Buzz Agents

My company has decided to start a new "buzz-agent" campaign.  They are calling them the "all volunteer army".  My company makes medical devices and having our patients recommend our product to others is a great way to expand business.  Doctors are not allowed to recommend products from specific vendors due to liabilities.  What better way is there to promote a product then by a person that is already implanted with that product?  

It will be interesting to see how this new program affects our overall sales.

Product Placement

I'd like to watch TV one evening without being bombarded with product ads.  Here's the problem; I almost never watch live TV anymore now that I have a DVR and I still can not escape the product ads even fast forwarding through the commercials.  I suppose there's always been a certain level of product placement in movies and TV but it never seemed to be as prevalent as it is today.  Or maybe I'm just more sensitive to it because I'm taking this class.  Either way, there is no denying the fact that it's there.  One of the more obvious seems to be on Bravo's Top Chef. TONS of placement in this show. First, the winner receives a kitchen complements of GE.  Diet Dr. Pepper is another sponsor and one entire episode revolved around the chefs making their dishes using a Diet Dr. Pepper.  Finally, take a look at the shelves in the background when the chefs are waiting to be called to the judge's table.  The shelves are littered with noting but cases and cases of Diet Dr. Pepper and Glad bags.  These are just a few examples from this show.

Whopper Sacrifice

"What would you do for a free WHOPPPER? Now is the time to put your fair-weather web friendships to the test. Install WHOPPER Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled WHOPPER when you sacrifice 10 of your friends."

Burger King has created an application for Facebook that allows users to delete 10 friends in exchange for a free Whopper. The effort crafted by Crispin Porter + Bogusky came about after agency creative staffers confronted the too-many-friends scenario themselves on Facebook.
"We thought there could be some fun there, removing some of these people who are friends [but] not necessarily] best friends," said Jeff Benjamin, executive interactive creative director at Crispin, and friend to 736 on Facebook. "It's asking the question of which love is bigger, your love for your friends or your love for the Whopper," he said. The nixed friends also get a notification telling them they've been dropped as a friend for a Whopper!

I think this is a brilliant marketing promotion! Facebook didn't think so. They allowed the campaign to run on the site, but disabled the notifications to the "dropped" friends. The campaign has been terminated recently by BK, but they say it was a huge success.

I'm a Mac.

So I finally did it. Thanks to all of Apple's marketing campaigns, and all of the negative publicity around Windows I've finally decided to make the switch to a Mac. I've been a PC guy my entire adult life and most likely would not have changed if Apple did not do such a great job with their marketing. Now I'm not saying I just went out and bought a Mac because of a TV commercial. However, I wouldn't even have considered a Mac if not for those ads. The ads opened up my mind to the possibility of switching to Mac. Once I did some research in the form of visiting the Apple store, reading reviews and talking to Mac owners, I was hooked. I bought a new 13" Mac Book, had MS Office installed (ok, so some habits die hard!) and I absolutely love it. If not for Apple's marketing, I'd be writing about my new Vaio.

But wait! There's more!

Anyone who has ever watched TV late at night or on the weekends has certainly been exposed to the "Infomercial". I personally find this type of marketing annoying and pointless, but it has proved very successful at selling products since its inception in 1975.

Working with his partner Barry Becher, Ed Valenti developed many of the best known catch phrases and product demonstrations, as well as the standard format of the long-form (two minute, 90 second) advertisement. In contrast to traditional short-form or "brand" advertising, such as the 30-second or 60-second spot, Valenti's long-form advertisements were the pre-cursors of the full half-hour television program length (half-hour) infomercials now commonly used to sell a variety of products and services on television. The intent of this new format was to elevate a particular product to the role of protagonist, showing the product benefits and a variety of uses through attention grabbing demonstrations, hopefully leading to direct sales of the product. Such products are often only available through consumer direct orders and can not be purchased in stores. Ironically, this "direct response" long form commercial format, intended to primarily sell products directly to consumers, created at the same time one of the most recognizable, memorable, and long lasting "brands" in advertising history: Ginsu Knives.
The first such product marketed by Valenti to achieve multi-million dollar sales was also the first product he and Becher ever marketed: The Miracle Painter ("Why is this man painting his ceiling in a tuxedo?") It was soon followed by the Miracle Duster and Miracle Slicer. Easily the best known of Valenti's products was (and still is) the Ginsu Knife. The most profitable was Armourcote Cookware, with sales exceeding $80 million. (source - Wikipedia).

An annoying as they are, I have to give credit to Valenti for developing this new, creative way to sell products. Not only did he created this entirely new marketing campaign, but has also been credited with coining the following phrases:

• "But Wait! There's More"
• "Now How Much would you pay?"
• "You get it all for the incredible low price of only $xx.xx"
• "Call now, and we'll also include..."
• "Supplies are limited, so call now! or "Call now, this is a limited time BONUS offer".

Valenti realized that, in order for the long-form commercial to be successful at driving immediate sales, viewers would need to be advised to make an immediate purchase. To satisfy this need he and Barry Becher created 1-800 "toll-free" numbers with phone banks ready to take orders the moment the infomercial aired on a 24 hour basis, days, and even weeks after the initial spot aired. In order to add a sense of urgency to the purchase, the viewer was advised to order the item immediately ("Call now"), rather than postponing it. This "call to action", like the use of toll free numbers and credit cards, has become a standard component of successful direct response advertising over the years.

Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to consider Valenti and Becher marketing genius'!

TEst