Tools of the trade

Since October my smartphone broke and i was lost without it. Replacing my what was xperia play (a very fun handset) with my mum's old phone, I was unable to tweet/blog/Fb/LinkedIn on the go, as well as having to be at my desk to check emails and calendar.....one of the worst few months of my life.

Ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration!  But now my worries are gone, my problems are solved and my new smart phone is right in my hand, heck I'm even writing this blog post via it.

What handset is it you ask? An iPhone? 

Ohhhh no! Always have and probably always will avoid apple products,  I'm more of a "do what you like with your OWN device" kind of guy,  rather than being stuck in the corporate apple cage.

Sooo my decision,  after a long and hard think was the 4G enabled Samsung Galaxy S4,  - may I say what a sophisticated  not so little piece of equipment!!!

This beast of a phone has the crispest quality photos for your everyday blogging/Instagraming/tweeting/snap chatting needs as well as allowing you to function all of your marketing tools as fast as you could say " Samsung go to.....".

The slogan for this product is "life companion" and Samsung weren't wrong! ! This phone has literally improved my way of life for the better!

So the question is, are we dependant on technology like this? Personally I think that we are...and not just a little bit either!

Things such as social media controls our lives aswell as being a very strong tool for any company whether they are marketing driven or not.

So do you feel affected by new technology such as Smart Phones? Are you a fellow androider or an apple fan? 

Comment below and let me know!

Leading the Digital Change - Argos

found: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Home.htm

Argos, a leading UK retailer have big plans for the future...BUT the future isn't that far away at all!

Argos have already started trialling their new digital stores across the country, which give a sort of "Apple" feel to their stores. Shutting away the well known catalogue pages and bringing their stores into the 21st century, these new stores are fitted with an Apple  iPad for your easy-to-browse needs.

 

New Digital Stores, Found: /www.pcadvisor.co.uk/

The advantages to their new digital vamp is:

• Easier to browse & search for customers
• Proposed faster service time
• Improved customer service
• An awesome look!

Although their knew digital vamp is inivation in itself, this could not be done by any old company! Argos are currently one of the UKs best online retailer, with a fact found from their corporate website shown below, you cans see why Argos are driving their digital change!

"The Argos website – www.argos.co.uk – is the UK’s second most visited retail website, with over 33,000 lines available, customers can use the highly-successful ‘Check & Reserve’ service to reserve online and collect same day from a store of their choice"

Will the change affect the older customers?

 

Although Argos are driving this digital change, they aren't just going to shove their elder customers who may not be to keen on this change to the side. Argos catalogues will still be available in the newly vamped stores!


Fingers crossed that one of these high tech vamped stores will be coming to a store near you!!




Feedback is always welcome on my posts, and if you like what you see feel free to follow the blog!

Cheers guys!
Kyle!

 

 

 

 

The new rules to Marketing and PR

The new rules to marketing and PR, by David Meerman, is one of the main reasons why this blog was started.

Meermans book focus' on the new ways in which marketing and PR is conducted in the 21st Century, and after already writing 3 previous editions of this book, it is clearly up to date with today's fast paced marketing world.

The new rules of Marketing and PR focus' a lot upon blogging, not just personal blogging, but corporate blogging. Blogs allow companies to keep track of their company in the online world, whether it be someone slating the company for no means necessary, or problems developing with their products without them knowing about it. But by having a blog, having an online presence allows business, whether they be tech savvy or not, too keep up to date with any issues out their, as well as see the positive feedback from customers.

Merman goes on to talk about why it is so easy for companies to create a blog, yet so many still avoid it, because of the misconception off a blog being "for personal use" which is definitely not just the case. Being part of the blogosphere opens so many new opportunities for business, yes some may benefit from others, but creating a low cost, professional blog can save a company from evident crisis', allow them too receive feedback and comments from customers and deal with it accordingly.

This is a must read for any marketing/PR students, I would highly recommend it, whether you read it for your studies or for leisure, you will definitely gain a lot from the content of this book.

I don't want to spoil your read, but there is so much more vital information in this book which will help you both develop your marketing knowledge as well as gain more of an understanding into the digital concepts we face today.

So go out, and buy it!!

Available at many book stores, also available online:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-New-Rules-Marketing-Applications/dp/1118488768/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389635342&sr=8-1&keywords=meerman - £10.62 as of 13/01/2014

Marketing Mistake - Microsoft

Spending millions of pounds on a television advert allows you too promote your product too millions of viewers, but when your advert is taken of the air and scrapped because of complaints, then it leads to a massive loss for companies... surely the biggest mistake of all is too invest in making of an advert that can't be publicised, or removed because of complaints.

Not only do these mistakes happen in televised advertisements, but the likes of billboards can be also banned.

ASA (Advertising Standard agency)

The organisation that would usually decide whether an advert would be publicised or not would be the ASA. Below is a brief summary of who they are taken directly from their website:

"The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Our work includes acting on complaints and pro actively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. " www.asa.org.uk

Microsoft

Microsoft creating this advertisement several years back advertising the Xbox 360. It involves a whole subway station shooting each other with pretend guns - their fingers. Although this may look really fun, the advert causes a lot of controversy, especially that fact that it involved people shooting each other in subway stations, a place where there has always been a lot of security risks!

Never the less, I can imagine the cost of producing the advert wasn't cheap, especially using a whole section of a subway (probably a set), and a lot of actors, it just goes to show that even the funny adverts can be banned, so be careful what is said/shown!

Home office - Go home

Not only do large public limited corporations get it wrong, but so do government corporations, an example of this is the UK Home Office. For many reasons this advert was banned, these include

• Misleading information: the threat to put the immigrants to jail is absurd, since the law states that they will just be deported.
• It is near impossible for members of the public to tell whether someone is an "illegal immigrant" or not, this advertisement could have lead to a lot of controversy, and people could have been labelled for racism as a result of this.

Paddy Power -Blind people booting cats

Insulting blind people and kicking cats, what's that got to do with betting?  Paddy Power received 1,313 complaints following this ridiculous marketing mistake. The advert involves a blind football match, where a cat runs onto the football pitch and is booted by one of the footballers, yes some may find this funny, but too air this live on television, surely the knew they would become one of the most complained about adverts in the UK at that time.

Marketing Mistakes - International marketing

One of the biggest problems that develops a marketing mistake, especially in international marketing, is translations.

So many big organisations have had these problems when entering new markets, where campaign slogans or names of products have been translated into offensive messages. Here are just a few of the marketing blunders caused by the translation issue:

Pepsi - "Pepsi brings your ancestors back to life"

Pepsi are one of the big brands that suffered this marketing flaw, when trying to expand into China. Pepsi marketing campaign to penetrate the far east focused on the motto "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" , which translated into "Pepsi Brings your ancestors back to life" . Although this may seem funny, expanding internationally is very costly, and a campaign which offers such a "bold statement" and absurd message from the view of the Chinese population could have cost Pepsi millions of pounds. This mistake is worse compared to many other campaigns that are translated internationally because of  the opportunities  of China's dramatically rising economy.

Coors Light - "Suffer from Diarrhoea"

Coors Light, the American beer company, decided to use the slogan "Turn it loose" when advertising its product in Spain. Unfortunately for Coors, the translation of their popular slogan in Spanish meant "Suffer from Diarrhoea". Slightly more hilarious than the Pepsi mishap, the Coors Light slogan could have potentially damaged their reputation in Spain, especially when comparing a consumable good as something that will potentially make you "Suffer from Diarrhoea"

KFC- Finger licking good, or eat your fingers off?

The final brand that will be covered in this marketing mistakes post will be Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC decided to branch out into the Asian markets like many other companies have done before, and like many other companies, they did not do their research into how their slogan would be translated. In 1985, KFC hit mainland China, bringing their slogan  with them which is just as famous as the brand itself  -"Finger licking good". Little did they know that when translated into Chinese lettering, their slogan would state "Eating your fingers off". Now this marketing mistake could have cost KFC millions of pounds just like Pepsi, but because of their brands strength, they succeeded in china after changing their slogan and proceeed to have over 900 outlets in China.

Conclusion

Whether a business large or small (but most likely large) when moving into international waters, make sure that you pull our your new dictionary and get translating! Although the said companies managed to get away with their marketing mistakes, others may not be so lucky!

Advertisement of the week : Ant & Dec

This is a belated advertisement of the week which was wrote several weeks back, but because of assignments and exam revision I was unable to finish it, but here it is now!

Our advertisements of the week include both a Christmas theme and TV show advertisement,both featuring two hilarious men from the north east of England, Ant and Dec!

I'm a celebrity get me out of here

As a lot of you will all know, the very popular ITV show "I'm a celebrity GET ME OUT OF HERE!" has just started this past Sunday, and to get people on board, the faces of the show Ant and Dec featured in a short 1 minute advert on ITV to promote the show! But they aren't the reason I enjoyed this short clip, the reason is the Aussie driver who picks them up...check it out and see why!

Christmas with Morrisons

 The second advert in my advertisements of the week this week is the Morrison's Christmas Advert. this little number features the "be our guest" song which famously stars in the well known Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, with the main stars being Ant, Dec and the gingerbread man! This advert differs from the John Lewis advert included in advert of the week last week as it uses celebrity endorsement, Ant & Dec.

Marketing Mistakes - New Coke

Marketing is used by all companies, from large Plc.'s too small sole traders, so occasionally, things are can wrong.

This series of blog posts will highlight various marketing mistakes, large and small, and how the companies that made these mistakes dealt with the situation they put themselves in.

New Coke

One of the biggest marketing mistakes from all time happens to come from one of the largest companies in the world, The Coca-Cola Company. This marketing disaster occurred in one of the most important times in Coca-Cola's history, when the "coke wars" between themselves and Pepsi Cola was bigger than ever before.

Coca-Cola, the worlds no.1 drink, was to be re-released as "New Coke". New branding, new taste and serious faces to promote the brand was to be put into the member of the publics eyes, little did Coke know that they were going to be making one of the biggest marketing mistakes known to man!

New coke, source: www.coca-colacompany.com

New coke was introduced in 1985 to try and increase Coke's market share, which had been slipping over the past 15 years closer and closer to Pepsi, their nearest rivals. (http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-new-coke, 2013). Celebrities such as Bill Cosby were brought in to promote what was meant to be the "new tasting phenomenon"... although this was not the case. By June 1985, The Coca-Cola Company was receiving on average 1,500 calls a day on the consumer hotline, this being compared to the 400 a day before the taste change, showed that Coca-Cola had made a big mistake, some would even say the worse marketing blunder of the century.

By July, Coca-Cola announced that the original Coca-Cola would be put back into store's, meaning those who had been rationing their Coca-Cola bottles would be free to start drinking that taste they ever so loved.

BUT.... the question by many people is, was this actually a marketing mistake?

Since this "marketing epidemic" Coca-Cola have been the leading soft drink in almost every country in the world, as well as "Coke" being the second most used word, second to "OK".

New Coke happened to not tingle those Coca-Cola lovers taste buds, but when they decided to bring back the original Coca-Cola, those who loved the product before fell in love right away, and this is the reason why they have continued to be the leading soft drink.

Although Coca-Cola got away with this mishap, it does not mean any other company can.

The strength of The Coca-Cola Company's brand, and the acquired taste of the original Coca-Cola just goes to show that a highly reputable brand with one of the best products in a market can get away with the stupidest of marketing ploys ... But I wouldn't advise it for any other company

Quick update : Intergrated Marketing Communications

Part of one of my modules, Integrated Marketing Communications, is to produce a blog and complete 3 articles focusing on these topics. Luckily, starting this blog several months ago I'm already slightly ahead of my peers, and sort of have the hang of this "Blogging" malarkey!

My task is to produce three blog posts covering certain topics, which are:

• Marketing Mistakes
• Guerrilla Marketing
• Advertising to Children
• Digital Media

Although I am only required too complete three post on said topics, I will aim to cover all of the topics is several different blog posts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Cheers,

Kyle.

Advertisements of the week - John Lewis & Marks and Spencers

Coming into the winter months, and just over a month to go till Christmas, I'm sure this will be one of many adverts of the week that includes a Christmas theme!

This week's Advertisements of the week come from two well known UK retailers; M&S and John Lewis!

John Lewis - The Bear and the Hare

First we will start with the John Lewis Bear and the Hare advert. This advert focus' on an emotional message, using a short cartoon that pictures a hare introducing a bear to his very first Christmas, as he had hibernated through it every other year! :)

BUT the story doesn't end their, as well as being broadcast on TV, the advertisement is also online, and John Lewis have made it interactive! The option allows you to continue the story, which you can do here!

This very cute advert ends with a small message, "Give someone a Christmas they'll never forget", now who wouldn't want to do that for a loved one :) !

M&S - Alice in Wonderland

The second advert that caught my eye this week is the M&S advert. Fairly similar to the John Lewis advert, with a slight story being the advertisement. M&S use the well known Alice in Wonderland theme, where the main character falls down a rabbit hole into a "Magic and Sparkle" wonderland.

This advert, unlike the John Lewis one, promotes some of the season collection available at M&S this holiday season, and with several well known actors being included in this high budget promotional video, I can clearly say they've created a memorable advert which will catch your eye with ease!

Now I apologise for blogging about these adverts as i'm sure they will get you into the Christmas Mood!

Cheers

Kyle :) !

Ohhh and one more thing.....Still waiting to see that Coca-Cola ad if you know what I mean!!

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You know when you've been Ron Burgundy'ed - Stay Classy Tango

Just a quick blog post about a small advertising campaign I noticed by Tango the other day featuring Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell)!

As some of you may know, the much anticipated Anchorman 2 will be released in Cinemas this December in the UK, and one of the brands to join up with Ron Burgundy himself is tango!!

"Anchorman 2: The legend continues", has attracted so much attention, with several trailers being shown across you tube thousands of twitter followers , and being the sequel to the multi-million pound making "Anchorman: The legend of Ron Burgundy", its bound to have you bad laughing! Featuring actors such as Steve Carell from 40 year old virgin & The Office, Will Ferrell and many more, how could you not love this film?

Tango sporting Ron Burgundy

As you can see from the picture located to the right, Tango have positioned your favourite news anchor Ron Burgundy onto their cans and bottles. BUT the question is, does "celebrity endorsement" such as this work on products such as tango? A convenience good with very little too no thinking time to decide whether to purchase the product.... Well usually i would agree with theory in saying that celebrity endorsement is a very good tool for items such as speciality good but not convenience. as I personally would not buy Tango, but just because it had Ron's charming picture on it,I had to snap it up, and I didn't even look at the price!

Stay Classy Blogger!!

Kyle

Advertisements of the week - Taco Bell & Xbox One

Pondering on where to go next with my blog, I've decided to start a "off the week" style post. Obviously a lot of these can be seen in many fashion blogs, but with this showing no relation to what I post about, the idea of Adverts of the week came into my head, so once a week I will be babbling on about some interesting adverts I've seen over the week, whether they be fairly recent advertisements or something I've found browsing the internet. Todays will feature a comical advert from Taco Bell and an advert showing insight into the Xbox One. Enjoy!

Taco Bell

While browsing the web  I found this advert from the fast food giants Taco Bell. This is an American based commercial that is promoting their power protein menu, using humour and some celebrity endorsement.

The main reason this caught my eye was purely the fact it was hilarious, obviously not having Taco Bells in the UK, the advertisement was not shown on TV, but because it also went viral, I've came across it a few times and I'm bad laughing every time!

Taco Bell's Power protein (burrito)

http://www.whitehousepost.com/editors/los-angeles/lucas-spaulding/reel/taco-bell-power-beach/

The advert, as you can see from the link above ( I was unable to find a YouTube version to upload), involved kali muscle, a well known bodybuilder and Mr Olympia contender, and some other rather large men drinking and shouting about protein,

The advert aims to try and persuade the target audience to have one of Taco Bells Power Protein products over a typical protein shake, which is portrayed to not taste nice at all (which is quiet accurate.)

Taco Bell are utilising the market with this product, with a large amount of people focusing upon eating more healthy, and more males wanting to get "bigger", hence the emphasis on the protein, and the word "POWER".

Xbox One

Yes I know I got on about the next generation consoles a lot , but their release dates are just around the corner and I'm still undecided on which product to buy. The second advertisement that caught my eye this week was the Xbox Ones.

Up until this advert, I was still unaware of the reasons for the name of Microsoft's new console, but as you can see from this short advert, Microsoft have tried to make an "all-in-one" system which allows you to do anything and everything, turning your tv into a smart TV, with voice activation and hands-free features, what else could was ask for?

People such as Steven Gerard and Spock star in this 1:40 minute commercial, which shows both the features of the new console and some of their exclusive games.

Well done Microsoft, your pulling me closer and closer towards your product!



Xbox One Invitation

 

 



Tools of the trade: Acer Iconia B1

Acer Iconia-B1

As a student in the 21st Centure, its essentially to have all your gadgets and gizmos to make your life a lot easier. One of the gadgets I've acquired while at university which has helped me pass my time as well as help with my studies in the Acer Iconia-B1, a tablet brought to you by the well known computer manufacturer ACER.

Although I love my gadgets, being a student, I'm not exactly carrying spare cash on me, so when I saw this tablet I knew I had to get it.

I chose this snazzy tablet over anything like the Apple iPad because of several different reasons:

PRICE - for £99 you can't be robbed can you? compared to the hundreds you'd pay for an Apple product its definitely worth it

KEY FEATURES -

• Extremely light for those "bringing lots of books too uni" days
• Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) 
• Expandable memory up to 32GB microSD (can be purchased on amazon fairly cheap!
• 7-inch muti-touch screen with 1024 x 600 pixels (pretty standard)
• 8GB Internal memory 
• Built in speakers, webcam, wi-fi enabled, mic (for skyping!) 3.5mm headphone jack
• A decent battery life (3.5 hours depending on usage)
• It's good looking!

Now obviously, the specs aren't as high as an apple iPad, but with some of the latest android specs, it runs very smoothly and I haven't had one problem with it yet!

WHY A STUDENT WOULD USE IT?

Why would someone like me use it you ask? Well where do I start? One of the main reasons I thought this purchase was a good idea was the fact that I could access electronic copies of several books from my library at university, but putting it on my laptop was not accessible enough and putting it onto my phone was just a pain, having to try and scroll just to read one piece of text. So an alternate to something such as a KINDLE was this product!So yeah, for anyone wanting to just buy an e-reader, first look at tablets, yeah their battery life may not be as long, but unless your going to be reading a book for 8 hours straight then there is no problem!

Movies! What student doesn't find themselves watching movies? And I'm sure many of you will download them, through places that will not be named or even through the actual DVD itself (some DVD's offer digital copies). Now i found myself going on a Megabus quiet regularly, whether it was going home for a family members birthday or visiting friends. At first I used my laptop, but it died within an hour or so, meaning i'd get half way through a movie and it would just die! But not with my acer iconia! I can enjoy up to 2 movies a journey depending on how long my journeys are, as well as being able to use their extremely slow wi-fi to access pages such as Facebook and twitter.

AND FINALLY, just messing around! I found my self many times in my first year doing nothing but being on my phone, now why do that on a small screen when you can do that on a larger screen !! Playing temple run, browsing social networking sites, looking at the BBC website for important information is just made so much easier on a tablets screen!

Now this review is not to persuade you to go out and buy this product, it's just a way off trying to show you that modern technology of today can be usefull for whatever your doing, whether it be gaming, weight training or yes even studying!!!!!!!!

Cheers Kyle!!

Acer Iconia B1 - http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1079559.htm

Quick Update, time to get this Blog rolling!

Haven't posted in a very long time, had so much work to do with the CIM, but now going into my second year of university , once again I've found myself some spare time!

From now on hopefully I'll be posting several articles a week on my new course subjects, marketing related subjects and also hopefully my progression through the application process for a year placement that I will hopefully (fingers crossed) be completing after I have completed my second year!

One of my subjects this year, Integrated Marketing Communications, will also involve me having to write three blog posts as part of the personal development section of the subject. These will probables be posted onto a different blog if it requires, and therefore  I will link or copy that article also onto my main blog! If not then I'm sure you will be seeing them fairly soon :)

So yeah... keep checking back to see more frequent posts (which will hopefully be interesting!)

Kyle !

CIM, A.G Barr

After pondering the question of "What company I should use for my CIM coursework" I finally broke it down to several different companies... Microsoft, EA being a few, I finally realised that it had been screaming out on my blog page for weeks, "A.G BARR" of course!!!

As well as their quirky marketing tools, one of the main reasons for choosing A.G Barr was the diversity in the customer behaviours between their Scottish and English customers ( one of the modules looks at customer buying habits).

Although Barr's most popular drink, IRN BRU, quenches the thirst of so many Scottish people, it seems that  although a rise in sales in the English market, they still cant be as competitive in England as they are north of the border.

IRN BRU was once, if not still sold in some McDonalds in Scotland, and was the only Non-Coca-Cola product to be sold in their restaurants.

Apart from the Middle East, Scotland is the only other place where Coca-Cola is not the #1 selling soft drink, and yes you guessed it, the gingery taste we all so love (well not all of us, but a lot of us :P) IRN BRU is the top seller, Irn-Bru has dominated the Scottish market for over 100 years and is the #3 selling soft drink in the UK.

So yeah, that was my decision, it took me far too long too make but I got there in the end. The modules that I'll be completing are based upon time management (already failed that), Direct Marketing & Comms, Buyer Behaviour and conflict in the workforce (ALL BASED ON CUSTOMER BEHAVIOURS), although i wont be directly blogging about my actual coursework, any interesting facts, tips, skills I pick up on you will be sure too see in a future blog post.