various other companies to see what they were doing on Instagram to get people to follow them.   Starbucks was very active on Instagram- they have 2.1 million followers. They post a lot of images of coffee. Every picture looks very artistic. It fits very well with their brand. Their Instagram allows their loyal customers to feel even closer to the company. Looking at the images makes you want to have the experience that they’re showing. They make the images look cozy, and trendy, and desirable.

Companies aren’t necessarily using Instagram pictures to market their products in the traditional way that we’re used to. They’re marketing an experience, and the lifestyle that comes along with it. Patagonia and Starbucks really stood out to me because as I was scrolling through their images, there was nothing on the pages that appeared to be “traditional” advertising. It was really clever. Patagonia wants to demonstrate the fun outdoor lifestyle that you can have with them. And after looking through Starbuck’s page, I found myself wanting to go to Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee. Which of course, is exactly what they want.

It Pays to Be Green

We’re beginning to see a significant growth in the field of sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility. We learned that some companies, like Disney, began incorporating a few sustainable business practices many years before they realized they could “market” them in the early 2000s.  However, today businesses are increasing their environmentally friendly practices as a way to enhance their brand reputation.

Companies realized that it does pay to be green. There are 4 forces that make a company go green; regulatory compliance, stakeholder pressure, economic motives, and ethical concerns.  It’s also true now that poor environmental performance can ruin a company’s relationship with its stakeholders. Stakeholders want to see that companies are aware of the importance of climate change. Companies are suggested to measure their carbon footprint in order to send a signal to stakeholder’s that they are very serious about the their environmental performance.

It can be very beneficial for a company to promote itself as an environmental company. Nine years after Disney strengthened their environmental policies; their revenues are continuing to increase. Disney has played a leadership role in the field of sustainability. It has taken on numerous environmental problems throughout many aspects of their business. They have made games into some of their environmental initiatives in order to promote their programs, and have focused on youth education.  They have turned recycling into a competition and they also turned biking to work into a competition.

This creates a new field of marketing. When working in the field of corporate social responsibility, you’re essentially working to market your environmental achievements. This is a great opportunity for environmental change because it comes within the company. Companies are beginning to compete for better environmental policies. There always seems to be a debate about whether or not it’s a good thing that companies doing corporate social responsibility just to enhance their reputation. However, I think that as long as companies are doing positive things in the field of corporate social responsibility it shouldn’t matter whether or not they’re doing it just for the brand enhancement. They are a business, after all, and they are going to do whatever is profitable.

It’s clear that Disney has been able to achieve a lot of good things: they’ve collected cooking oil for biofuel, wasted no food because of their composting efforts, saved millions of gallons of water through water reduction efforts, set up huge recycling initiatives, reduced their energy use, and began promoting cycling. Other companies have made similar accomplishments in the field, though many not as notable. Imagine what it would be like if every company made this much progress in the field of the environment.

Another benefit from this form of marketing is that they’re marketing the environmentally friendly mindset. Especially when you look at Disney’s campaign which focused on an outreach to kids in order to educate them about the issues. Regardless of the strategy, it’s beneficial for people to be constantly reminded of the importance of a more environmentally friendly approach.

The St. Mikes Brand

We don’t often think about Saint Michael’s College as a brand, yet this is exactly how we market the school to people. When we talk about the Saint Michael’s College brand we like to highlight a few points. We like to focus on the close -knit community, the great professors, the quality education, and the great location in Burlington, Vermont. The St. Mikes brand is what separates us from every other liberal arts school out there. It’s what what makes our school competitive.

 As a tour guide at St. Mikes, it’s been an interesting experience getting to see how the admissions department markets to students and their parents. 

As tour guides we’re told that we play one of the most crucial roles in marketing the school. The school puts a lot of effort into making sure that we are properly trained to give a great tour. A few weeks ago the admissions department brought in a presenter to speak to the tour guides and give us tips from giving the best possible tour. The presenter had spoken at schools around the country. He was a great public speaker and held the training with us for about three hours. Everything that he said to us was aimed at making us better at marketing our school. He even taught us how to “close the deal,” at the end of the tour. Instead of asking the family if they had any questions at the conclusion of the tour he wanted us to finish the tour by asking the prospective student “can you see yourself as part of our community?”

We learned even more about the admissions process in class from Dr. Sarah Kelly, VP of Enrollment Management. The school markets to specific students based off of there grades, SATs, and location. The school buys students names from the PSAT, SAT, and ACT exams; Saint Mike’s buys about 110,000 names each year. It’s hard to believe that they are able to get that number down to about 550 per class.

The school reaches out to almost every student in the northeast that meets their GPA requirements. They have smaller regions where they reach out to students throughout the rest of the country, however they are beginning to expand. Dr. Kelly showed us current areas in Florida, Georgia, California, Minnesota, and various other states where they reach out to students. She also spoke about the changing demographics of the country, and said that as the demographics of the country begin to shift, colleges will need to find ways to attract a more diverse group of students. This is especially true for a school like St. Mikes. This will be a crucial factor in whether or not Saint Mikes can continue to succeed as a college.

I think that the admissions process is fascinating. It makes me think a lot about the reasons why I chose Saint Mikes. I think my choice can be attributed to the strategic branding of the school. Saint Mikes positioned themselves as everything I wanted in a college, and thankfully I can say that they’ve successfully lived up they’re promises.  

Super Bowl vs. Commercials

The Super Bowl is one of the most important nights of the year as far as marketers are concerned. The advertising campaigns surrounding the Super Bowl have become almost as important as the game itself. It’s not uncommon to here someone say, “I only watch the Super Bowl to see the commercials,” and with good reason; the commercials are really good. Companies spend an absurd amount of time and money on Super Bowl commercials because they know how many people are seeing them. People talk about the best commercials for days after Super Bowl Sunday. The commercials go viral. This year we even saw Super Bowl commercials appearing a few days before the game began.

What makes a great Super Bowl commercial? Traditionally these commercials are being watched by a larger group of people at a Super Bowl party; Funny commercials are always winners in a setting like this. We saw a variety of funny commercials this year. Many of the commercials that topped the lists of “commercials worth watching” were the funniest commercials.

I found myself laughing out loud as I re-watched the commercials this morning trying to decide which ones I wanted to write about. Many of the commercials were very clever. I loved seeing the cast of Full House reunited in the Oikos commercial, with Danny prepared to do the cleaning, as always. The Esurance commercial, which was the first to play after the super bowl pointed out that they were able to save 30% by buying that spot, and that they could save you 30% too. Then they offered $1.5million to someone who tweeted #EsuranceSave30, and it was trending on twitter within seconds of playing on the commercial- now that’s clever. And of course we’ll all remember the weird hug that Honda played on screen for an uncomfortably long period of time as part of their safety campaign, reminding us to hug our loved ones. 

It looks as if there has been a shift in the way marketers attract our attention. In the past there were always commercials that focused on the use of women to get people’s attention. This was especially common in Super Bowl beer commercials, and I even remember Burger King commercials where this technique was used. However I can’t remember seeing any commercials last night that objectified women as they had in the past. Many companies were using celebrities, humor and puppies instead.

This years commercials were actually filled with some positive messages for girls. The commercial for Intuit QuickBooks and Goldie blocks was well done. The commercial showed girls running through the streets to get rid of their old “traditional” toys, tossing their princess tiaras in the air, and building a rocket ship together made of their old toys. The song in the background was catchy; with lyrics like, “Girls make some noise, more than pink, we want to think, girls build like all the boys.” 

The Doberhuahua commercial was one of the funniest commercials of the entire night. Well done, Audi.

I also found the Tim Tebow, T-Mobile commercial to be hysterical.

And Toyota’s very Muppet road trip was great. They picked the perfect actor for the commercial.

Marketing and Society

As we saw in the documentary “Consuming Kids,” today’s children have grown up in an extremely commercialized world. They are constantly being advertised to. It hasn’t always been this way. Up until about the mid 1980s, it was illegal to market to children. Now however, marketing campaigns target children. One of the main reason they target kids is that they have an incredible influence over what their parents choose to buy- and the child marketers want to exploit this. Marketers also see kids as potential customers for life, and they want to get them early in order to make as much profit off of them as possible.

When marketers began marketing to children, many people became worried. People didn’t like that the industry was taking advantage of kids. Children take in so much information that people call them “sponges.” And people were right to be worried. Marketing to kids has changed our society. Kids want more things. They want more money. They think that happiness comes through consumer goods. Girls are trying to grow up faster and are trying to look like the girls and dolls that they see on the commercials. It has also changed the nature of products marketed to families. Products are almost exclusively marketed to kids. Even commercials for mini vans tend to be directed at children.

Marketers have a very powerful position in society- and not just with kids- throughout all age groups. Marketers have the power to make you want something, to make you want to look a certain way, to make you want a certain lifestyle. It’s the same process as with marketing to children. We worry a lot about kids being marketed to, but maybe we should worry about ourselves too. We tend to think that we are old enough to know that it’s just a marketing campaign and that we shouldn’t let if affect us. But maybe we should be a little more cautious about this approach. Maybe adults are just as bad as children when it comes to getting caught up in the marketing campaigns? Many women have body image issues- issues, which are surely made worse by the models they use in their marketing campaigns these days. If marketing to children had such a powerful affect on society that says a lot about the influence that marketing has over our society.

Luckily, adults are more equipped to deal with these advertisements than children are. Advertisements surround us everyday and for the most part we’re able to ignore them. And it’s also reassuring to see that the natures of some of the campaigns are changing. As far as the body image issues go, companies like Dove are doing their best to battles these problems. They’ve created a campaign based on the idea that everyone is beautiful, and they ask real women to star in their commercials. 

While marketing is an important part of any business, the industry must realize what an influential role it has over society, and act responsibly in that position.