Dove // Real Beauty Sketches

http://realbeautysketches.dove.us/?fb_action_ids=10200468448488296&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=[120914261437529]&action_type_map=[%22og.likes%22]&action_ref_map=[]

The above video is Dove's latest video in their True Beauty campaign. We discussed Dove in class a few weeks ago, and talked about how creative and different it is from the traditional ad campaigns of cosmetic companies. This video absolutely blew me away. From the incredible script to the professional cinematography and video quality, it was an all around success. I think that this is the kind of video to which social media will respond well.

Companies have been struggling with how to reach their target markets. My words of advice: Do something like this. This video is one of the best examples of social media marketing that I have ever witnessed. I am sure that the responses to this will be very positive. The video was very raw and real, and probes the viewer to ask the question: "Do I see myself as more unattractive than I really am?"

One of the concerns that our class expressed in our case discussion was that they had used all plus-sized models in their last campaign. The concern was that this would be irrelevant to the large market of girls that are naturally and healthily skinny. I think that Dove did an excellent job of model selection in this video.

Even as a guy, I will be re-posting this video on my Facebook wall. I recommend you do too.

Combating Showrooming - The Wrong Way

www.petapixel.com/2013/03/28/store-wages-war-against-showrooming-by-charging-a-5-just-looking-fee/

I ran across the above article today while on PetaPixel.com, a great online photo blog. The article shows a sign found on the door of a specialty food store. The sign reads:

"As of the first of February, this store will be charging people a $5 fee per person for "just looking." The $5 fee will be deducted when goods are purchased"

I will have to agree with Matt Brownell of Daily France that this is “the most misguided strategy we’ve seen for dealing with showrooming.” While stores like Target and Best buy combat showrooming with competitive pricing, small stores like this are coming up with seemingly desperate practices like this. Personally, I feel that this is almost an angry response. Nevertheless, it is short-sighted, and it reflects a lack of understanding of the customer.

Matt Brownell goes on to say

"While it’s undoubtedly frustrating to have people use your store as a showroom just so they can buy the same goods online, imposing a cover charge is hardly the ideal solution. The goal of any retailer should be to impress customers with competitive pricing and great customer service — not treat their customers with suspicion and hostility from the moment they walk in the door.
That approach won’t just keep the showroomers away, either — it’s inevitably going to turn off a lot of potential customers who had no intention of showrooming, but aren’t about to step into a store that forces them to pay an entrance fee if they don’t find anything they like."

 The "suspicion and hostility" shown to the customers will surely drive their showrooming - and purchasing - patterns elsewhere.

The Google Online Marketing Challenge Begins

This past week, my group in class and I worked on our pre-campaign report for the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC). The GOMC is a worldwide challenge held by Google, where teams take a business or a non-profit, and use $250 (given by Google) to do search engine marketing for the organization.

I think that this initiative is a genius move on Google's part. It teaches students all around the world how to do SEO and SEM, and how to use Google Analytics. Google hopes that this will lead to an increase in ad spending from small businesses. They also hope that the students will take these skills into the businesses that they work for when they graduate. From a revenue standpoint, Google has found the perfect way to expand their customer base for Google Adwords.

We are submitting our pre-campaign report today, and we are excited to see how all of this turns out. Most of our strategic planning was a lot of guesswork, honestly. We did the best we could with the knowledge we have of the company, but we realize that we will be making a lot of adjustments once we get some feedback a few days after we start our campaign. Our main goal is to increase traffic to picketfenceproperties.net, and to generate more online leads for his business.

Black Hat SEO

This week in class, we talked about communication digital environments. We spent a lot of time talking about search engine optimization, or SEO. Dr. Yadav said that we weren't going to spend a whole lot of time talking about the "dark side" of this particular industry, so I decided to do some research myself. I always find unethical computing practices intriguing, because they help me understand how people think, and how to get around a problem.

I found an article called "The Dark Side of SEO." Here's the link:

http://www.business2community.com/seo/infographic-the-dark-side-of-seo-techniques-0170200

The article divides up these "black hat" techniques into 3 categories: Development spam, Content spam, and Link spam. Apparently there are a plethora of ways to unethically engage in SEO. Some of the terms that stuck out to me were: Cookie stuffing, sybil attack, scrapper sites, splogs, meta-tag stuffing, and link farms.

My company only engages in "white hat" SEO practices - or at least that's what my SEO guy tells me. But it's good to know that even in the world of developing webpages and online marketing, there is a way to be a above reproach and still extremely successful.

In class last week, we learned about how the internet actually works. Our professor had a demonstration that, for the first time in my life, helped me really grasp how information was sent over the internet. Dr. Yadav handed several pieces of paper to a student at the front of the classroom. He told the student to pass the pieces of paper, one at a time, to his peers around him, and have everyone continue to pass them along to a girl at the back of the classroom. The pieces of paper took many different routes throughout the classroom. Some even made circles through groups of students. But eventually, the girl at the back received all of the pieces of paper, and put them together in such a way that they formed a message.

I had never really understood how genius the structure of the internet is. I just wrote it off in my mind as a mystery that I would never be able to solve. I think that this Dr. Yadav's interactive teaching style will help me not only understand the internet, but also leave me with concrete marketing applications.