This unethical commercial is an example of negative advertising in my eyes for a number of reasons. Firstly, Axe is already pretty well known for relatively sexist advertising. This particular advertisement, however, goes a bit above and beyond their usual sexism. Basically, this commercial involves an “average” guy who, because he wears axe body spray, model-looking angels fall from the sky and discard their halos to be with him. While this is already a bit sexist, the true problem comes in regarding the religious premise of the commercial. This ad helps strengthen already-existing negative stereotypes involving sexuality and impurity and religion. Another quick unethical note is that clearly axe body spray alone is not going to get you gorgeous model women; therefore, it is misleading to the customer in that sense as well. Additionally, Axe is trying to show that men “need” this product in order to be sexy, which is clearly untrue.
Axe advertisers justify commercials like this by slowly progressing their campaigns to become more and more “sexist”. This makes it easier and easier for society to gradually accept them as reasonable. Unfortunately, as unethical as the commercial may be, it is most likely quite affective. It appeals to the values of the target demographic perfectly by using their natural, inner lust for model women.
This ad is not shock-vertising or offensive, nor technically illegal, but is unethical due to the effect it would have on customer’s perceptions. This ad campaign utilized by Verizon Wireless a few years ago focused on the company’s 3G coverage vs. AT&T’s 3G coverage.
Most average wireless customers would not know or understand the distinction between a wireless company’s 3G coverage and its overall coverage, this campaign would lead average consumers to believe that Verizon Wireless’s coverage is far superior to AT&T’s coverage. I was once waiting for my car to be serviced and overheard two other customers dicussing the commercial and one of them commented:
If that is AT&T’s coverage, wow that’s scary. I don’t think I would want AT&T, because I don’t think I would have service in very many places.
The advertisers could justify they had done nothing wrong, because they had labeled maps and the commercials stated they were comparing Verizon Wireless and AT&T’s 3G coverage. However, the commercials were certainly misleading. Overall, I think there were effective for the time they ran because most consumers don’t understand the differences in wireless technologies and could be easily swayed by the commercials.
Adidas Basketball - Slim Chin - Effies Finalist 2012
The Effie Awards exist to recognize the most effective advertising efforts in the United States each year. These awards are known by advertisers and agencies globally as the pre-eminent award in the industry, and recognize any and all forms of marketing communication that contribute to a brand’s success. The Slim Chin Adidas Basketball campaign has been recognized and honored by the Effie Awards as a finalist in the category of Fashion and Style for its creativity and its ability to sell to consumers.
Slim Chin from a creative perspective:
Slim Chin is a sassy, original character played by a well-known comedian, Ken Jeong, who has gained recent popularity for his roles in a range of movies including the Hangover and Role Models. He is also well-known for his role in a hit TV series called Community. Ken Jeong’s performances, in both motion pictures and television, tend to be particularly popular among the younger demographic. This is clearly leveraged in the Slim Chin Campaign since the younger generations seem to be their target market.
Ad-to-consumer relevance:The campaign focuses on two key traits that all basketball players can readily identify with - being fast and having a quick first step. This is why the campaign highlights that the shoe is extremely light in weight. This campaign uses All-Star celebrities with whom consumers can easily recognize and identify with such as Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard. Derrick Rose was the 2011 NBA League MVP and Dwight Howard is known as an all-powerful beast in the paint. These are the two big faces of their respective franchises and are highly recognizable in the United States to basketball players and non-basketball players alike
Brand-to-consumer relevance: Adidas basketball shoes are of particular potential interest to basketball players.
(Source: http)
Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King’s Facebook Promotion
In 2009, Burger King launched a campaign named” Whopper Sacrifice” in Facebook to promote its Whopper Hamburger. This campaign has won the only Grand Clio Award, and Gold Clio Award in 2009. In this campaign, Burger King released a clever Facebook application, called a victim of “giant” Whopper Sacrifice. This application told Facebook users to delete 10 friends in their Facebook account in exchange of a free Whopper hamburger.
This campaign was honored both for its creative merit and for its ability to sell. Usually, users in Facebook are proud of having more friends. However, Burger King developed an app in Facebook that encouraged deleting friends to get free Whoppers, which was quite the opposite of Facebook spirit. During the campaign, the latest list of friends being dumped was shown on the Facebook feeds. The freshness and fear of being deleted by friends bringing by this campaign attracted many young people and was quickly spread out through words-of-mouth. In less than a week, 233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people.
This successful interactive campaign achieved an outstanding sales performance and an increase of the brand value. A Burger King Web site, Whoppersacrifice.com, said, “Facebook had disabled Whopper Sacrifice after your love for the Whopper sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships.” However, 233906 was a very small number compared to the enormous membership in Facebook. Although after 10days, Facebook stopped this campaign, the sales performance was still very outstanding. As the cost, above 20 thousand burgers had been sold for free, and also couples of money had been invested to this launch of campaign. But, compared to the proceeds and profits that had been achieved by it, the cost was very minimal. On the other hand, in this campaign, the brand value of “Burger King” had increased extremely. The name of “Burger King”, acted as virus, expanded rapidly through Internet and mass media. Burger King not only had been searched frequently through all big search engines, but also had been posted on various blogs. It became a hot word on the Internet, as well as on the newspaper and magazines. Above 13 thousands blogs cited this campaign and more than 142 thousands results would show up if you typed “Whopper Sacrifice” in Google. “Burger King”, as an innovative and creative brand, had been built through young people, especially Facebook members.
Sources: http://www.clioawards.com/winners/winners.cfm?medium_id=7
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/01/15/burger-king-cancels-facebook-ad-campaign/
Marvel’s The Avengers Super Bowl XLVI Commercial
The commercial is the trailer of the Avengers ——a hero based movie. In the trailer, we can see the main roles of the film, Captain America, the Iron man, Thor, the Hulk etc. “ We still believe in heroes!” is the core of this advertisement, which motivates audiences’ heroism. In addition to the familiar characters, the trailer has spectacular action scenes, such as explosions and battles. This commercial is targeting many people who are fans of comic books, who like hero movies and who like summer “pop-corn flicks” or “blockbusters”. Generally speaking, the younger demographic tends to seek out these types of movies; however, several adults enjoy high-budget action flicks as well. Also, don’t forget about parents who want to take their children to the movies!
From this commercial, we can also see the information about the release time of this movie, as well as the main actors. Additionally, the commercial tells us the plot of the story and the Facebook icon providing audiences a channel to share their ideas about the movie. What’s more, the commercial shows the Marvel company icon twice. As a big movie production company, Marvel is very famous for its hero movies. Besides, the actors in the movies are all celebrities. People are very familiar with their faces. And also the roles in the movies, such as iron man and hulk, are very popular among people. They will go to theatre to see the movie for the stars or the heroes.
NFL Fantasy Million Dollar Fan
This ad pulls people in by showing them how they can “Live Like a Millionaire”. Who doesn’t dream of having a million dollars to spend wherever they want? This ad is trying to get fans of sports and fantasy sports to play the NFL Fantasy game. Evan thought the message was effective, but he definitely falls in the target market. The ad is targeting predominately men, since all of the characters shown are men. In this case, a celebrity endorsement is not used because the commercial features normal looking people.
The commercial does not repeatedly state NFL or Fantasy Sports, but the message “Text NFL to 69635” is continuously on the screen. Speaking from an interactive and convenience point of view, it was extremely easy to do what the commercial was stating. It was essentially a, “oh why not, it’s just a text” — Which is exactly what Evan did when the commercial aired live.
Why call ourselves “The Five Marketeers”?
Our team name “The Five Marketeers” is a playful and clever spin off of the classic ”The Three Musketeers”. This name is intended to imply that we are an enthusiastic team of creative minds who plan to work together to leverage our knowledge and individuality while embarking on a journey into the marketing world.
Why Interactive Media?
Interactive media is a radically developing aspect of marketing. Technologies and applications now exist that allow people to check-in their location and share it with their friends (such as Foursquare, Facebook, Google Lattitude, etc.) as well as services that augment reality (think of holding up a cell phone and seeing the reviews for restaurants visible through the camera displayed on the screen). There also exists features on services such as Hulu, which allow users to customize what type of commercial they want to see beforehand. The possibilities and opportunities for marketers to connect to customers and create/provide value has never been greater, but consumers are now divided into smaller segments due to the ever growing sci-fi-esque capabilities of technology. I want to learn about and how to utilize these tools for use in my future marketing endeavors.
